danielsterno
making soup from mud
All:
Renting a M9 from Fri. 1/16 through Mon. 1/19. I will have access to M9 online manual though I will not be able to spend much time studying it before hand and looking for your insight on quick tips/best practice on usage. I have a M6 + M5 thus that is the extent of my Leica experience- no Leica digital… Thank You in advance. Daniel
Renting a M9 from Fri. 1/16 through Mon. 1/19. I will have access to M9 online manual though I will not be able to spend much time studying it before hand and looking for your insight on quick tips/best practice on usage. I have a M6 + M5 thus that is the extent of my Leica experience- no Leica digital… Thank You in advance. Daniel
icebear
Veteran
First thing you wanna do is to format your SD card in the M9. OK the very first thing would have been to put a fully charged battery in it
.
Once you put the lens on, you can manually select an appropriate lens (or something of the same focal length) from the menu. Set ISO manually and you're ready to shoot. Have fun.
.Once you put the lens on, you can manually select an appropriate lens (or something of the same focal length) from the menu. Set ISO manually and you're ready to shoot. Have fun.
Duane Pandorf
Well-known
Some more things you may want to set up.
Selecting the Menu button accesses all the options in one bank. If your lens is 6 bit coded set the Lens Detection to auto otherwise manually select your lens.
Next select the Set menu (bottom left button) and start off with White Balance Auto, Compresion DNG or DNG + JPG.
Go back to the Menu button and and scroll down to DNG setup and set it to Uncompressed. Move up a couple lines and set Auto power off to 1 or 2 minutes (slightly depressing the shutter release turns the camera back on), if you set up DNG+JPG you save the JPG as B&W via the Color saturation option, set Color management to Adobe RGB.
Have fun.
Selecting the Menu button accesses all the options in one bank. If your lens is 6 bit coded set the Lens Detection to auto otherwise manually select your lens.
Next select the Set menu (bottom left button) and start off with White Balance Auto, Compresion DNG or DNG + JPG.
Go back to the Menu button and and scroll down to DNG setup and set it to Uncompressed. Move up a couple lines and set Auto power off to 1 or 2 minutes (slightly depressing the shutter release turns the camera back on), if you set up DNG+JPG you save the JPG as B&W via the Color saturation option, set Color management to Adobe RGB.
Have fun.
dogberryjr
[Pithy phrase]
No auto ISO!*
*Before some auto-ISO lover jumps on my head here, I have nothing against auto-ISO, if someone is trying to figure out if they like the M9, then I suggest treating it like a film camera as far as ISO goes, obviously taking advantage of resetting ISO when necessary, but doing it with intent, not automation. ::Whew::
*Before some auto-ISO lover jumps on my head here, I have nothing against auto-ISO, if someone is trying to figure out if they like the M9, then I suggest treating it like a film camera as far as ISO goes, obviously taking advantage of resetting ISO when necessary, but doing it with intent, not automation. ::Whew::
kxl
Social Documentary
Get the damage and theft protection. It's worth $$ for the peace of mind.
dof
Fiat Lux
Shoot RAW files.
Even if you also shoot JPEG, shoot RAW files.
Even if you also shoot JPEG, shoot RAW files.
raid
Dad Photographer
DNG files also reduce what you have to set on the M9.
Do not take photos quickly back to back or the M9 may freeze up due to buffering time.
I use ISO 160 most of the time.
I set the M9 to Auto exposure, and I use exposure adjustments as needed with the SET button.
Do not take photos quickly back to back or the M9 may freeze up due to buffering time.
I use ISO 160 most of the time.
I set the M9 to Auto exposure, and I use exposure adjustments as needed with the SET button.
danielsterno
making soup from mud
Thank you all! and keep them coming! I would have never of discovered these suggestions within 3 days…. - night-Daniel.
Phil_F_NM
Camera hacker
Carry at least one extra battery.
Don't chimp.
Phil Forrest
Don't chimp.
Phil Forrest
Richard G
Veteran
Good suggestions all so far. Keep the camera turned on the whole time you are out with it. If you know a shot is coming up just lightly press the shutter button to bring it out of sleep.
