B&W Jpegs at ISO 640

[Harvey]

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It’s been my go to and much of my B&W work that I have shown on this forum is shot that way. I have now started shooting the B&Ws at iso 160 as DNGs. 
is there any advantage to working in jpegs? I’m processing through lightroom. I will eventually print for framing.

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[Topsy]

I don't know about the M8 but on my M9 I tend to always use the DNGs to process my shots in Lightroom. I find that they are just more flexible than jpgs particularly for highlights and shadows. I recently shot at a 1940s weekend in B&W 1600 ISO for that old look but the jpgs were just too crushed. I used the DNGs to get more pleasing results and converted in Photoshop to B&W. Here's one of them.

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[dpitt]

In the past, I found that the M8 produced very good B&W JPEGS out of camera. If exposure does not have to be tweaked too much it is often very hard to better it in PP starting from a DNG, or even get equally pleasing results.

On my M9, I did not have this impression, and with that one, I do not hesitate shooting DNG only.

Of course LR and C1P have improved a lot. It would need some dedicated tests to see if the in camera advantage is still there. I recommend shooting in DNG+JPEG mode for a while and see what works best for you.

YMMV

Edited August 20, 2023 by dpitt

[chris_livsey]

If you shoot both you get flexibility 😀

Personally I prefer the DNG, more malleable file, and access to all the colour filters on the processing engine you choose, again personally Capture One as they were originally "chosen" by Leica who enclosed a "free version" specifically for the M8 when new (LE 3.7) so had access to the full data on the sensor from Leica.

Not sure why iso 640 is in the title as you only mention 160 or is that an error? The advantage of higher iso in jpeg is the rendering is more film like with the noise generated, the nature of the CCD sensor is such that underexposing and pushing in post,DNG, is "better" as modern processing reduces noise more effectively than the in camera processing which has never been updated. Better as in less noise but that may not be your aim although adding grain in post is again a more flexible option.

Processed in C1 with grain added and one of my saved "styles" 

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Edited September 2, 2023 by chris_livsey
added photo