Overexposed images with M10M

[Ken Abrahams]

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2 hours ago, Bobby said:

@jaapv yes but nobody seems to avoid blown out highlights in most cases

Who, which images “you mostly see have some kind of blown highlights”?

5 minutes ago, Bobby said:

For me it'd be mostly street at 35/50mm. I'm just trying to figure out if I can avoid overexposure at all, but it seems too much to ask to a monochrom sensor. 

 

Your statement about monochrom sensors is incorrect Bobby. One can do everything to expose correctly for highlights. You can do it and not overexpose at all, it’s not too much to ask yourself. 
 

Ken 

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[a.noctilux]

With some years of Monochrom practices, I use another "trick" with very good results if demanding, no way to set it as universal.

Colored filters are my friends, I still learn to use them and filters can "deliver" (not in every cases) a bit more roomhead for "washing highlight".

Learn to use red/yellow/green/cyan/magenta/etc. is revealing but can take a bit more time, no free lunch.

[Gobert]

2 hours ago, egrossman said:

You kind of are talking out of both sides of your mouth. On the one hand you are agreeing with Jaap but on the other, in practice, you do what I recommended.

Erik

Just nuancing somewhat between theory and practice. Nothing more.

[jaapv]

2 hours ago, Bobby said:

For me it'd be mostly street at 35/50mm. I'm just trying to figure out if I can avoid overexposure at all, but it seems too much to ask to a monochrom sensor. 

 

You avoid overexposure by utilizing the aperture ring and shutterspeed dial, not by the camera type or sensor.

[pgh]

6 hours ago, Bobby said:

For me it'd be mostly street at 35/50mm. I'm just trying to figure out if I can avoid overexposure at all, but it seems too much to ask to a monochrom sensor. 

 

This is the primary reason I'm waffling between an M and an R. I'd love the monochrom only approach of the M but with the way I work I'm a little concerned about it. Jaapv's approach is certainly the correct theoretical approach but as others have pointed out there may be a gap for some between theory and practice - it's a little bit much to be so didactic about a practice that is inherently fluid and involves so many variables for some. I do not necessarily have the time/care to carefully meter every scene and often use EV as a tool to get a sensor in the realm of how I feel it works best for certain situations, and then get to  the practice of trying to see. I do not necessarily care if every exposure is perfect, but I do care if I blow highlights. If I need to lift shadows some and I get some grain or noise, well...that's okay - I can still get a good distribution of tones after post. 

I'd be curious if anyone could comment about, say, how much range the M has compared to the original M10 and how it easy it is to blow M highlights compared to the M10 at IS0 200 (because 100 as we know is pretty bad on the M10.

[pgh]

3 hours ago, jaapv said:

You avoid overexposure by utilizing the aperture ring and shutterspeed dial, not by the camera type or sensor.

I'm not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse or you just can't personally relate to a different method of working that might not foreground absolute exposure precision so much, but I'd think a moderator might be inclined towards more actually helpful, less condescending commentary - or otherwise resist such remarks to begin with.

It seems pretty clear to me hear what the poster is trying to get a sense of, and it's not how to fiddle with the exposure dials. Surely you know some sensors behave differently in raw conversion and clearly they are asking about the limits of this and how people adapt to this particular limit in their practical working styles in getting a desirable final result - which often is a properly exposed looking picture that has resulted from an actual capture that may be slightly over or underexposed..

[jaapv]

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I’m not being obtuse, I’m being precise. Everybody is free to have their own method. But it should be clear that the camera does not take the photograph the photographer does. Which means that he should know what he is doing. Giving an advice like “ just underexpose by one stop” is sloppy and unhelpful. Once the poster understands the principle he can decide that always underexposing works for him  - and that is fine. But he knows what he is doing then. 

[egrossman]

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

I’m not being obtuse, I’m being precise. Everybody is free to have their own method. But it should be clear that the camera does not take the photograph the photographer does. Which means that he should know what he is doing. Giving an advice like “ just underexpose by one stop” is sloppy and unhelpful. Once the poster understands the principle he can decide that always underexposing works for him  - and that is fine. But he knows what he is doing then. 

Let us be clear that your information certainly is more relevant to film photography and color-based digital cameras.

In the case of the Monochrom with so much latitude to recover the shadows (as I said previously, up to about 4 stops), a photographer should use the camera and best leverage its technological advantage that it offers and in this case, by underexposing. You lose NOTHING in the final image by doing this; it's free insurance.

Who of us hasn't had an image blown out by misjudging the required shutter speed at a given aperture and ISO? In this context what you are recommending makes no sense to me.

Erik

[egrossman]

David Farkas of Leica Store Miami wrote about this more eloquently than I did in his article on the original Monochrom:

Expose to the left – trust me

Especially given the improved noise performance of the M Monochrom, I’d recommend exposing to the left. What this means is, when in doubt, underexpose. You’ll easily be able to pull up shadows that have gone a bit dark, but you won’t be able to recover a single blown highlight. Of course, this is B&W and you might be fine with spectral areas in your image. The other reason that the camera is a little less forgiving than its color-loving cousin is that it only has one channel, not three. Usually in a color capture, when one channel gets blown out, you might still have some residual detail in the other two channels from which you can recover. For example, if you enable the color histogram on your M9 and attempt to overexpose a bright red Ferrari, you’ll see that the red channel is clipped, while the green and blue channels are not.

