Best camera for low light social photography - to replace / supplement M9??

[jlindstrom]

Best camera for low light social photography - to replace / supplement M9??

You have the lenses & you are very familiar with M in these situations, including digital Ms.

I would go for the M10. Has the high iso, has great RF & familiar work flow.

 

[maitani]

how about a TL2 Leica, modern cmos, fast camera, silent shutter, great hi-iso, enough dr and resolution to work with, add an an m adapter and you're ready. keep the M9 for umatched daylight CCD tonality.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

The lighting varies - but the key challenges of the situation are consistent. I'm talking about a very broad category of photography - but one which I'm sure is a very common one - especially among the rangefinder-style photography community.

Typically this would be sitting amongst family or friends in a café, or bar, or at the dinner table - or similar situations with work colleagues, plus other work situations, which might include workshops and meetings.

Lighting varies widely, of course, though the main thing is that it's constantly changing from front- to side- to back-lit as the conversation or action develops, and it's very often far from ideal in terms of colour temp or brightness.

Motion blur and shallow focus plane are perpetual challenges that you can often make work for you, but do lead to lost images. And it does seem that active photographing with a camera has become more noticeable and intrusive now that using a smartphone for photos has become taken-for-granted and 'invisible'.

I'm wondering whether waistlevel shooting with, say, a Sony A7s and a 28/2 lens might have advantages. Guess I'll have to try!

I have added 28mm Orion for it and using flash. On M-E. At F8 all is in focus. Nobody cares about flash at home, pubs. If it is for business, should be taken open style, not rangefinder 🙂.

Without flash to have people in focus at f4, something like Color Skopar 25 is great to be by the same table and have all in focus and next to all in da frame. I have done it with bw film pushed at 1600. M9 could handle it same way as well.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

Interesting thread. Four years ago was a bit different.

Today, I want to shoot indoors, in the kind of lighting we use for social interactions, not the kind of lighting we would design for photography, without flash. Dinner parties, living room conversation, and so forth. For this, I use today's digitals with an f/1.7 or f/1.8 lens.

If you don't mind a big camera, then a full-frame SLR with an 85mm lens, mine is a Nikon D600 with the 85 f/1.8.

If you want less intrusive, then mirrorless. My favorite is a Sony A6000 with the terrific Zeiss 55 f/1.8. It's a lot smaller than the full frame Nikon, and the low light performance is good enough.

Full frame mirrorless is in-between.

 

[stompyq]

Interesting thread. Four years ago was a bit different.

Today, I want to shoot indoors, in the kind of lighting we use for social interactions, not the kind of lighting we would design for photography, without flash. Dinner parties, living room conversation, and so forth. For this, I use today's digitals with an f/1.7 or f/1.8 lens.

If you don't mind a big camera, then a full-frame SLR with an 85mm lens, mine is a Nikon D600 with the 85 f/1.8.

If you want less intrusive, then mirrorless. My favorite is a Sony A6000 with the terrific Zeiss 55 f/1.8. It's a lot smaller than the full frame Nikon, and the low light performance is good enough.

Full frame mirrorless is in-between.

D600 is blind in lowlight.

 

[aizan]

Best Low Light camera ever has to be the original X100. ISO 6400 is quite useable.

nvm. jsrockit said it already.

 

[bayernfan]

for digital, a 6D2 and a fast prime would be my personal pick. cant stand EVFs.

very small FF SLR, yet amazing ergonomics. and a sensor that’s tailored for high ISO.

 

[Fraser]

I would say any higher end Nikon Sony canon or Fuji just not a Leica, as much as I like Leica digital rangefinders they have always been well behind everyone else in the high ISO game.

 

[jazzwave]

I'm happy with my M10 , never got issue in low light
I can shoot with ISO6400 with acceptable noise
Honestly, I never use ISO more than 1600. And M10 deliver "clean" image at this ISO.


But if really need very high ISO >10000, you can't go wrong with DSLR Canon 5D and Nikon 8xx or Sony A7 mirrorless


~ron~

 

[Peter_S]

Have you considered the Leica TL2?

 

[Paul T.]

I'm puzzled by the recommendations for the original x100. ALthough picture quality is good for high ISO, focusing really isnt. It's light-years behind my Hexar AF. It's far more pernickety about what it condescends to focus on - obviously one looks for high contrast areas - which makes it much more intrusive. I use the Hexar when doing interviews, I can simply focus lock, keep talking until I see a natural-looking expression, and grab the shot without hassle. It's significantly more difficult to do that with the X100, however much I love it.


I assume current iterations are better, but wouldn't make assumptions.

 

[Axel]

Seen from pure technology aspects a Sony A7(..) makes the race.
Big sensor with stabilizer for good high ISOs.
Put a decent lens of your choice on it and go.

