How do I encourage the M8 in low light ?

[dee]

I read somewhere that the M8 could increase light sensitivity without excess grain - how do I do this ?
Thanks
dee

 

[Black]

Not sure you can, dee. The M8 is limited by its CCD sensor and its firmware.

Your best option is lower ISO and increased exposure times.

Or a flash.

 

[rbelyell]

or an rd1 which yields lovely results at 1600. ):

 

[user237428934]

or an rd1 which yields lovely results at 1600. ):

Was that the question?

 

[user237428934]

You can increase exposure in the raw converter one or two steps. So you if you needed 1/60, f2 and ISO 1250 you could try 1/60, f2 and ISO 320 and "overexpose" the underexposed photo in the software later. With the M8 you are quite limited. With my M8 I got sometimes nasty banding when I increase above 1 EV. Sometimes it worked. With the M9 I can increase up to 3EV without problems.

 

[Ong]

Wasn't there a thing a while back of running it at 160-320 and using the exposure comp to get your desired ISO, then running it through LR to boost up to the required levels that got better results than in camera?

 

[willie_901]

Maximize exposure at base ISO (200?)... let unimportant highlights over expose.

• use DNG
• use ISO 640 or lower
• increase image brightness during post-production rendering in Lightroom

During DNG rendering you can selectively lift the shadow regions and you can also use a brush tool to selective apply noise filtering (a.k.a. 'noise reduction')

 

[froyd]

Not sure you can, dee. The M8 is limited by its CCD sensor and its firmware.

Your best option is lower ISO and increased exposure times.

Or a flash.

My admittedly limited understanding is that longer exposure times generate more noise as the sensor warms up.

 

[mbf4755]

Are you thinking of this?

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138041

Post #35 shows an ISO 2500 example.

I have no expeience with the M8 or this workaround. I only remembered the thread.

 

[user237428934]

My admittedly limited understanding is that longer exposure times generate more noise as the sensor warms up.

But not in the range of more or less hand holdable times. If you expose more than 4 sec. (when I remember right) the camera takes a 2nd black-image taken with the same exposure time and subtracts all the noise from the first image.

Just looked in my library and found quite a lot of longer exposures with the M8 up to 24 sec at ISO 160. There is no noise problem.

 

[dee]

Thanks everyone.dee