Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2008/09/02
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi Simon, there is very sound advice in the thread, as you would have already seen. Some additional comments from me on technique for the situation you describe. Firstly the chromatic aberration you mention is very likely from the lenses used. Another great reason to have superb Leica glass! On metering you can use the built-in meter well, it's a matter of understanding what it is doing, just like with a film M. One option is to lock the exposure and recompose, when needed. As mentioned by others you can expose as though you were shooting transparency, rather than colour neg. Many people routinely use .33 or .66EV underexposure. You can see that works well by looking at the work of others who have replied. However you are giving up a considerable amount of the original possible tonal range by using that technique. That may not be important in practice. Safer certainly when you are shooting in a hurry. If you have time for careful consideration you can try without. It will repay you with even more superb SHADOW performance from the M8. When you succumb to the siren call of the M8 you can try for yourself and share your photos and opinions on that. Finally shooting DNG is very much superior, as is a good Raw converter. A couple of examples of the type of shot you described, (no -EV set) I try to expose to as near maximum highlight value as I can for the biggest tonal range to start with. The clipping warning on the camera and with the original default converter settings is only a guide. http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman/image/93634580 http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman/image/100078879 Cheers Geoff http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman/e http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/gh/ -----Original Message----- Subject: [Leica] About to take M8 plunge - but worried about blownhighlights... 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. _______________________________________________ Leica Users Group. See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information