Hard to pick a favorite Luka, those are all awesome! If I had to choose one though it would be CL-2 for the great colors and the depth. Can't wait to see more.
Great additional images Luka! I really like the feel of AR-1 a lot.
I noticed an image (I think Yellowstone, of the canyon) that you shot with the 90mm at 1/90 of a second. How consistently do you find you get acceptable results when in the area of 1:1 shutter speed and focal length?
My finding has been that with 50mm it's hit or miss whether I'll get good sharpness at 1/60. I guess it's something I need to work on.
carstenw wrote:
IIRC LR has a brush for stamping out that stuff, you you can cut and paste that action between photos.
Yes, though it generally works best for areas of sky or minimal amounts of detail because the healing tool will sample from a specific area, and if in subsequent images the content of a given sampling area is different from the area where the dust spot is, it will result in an obvious spotting error.
Also, my experience has been that healing brush fixes for a given focal length don't work when pasted into images made with other lenses. For example, if I stamp out the spots in an image made with a 35mm lens and copy the fix to an image made with a 21, the spot fixes won't line up correctly.
like them all but I think if I'm not careful I could stare at CL2 and CL3 for hours... and possibly fall in Love the perspective and detail in those shots. Keep them coming!
Great set of pics Luka, and I'm enjoying your commentary! Impossible to just pick a few favorites, they are all varied and excellent. Keep it up and as Ron said, don't forget to post some pics on the Leica thread
I can't believe I've missed this thread for several days.
Luka -- Amazing work! Considering that you were not scheduling locations for best time of day, and had no return opportunities due to weather or lighting, you did incredibly well. Really you are saying it was a glorified snapshooter's "fishing expedition", taking advantage of what you had in front of you. The quality and sense of presence is such that these could be featured in any travel mag or coffee table book -- really an impressive feat!
Sorry for so much gushing, so late in the thread.
So, after all is said and done, it seems you really could have taken only the M9 body and three or four lenses and done just as well for yourself? That seems to be the analysis I'm getting from reviewing the work you've shown so far and your comments about the gear.
I notice you are using relatively large apertures with the lenses on the M9, f/6.7 being about average. I wonder how that is holding up for DOF, knowing even a 35mm lens has some limitations, not to mention your many shots with 50 and 90mm. Obviously, you wouldn't use f/4 if you didn't feel it would cover the subject! I'm just wondering on your creative choices -- is there a certainl level of softness in the far distance or in the extreme close corners that you find willing to allow for the overall immersion of the viewer? Your technique is wonderful, and this is not to be taken as a criticism.
I see by your high shutter speed (along with the aforementioned wider apertures) that you must have hand held most of these shots, yes? Was the 5DII along for more considered tripod mounted photos?
Sorry about your 70-200, but I suppose it is lucky to be functioning at all after a fall like that.
If you had it to do over again, and this was your "scouting trip", what choices or changes would you make to the gear you took?
You are certainly doing a great job of showing Leica in a fantastic light -- it would be terrific to see you in their advertising campaigns. I'm surely not the only one now lusting for Leica.
Thank you so much for generously sharing these photos and your insights with us. A truly unique opportunity to see behind the curtain.
rscheffler wrote:
I noticed an image (I think Yellowstone, of the canyon) that you shot with the 90mm at 1/90 of a second. How consistently do you find you get acceptable results when in the area of 1:1 shutter speed and focal length?
My finding has been that with 50mm it's hit or miss whether I'll get good sharpness at 1/60. I guess it's something I need to work on.
Hit and miss for me as well. When I'm down to that kind of shutter speed/focal length ratio I usually take one or two extra shots just to be sure. My triggering technique is really terrible as I have a tendency to push the camera downwards when I press the shutter.. I added a soft release button for a while but after some experimentation I decided it did not help me much.
In theory you should be able to go down to much lower shutter speeds than the 1/focal length when using a rangefinder (no mirror slap). There are people who are crazy good at it and can get optimally sharp images with a 90 at 1/20 or even slower, but sadly I'm not one of them.
Gunzorro wrote:
I notice you are using relatively large apertures with the lenses on the M9, f/6.7 being about average. I wonder how that is holding up for DOF, knowing even a 35mm lens has some limitations, not to mention your many shots with 50 and 90mm. Obviously, you wouldn't use f/4 if you didn't feel it would cover the subject! I'm just wondering on your creative choices -- is there a certainl level of softness in the far distance or in the extreme close corners that you find willing to allow for the overall immersion of the viewer? Your technique is wonderful, and this is not to be taken as a criticism. ...Show more →
Thanks for the kind words Jim. I tend to stick to f/5.6-f/8 for landscape shots in order to get the best performance out of the lens. Some of the lenses I used, like the Zeiss 25 Biogon are already diffraction limited at f/4. In many cases there is really noticeable degradation in image quality (due to diffraction) at f/8.