EXPOSURE
Set the Shutter activation mode to Standard, and deselect choosing Exposure Compensation from the scroll wheel on the back of the camera. It's too easy to accidentally dial in an exposure compensation and it takes a while to work out this has happened. With the Standard shutter activation you can use the half press to lock the exposure: half press the shutter till you see a dot appear next to the first digit in the shutter speed read out, then reframe and shoot. This is important if you're using a 28 for instance or all your auto-exposure shots will be too dark. Use it as if you had slide film in your M6 or M5. If you are out in bright light your impression from the monitor that the exposure is OK or underexposed, you might well be wrong. If you are working from Sunny 16 or have confidence in your exposures, then good. Otherwise review the image and press the Info button to check your exposure histogram until you get the feel of it.
Use the A shutter setting, but in a challenging light, or constant conditions, consider switching to a manual setting for the hour once you know the exposure. Always check what the shutter setting is at the beginning of any new raising of the camera from where it's been hanging or sitting. Otherwise you'll overlook that you had set 1/4s indoors before lunch, and that beautiful girl crossing the road is lost in a sea of white. Presumably the M7 can be point and shoot, as the M6 meter seems exceedingly clever. The M9 meter needs a bit more thinking behind the camera in my experience. You'll get a lot of good shots just pointing and shooting on A, but you'll overexpose too many and underexpose too many for this to be a satisfactory policy. Indoors at night with the M9 jpeg black and white I've been very happy with ISO 1600. Lately I have been avoiding going above ISO 640. Deliberate underexposure if you have to have a faster shutter speed will work, but the noise will come up quickly with such exposures. Trying to make ISO 2500 work in low light is not a great solution.
FOCUS
With anything wider than a 50 you can't easily check focus with the LCD. By the time you zoom in twice it looks like everything is blurred. So use a lens you have confidence in, bearing in mind that digital is much less tolerant of back-focussed lenses etc. I happily used a back focussing Summicron 50 for decades before I formally checked it on the M9 and found it to be off.
EMERGENCY
Carry a spare M9 formatted card. Avoid SanDisk 8G Extreme. If the camera locks up and you can't make it do a thing, turn it off, take the battery and the card out. Wait. Put the battery and then the card back in. Turn it on. It might be fine. If not, repeat, and use the other card. This has not now happened to me for well over a year and much longer running two such cameras, but weird things are more likely to happen early and with inexperience and you don't have time to waste.
Heed the advice above about Continuous shooting. You can use that mode but only take a few. And then wait for them to amble through the buffer. Don't turn off the camera till the blinking red light on the back has stopped.
ERGONOMICS
It's harder to walk around with the camera in one hand than with the M6. But that's what I do. I have the strap wrapped around my wrist and and the camera partly hangs off that and is partly carried by my fingers.
The baseplate is the reverse of the M6. Try this: if you take the baseplate off the M6 with your right hand with the lens pointing down, do this operation on the M9 with the lens pointing up. That way the lug slot is away from you and the locking key is close to you. Without this algorithm you'd spend some months trying it the wrong way every time. And remember, that when you do give the M9 back and put another film in the M6, turn the key the full 180 degrees.
Have fun.
EXPOSURE
Set the Shutter activation mode to Standard, and deselect choosing Exposure Compensation from the scroll wheel on the back of the camera. It's too easy to accidentally dial in an exposure compensation and it takes a while to work out this has happened. With the Standard shutter activation you can use the half press to lock the exposure: half press the shutter till you see a dot appear next to the first digit in the shutter speed read out, then reframe and shoot. This is important if you're using a 28 for instance or all your auto-exposure shots will be too dark. Use it as if you had slide film in your M6 or M5. If you are out in bright light your impression from the monitor that the exposure is OK or underexposed, you might well be wrong. If you are working from Sunny 16 or have confidence in your exposures, then good. Otherwise review the image and press the Info button to check your exposure histogram until you get the feel of it.
Use the A shutter setting, but in a challenging light, or constant conditions, consider switching to a manual setting for the hour once you know the exposure. Always check what the shutter setting is at the beginning of any new raising of the camera from where it's been hanging or sitting. Otherwise you'll overlook that you had set 1/4s indoors before lunch, and that beautiful girl crossing the road is lost in a sea of white. Presumably the M7 can be point and shoot, as the M6 meter seems exceedingly clever. The M9 meter needs a bit more thinking behind the camera in my experience. You'll get a lot of good shots just pointing and shooting on A, but you'll overexpose too many and underexpose too many for this to be a satisfactory policy. Indoors at night with the M9 jpeg black and white I've been very happy with ISO 1600. Lately I have been avoiding going above ISO 640. Deliberate underexposure if you have to have a faster shutter speed will work, but the noise will come up quickly with such exposures. Trying to make ISO 2500 work in low light is not a great solution.
