Exposure meter question

[Marklow@mac.com]

I have had my M8 for 1 month and love using it every day. Haven's shot my Leicas for a while since I went all digital. Now I have been reunited with the Leica M and my various M lenses. Nothing I have used matches the quality of images produced by Leica lenses. However, I have been having some trouble using the metering, both manually and A Priority. My exposured are about 2 stops over exposed consistantly, forcing me to have to set the EV compensation to -2 to -2 1/3 to get good exposures. I have tested the meter with mid grey zone 5 targets and the histogram sometimes is in the middle but usually around 3/4 to the right towards 255 or zone 7. Is there something wrong with the camera or is it my lenses? I do not have any of the current coded lenses but still relatively new M lenses. It seems to make no difference whether the Lens Detection is disableb or enabled. I just updated the firmware to the current 1.092 but have not tested it since the update and I do not yet have the UV/IR filters but they say they are shipping out now so hopefully I'll have mine soon. Is it possible that the extended IR sensitivity of the M8 is causing this and the new 1.092 firmware cures it and the soon to be released 1.10 version addresses it further?

Mark

 

[Marklow@mac.com]

I am beginning to wonder if I am the only person who has experienced this and therefore it must be something I have overlooked. I realize that the metering area is center weighted and averaging but it still shoots a grey card about two stops above middle grey. I'll try different lenses and ISO settings to verify whether it is in all cases or not. Meanwhile, I'll just have to keep my EV comp set 2 to 3 stops down.

Mark

 

[peterleyenaar]

Hello Mark, I only have had the M8 for 2 days and experienced the same over exposure, I resorted to setting the ev to -2/3 and most of the shots are now properly exposed.
I am surprised that others haven't noticed this , perhaps the metering system is incorrect only on some M8s (yours and mine🙂.
I do miss the spot metering that the film m cameras have, I used to have an R8 also and the exposure in the various metering modes on that camera were dead on.

Best Regards

Peter

 

[boilerdoc2]

Mine's set to -1/3. But since the 1.102 upgrade I've returned it to '0'. i can't believe that it is 2 stops off. something fishy here. Let us know.
STEVE

 

[jaapv]

Mine is normally spot on. No blown highlights. You do check for that in the histogram, do you? a LCD cannot be relied on to judge exposure. For one thing, ambient light will influence your perception and of course, if it is set to "high" everyting will seem overexposed.

 

[Gid]

Sean Reid noted that the actual sensitivity of the M8 is higher than claimed - 160 = 200 iso, 320 = 400 iso etc. If the metering is based on the theoretical rather than the actual sensitivity, you'd expect to be about a half stop over exposed. I have noticed that my shots are quite often slightly overexposed, probably by around a half stop, so maybe that is a factor. I'm going to try setting comp to -1/2 and see how it goes (always shoot raw in any case).

 

[peterleyenaar]

Update: I updated the firmware to 1.102, now the exposure is dead on with 0 EV
correction, the images look better too, (my imagination?).
What a brilliant camera, if I had any trepedations, they are all gone, just some buyers remorse which will soon fade away, I can see that my 5D (with Leica lenses) will get less attention.
What does everyone shoot mostly, DNG, Jpg or both ?, with my 5D I always shoot raw, however the Jpgs fine look pretty good on the M8.

Best Regards

Peter

 

[DaveSee]

M8: exposing right, or to the right histogram-wise

M8: exposing right, or to the right histogram-wise

With film rigs, and specific film stock, I metered accordingly... then, with a digital cam(not this M8), was encouraged to "expose right[toward the highlights(sic)]. The M8 behaves much more like a film camera, and due to its range has me returning to "the center". From f/w 1.092 to 1.102 Leica has implemented a more generic color/white balance, still providing a very wide(9 levels) DR. As you've been shooting DLSR, and likely exposing "right", this may account for the over exposure... just a guess. I routinely find that a tad underexposed(per the > o < LEDs) yields a best result, scene depending. But then I still pull out the light meter for incident readings, again, per scene. Story short: if I could, I'd pull the battery--and light meter LEDs--using the M8, as I do with my M6... but that would stop the rig 😉

Story shorter, use the rig a bit more, and you'll feel the (light)force, Luke 😉

rgds,
Dave

 

[Andy Aitken]

Peter, I tried RAW on the M8 at first then after a while I came to the conclusion that it did JPEG's so well that I was basically just wasting time and space with RAW to get almost identical results. Others will no doubt disagree but I find that M8 JPEGs just pop out of the camera ready to print, something I've never experienced with any other digital camera. If I was using another camera I'd use RAW but the M8 is so good I just don't feel I need it.

Flameproof jacket on.