My solution for the DOF problem is relatively simple - for longer focal lengths I try to make sure that I don't include any close foreground. It's not always possible and in those cases I try to make use of the DOF in some way. For the most part it's pretty straight forward though. In the end I'd rather be DOF limited in some portion of the frame than let diffraction nuke the whole thing. There’s nothing quite as sad as the clarity and brilliance lost across the entire image due to diffraction. So as a rule I don’t go above f/8.
Here are two examples from a test I posted a while ago comparing two lenses that demonstrate the destructiveness of diffraction. You can ignore the side by side comparisons, they are not relevant here. Instead just open the image pairs in separate tabs in your browser and flip between them.
Gunzorro wrote:
So, after all is said and done, it seems you really could have taken only the M9 body and three or four lenses and done just as well for yourself? That seems to be the analysis I'm getting from reviewing the work you've shown so far and your comments about the gear.
Yes, I would have had no problems with just the M9, the ZM 18, 28 Cron, 50 Lux & 90 Cron. I would have liked the ZM 35/2 as well probably as it’s really awesome for landscapes. So ideally the M9 + five lenses. Of course the primary purpose of the 5DII was to be a backup system in case the M9 died, but I (fortunately) never got to use it as such. I think ideally one should have a second M9 body on a trip like this, but it’s a pretty steep price to pay for a camera that you hope never to use…
I see by your high shutter speed (along with the aforementioned wider apertures) that you must have hand held most of these shots, yes? Was the 5DII along for more considered tripod mounted photos?
Yep. I only took a few shots from a tripod. I never really got the chance to use the tripod as we were moving along so quickly. And on the one occasion in Yosemite where I should have brought along the tripod for long exposure waterfall shots, I left it in the car. Doh! I did use the tripod in Antelope Canyon though and I made an attempt at a star trail shot from the balcony of the lodge in Zion (the results were OK but not brilliant though) . Had I been able to decide the schedule myself and had the tempo not been as high then I’m sure I would have used both the tripod and the 5DII more.
If you had it to do over again, and this was your "scouting trip", what choices or changes would you make to the gear you took?
I would probably not have bothered with the 5DII and the Zeiss glass and I could have left the Zeiss 25/2.8 Biogon at home. And the 70-200 was basically dead weight until it became really dead weight. Otherwise I really have no complaints about the gear. It worked as it should and I’m very happy with the lenses I brought and feel fortunate to have had such equipment on this trip. The only thing lacking was enough time in each place to use the gear
denoir wrote:
In theory you should be able to go down to much lower shutter speeds than the 1/focal length when using a rangefinder (no mirror slap). There are people who are crazy good at it and can get optimally sharp images with a 90 at 1/20 or even slower, but sadly I'm not one of them.
Mirror slap is not really a concern with handheld cameras because your hands quickly dampen any vibration. And if not, motion blur due to unsteady hands will generally have a much larger effect in that shutter speed regime.
Toothwalker wrote:
Mirror slap is not really a concern with handheld cameras because your hands quickly dampen any vibration. And if not, motion blur due to unsteady hands will generally have a much larger effect in that shutter speed regime.
Heh, tell that to my Pentax 67 - the mirror slap causes something I consider to be a minor earthquake
I think it will very much depend on the camera if mirror slap is an issue or not - not to mention the shutter speed in question.
denoir wrote:
Heh, tell that to my Pentax 67 - the mirror slap causes something I consider to be a minor earthquake
I think it will very much depend on the camera if mirror slap is an issue or not - not to mention the shutter speed in question.
For those situations where mirror slap is an issue, the best strategy is to avoid the slap altogether. Mirror lock-up on an SLR, or use of a rangefinder camera, works well. When this is not possible the next best thing is to dampen the vibrations, whether they come from mirror slap or shutter curtain slap. Our hands are very effective at that. Here are 10 steps to success.
Anyway, if there is a structural advantage of handheld rangefinder cameras over SLRs at shutter speeds of order 1/20 s, it has little to do with mirror slap.
The 28 Cron Asph, is an amazing lens! 
Love the perspective and detail in those shots. Keep them coming!