Source: https://www.reddotforum.com/content/2012/05/leica-m-monochrom-review-529/

Erik

[jaapv]

Quite and fully correct. Note the essential words:  “ when in doubt” This is about exposing correctly by the photographer for each individual shot. Nowhere does he advise underexposing systematically like you are doing. Exposing to the left is not underexposing but using the histogram to place the exposure within the dynamic range, like I advised “avoid rhe peak against the righthand side”. This means that exposing to the left can easily mean overexposing relative to the value advised by the camera metering. For instance if your camera has picked up the sun in its metering field.  And the other way around? A dark subject on a sunlit beach? - ⅔ will blow out the whole beach. You need -3. 
Interestingly this is about the Monochrom 1, the only M to feature a Zone System histogram. 

[elmars]

Many years ago I thought I cannot take photos without spot metering and practicing the zone system. Then I got an M6 and learned: It is possible. So it is with metering for digital sensors. In our days they are very forgiving. Don´t think too much and do what Oliver Richter, the leader of the German Leica Academy, recommends: Go out shooting! My addition: Then You will learn metering intuitivly.

Edited July 25, 2022 by elmars

[jaapv]

You can take and expose by many means . Sonne lacht? Blende Acht! I like the M6 type metering - which even the M11 still has  - with the triangles and varying intensity, combined with centre-weighed very much. You can scan the scene and find the various levels of light. 

[overexposed]

i also walk around with my M10M with 1-2 stops underexposed to be on the safe side, blown out highlights are too distracting and the shadow recovery ability of the M10M is remarkable

[charlesphoto99]

22 hours ago, Bobby said:

I'd be interested to get an M10M. Most images I've seen have got some kind of blown out highlights. Is it something we have to live with, or it's just that we should keep the exposure down by two stops?

A 'highlight' with no color info will blow out if not properly exposed - and even still in some cases if properly exposed. So shoot a monochrome sensor with that in mind (and/or use color filters). Not sure why people want cameras - esp M's - to do everything for them now. PAS modes have been the scourge of photography imo. Also, without dipping into the atrocious HDR realm, sometimes/often one has to choose what one is going to 'let go' - will it be the shadows, or the highlights? So shoot with that in mind, that ambient light is there to create drama and emotion, not some sort of unrealizable perfection.

M10M, 135mm APO

 

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Edited July 25, 2022 by charlesphoto99

[pgh]

15 hours ago, jaapv said:

I’m not being obtuse, I’m being precise. Everybody is free to have their own method. But it should be clear that the camera does not take the photograph the photographer does. Which means that he should know what he is doing. Giving an advice like “ just underexpose by one stop” is sloppy and unhelpful. Once the poster understands the principle he can decide that always underexposing works for him  - and that is fine. But he knows what he is doing then. 

Funny, when I've gotten a new camera in the past, learning how photographers treat the particular in the sensor - ettr or ettl - has been the some of the most helpful insight I've gotten. Much more helpful then "make a proper exposure for the highlights" - which OP knows is obvious - I know you know this, but the issue is when highlights are not the subject and yet for a better final image you still want to protect them - understanding how to expose for the entirety of the frame and how the sensor treats the shadows and highlights and how flexible they are in post, even if it's a slight compromise to the subject, is often the choice working photographers take. You're advocating for tunnel vision when some (most) people think of a picture as a holistic image. I can't see how redundantly hammering on about precision helps when it ignores the rest of the picture that is not highlights. Your idea of "sloppy" is funny, given that if I expose for a subject and have to deal with blown highlights because of that - it reads to me as a sloppy final image in most cases. 

[pgh]

2 hours ago, overexposed said:

i also walk around with my M10M with 1-2 stops underexposed to be on the safe side, blown out highlights are too distracting and the shadow recovery ability of the M10M is remarkable

This "sloppy" real world advice is really the only answer the thread needs - of course the more people who chime in with this approach, the more insightful it seems to be. In the end it is preference but since OP is asking about blown highlights (and not blocked shadows) it's safe to say this approach is relevant.

[Bobby]

7 hours ago, charlesphoto99 said:

A 'highlight' with no color info will blow out if not properly exposed - and even still in some cases if properly exposed. So shoot a monochrome sensor with that in mind (and/or use color filters). Not sure why people want cameras - esp M's - to do everything for them now. PAS modes have been the scourge of photography imo. Also, without dipping into the atrocious HDR realm, sometimes/often one has to choose what one is going to 'let go' - will it be the shadows, or the highlights? So shoot with that in mind, that ambient light is there to create drama and emotion, not some sort of unrealizable perfection.

M10M, 135mm APO

 

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WOW!

[Bobby]

The main issue is that in street photography no one has the time to evaluate the scene. By that time the scene is gone. Unless I'm sure 2-3 stops under exposed is ok to avoid any blown highlights in most cases, I might have to stick with color sensors. 

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[egrossman]

Just now, Bobby said:

The main issue is that in street photography no one has the time to evaluate the scene. By that time the scene is gone. Unless I'm sure 2-3 stops under exposed is ok to avoid any blown highlights in most cases, I might have to stick with color sensors. 

You have that many stops and more in terms of headroom with the M10M.

Erik

[Bobby]

But are you not going to lose shadows eventually (like -2 or 3 stops)?