arthury Posted July 5, 2007 Share #1 Posted July 5, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) As a long time DSLR user, I am amazed again and again by the M8's ability to gather details in the shadows even in bright/harsh lighting. Is your experience similar? Zeiss 21mm/2.8 ZM Biogon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted July 5, 2007 Posted July 5, 2007 Hi arthury, Take a look here M8's Dynamic Range. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
jaapv Posted July 5, 2007 Share #2 Posted July 5, 2007 Yes Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted July 5, 2007 Share #3 Posted July 5, 2007 On the other hand, the risk of burnt-out highlights is ever present. Using a permanent exposure bias (i.e. raising the effective ISO value) is a pain because it results in a constantly blinking red dot in the finder. Solms, are you listening? We need an exposure bias feature, separate from the compensation feature (which is totally useless in any case). I would bias my exposures by 1/3 to 2/3 in the underexposure direction. Do it! The days when idiots could demand mandatory DX coding are over. The old man from the Age of DIN Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted July 5, 2007 Share #4 Posted July 5, 2007 If you want to use AE, Lars, I think that locking exposure on or near the highlights and recomposing works as well, and is more flexible than having a permanent compensation. Surely exposing every shot individually gives a more satisfying result than using a blanket correction on all shots. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie Roberts Posted July 5, 2007 Share #5 Posted July 5, 2007 If you want to use AE, Lars, I think that locking exposure on or near the highlights and recomposing works as well, and is more flexible than having a permanent compensation. Surely exposing every shot individually gives a more satisfying result than using a blanket correction on all shots. Jaap--absolutely right. And shooting RAW, anyway, you have more room in the highlights than you maybe think (though like any digital when the M8 hits a wall, a wall it hits alright. But I don't know how they do it, but the highlights on the M8, though not quite as recoverable as the DMR, are still smoother than other stuff I've had). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonoslack Posted July 5, 2007 Share #6 Posted July 5, 2007 HI Arthur Absolutely - it seems possible to pull lots of detail out of really under-exposed areas. I tend to keep my exposure compensation on -1/3 stop - and I don't usually get any blown highlights. Generally speaking I reckon on taking a reading of a brighter area of the frame, half pressing the shutter and recomposing. It all works very well, and, as you say, the dynamic range is excellent. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tashley Posted July 5, 2007 Share #7 Posted July 5, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) If you want to use AE, Lars, I think that locking exposure on or near the highlights and recomposing works as well, and is more flexible than having a permanent compensation. Surely exposing every shot individually gives a more satisfying result than using a blanket correction on all shots. Bang on correct. Even with the CV 15, which sees huge amounts of sky and therefore tends to underexpose, I don't use compensation. The M8s metering is 'close to spot' more than 'centre weighted average' and that makes it great for the 'lock and load' method! Tim Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samir Jahjah Posted July 5, 2007 Share #8 Posted July 5, 2007 I just got my M8, but with my Canon 5D I tend to over expose by 1/3 to 2/3 and still be able to recover details in the highlights. So is the consensus that one should underexpose with the M8? It seems that at high ISO (640 and above) there is not much you can recover for the shadows without getting a lot of noise. On the other hand, the risk of burnt-out highlights is ever present. Using a permanent exposure bias (i.e. raising the effective ISO value) is a pain because it results in a constantly blinking red dot in the finder. Solms, are you listening? We need an exposure bias feature, separate from the compensation feature (which is totally useless in any case). I would bias my exposures by 1/3 to 2/3 in the underexposure direction. Do it! The days when idiots could demand mandatory DX coding are over. The old man from the Age of DIN Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthury Posted July 6, 2007 Author Share #9 Posted July 6, 2007 I just got my M8, but with my Canon 5D I tend to over expose by 1/3 to 2/3 and still be able to recover details in the highlights. So is the consensus that one should underexpose with the M8? It seems that at high ISO (640 and above) there is not much you can recover for the shadows without getting a lot of noise. If my M8 shots were done in DNG, by adjusting the exp in LR, I was able to retrieve most highlights that were off the top. If you overexpose by a large amount, I don't think any software can do magic with it. It's also fair to say that if you meter the mid-tone of your frame, you are more than likely to grab a good shot. But, you really need to qualify that with what's important to you in your frame as well. Cheers, Art Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted July 6, 2007 Share #10 Posted July 6, 2007 If you want to use AE, Lars, I think that locking exposure on or near the highlights and recomposing works as well, and is more flexible than having a permanent compensation. Surely exposing every shot individually gives a more satisfying result than using a blanket correction on all shots. Sorry Jaap, but this is very inconvenient. It means that you are seriously slowed down; also, if you have to get off several shots, you have to go through the whole rigmarole for every one of them. Far better to use manual exposure. I note that my old Olympus OM-4 solved that problem ages ago with a switchable AE-lock. As usual, Leica