 

[jamin-b]

Nikon df (D4 sensor) and a 50mm f1.4, secondhand cheaper than a 35mm Summicron I don't believe even the latest Leica sensor is as good in low light.

I can second the Df as a formidable low light camera, especially for b&w processing. The major factor that lures me to the Leica M10 would be the ability to make similar night time use with my LTM and M mount lenses in a much smaller package for travel. But the cost of the M10 is prohibitive for me, and i am less attracted to the Sony mirrorless solutions.

 

[willie_901]

S/N is all that counts when the sensor must be underexposed (i.e. social photography in low light). S/N also determines the maximum analog dynamic range in very bright light.

The Leica M 10 has an excellent signal-to-noise ratio.


If you don't want to spend $6,900 on an M 10, the X-Pro 2 with the Fujinon 27/2.8 would be my recommendation. The new Fujinon f 2 lens line up (23, 35 and 50 mm) is excellent for social, documentary projects.

I am biased because I have used FUJIFILM X cameras since the first X100 units arrived in the US market.

The X-Pro 2 can be operated as a manual, optical finder, frame-line camera. No automation is forced on you. A FUJIFILM M-lens adaptor with raw-file correction profiles is available (but expensive). Less expensive M adaptors exist. I have never used a mechanical-focus lens on my X-Pro 1 or 2. But the built-in MF focusing aids do work well. Be aware, patience is required to learn how to set the X-Pro 2 up for minimalistic manual usage.

I do not recommend the first generation FUJIFILM X bodies (X100, X-Pro 1). The onboard computers are too slow so their manual focus aids are inferior. If an optical viewfinder is not important, the second generation X-Series bodies are affordable.

If a fixed-lens camera is acceptable, the X100S or 100T would be affordable alternatives with optical finders.

A gently used Leica M 242 or 262 (~$3,000-4,000) would be the best way to enjoy your M/LTM lenses. Thier S/N is very good.


Here are data for the read noise vs ISO for these cameras. But this data only tells half of the story since it only compares the noise in S/N.

The signal levels increase as sensor area increases. So, here are some data that are normalized for sensor area.

This chart is tricky to read. The vertical axis more or less represents technical, raw file IQ at high ISOs (S/N). The third vertical column from the left has data for APS-C sensors. The fifth column from the left has data for 24 x 36 mm sensors.

People do excellent social documentary work with DSLRs. In my opinion, DSLRs (even the smallest ones with small lenses) are not well-suited for social documentary work

 

[airfrogusmc]

M 10 would be my vote. I have an M 262 in the M 10 is at least 2 stops better in low light. I also have an M-E and it is great if the light is there but in low light the M 10 is really good. I have no problem shooting at 20,000 with the M 10.

Some test shots I did at 20,000 ISO when my M 10 was new. I was curious of how well it would handle low light and wanted to try it before I shot a job for a client.

Both shot in tungsten light.

For a graduation for a university client at 6400. Strobe softened and gelled for the tungsten ambient (about 2700K) and used as a true fill about a stop and a half down from ambits and exposure. Strobe over camera and set manually. 1/128 IIRC.

 

[airfrogusmc]

These are from a fairly recent formal event I shot and all were at 12500 ISO (M 10}

 

[giganova]

For "light social photography", I would definitely not use a Nikon D3. :roll eyes:

Something small, unobtrusive, Leica Q or TL2 might be perfect, or some less expensive mirrorless, probably with an APS sensor. Autofocus would come in handy because focusing in low-light would be a challenge. I would say the smaller, the better.

 

[Lux Optima]

My Leica Monochrom 246 and the Summilux 1.4/50 work perfectly with low light - and outddors in a city even at midnight without any flash.

 

[mod2001]

These are from a fairly recent formal event I shot and all were at 12500 ISO (M 10}

no offense, but in this small size every actual digital camera would look the same more or less, can't see any sense here. Of course, probably ok for social networks.

Jürgen

 

[kuuan]

For "light social photography", I would definitely not use a Nikon D3. :roll eyes:

Something small, unobtrusive, Leica Q or TL2 might be perfect, or some less expensive mirrorless, probably with an APS sensor. Autofocus would come in handy because focusing in low-light would be a challenge. I would say the smaller, the better.

for unobstrusive use but already good high ISO I still enjoy my Sony NEX5n, NEX3/5 series are the smallest digital system cams with APS-C sensor ever made, and I find manual focus in low light, using it's EVF and excellent amplification of the signal, no problem at all! - much better than autofocus. Newer models will be better in the later but not worse for the former
Though of course there are differences, and one will have to pay for the very latest and best ( if you need that, checking out the sensor rating by dxomark may help ), but which digital camera starting from m4/3rd or if it was APS-C and then "FF" that came out during the last few years won't have good enough high ISO performance for pretty much any situation??