Good Learning of the Day
There are a lot of noises out there about Leica M-9/ M-E's sloppy high ISO performance (somewhat true) where it is said to be usable up to ISO800 and beyond that is designated as "no man's land" where people try not to crank their ISO into the 1000-2500 zone (myself included). Recently I wanted to try and see how I could fully utilize my M-E and deal with the reality. After some research and actions on the field, I found out that I had been fooled all along.. Of course under normal circumstances, things don't look great on M9 or M-E or M9-P when you bump it up beyond ISO800. However, with the appropriate exposure and some minor work on post processing, the results can be better than expected. The key thing is that you need to get the correct exposure of each frame, check the histogram and make sure it stays somewhere in the middle.
The followings were taken with Leica M-E & Summicron 35/2 ASPH, ISO1600- 2500 with minimum adjustment on LR (0-20 luminance NR). Now I can say that it's totally rubbish about Leica M9/M-E's usable ISO up to 800. They look pretty good & usable to me, what do you think?
