[Leica] Comparing B&W M9/MM

[leica at jayburleson.com (Jay Burleson)]

Ken, out of the camera, the dng from the MM is (if properly exposed) 
pretty flat looking.
You will find examples all over with no processing done, which show that 
flatness.
But the dng is so manipulable, you can pull it in any direction to 
support the look you want. I'll be posting some examples of that later 
tonight.

If you open a MM dng in PS, you will have an 8-bit Greyscale image.
I don't use PS for much, I use Lightroom, and when LR exports to a jpg, 
it is an sRGB colorspace, so viewing MM and color images on properly 
calibrated monitors and most web browsers is the same.

A properly exposed & developed Tri-X neg is generally accepted to have 
13.5 stops of dynamic range.
Several sources stated & test that the MM has a dynamic range of approx. 
13 plus stops.
Most of that small loss is in the shoulder, in my opinion.

Once you learn to meter and protect the highlights (since there is no 
chance of recovery if clipped), there are amazing things that can come 
out of the dng.

Jay

On 1/27/2014 6:06 PM, Ken Carney wrote:
> The MM image looks flat to me, as you say like TMax compared to TriX.  
> Or at least that was my experience with 35mm film.  The MM image is an 
> unknown grayscale, and the M9 image is sRGB.  How would that affect 
> the comparison, especially as this might affect web display?
>
> Question #2: I have been looking again at the dynamic range 
> differences between film and digital especially as concerns b&w.  For 
> film, the advantage is more room in the shoulder as compared to 
> digital.  How does the MM compare there, i.e., range in the shoulder 
> vs. color digital cameras?
>
> Thx
>
> Ken
>


-- 
Jay,

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