Consistent over exposure - M8

jaapv said:
No - the best is manual exposure. Measure the image for the parts you want exposed correctly.
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That's all well and good if you are shooting non-moving things. If you are shooting street under quickly changing light conditions then digital is not as simple as B&W film. There I set a reasonable exposure that will give me good shadows. I don't worry too much about the highlights. Unfortunately, you cannot really take that approach with a digital camera.
 
do you have a well-calibrated handheld meter or another camera with a reliable meter? if you do, i would compare the M8's metering against it on several subjects/scenes. also, be sure your files are DNG, not in-camera jpgs.

it looks to me like your M8's metering is both inconsistent and erring on the side of significant overexposure.

in any case, i'd send it in for meter testing and calibration - that'll give you peace of mind if you plan to rely on its meter and/or AE for your shooting.
 
I find my M8's meter no better or no worse than the matrix/center weighted metering in my ex-5D. Both are wrong in the expected ways (ie: backlit, lots of sky and so forth).
 
JSU said:
I use AE & AWB 99% of the time with my M8.2's and shooting RAW files. I can honestly say that with this method I have not lost a single frame to a poor exposure. I may miss with focus and/or the moment, but never with the exposure. The M8.2's RAW files at ISO 160 & 320 provide more latitude than I have ever had with color film, both for exposure and white balance correction.

Back in the bad old days before shooting RAW (last using PhotoShop 7) when I was forced to shoot JPEG or TIFF files, I had to nail the exposure and the white balance, there was little excess file info for correction. Pretty much the same as shooting a chrome. Not the case with RAW and CS3, though. Cameras I currently use (Nikon D3 & D700 as well as the Leica M8.2) are amazing with their AWB, too. Only in the most extreme light (sodium vapor comes to mind) will I go with a custom white balance.
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99% is very high to achieve perfect exposure and white balance, especially with such a simple meter like the M8. Imagine what a D3s can do with 50 million zones of metering, or whatever it has. Maybe 99.1%.

Even on a day where my ego is at it's greatest I'm only on about 88% in manual, and that's bumping it up somewhat. I guess if the auto setting is that great, then maybe EVERYONE can achieve a 99% hit rate.
 
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Umm.... Yeah... ok... You do what you gotta do Mr. Leicashot. Power to you. Maybe I'll be there someday. Thanks for, uh? Everything.

.......

As for my M8 and it's meter, I'm gonna test it with a known good meter this week.

Thanks for all the help fellas.
 
Ryan1938 said:
Umm.... Yeah... ok... You do what you gotta do Mr. Leicashot. Power to you. Maybe I'll be there someday. Thanks for, uh? Everything.

.......

As for my M8 and it's meter, I'm gonna test it with a known good meter this week.

Thanks for all the help fellas.
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You're very welcome. I'm glad you saw such advice in front of you and chose what to ignore and what might actually be good for you....but something tells me that this won't be the last time you'll complain that your light meter is making poor exposures. It's an all too common complaint from AE users - that is, except JSU who has mastered it.
 
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Ryan1938 said:
Umm.... Yeah... ok... You do what you gotta do Mr. Leicashot. Power to you. Maybe I'll be there someday. Thanks for, uh? Everything.

.......

As for my M8 and it's meter, I'm gonna test it with a known good meter this week.

Thanks for all the help fellas.
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Ryan, please indulge me, if you will as you were very quick an eager to dismiss my advice, advice that I feel could actually help you with your photography.

If manual is not better than AE, and we should trust the built in meter, then why do they use ambient light meters, especially in film and television? They obviously use this with manual exposure too, so why?

I'm not trying to be smart here, just asking you a question related to topic.
 
Sorry. I'm not really into the internet drama thing.

...

This thread was based around whether or not my M8 meter was working accurately. It was not about different opinions towards the methods at which to take exposures. I'm actually getting ready to take a class that covers such things.

In any case, thank you for your opinion anyway. I appreciate it.
 
dfoo said:
That's all well and good if you are shooting non-moving things. If you are shooting street under quickly changing light conditions then digital is not as simple as B&W film. There I set a reasonable exposure that will give me good shadows. I don't worry too much about the highlights. Unfortunately, you cannot really take that approach with a digital camera.
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I wonder how I got -and continue to get- decent images with my M6....:rolleyes:
 
JSU said:
So you disregard the Leica's fine TTL meter in preference to a hand held spot meter, particularly with wide angle lenses?
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I guess you did not bother to check the metering diagram of your fine Leica TTL meter. If so, you would have found it is a semi-spot meter, very much suited to exactly this type of manual metering.
 
