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

[afirkin at afirkin.com (Alastair Firkin)]

Simon, I think all digital recording suffers from a tendency to blown 
highlights. The good news is that unlike slide film, you can really "delve" 
into the shadows (esp with b/w and the IR effect). For this reason, all our 
cameras are set to a -ev setting. I usually take a couple of test shots in 
the current light, review the histogram and wind the ev compensation back 
till the highlights are controlled. This usually means -2/3 to -1 ev, but in 
some lighting I've shot with -3 ev. You MUST shoot RAW, so that when the 
image is "developed", you can use compensation development to bring the 
range of tones into line with the result you want. 

Another technique is to combine multiple exposures, but this is not going to 
work well with most of your work, although if you are shooting on a tripod, 
you could look to exposing incident for the subject and spot for the 
highlights and work hard in PS later. 

Think of digital as slide film, but with greater low latitude, keep those 
highlights in control by using the power of RAW, and I think you will be 
very happy with your M8, remembering IT IS NOT A PERFECT CAMERA ;-)

Cheers and show us the images

Alastair

--- simonpj@mac.com wrote:

From: Wyndham Pulman-Jones <simonpj@mac.com>
To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org>
Subject: [Leica] About to take M8 plunge - but worried about blown      
highlights...
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:10:04 +0100

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