M8 and EV Compensation Question

[boymerang]

Hi all

I've been using my M8u for the last few months and been loving every minute of it.

One issue I've noticed is that I'm continuously over exposing (roughly 1/3 a stop.) This is sometimes a blessing in disguise in low light/high ISO environments but it's raised a question in my head.

Does adjusting the EV compensation change the threshold of the light meter or the sensitivity of the sensor? If the former, that would be a good thing and I'd go in and permanently set it to -1/3. If the latter then wouldn't it be useless, I'd just end up compensating with a slower shutter? Or is this setting only applicable in aperture priority mode?

Apologies if this has been covered before but I couldn't find an answer in the search results or M8 manual.

Regards

Gavin

 

[bolohead]

It compensates by adjusting your shutter speed.

 

[ruslan]

M8 overexposing about 2/3-1/3 EV cause this only one shutter blade is white, on new M9 leica did two additional grey blades for less EV corrections.

 

[Rob-F]

I noticed this same overexposure tendency right away on my M8.2. When downloading to Aperture, I found I was pulling back the highlights with the recovery slider and the highlight correction, on just about every shot. I'll be dialing in some correction before the next time I go out. (This was when using the camera on Aperture Priority.) I don't recall seeing this problem when shooting manual.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

I have never set the EV in my M8; it's always at 0.

In ACR/Lightroom I "discovered" not too long ago that if for Camera Profile you use the "Camera Standard" (with a slight Hue adjustment in the Green Channel) vs. "Adobe Standard" profile, the highlights are better tamed --most of the time to the point of being "recovered".

 

[Chyn]

Gabriel, can you elaborate a bit more on the green channel adjustment?

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Sure: it really depends on the scene, but I adjust to somewhere between +15 and +50 (the higher you go, the skin tones could look very reddish, depending on the WB temperature).

BTW, I've found that for higher ISO shots (1250 or 2500) in DNG files (as opposed to JPEGs), if I set the Saturation for the Green channel to about -50 the noise in the shadows "behave" (it doesn't disappear, but it looks less evident) --again, depending on WB and actual exposure.

 

[Chyn]

Gabriel, thank you for sharing your findings. Now I'm keen on trying this out for the high iso shots to see if they improve on the noise. I sometimes find myself having to tweak with the settings in order to get the skin tones right.

Sure: it really depends on the scene, but I adjust to somewhere between +15 and +50 (the higher you go, the skin tones could look very reddish, depending on the WB temperature).

BTW, I've found that for higher ISO shots (1250 or 2500) in DNG files (as opposed to JPEGs), if I set the Saturation for the Green channel to about -50 the noise in the shadows "behave" (it doesn't disappear, but it looks less evident) --again, depending on WB and actual exposure.

 

[MCTuomey]

I have owned two M8s and for 80% of my shooting set EC to -1/3 or -2/3 depending on the light. The meter's tendency toward overexposure was pretty consistent in my experience.

Lightroom's highlight recovery seems to work well for 1/3-2/3 stop, so if you prefer to correct in post-processing you've got some room in LR.

 

[Jim Evidon]

I always have my default menu set to - 1/3 ev and that cured the over exposure problem. If I am in a low light situation, I switch to a shooting profile ev 0.

 

[Iansky]

As above, I always have my M8.2 set at -1/3 EV as I do with all my other digitals.

This works for me as digital works in the same way as slide film.

 

[ramosa]

-1/3 ... As others have said

 

[ka7197]

As the Leica M cameras are photographer's tools (as opposed to auto-everything gizmos), their light meters work the simple old-fashioned way—medium tones will get rendered as medium tones. As a natural consequence, low- and medium-contrast scenes (i. e. those which don't exceed the sensor's dynamic range) will get exposed properly, and high-contrast scenes will get both their highlights and shadows clipped. The latter will get perceived as over-exposure by most users. It's the photographer's responsibility to adjust exposure according to the subject's contrast—that is, to expose for the highlights which in the digital age also has become known as "expose to the right", referring to the histogram's right-hand side. For most practical intents and purposes, dialling in an exposure bias of -1/3 EV will take care of the highlights for outdoor scenes in the sunshine, or -2/3 to -1 EV when contrasts are real high ... at the expense of the shadows, of course, which however is fine in most pictorial shots.

The exposure correction will affect both automatic and manual exposure, simply by adding a bias to the output of the light meter. Most users find a correction of -1/3 EV useful in auto-exposure mode but prefer no correction in manual-metering mode.