I've been playing with M8RAW2DNG, working with various options to push the M8 to the limit.
One thing for certain- the M8 was crippled due to the lack of DNG-16. Compressed files are "visually lossless" at Base ISO, but start pushing the image- DNG-8 does not have enough values in the shadows to pull out. Get past ISO640, it starts to look noisy. ISO2500- no one ever sung the praises of the M8 at ISO2500. The poor performance was due to the DNG-8 compression routine throwing away most of the image.
I'm putting together a step-by-step for using M8RAW2DNG for High-ISO. Counter-intuitive, always shoot at base ISO, underexpose, then correct the exposure in Post.
The original image, 6-stops underexposed.
Original_s_b00_before_Photoshop
After Photoshop, this is a 6-stop push of an ISO160 file, or ISO 10,000 equivalent. Not enough color information, so I converted it to monochrome. Noisy- but the scene uniformity is amazing. I've seen M240 ISO6400 shots with more banding than this.
monochrome_s_b00_10000
One thing for certain- the M8 was crippled due to the lack of DNG-16. Compressed files are "visually lossless" at Base ISO, but start pushing the image- DNG-8 does not have enough values in the shadows to pull out. Get past ISO640, it starts to look noisy. ISO2500- no one ever sung the praises of the M8 at ISO2500. The poor performance was due to the DNG-8 compression routine throwing away most of the image.
I'm putting together a step-by-step for using M8RAW2DNG for High-ISO. Counter-intuitive, always shoot at base ISO, underexpose, then correct the exposure in Post.
The original image, 6-stops underexposed.
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
After Photoshop, this is a 6-stop push of an ISO160 file, or ISO 10,000 equivalent. Not enough color information, so I converted it to monochrome. Noisy- but the scene uniformity is amazing. I've seen M240 ISO6400 shots with more banding than this.
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)