Ryan1938 said:
I'm actually getting ready to take a class that covers such things.
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That is a very good idea. The simple - but very accurate if used correctly- metering system of the M cameras needs a bit of a learning curve for those used to depend on the automation of a matrix meter.
 
ryan, taking a course is a excellent idea. so is shooting a great deal to learn the idiosyncracies of your camera's meter. but first, as you indicated, assuring yourself that it is functioning properly is necessary.

internet posture and personality aside, kristian (*leicashot*) is a very capable photographer (check his site). his suggestion, that learning how to set exposure manually will make you and your images better, is good advice. even if you end up preferring to rely on AE.

jaap's point that a leica M meter, if used correctly, is quite effective, is of course true of any well-calibrated, reliable meter. the key is learning to use it properly.
 
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JSU said:
Digital has its own demands as does color negative film, color chrome film and B&W film. And digital can further be qualified as to exposing for a RAW file or for a JPG and TIFF files. Knowing your media and how it responds to light is as essential as understanding the nuances of a given light meter. And it matters not if the meter is in a camera or separately held in the hand, whether the meter interfaces automatically with the camera's exposure controls or if such interface is manually set such as for a camera without a meter.

And then there is the essential consideration / parameter of processing. Some processes (E6 for example) leave very little leeway for recovering from exposure error. The RAW convertor / processor in Adobe PhotoShop CS3 (and 4 & 5) together with a quality RAW file (DNG, NEF, etc.) exposed well within the ISO limits from a camera such as a D3, D700, M8.2 or M9 offers a substantial exposure flexibility given the very real latitude of the process. Other elaborations can be stated, but there really isn't any point.

I use auto white balance and auto exposure because I have come to understand through using my cameras and computer / software what the limitations are and aren't, what I can and can't do. I learned exposure exposing and processing B&W film, later on I started shooting chromes and refined my exposure technique with Kodachrome. It was a major step towards exposure recovery when my job switched from E6 chromes to C41 color neg films as there was some opportunity for color correction after the fact (ie, after the exposure and film processing.)

The early days of digital was not unlike shooting chromes. Cameras could manage white balance but AWB was chancey so everyone carried gray cards and set custom white balances for every situation. Shooting JPG and TIFF files also demanded very careful exposure with serious attention given to not over exposing and blowing out a highlight. The move to PhotoShop CS and shooting RAW files provided more latitude than that available with the C41 color negative process.

When you know your camera, media and process you should understand whether or not AWB and/or AE can be trusted. It isn't ego or arrogance, it is experience. If a mistake is made it is an opportunity to learn, not to ignore and perhaps repeat the mistake some other time.

A camera is a tool. So is a saw. I own power saws and hand saws and understand when it is appropriate to use each. I also own two different incident hand held meters and a hand held one degree spot meter. There are times appropriate for using them as well. Likewise I have meters built into each of my digital cameras and have endeavored to learn those meters so as to eliminate guesswork.
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JSU you have some good points but learning exposure meters in different cameras is counter productive and a waste of time. Exposure is exposure, a set of 2 values that determine the look and feel of a picture, written with light. It's not complicated but manufacturers make users believe that by incorporating complex algorithms into their exposure meters, except Leica with the M cameras.

With experience, the photographer should be able to learn how to read light and foresee and anticipate light changes, and react to them by adjusting the equivalent exposure without relying on such meters. Wile it sounds daunting it's much simpler than playing a guessing game with your in-camera meter, trying to work out what it's thinking and how to compensate for such potential inaccuracies.

The best way is to measure ambient lighting falling on the subject, and it will always be. What use is AE if you shoot a series of 5 images in a room and all have slightly different exposures and white balance, all due to the fact the camera is getting confused about the reflected light it's trying to read. A camera has NO IDEA what you're trying to expose for, so it can NEVER be consistent in exposing, but a trained human can, with experience, persistence and confidence.

Cheers
 
JSU said:
Perhaps this is why every Nikon I have ever used with variable meter patterns have only been used with the "center weighted" selection which pretty much duplicates the pattern of the original FTn, the F2 and F3 meters. For me it is most simple and eliminates guesswork and needless complications.

In college it was a running joke among the lab TA's to refer to the students' incident meters (which they were required to use for the intro course) as idiot meters. For the first half of that course TTL metering wasn't allowed. I still carry either a Minolta Auto Meter II or an Auto Meter IV-F when venturing out with just my M4 & M2. Reflected metering, except from an 18% gray card, typically requires interpretation / compensation. And then there will always be the issues of desired high or low key images....

Likewise, cheers!
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Now we're thinking alike! ;)
 
boy, you guys took to greek and took over my thread like a bunch of imperialistic soldiers hell bent on destroying the fabric of my M8 meter.

:)
 
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