Yet another beautiful image, Wouter. In general, I also leave my GX100 on 80, but am finding that the noise at 200 can be appealing too, and without sacrificing too much resolution.
I believe it is possible to attain exposures with the depth of your landscapes — which impressively sidestep the limited DR of the GX100 sensor — and still find ways of capitalizing on the appealing noise characteristics of this camera in smaller doses. For instance, in your image an additional curves layer might be used to massage and enhance the grain/noise of the cloud/shadow areas without sacrificing the overall DR, which would look incredible, especially enlarged on paper. Not that it needs that.
1. Reduce the noise in the lower tones
2. Increase the noise overall
3. Add grain, digitally, to even things out
Sean, upon revisiting your earlier post;
My favorite natural-occurring film grain (especially in people-photography) tends to appear in the transitions from the highlights to the deep blacks, for instance at the junction where a bold cheek-bone shadow gives way to a white cheek. Therefore, instead of even-ing things out in my Ricoh files, I take the blacks even blacker (solving a bit of that underexposure noise, which I don't like), and sort of celebrate the highlights. Then I experiment with yet another curves adjustment layer in order to amplify those speckled (noisy) transition points between the two. To my eye, it ends up looking more like slightly-pushed Tri-X — or even Tri-X shot normal, but in a contrasty situation — which I prefer to "automatic" grain, such as the TMAX 3200 look.
I find that adding noise in PhotoShop is best saved for areas that have been substantially retouched, which often need that grain boost in order to sit more naturally in context to the surrounding original image.
That said Sean, as you (and anyone else here) continues to experiment further with adding noise in your pictures, I'd be interested in reading about your impressions and discoveries and results.
Ok — that's two massive posts I've made today (this must mean I am proCRAStinating getting to work!). I hope these aren't too long-winded. I get so much free inspiration here that I feel obliged to share my impressions every now and again.
Cheers,
Ian