So grateful for the help you all gave me ...

[FlickM]

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... as a new M262 user. I've got a diopter fitted to the camera now to help with focusing. It isn't quite strong enough, but I'm going for a contact lens fitting, so didn't want to make it too strong. If I don't get on with contacts, then I will exchange the diopter for a stronger one. 

Focusing is a challenge, and sometimes I miss, but I'm giving it lots of practice. The Voigtlander heliar 40mm is exactly the focal length I wanted, but I'm having to learn how much more picture I've got outside the 50mm frame lines. The Voigtlander is also quite fussy: I have to be careful not to lock the mechanism on infinity when focusing, and I find the aperture ring often moves off the aperture I've set it on, partly I think because the aperture ring moves with the focusing ring on this lens - but I'm sure I'll get used to it (today was my first trip out with the camera). Also I really need to learn about metering all over again, as I've lazily relied on spot for years. The centre weighted meter in the camera is a learning curve, and I totally missed and badly over exposed on a couple of shots. 

There are a LOT of spots on the sensor, hopefully cleanable. I haven't had to clean a sensor since my Kodak 14nx many many years go, all my cameras since have obligingly cleaned their own sensors, so I'm feeling a bit apprehensive about that, but needs must.

I'm posting a few photos from Oxford today. I hope it's not too many at one time. If it is, then please feel free to shout at me. The colour straight out of the camera (well, the embedded profile in Lightroom anyway) is beautiful.

Thanks again all you nice chaps,

Flick

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[pippy]

Congratulations and thanks for posting your photographs. Lovely set from your first outing.

In terms of understanding the meter and exposure goes you might find that underexposing by, say, 1/2 a stop (or even more) will allow you to bring out lots of detail in the shadow areas whilst you retain all the highlights without them 'burning out'. If you shoot in Raw / DNG format then even if (as you suggest might be the case);

"The centre weighted meter in the camera is a learning curve, and I totally missed and badly over exposed on a couple of shots..."

...you might well discover that there is more tonal-detail recorded than seems to be the case. The sliders in the process-out dialogue boxes are your friends.

Lovely to see you are, a few hiccoughs apart, clearly already very much at home with your acquisitions!

Philip.

[FlickM]

7 hours ago, pippy said:

Congratulations and thanks for posting your photographs. Lovely set from your first outing.

In terms of understanding the meter and exposure goes you might find that underexposing by, say, 1/2 a stop (or even more) will allow you to bring out lots of detail in the shadow areas whilst you retain all the highlights without them 'burning out'. If you shoot in Raw / DNG format then even if (as you suggest might be the case);

"The centre weighted meter in the camera is a learning curve, and I totally missed and badly over exposed on a couple of shots..."

...you might well discover that there is more tonal-detail recorded than seems to be the case. The sliders in the process-out dialogue boxes are your friends.

Lovely to see you are, a few hiccoughs apart, clearly already very much at home with your acquisitions!

Philip.

Thank you so much. The advice is really helpful. 

Yes, I always shoot RAW, I don’t understand why anyone would shoot JPEGs when you can pull so much more from the RAW files, and I did expose for the highlights mostly, almost all the shots I took were underexposed and I brought them up in Lightroom, but I misjudged a couple where there was bright light on a building but very deep shadow elsewhere, so the highlights were blown beyond recovery. Any advice on that would be much appreciated (as is everything else you’ve said)

I didn’t deliberately under expose by a specific amount this time as I wanted to see how the metering behaved, and on even scenes the exposure was perfect. What I’d intended to do was bracket and examine the results after, but for some reason the camera didn’t bracket - I must make sure to confirm options by pressing the centre button on the rocker switch, so it may have been that. 

So much to remember, along with lining up the rangefinder, not dislodging my chosen aperture while focusing, not accidentally locking the lens on infinity. 

You’ve been very kind and I appreciate it a lot. 
Flick 
 

[rpsawin]

Flick...I think you are off with a great start. My advice is to practice, practice, practice and ENJOY!

Best wishes

 

[FlickM]

34 minutes ago, rpsawin said:

Flick...I think you are off with a great start. My advice is to practice, practice, practice and ENJOY!

Best wishes

 

Thank you so much - and I will. I'm over the moon about the M262

[dpitt]

14 hours ago, FlickM said:

Thank you so much. The advice is really helpful. 
... but I misjudged a couple where there was bright light on a building but very deep shadow elsewhere, so the highlights were blown beyond recovery. Any advice on that would be much appreciated (as is everything else you’ve said)

I didn’t deliberately under expose by a specific amount this time as I wanted to see how the metering behaved, and on even scenes the exposure was perfect....

Well done! You seem to get along very well with your new acquisition...

About exposure and difficult (HDR) scenes. The 262 is getting a bit older so does not really have the same DR modern bodies have. In fact, I think it is also not at all like modern camera's that seem to have ISO independent DR up to a point. I must admit that I do not have direct experience with this series. My advise is based on my experience with the more primitive M8 and M9.

