Excessive underexposure with strong light sources

[yanidel]

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Took this picture yesterday in Auto Iso mode. Unluckily, the sun was in the center part of the picture and my M10 grossly underexposed the scene. I had to push it 5 stops to get the above processed picture and it shows (noise and banding). A pity. I already had a few pictures ruined because of that. My previous camera, a Leica M9, did not respond like this to strong light sources. The M10 underexposes a lot. Is there a setting to change that ? How do you deal with these kind of situations on the M10? 

 

 

Edited September 14, 2022 by yanidel

[Al Brown]

I deal with on my M10-R it by either using manual exposure or knowing where to aim the camera for AE lock in strong backlit scenes. Overexposure is the key. It is a learning curve for sure but once mastered, no more bad scenarios. You will still need recovery of highlights and shadows, obviously, but if initially exposed the proper way there is no banding or strong noise.

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Edited September 14, 2022 by Al Brown

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[Guest]

It looks like late afternoon light, in that case I would point the camera down at the concrete, or use an external light meter to take an exposure measurement and shoot accordingly, or look at the lcd screen to see what you have taken and adjust the exposure.

The under exposure is due to shooting into the sun and the metering being centre weighted. Point the camera away from the strong light.

 

Edited September 14, 2022 by OThomas

[yanidel]

I understand the merits of manual exposure or exposure compensation but in situations like these, you don't have time for it. I ran across the street to get the shot and just aimed in a second. That is why I am on Auto-Iso most of the time.  My point is that the M9 would never underexpose like. WIth the M10, whenever a light source is in the perifery of the center part, it results in pictures heavily underexposed like that. I see there is an option to change the exposure method in the menu, I would assume it only applies to live view pictures ? 

Here is the original, non pushed picture.  

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[pop]

While walking in a street in the same direction, the lighting is bound to remain pretty much the same. You simply could measure the light once and manually set your camera. The result would be much closer to what you expected.

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47 minutes ago, yanidel said:

I see there is an option to change the exposure method in the menu, I would assume it only applies to live view pictures ? 

Yes live view only in the M10.

The M11 has it available all the time, but it requires the time to open the shutter and close it again before taking a photograph. 

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1 hour ago, yanidel said:

My point is that the M9 would never underexpose like

I’d be very surprised if that were the case, most camera meters will adjust the exposure to a medium (18% grey) exposure and will take a similar underexposed photograph.

I suppose the M9 might’ve had a tighter centre weighted metering, I’m not sure though it’s a long time since I used one in anger.

My only suggestion in situations like this would be to increase the exposure a few stops, by the same methods I mentioned above. Or by knowing what the exposure behaviour of the M10 is like and adjusting accordingly. 

Edited September 14, 2022 by OThomas

[adan]

The M10 has a rather steep contrast curve applied to its .DNG files, to "simulate" the punch of M9 shots (or color slides) after some folks complained about the "dullness" of native M(typ240) .DNGs.

Most of the M10s dynamic range (7.5 stops out of ~11) is thus below "middle gray." So don't be surprised that you have to (and can) pull up the shadows a lot, where needed. This graph is from my own M10 latitude tests.

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This was very accurately described in dpreview's M10 preview 5.5 years ago. See about halfway down this page:

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/leica-m10-first-impressions-sample-images/4

It is also the case that the M10 metering is a "semi-spot" pattern, unless live-view is used***. This is simply not an ideal metering style for totally auto grabshot pictures in difficult light.

It does need human supervision. At a bare minimum, keeping an eye on the shutter speed readout in the finder. If it is showing 4000, that is a strong warning that the meter is seeing a lot of light (i.e. the Sun). And if you do have that continuous thermonuclear explosion in the meter area, it will far overpower the shadows in the reading.

And - it will lock onto whatever it happens to be pointed at, with even the slightest pre-pressure on the shutter button. So if you are aiming fast, you need to not touch the shutter button at all until the composition is no longer changing, unless intentionally trying to lock exposure.

