[Leica] Canon G9 or Leica M8?

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

> Yes But! Of course expressing my personal views. What makes sense for me 
> may
> be affected by another's priorities/needs.
> Aperture priority is fine. You can use it or not as you wish. I love it on 
> my
> M7 and I vary from it as I want. Auto ISO means
> turning up the gain. There's no more sensitivity, just more signal
> amplification. Which brings increasing noise and compromise. As
> implemented in compact digitals, which is what I mentioned, it is certainly
> imperfect.
> Expressing my personal opinion, Auto ISO if you want it or need it in a 
> DSLR.
> Why not an auto focus, matrix exposure, program mode,
> fast frame rate M? Because everyone else is already doing it better and 
> much
> cheaper. They are not doing it with M glass, even fifty
> year old M glass, and bright finder and RF. What I would hate to see Leica 
> do
> would be compromise their lens compatibility by
> altering the entirely mechanical M mount and lens construction to add 
> features
> that are already available elsewhere.
> 
> Anyhoo enough of a rant from a non-M8 owner here.
> Cheers
> Hoppy
> 
> 
>

In my use of auto ISO over the past month or so it resulted in much
decreased "gain" and I believe that is the whole point of using auto ISO in
the first place.
For using the minimal ISO for the shot at hand. Optimized ISO.
Before like most people I crank it up to a higher number than needed to
cover myself if I'm in a hurry I'd find I'd shot f16 full sunny bright
pictures in ISO's over a thousand with certainly more than everything in
focus and at blazing shutter speeds. Pretty silly and wasteful.
I'm sure that's a human nature thing and I'm not the only one.
But I'm in a category of people who know that something's you have to pay
the piper for such sloppiness when its time to make a larger print than
you're used to making. And those times do happen from time to time.

With auto ISO I'm now using I find those shots will have been shot at ISO
100. And be there. As I'd have set my camera for f8 and as long as my
shutter speed didn't got below a certain point I'm at full ISO 100. Turns
out there are a not more of those shots than you'd think.
I look at the filter panel as I look at a BRIDGE contact sheet and I note
the gamut of ISO's being used on one roll. 15 different ISO's  from 100 to
1600 I'd have used and they tell me how many times I've used each one.
Optimized gain not full 1600 the whole roll. Or 1000 if the sun is not
behind a cloud. That's how I've shot more than a few rolls of 2GB Lexar
Platinum II 60x

On the LUG a few times I've recounted how I set out walking home from the
movie one night with my minimum shutter speed set in the ISO to 30th and the
lens wide open at 2.8. A 24 or 28.
I found when I got home that while most of the shots were at ISO 1600 there
were a few in shop windows which were shot a full 100ISO!
I mean if I was walking slower I'd have set it down a few as the window
looked bright but not that bright! But the auto ISO knew I was doing fine at
f2.8 at a 30th of a second.
I can blow those up as big as I want to I guess.
Much of this has to do with how fast you like to walk and how much time you
like to stop for a picture and think about it. And how tired you are and how
well your concentration is doing and how cold you hands are and how well you
can see  your camera. These are times when some automation is welcomed but
you want that automation as smart as possible.

Never in a million years would I'd have set my camera at 100 out at night;
And then gotten full quality in shots which have more light on them than
you'd have guessed.

Mark William Rabiner
markrabiner.com