[Leica] About to take M8 plunge - but worried about blown highlights...

[simonpj at mac.com (Wyndham Pulman-Jones)]

The one thing that has held me back from buying an M8 is my dislike of the 
look of blown highlights in digital photos. Almost all of my shooting is of 
people interacting in social and working situations - and I always expose by 
taking incident readings for people's faces and letting everything else fall 
where it may. This frequently means that lighter exteriors visible through 
windows or doors are overexposed - but when using fast colour negative film 
there is almost always some tone and character to the overexposed area. The 
same also applies to highlights on people's hair when strongly backlit. 

When I have used digital (Epson RD-1, Canon 1Ds) I have not liked the 
totally white blown out highlights, fringed with un-natural looking 
chromatic aberation, that often result from shooting in this way (when you 
are not able to worry about exposinig for areas of the photo not carrying 
the narrative interest, which might end up significantly overexposed.) 

Does the M8 suffer from this just as much as any other digital camera? If 
so, what's the best technique for stopping those 'outside the scene' 
highlights from blowing out? Or is it just not possible with the M8 to 'set 
and forget' exposure in the way that you can with incident metering for the 
latitude of negative film?

(I found some M8 DNG samples which show totally blown out 'through the 
window' highlights which have the digital look that just doesn't look right 
to me: http://rpo.eranet.tv/)

Thanks,

Simon.
Cambridge, UK.