[Leica] More LR / Monochrom oddities.....

[jbmmllug at jbm.org (Jeff Moore)]

On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 12:36 PM,  <tedgrant at shaw.ca> wrote:
> And knowing all this stuff? Does it make one a "better photographer at
> capturing the magical moment?"

As others have said, I think it's useful for getting through the
learning curve as you figure out what sorts of settings work best in
particular circumstances, especially right after you've added a new
gizmo.

For instance, there's a particular theater in which I shoot a live
show pretty much every two weeks.  The lighting is consistent from
week to week (if not from one part of the stage to another);  the
distance from which I'll be shooting is pretty consistent.  I've been
pretty steadily using the 50mm Summilux-M ASPH recently.  But after
getting my hands on the M Monochrom, I've been varying some things to
try to figure out what gives me the best hit rate and quality, and
having the EXIF data in each image tell me what ISO and shutter speed
were used is really helpful when looking at the photos full-size on my
big monitor, looking at whether people's eyes seem critically sharp
and whether the noise/grain seems intrusive.

Do I opt for a high shutter speed, because people busily talking are
actually moving around quite a lot?  Do I stop down the lens for
better depth of field, also because people move around (and because
there are often multiple people in the shot)?  Do I go with a slower
ISO, so noise isn't intrusive?

At the distances at which I'm shooting, f/4 works great, 1/250th keeps
everything pretty sharp, and the MM looks great at ISO 1250... but
these aren't all possible at the same time given the lighting.  The MM
still looks pretty decent at 2500, tends to get a little white-speckly
at 5000.  So what looks better, opening the lens some to buy a
nicer-looking ISO?  How reliable is focus at that distance at f/2,
with people wiggling around?  How often do things look acceptably
sharp at slower shutter speeds?  How well does what the meter was
saying correlate with how the picture actually got exposed -
especially important because when the Monochrom has blown highlights,
they're really truly blown.

Sure, I have rules of thumb about this stuff which have tended to work
over the years, but if I can do some pixel-peeping early on, I can
figure out what looks good for real under these circumstances.  And
with the camera recording EXIF data, I don't have to remember exactly
what settings I tried when (although of course an M's notion of what
aperture was used is always just a guess; it helps to remember a *few*
things).

Once I figure out what tradeoff works reliably and gives me the
results I like the most, I can start incorporating a knowledge of
those settings into my reflexes as I shoot, with the hope that
eventually I won't have to think about it any more, but will just
shoot based on what I see and when, and my fingers and subconscious
will do most of the work with the camera dials and buttons.  That's
when you're at your most fluid and responsive when taking pictures.
But I'm not quite there yet with this new combination of stuff.

-Jeff