*** with the M10, it is possible to have live-view operating for wider off-the-sensor metering (overall average, or multi-point), while framing through the optical window RF/VF. It does, as with the M11, result in a slight lag as the shutter closes, and then opens again for the actual exposure.

 

[Guest]

@adan thanks for the information, good to know. 

[yanidel]

2 hours ago, adan said:

It is also the case that the M10 metering is a "semi-spot" pattern, unless live-view is used***. This is simply not an ideal metering style for totally auto grabshot pictures in difficult light.

It does need human supervision. At a bare minimum, keeping an eye on the shutter speed readout in the finder. If it is showing 4000, that is a strong warning that the meter is seeing a lot of light (i.e. the Sun). And if you do have that continuous thermonuclear explosion in the meter area, it will far overpower the shadows in the reading.

And - it will lock onto whatever it happens to be pointed at, with even the slightest pre-pressure on the shutter button. So if you are aiming fast, you need to not touch the shutter button at all until the composition is no longer changing, unless intentionally trying to lock exposure.

Thanks for all the precisions. That would explain what happened in this scene and why it differs from the M9.  It's too bad they changed it, I felt the M9 nailed the exposure in pretty much all situations but I am having trouble with the M10.  When I do have time to set the camera exposure, I usally use exposure compensation with the thumbwheel, that works well.  But I personally think that Leica should get rid of the ISO wheel, and replace it with exposure compensation. Or have both functions on the same wheel like the ergonomically never beaten Epson R-D1.  

 

[yanidel]

3 hours ago, OThomas said:

I’d be very surprised if that were the case, most camera meters will adjust the exposure to a medium (18% grey) exposure and will take a similar underexposed photograph.

I suppose the M9 might’ve had a tighter centre weighted metering, I’m not sure though it’s a long time since I used one in anger.

My only suggestion in situations like this would be to increase the exposure a few stops, by the same methods I mentioned above. Or by knowing what the exposure behaviour of the M10 is like and adjusting accordingly. 

Yes thanks, that is a good idea to over expose in difficult light. Unluckily that was the first shot of the outing, I did not have even time to think about exposure. I never did with the M9. But if it is indeed centered tighter, I'll have to pay special attention for this not to happen again. 

[yanidel]

3 hours ago, pop said:

While walking in a street in the same direction, the lighting is bound to remain pretty much the same. You simply could measure the light once and manually set your camera. The result would be much closer to what you expected.

I call it the best week of the year for shooting in Rosario .  It's when the sun falls exactly in the middle of a main street. Yet lights varies a lot depending on whether the sun makes it just above some buidling or not.   You can go from full light to dark shadows in a few meters.

Same thing happened to the below shot though the sun wasn't so centered. In this case,  it wasn't so bad and I could recover shadows well.  So really, it seems the M10 does not take well strong lights, wherever be it in the picture. Again, that is fine if one understands it, but it is very different from the M9.  

 

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[GFW2-SCUSA]

I have nothing to add regarding the metering, but I do want to say the picture, in its corrected form, is wonderful. The edge lighting on that fine dog is perfection. 

[pgh]

Every camera has its quirks. I was annoyed by this 5 years ago, but have long learned to work within the limits of it. The biggest problem with the M10 is still how poorly it retains highlights - perhaps Leica try to compensate for that with this metering strategy - and even that is something I've mostly made peace with, by adjusting my technique (something I've had to do with every camera I've ever owned in one way or another). 

[charlesphoto99]

At a certain point one just needs to stop with all of the auto this and auto that crutches and just learn to read light and know how to adjust it manually (and quickly). A camera is a 'dumb' object - you should be the one in control. I wish Leica would (or should have) put out a stripped down M that has the best sensor but absolutely no auto or live view modes or exposure compensation. etc - back to the M6/MP ethos. 

