Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/12/28
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi Ted:
With the exception of one non-critical picture, it all eventually worked.
On a good day, the gingerness with which a digital M needs to be handled
with TTL flash is a close second to the gingerness required in squeezing the
trigger on an Olympic target pistol to put five shots in the same hole.
Basically, it's about a second to slowly squeeze the shutter release to get
everything to register and to work. The other night was requiring that to
be done two or three times to get everything to work. And as I'm sure
you've experienced, subjects like to get out of position as soon as they
think a picture has been taken.
I did in fact test the flash - on several prior occasions - and on hundreds
of pictures. There was never a problem like the out-of-sequence preflash.
I don't know whether the recent anomalies arose from the flash heating up
(the Metz 54 tube does get amazingly hot compared to the SB-800), the camera
getting overworked (this involved repeat pictures at about 30 second
intervals), or the usual tendency for things to fail under pressure. At
least I did not overrun the buffer on the camera.
The low-light problem with the digital Ms is something that people tend to
blow off - but it's a problem that remains. Ideally, you would attack this
(low mixed incandescent light in color) problem with an 80A filter and a
higher ISO (assuming that 640 would do it with little enough noise...).*
But I've shot this project before and know that not even a 35 Summilux ASPH
lets in enough light to support decent shutter speeds - much less to do so
under the added exposure burden of a color correction filter. A 24mm
Summilux would have been too wide for humans at 2m, and a Noctilux would
have had too narrow an angle of view. Frustrating. Black-and-white would
have been a bit easier, but that wasn't in the project parameters.
Sorry to have gone off on you, but I think you can understand how
frustrating the situation is and how it can be grating to hear the usual
refrain that "no one needs to [do whatever Leica is failing at most
recently]."
And yes, Leica and Metz are going to get a letter on this.
Have a great new year,
Dante
*People tend to blow off CC filters for digital - but given that an
"auto-white-balanced" scene contains only the information the camera
recorded, you're just cutting your range even more. Putting a blue filter
on the camera fixes things by effectively increasing the proportion of light
to the channel most vulnerable to noise. It works very well but does
extract the speed penalties you would see with film.
On Dec 28, 2009, at 1:23 AM, <tedgrant at shaw.ca> <tedgrant at shaw.ca>
wrote:
> Dante,
> You are correct under these tight life circumstances, but also depending
> on ones years of experience.
>
> However, it still would not have occurred to me under similar
> circumstances to use a flash. I probably would have automatically used an
> M8 or M9 with different lenses and shot everything that turned me on and
> without once use of flash.
>
> We each have our methods in-relation to experience and comfort zone in
> using equipment under all kinds of light conditions. But it's really to
> each his own in how we shoot. And yes where one on occasion must rely on
> flash, it should function correctly whether an M8 or M9. Or any camera
> supposedly for use with a flash. Given your experience I'd be on the line
> or phone to LEICA asking for answers, certainly given the cost of these
> new cameras? They should be functioning properly if made to work with
> flash units.
>
> Did you not try the flash unit with the camera at sometime before hand?
> Once again, if I were one to use a flash unit with any camera, I'd find
> out how well it worked with the camera before hand under any circumstance.
> Certainly considering I may not have used it before. I would make at least
> a half dozen snaps to make sure it was ready for use at the time of the
> ceremony or event I was going to shoot!
>
> In the end I do trust you managed some good images considering your
> explanation of the elderly gentleman in question?
> cheers,
> ted
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dante Stella" <dstella1 at
> ameritech.net>
> To: "Leica Users Group" <lug at leica-users.org>
> Sent: Sunday, December 27, 2009 9:18 PM
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Odd digital M flash behavior
>
>
>> Ted and Marty,
>>
>> When you are shooting pictures of your own extended family, and among
>> them is a 91-year-old who almost didn't make it to this Christmas and may
>> not make it to the next, there is no redo, there is no second day of the
>> project, and no one is going to be very forgiving of failures, be they of
>> man or machine. You can appreciate the consequences of getting burned by
>> not using a flash - including shadowed eye sockets, blue channel noise,
>> and inconsistent color balance across the frame. I'm sure you can also
>> appreciate the consequences of shooting with an f/1.4 lens, not the least
>> of which is putting some members of groups squarely out of focus. A lot
>> of this evades detection in the five seconds you have to check the frame
>> (if you even get that).
>>
>> So you bring in a flash to push the light level into a comfort range for
>> the sensor and bring the aperture to a size that keeps everything in
>> focus. Electronic flash photography has now existed for more than 50
>> years, and if Leica didn't believe in it, the company would not be out
>> selling $600 flashes for the S2 and the M9. Nor would it have developed
>> a TTL and then a digital TTL system (well, Metz probably did it for
>> Leica). Nor would it have given Metz the serial codes for dedicated TTL
>> ("GNC") function on the Leica modules (Metz, in fact, makes the SF-24D
>> and the SF-58).
>>
>> I don't ask my M8 to autofocus, shoot at 64,000 ISO, or even compensate
>> for focus shift in lenses. But I do expect it to carry it its extremely
>> limited flash functionality without unpredictable behavior.
>>
>> Dante
>>
>> NO ARCHIVE
>>
>> On Dec 26, 2009, at 1:57 PM, <tedgrant at shaw.ca> <tedgrant at shaw.ca>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dante asked:
>>>>>> What I got last night, repeatedly, was a full-power preflash followed
>>>>>> by a
>>>> "normal" preflash. And this was always on the first shot after the
>>>> camera
>>>> was turned on, even if you gave it a second to recognize the flash.
>>>>
>>>> Anyone else experience this? It didn't look like low batteries in the
>>>> flash or the camera. My wife (being ever so practical) thinks this can
>>>> be
>>>> solved by "buy[ing] a Nikon [D700]." But I am not one to let
>>>> troubleshooting go so easily.<<<<<<<<<<<,
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Nichols" responded:
>>>
>>>> Hi Dante,
>>>> Simple solution. With Leica lenses, just forget the flash. ;-)<<<<
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi Dante,
>>> Jim is quite right! FORGET THE FLASH!
>>> It is quite simple really... forget the flash I don't even own one and
>>> rarely if ever used flash with any of my M cameras over the years. Have
>>> I been burned? Yep on a couple of occaisions, but no big deal. If you
>>> can see it .... YOU CAN SHOOT IT! :-)
>>>
>>> All my Christmas happy snaps beginning to end were as "you see it, were
>>> motivated, "SHOOT!" And they were fine. Down loaded with LR, fiddled and
>>> into PhotoShop second look.... print! And not one lost frame other than
>>> for a couple because I hadn't set the ASA to 320.
>>>
>>> Go for broke with your M8, shoot a ton of images with the flash buried
>>> under a pile of rocks!! This will keep you from digging them up in
>>> panic.. :-)
>>>
>>> cheers,
>>> ted
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Leica Users Group.
>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>
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