These oldies have essentially just one ideal ISO value. The so called base ISO. For M8 and M9 it is ISO 160, for the M240 and related it is ISO 200. Any other setting means that the 'signal' of the sensor is just amplified - introducing noise - or even suppressed (e.g. ISO 100) which is also bad for DR.
So in really difficult situations, I just shoot at base ISO 160 and RAW, then basically set my shutter time manually for the highlights when there is ample light, or indoors when there is not enough light, I set it simply to the longest acceptible time (1/16 for wide lenses and slow objects to 1/60 for subjects like children or moving subjects in general)

Some of these shots will show on the display as almost black, but do not worry. In PP, I find that results of pushing +3 to even +5 stops will be even better than just using the equivalent ISO value in camera. So shooting at ISO 200 and +3 in LR is better than shooting at ISO 1600. On top of that, if you just use the HDR sliders, shadows can be pulled up and highlights recovered much more gracefully this way. It is as if you can decide which ISO to use after the fact, and sometimes +1 is enough, sometimes +4 is needed. In case of +1 you would save a lot of noise compared to shooting ISO 1600 in camera and then realizing in PP that you where too generous with the ISO value.

To use this technique,  it is important to do it at base ISO value (i.e. with the unmodified signal from the sensor). So shooting at ISO 400, hoping to push +2 or 800 and +1 is worse than 200 and +3...
YMMV but it is worth the try out.

Edited February 2, 2024 by dpitt

[FlickM]

24 minutes ago, dpitt said:

Well done! You seem to get along very well with your new acquisition...

About exposure and difficult (HDR) scenes. The 262 is getting a bit older so does not really have the same DR modern bodies have. In fact, I think it is also not at all like modern camera's that seem to have ISO independent DR up to a point. I must admit that I do not have direct experience with this series. My advise is based on my experience with the more primitive M8 and M9.

These oldies have essentially just one ideal ISO value. The so called base ISO. For M8 and M9 it is ISO 160, for the M240 and related it is ISO 200. Any other setting means that the 'signal' of the sensor is just amplified - introducing noise - or even suppressed (e.g. ISO 100) which is also bad for DR.
So in really difficult situations, I just shoot at base ISO 160 and RAW, then basically set my shutter time manually for the highlights when there is ample light, or indoors when there is not enough light, I set it simply to the longest acceptible time (1/16 for wide lenses and slow objects to 1/60 for subjects like children or moving subjects in general)

Some of these shots will show on the display as almost black, but do not worry. In PP, I find that results of pushing +3 to even +5 stops will be even better than just using the equivalent ISO value in camera. So shooting at ISO 200 and +3 in LR is better than shooting at ISO 1600. On top of that, if you just use the HDR sliders, shadows can be pulled up and highlights recovered much more gracefully this way. It is as if you can decide which ISO to use after the fact, and sometimes +1 is enough, sometimes +4 is needed. In case of +1 you would save a lot of noise compared to shooting ISO 1600 in camera and then realizing in PP that you where too generous with the ISO value.

To use this technique,  it is important to do it at base ISO value (i.e. with the unmodified signal from the sensor). So shooting at ISO 400, hoping to push +2 or 800 and +1 is worse than 200 and +3...
YMMV but it is worth the try out.

This is really really helpful. Thank you. I was shooting auto ISO yesterday and got away with it most of the shots, but there were a couple that flummoxed me, and what you are saying could well make sense of that. I'll give this a go next time.

[dpitt]

17 minutes ago, FlickM said:

This is really really helpful. Thank you. I was shooting auto ISO yesterday and got away with it most of the shots, but there were a couple that flummoxed me, and what you are saying could well make sense of that. I'll give this a go next time.

Turn off Auto anything. You are in control ! All these auto functions relieve you from stress in a way, but also take away from your credit and satisfaction when you get everything just right. At least for me that is.

The only Auto that I use a lot is the A exposure mode. And even then, I use it in a way that I am in control, first focusing on the subject, then looking for the light I want to expose for, no matter what it looks like. It can be the grass, a wall, or something that is even slightly out of frame, then I half press the shutter (AE lock) and re-frame before shooting.

The RAW files are really flexible, so with moving objects my first concern is focus and the right moment, then framing and exposure is last. My exposure compensation is set to -1/3 or -2/3 stop to save highlights by default.

[FlickM]

21 minutes ago, dpitt said:

Turn off Auto anything. You are in control ! All these auto functions relieve you from stress in a way, but also take away from your credit and satisfaction when you get everything just right. At least for me that is.

The only Auto that I use a lot is the A exposure mode. And even then, I use it in a way that I am in control, first focusing on the subject, then looking for the light I want to expose for, no matter what it looks like. It can be the grass, a wall, or something that is even slightly out of frame, then I half press the shutter (AE lock) and re-frame before shooting.

The RAW files are really flexible, so with moving objects my first concern is focus and the right moment, then framing and exposure is last. My exposure compensation is set to -1/3 or -2/3 stop to save highlights by default.

I was using auto ISO and aperture priority as it was the first time out with the camera; I was intending to shoot manually in future, as I did with other cameras in the past.