FOCUS
With anything wider than a 50 you can't easily check focus with the LCD. By the time you zoom in twice it looks like everything is blurred. So use a lens you have confidence in, bearing in mind that digital is much less tolerant of back-focussed lenses etc. I happily used a back focussing Summicron 50 for decades before I formally checked it on the M9 and found it to be off.
EMERGENCY
Carry a spare M9 formatted card. Avoid SanDisk 8G Extreme. If the camera locks up and you can't make it do a thing, turn it off, take the battery and the card out. Wait. Put the battery and then the card back in. Turn it on. It might be fine. If not, repeat, and use the other card. This has not now happened to me for well over a year and much longer running two such cameras, but weird things are more likely to happen early and with inexperience and you don't have time to waste.
Heed the advice above about Continuous shooting. You can use that mode but only take a few. And then wait for them to amble through the buffer. Don't turn off the camera till the blinking red light on the back has stopped.
ERGONOMICS
It's harder to walk around with the camera in one hand than with the M6. But that's what I do. I have the strap wrapped around my wrist and and the camera partly hangs off that and is partly carried by my fingers.
The baseplate is the reverse of the M6. Try this: if you take the baseplate off the M6 with your right hand with the lens pointing down, do this operation on the M9 with the lens pointing up. That way the lug slot is away from you and the locking key is close to you. Without this algorithm you'd spend some months trying it the wrong way every time. And remember, that when you do give the M9 back and put another film in the M6, turn the key the full 180 degrees.
Have fun.
rscheffler
Well-known
Richard and the others pretty much covered it.
I'll just elaborate a bit...
With continuous shooting, or even on single frame advance, you're probably going to get at maximum about 7 rapid shots before the buffer fills. If this happens, the camera will give a warning on the LCD. At any point while the buffer is writing to the card, but especially when it's processing many images, try to avoid reviewing the images on the LCD and especially zooming in on them. This taxes the system and greatly increases the likelihood of a lock-up (such as the red light flashing endlessly). if it happens, as Richard outlined, you have to pull the battery to reset the camera. Be sure to then double check your basic settings to make sure they're still where you want them. Another side effect of stressing the system, at least with my camera, was 'random' shadow banding that became more common the deeper the buffer queue, and/or if images were reviewed while clearing the buffer. Possibly related to this, but never definitely proven, is the memory card. IME, you want a non-UHS SDHC card, or even better, just a plain old SD card (though these are very difficult to find now, and are max 2GB, I believe). It might even be getting difficult to find plain old SDHC cards that aren't the faster UHS versions.
If you're shooting something that will likely fill the buffer often, yet you need better buffer clearing, and want to keep shooting DNG (recommended), turn on DNG compression. While this is technically less ideal because the compression is lossy, it is still better than Jpeg only. I found this was necessary for some kinds of events, weddings, etc. and had a hard time seeing any kind of image degradation.
The M9's CCD does not tolerate excessive over exposure. Highlight values will quickly clip. It is better to underexpose a bit, if in doubt, and push files in post.
Related to this, there was some exploration by various users as to whether there was any technical benefit to shooting higher than base ISO (160). The finding was that anything higher than 640 was better handled in post through software such as Lightroom/ACR than in-camera. Meaning, you're better to set ISO 640 as maximum in-camera and if necessary, underexpose to maintain desired shutter speed and then push in post. Of course, pushing several stops will result in a fair amount of image noise, but it's no better to let the camera do this. By doing it in post, it gives you the additional flexibility of pushing exactly as much as needed. Widest dynamic range will be ISO 160, and the above technique will also work by pushing later in post. Major disadvantage to this technique will be dark images while reviewing on the camera's display, which isn't great for review in the first place. It has a tendency to look dark and high contrast. Avoid the temptation to edit/delete images in-camera due to this because they often will look much better on a computer monitor. And because the M9's shadow values can be pushed a fair amount, it's often very possible to salvage images that otherwise look hopeless on its display.