is thirty ears behind. Minimalism is one thing, primitivism is a different matter. And the primitivism of the auto exposure system of the M8 (and the M7) is shocking. I can ignore it however. Also, in the old days (Late Stone Age) we could decide which effective ISO we would expose, say, our Tri-X by. Was that silly? The old man from the Age of Photography Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Photoskeptic Posted July 6, 2007 Share #11 Posted July 6, 2007 Yes, recovering shadow detail is good. On blowing highlights: this is a bit weird but I was shooting in bw mode the other day, shot a scene the normal way then shot the same scene in DNG but with a yellow filter attached. The area I was shooting was in deep to moderate shadow with some lovely clouds far in the bg. In the bw the cloudy area was totally blown out, but recoverable. The DNG was a strange mix of colors until I de-saturated it. Ecco! everything including the clouds made a perfect bw shot. I'm sure if I had shot in bw mode with the yellow filter the same thing would happen. The only reason I even carry a yellow filter is for my M3 backup. Just one of those things you stumble upon. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted July 6, 2007 Share #12 Posted July 6, 2007 John, I did experiment a bit with yellow-filtered BW images. My impression was that the filter made very little difference, probably because the M8 has so much of its sensitivity already at the red end of the visible spectrum – it is something like shooting the extra red-sensitive Kodak Panatomic way back in the 1930's and 1940's. There, too, a yellow filter was little use, but on the other hand, you did not really need it – the film held back blue quite a bit even without filtering. To get a good contrast between the sky and the clouds with an M8 you should use an orange filter. This works nicely. The old man from the Age of Yellow Filters Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisC Posted July 6, 2007 Share #13 Posted July 6, 2007 .... Leica is thirty ears behind. Minimalism is one thing... Lars - Wow. Thirty ears; and you suggest they are not listening? ................Chris Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philinflash Posted July 6, 2007 Share #14 Posted July 6, 2007 Since I tend to be bothered by blown highlights, I adjust by setting the captures for 2/3 (or more) "under-exposure" when shooting aperture preferred. I figure I can usually bring it up in post and a quicker shutter is always useful. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
barjohn Posted July 6, 2007 Share #15 Posted July 6, 2007 Speaking of DR has anyone looked at the new review on the Fuji S5 Pro on DP Review with a DR of 11.8EV? Very impressive. I wonder how the M8 will compare. Fujifilm S5 Pro Review: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ho_co Posted July 6, 2007 Share #16 Posted July 6, 2007 ... Leica is thirty ears behind. Minimalism is one thing ... Lars - Wow. Thirty ears; and you suggest they are not listening? Chris-- I think it's just Lars's way of illustrating that he isn't opposed to Minimalism: Having ended one word with "y," there's no need to begin the next with the same letter. --HC Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted July 8, 2007 Share #17 Posted July 8, 2007 1) Yes the M8 has more DR than I actually use in most situations - in RAW I'm almost always punching up contrast and clipping the blacks a bit to get the snap I'm used to from shooting slides. 2) I use a permanent -1/3 EV compensation - and the funny thing is I never ever notice the flashing red dot in the finder. I'd completely forgotten it was there until Lars mentioned it. 3) If my subject matter is likely to throw off the metering (extra-dark or -light backgrounds, etc.) I just meter manually off something close to medium gray (grass works well) and shoot with the shutter and aperture set by way of the dials. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piers Posted July 9, 2007 Share #18 Posted July 9, 2007 Agree, and underexposing by 1/3 gives the sense and familiar aperture/shutter setting of shooting at 400 on film for BW. Re: filters: found a marked difference in non-filterd skies/foliage BW tonality changing the individual RGB levels in raw files before converting to grayscale in photoshop. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piers Posted July 9, 2007 Share #19 Posted July 9, 2007 1) Yes the M8 has more DR than I actually use in most situations - in RAW I'm almost always punching up contrast and clipping the blacks a bit to get the snap I'm used to from shooting slides. 2) I use a permanent -1/3 EV compensation - and the funny thing is I never ever notice the flashing red dot in the finder. I'd completely forgotten it was there until Lars mentioned it. 3) If my subject matter is likely to throw off the metering (extra-dark or -light backgrounds, etc.) I just meter manually off something close to medium gray (grass works well) and shoot with the shutter and aperture set by way of the dials. PS Can also use the auto exposure lock as a shortcut to a pseudo-zone-system: lock on subject or equivalent (= medium gray) then whilst locked use the click stops of the aperture diaphragm to count up/down to place in your zone of choice (and this way you get the readout of shutter speed as well). I still find the discipline of zone system a valuable route to determining a link of intention between the original exposure and the final print (perhaps even more valuable in the absence of a fixed film negative). Best, Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wparsonsgisnet Posted July 9, 2007 Share #20 Posted July 9, 2007 Chris--I think it's just Lars's way of illustrating that he isn't opposed to Minimalism: Having ended one word with "y," there's no need to begin the next with the same letter. --HC This is an application of the well-known "Y Not" rule. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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