The second pic above by @yanidel is lovely, but wouldn't be so much if it wasn't underexposed, imo (the nice rim light wouldn't be as obvious). Again, it's the operator's vision, not the camera's. Here's an example that would have been almost impossible for a camera, any camera, to meter in auto. M9, 28 summicron. Yes, sometimes I'll get lazy and use A, but more often than not it only lasts a few shots until it doesn't do what I wanted. If always and only shooting neutral settings, sure, but those also aren't the most visually compelling shots we all would like to make. 

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[yanidel]

42 minutes ago, GFW2-SCUSA said:

I have nothing to add regarding the metering, but I do want to say the picture, in its corrected form, is wonderful. The edge lighting on that fine dog is perfection. 

Thank you! I was very frustrated when I saw the banding on the driver, that is why I am trying to understand what happend and if I can correct.

27 minutes ago, pgh said:

Every camera has its quirks. I was annoyed by this 5 years ago, but have long learned to work within the limits of it. The biggest problem with the M10 is still how poorly it retains highlights - perhaps Leica try to compensate for that with this metering strategy - and even that is something I've mostly made peace with, by adjusting my technique (something I've had to do with every camera I've ever owned in one way or another). 

Yes, I am going to live with it. In 95% of cases you can correct exposure previous to taking the picture. But when you can't, you have to leave it up to the camera and things like that happen. 

15 minutes ago, charlesphoto99 said:

At a certain point one just needs to stop with all of the auto this and auto that crutches and just learn to read light and know how to adjust it manually (and quickly). A camera is a 'dumb' object - you should be the one in control. I wish Leica would (or should have) put out a stripped down M that has the best sensor but absolutely no auto or live view modes or exposure compensation. etc - back to the M6/MP ethos. 

The second pic above by @yanidel is lovely, but wouldn't be so much if it wasn't underexposed, imo (the nice rim light wouldn't be as obvious). Again, it's the operator's vision, not the camera's. Here's an example that would have been almost impossible for a camera, any camera, to meter in auto. M9, 28 summicron. Yes, sometimes I'll get lazy and use A, but more often than not it only lasts a few shots until it doesn't do what I wanted. If always and only shooting neutral settings, sure, but those also aren't the most visually compelling shots we all would like to make. 

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Well, in my case, the Auto-Iso implementation of the M10 is what most helped my photography vs the M9.  I love the fact that you can set the minimum speed to 1/500th and the reasonable image quality up to 6400.  It let's me focus purely on the action and the framing. I almost exclusivel shoot street photography, things happen very fast. I found out that in average, I take better pictures when I don't fiddle with exposure and concentrate on the street, so the M10 helped me improve. Pure image quality doesn't matter so much in street photography but when I shoot landscape or portrait, I do pay special attention to exposure. 
In the case of the beautiful picture you posted, I guess i would have underexposed by about 2 stops with the M10.

Edited September 14, 2022 by yanidel

[adan]

57 minutes ago, yanidel said:

I call it the best week of the year for shooting in Rosario .  It's when the sun falls exactly in the middle of a main street.

"Rosario-henge" (as in, Stonehenge). My brother in New York City says the same thing happens in Manhattan's streets on a certain day.

[Al Brown]

The fun fact is, the M9 would not have been able to handle those sun highlights without some nasty clipping despite "better" exposure. Not even M240 would. M10 has it very well covered, much better than the latter two.

 

Edited September 14, 2022 by Al Brown

[yanidel]

4 minutes ago, adan said:

"Rosario-henge" (as in, Stonehenge). My brother in New York City says the same thing happens in Manhattan's streets on a certain day.

Rosariohenge, I like it, so be it!   Yes, I can imagine New York being the same, it happens in long and straight avenues. I also remember it happening on Rivoli Street in Paris during a few days a year, It was wonderful. 

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1 hour ago, GFW2-SCUSA said:

say the picture, in its corrected form, is wonderful. The edge lighting on that fine dog is perfection. 

+1 on that. 👏👍