Regarding the battery: depending on how much you shoot, it's a good idea to carry a spare, or two. You'll probably get 300-400 images before the 'danger' zone, which is 50% capacity and lower. In this 'zone' operation can become less stable, especially with older batteries.
Some of the above suggestions are on the more advanced side and for me took some time to become second nature. Starting off, try to keep mindful of these things, but don't worry about it too much. Just try to enjoy the camera, which isn't difficult.
Oh, and the one thing I had to look up in the manual when I first got the M9, was how to change ISO. You press the ISO button down, and have to keep it pressed down, in order to use the 4-way buttons or dial to change the setting.
I'll just elaborate a bit...
With continuous shooting, or even on single frame advance, you're probably going to get at maximum about 7 rapid shots before the buffer fills. If this happens, the camera will give a warning on the LCD. At any point while the buffer is writing to the card, but especially when it's processing many images, try to avoid reviewing the images on the LCD and especially zooming in on them. This taxes the system and greatly increases the likelihood of a lock-up (such as the red light flashing endlessly). if it happens, as Richard outlined, you have to pull the battery to reset the camera. Be sure to then double check your basic settings to make sure they're still where you want them. Another side effect of stressing the system, at least with my camera, was 'random' shadow banding that became more common the deeper the buffer queue, and/or if images were reviewed while clearing the buffer. Possibly related to this, but never definitely proven, is the memory card. IME, you want a non-UHS SDHC card, or even better, just a plain old SD card (though these are very difficult to find now, and are max 2GB, I believe). It might even be getting difficult to find plain old SDHC cards that aren't the faster UHS versions.
If you're shooting something that will likely fill the buffer often, yet you need better buffer clearing, and want to keep shooting DNG (recommended), turn on DNG compression. While this is technically less ideal because the compression is lossy, it is still better than Jpeg only. I found this was necessary for some kinds of events, weddings, etc. and had a hard time seeing any kind of image degradation.
The M9's CCD does not tolerate excessive over exposure. Highlight values will quickly clip. It is better to underexpose a bit, if in doubt, and push files in post.
Related to this, there was some exploration by various users as to whether there was any technical benefit to shooting higher than base ISO (160). The finding was that anything higher than 640 was better handled in post through software such as Lightroom/ACR than in-camera. Meaning, you're better to set ISO 640 as maximum in-camera and if necessary, underexpose to maintain desired shutter speed and then push in post. Of course, pushing several stops will result in a fair amount of image noise, but it's no better to let the camera do this. By doing it in post, it gives you the additional flexibility of pushing exactly as much as needed. Widest dynamic range will be ISO 160, and the above technique will also work by pushing later in post. Major disadvantage to this technique will be dark images while reviewing on the camera's display, which isn't great for review in the first place. It has a tendency to look dark and high contrast. Avoid the temptation to edit/delete images in-camera due to this because they often will look much better on a computer monitor. And because the M9's shadow values can be pushed a fair amount, it's often very possible to salvage images that otherwise look hopeless on its display.
Regarding the battery: depending on how much you shoot, it's a good idea to carry a spare, or two. You'll probably get 300-400 images before the 'danger' zone, which is 50% capacity and lower. In this 'zone' operation can become less stable, especially with older batteries.
Some of the above suggestions are on the more advanced side and for me took some time to become second nature. Starting off, try to keep mindful of these things, but don't worry about it too much. Just try to enjoy the camera, which isn't difficult.
Oh, and the one thing I had to look up in the manual when I first got the M9, was how to change ISO. You press the ISO button down, and have to keep it pressed down, in order to use the 4-way buttons or dial to change the setting.
kbg32
neo-romanticist
DO NOT DELETE IMAGES FROM THE CARD IN THE CAMERA. Wait till you download the card to your computer. You'll be asking for trouble if you delete from the card. When you go download, you might run into problems from deleting, which can corrupt the card, preventing you from downloading all the remaining images.
After downloading, reformat the card in the camera before you start shooting again. It's like installing a fresh card every time.
After downloading, reformat the card in the camera before you start shooting again. It's like installing a fresh card every time.
danielsterno
making soup from mud
All thank you for all the help…. for first night I was in a very low restaurant- did not use auto ISO and most manual shutter/aperture to push ISO limit and for my own knowledge…. certainly lover the ergonomics… day 2 tomorrow in day light will be welcomed…. Thanks again all! Daniel
