[house]

I shoot raw and often under expose to prevent the sky from blowing out.

[GUB]

I shoot raw and often under expose to prevent the sky from blowing out.

Yes this is critical with old glass. Utilising iso-invariance and creating the underexposure by pulling back the iso (rather than shutter or aperture) is a great "all gain-no loss" way.
One of the greatest gains from utilising old glass is the knowledge you gain from squeezing a good image out of the old gear.

[mikeprotts]

I'll have a bit of a play next time I get a chance, see how my shadows look.

---------- Post added 11-05-20 at 02:55 AM ----------

I'd have to disagree - I have no problems with shadows and vintage lenses.....





I agree, and I shoot jpg's - no problems with shadows....

In my case I'm sure it's practice, it's just that it seems easier to me to get the balance with the modern lenses.

[HoutHans]

Yes this is critical with old glass. Utilising iso-invariance and creating the underexposure by pulling back the iso (rather than shutter or aperture) is a great "all gain-no loss" way.
One of the greatest gains from utilising old glass is the knowledge you gain from squeezing a good image out of the old gear.

That's a great observation and it ties in very nicely with the thoughtfull photography that comes with using manual (older) lenses.

[pres589]

I'd like to see a scene where creating underexposed areas in a frame works well with newer glass and doesn't work well with older glass. This doesn't make sense to me. What it sounds like is improper metering for the scene creating images that are hard to pull together in post.

[GUB]

I consider not letting any highlights clip is also good practise with modern lenses for contrast sake. It is the fact that older glass has poorer coatings which means a greater percentage of the light turns into white noise flaring around the internals. That is all light including what is within the histogram. But so long as it is within the histogram it won't make a difference.
The point is if parts such as the sky has "blown out" by say a stop then the sky has not got any whiter but you have doubled the amount of dispersed light coming from that area. And that effect will be exaggerated by lesser coatings.
I understand that with "correct" exposure techniques that shouldn't be a problem.
But with a high dynamic range image we are often tempted to sacrifice the sky detail to maintain shadow detail. And that is not a good option with old glass.
Given that we can often create this margin of error by underexposing via our iso setting then there is no down side in an iso invariant camera.

[house]

I must have explained poorly. Scenario:
"Landscape" photography at dusk with tripod. Sky is still reasonably bright but its getting dark. Exposure is set to avoid clipping the highlights resulting in very dark foreground. In post the shadows are raised whilst trying to maintain detail in sky.

With my copies of two vintage tele lenses (M 100mm f2.8, K 135mm f3.5 used with original hoods) raising the shadows in post results in poor images. Its as if there isnt much data in the shadows it look flat and greyish. There is also a bit of magenta tinge coming through. Same type of exposure works well with contemporary lenses thanks to the incredible dynamic range if the K-1.

I've not been that bothered by it but its interesting. Also made me wonder if some of the amazing shadow recovery of the K-1 is down to lenses and coatings.

My previous post was an observation and a question to see if anyone else noticed the behaviour. I havent tested it through but noticed it on a couple of occasions.

[stevebrot]

Utilising iso-invariance and creating the underexposure by pulling back the iso (rather than shutter or aperture)

You lost me here. How does pulling back the iso result in underexposure for a metered shot? The result should be more light to the sensor. Do you mean using EC with TAv mode?


Steve

[stevebrot]

I'd like to see a scene where creating underexposed areas in a frame works well with newer glass and doesn't work well with older glass. This doesn't make sense to me. What it sounds like is improper metering for the scene creating images that are hard to pull together in post.

I agree. In fact, I would like to see actual proof that this works with newer glass. The practice of intentional underexposure and pulling shadows depends a great deal on the software used for RAW conversion and really does not work well at all with JPEGs.

I have done some experimentation with this using files created specifically to test what happens with a shadow pull by sampling the RAW file directly for the actual value distributions (there are only eight tones recorded for the bottom three EV at capture) and comparing those data with what results from both a one EV global pull and one EV shadow pull in Lightroom. The result are not what one might expect. The tool apparently inserts tones based on best guess of what should be there.


Steve

[stevebrot]

The point is if parts such as the sky has "blown out" by say a stop then the sky has not got any whiter but you have doubled the amount of dispersed light coming from that area. And that effect will be exaggerated by lesser coatings.

I agree, and veiling flare from bright portions of the frame can be worse with some older lenses. Much depends on the number of elements. However, given that many modern lenses have a plethora of elements, the coating advantage is a bit of a wash, eh?


Steve

[stevebrot]

I must have explained poorly. Scenario:
"Landscape" photography at dusk with tripod. Sky is still reasonably bright but its getting dark. Exposure is set to avoid clipping the highlights resulting in very dark foreground. In post the shadows are raised whilst trying to maintain detail in sky.

Strangely, this scenario has come up in several recent forum threads. The traditional solution is expose to sacrifice the portions of the frame that are of less interest. Alternatively, use a graduated ND filter or bracket for HD. Playing with curves in PP invariably results in crummy looking shadows.


Steve

[house]

Strangely, this scenario has come up in several recent forum threads. The traditional solution is expose to sacrifice the portions of the frame that are of less interest. Alternatively, use a graduated ND filter or bracket for HD.


Steve

It's a completely normal I'd say canonical way of exposing with high DR digital cameras. You can also exposure bracket and stack if you need ever more DR and IQ. Negative film is great at maintaining highlights digital clips to white in the most brutal way.

When your subject is your whole frame you can't really expose for the portion of interest.

Edit: Ohh just noticed that Simons film does mention this issue with some vintage lenses.

[pres589]

Exposure bracket & stack would be my preferred method. This provides a lot of control for how to handle highlights and lows in the scene.

[house]

Exposure bracket & stack would be my preferred method. This provides a lot of control for how to handle highlights and lows in the scene.

It all depends on the dynamic range and intended end exposure of the scene. There are lots of advantages to single exposure shots when the camera can handle it. There are also lots of ways to mitigate the issue. I pointed it out as a interesting aspect of vintage lenses I had not heard mentioned before. Simons video does suggest that things like that can happen when pushing your files with vintage lenses in general.

[mikeprotts]

I suspect that coatings have improved the ability to suppress artefacts with less loss of light transmission, and the requirements for a digital sensor are different than for film. With the older glass, and wide light differences, it's probably more important to keep the brighter areas under control, as the coating isn't doing the job, therefore resulting in an under exposure of the darker areas.

It's not clear that there's much difference in these two in terms of shadow (cropped and resized but otherwise no post processing), one with DA 16-45mm and one Tamron 28-105mm. In fact both were taken to build into a panorama, so dark areas and pixel peeping were never an issue.