Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/03/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Really beautiful cat shot, Feli. (And nothing better than an incident meter :-) Thanks for showing, Philippe Op 25-mrt-06, om 19:52 heeft Feli het volgende geschreven: > When I had my Noct I ran in to a few occasions that could only be > shot with > the f1/Delta3200 option. But what has been even more useful is > something > learned with experience, and that is to not always rely on the > built in M meter, > when shooting in the near dark. > > The problem is that the meter will try to raise the overall > darkness of the scene > to 18% (medium) gray, adding either considerably to the exposure > time or asking > for a aperture smaller than f1.4. In other words, in many cases if > you rely on the > built in meter, you are essentially throwing away 1-2 stops of the > speed of your lens. > > In practice I have found that the true exposure reading for many > very dark scenes > is quite often f1.4@1/30th (@400asa), and not f1.4@1/8th etc. as > indicated by the meter. > > Not only do you end up with a better exposed image, but you > suddenly discover > that you can shoot in considerably darker situations with 400asa > film and a 1.4 lens, > than you may expect, without the need of having to resort to faster > film. Just make sure > you are using a developer that gives full speed, like XTOL or DD-X. > This will extract all > of the shadow detail the film was able to capture. > > Some examples of 400asa and 1.4@1/30th. 1.4/35 Lux ASPH or 1.4/50 > Summilux-M > > http://tinyurl.com/18r > http://tinyurl.com/18r > http://www.elanphotos.com/ElanFotos/current_img/cat.0002.jpg > > feli > > > > On Mar 25, 2006, at 8:29 AM, B. D. Colen wrote: > >> Those are gorgeous images, Tina. And yet, over the years, you and >> I have >> both seen similar sorts of images shot by photographers who, like >> you, knew >> what they were doing, that were shot using 1.4 Nikon, Canon, >> Minolta, Zeiss, >> Olympus, and, yes, Leica ( ;-) ) lenses. I would suggest that most >> times >> when it's impossible to get the shot without a lens faster than >> 1.4 - and I >> stress most - the overall lighting is just so damn low and flat >> that even >> with a Super Lens the resulting photo is just muddy and flat. Most >> - stress >> on most again - of the time when there are splashes of light in >> the dark, as >> in your photos, 1.4 will do the trick. But of course there are, >> admittedly, >> those couple times a year that fall outside the mostness, and then >> it's have >> faster glass or miss the shot. :-) >> > > ________________________________________________________ > feli2@earthlink.net 2 + 2 = 4 > www.elanphotos.com > > > NO ARCHIVE > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >