This really is a fine image Jack! The glean of the stainless steel oven hood and the shiney counter top. olde style type, then the beautiful rendering of the tables and the lights. Being of Italian heritage, I am afraid this would be my second home! Italian wings? Now that could be VERY interesting!
Summer is my time for salumi, fresh tomatoes, fresh herbs...no muss no fuss just great homegrown delicacies!!
Dan
Danpbphoto wrote:
This really is a fine image Jack! The glean of the stainless steel oven hood and the shiney counter top. olde style type, then the beautiful rendering of the tables and the lights. Being of Italian heritage, I am afraid this would be my second home! Italian wings? Now that could be VERY interesting!
Summer is my time for salumi, fresh tomatoes, fresh herbs...no muss no fuss just great homegrown delicacies!!
Dan
Thanks Dan. If you're ever in the San Jose, CA area, you must visit "Little Italy." It's a few blocks away from the San Jose arena, and jam packed with excellent Italian restaurants.
A few more just because you like Italian These were taken that same day -- every year Little Italy hosts a "Boss of the Sauce" tomato sauce tasting competition. It's a ton of fun with great eats! (Henry's High Life is an old time San Jose Bar-Restaurant institution.)
Oh these are wonderful Jack!
I have to go to Baltimore's famous "Little Italy" for my "fix!
A US House of Representative from California was actually born in Baltimore's Little Italy and her father was the Mayor of Baltimore for some years.
I have my great great grandmother's recipe for "Italian Gravy". I would love to enter it in a tasting contest. One of her secrets was a pork chop and simmering the "gravy" for a few days. Italian plum tomatoes only. In Italy the tomatoes are usually always fresh.
Thanks for posting these.
Dan
Danpbphoto wrote:
This really is a fine image Jack! The glean of the stainless steel oven hood and the shiney counter top. olde style type, then the beautiful rendering of the tables and the lights.
Dan
Dan, I thought I'd come back to this comment of yours, because you are describing a "look" that I try to achieve in most of my B&W street or travel images, and especially in lower light scenes. The slight glow around the lighting and sheen off the highlights comes mostly from the careful use of diffusion filters, the goal being emulate some of the "halation" effect that silver based B&W emulsions had. I have a few different styles I use for this hopefully subtle effect -- different styles because the net amount of diffusion from a given filter is dependent upon focal length.
I'm happy to discuss this more if folks are interested in technique discussions, though I realize this is regarded as an "image" thread and technique discussions may not be welcome.
Jack Flesher wrote:
Dan, I thought I'd come back to this comment of yours, because you are describing a "look" that I try to achieve in most of my B&W street or travel images, and especially in lower light scenes. The slight glow around the lighting and sheen off the highlights comes mostly from the careful use of diffusion filters, the goal being emulate some of the "halation" effect that silver based B&W emulsions had. I have a few different styles I use for this hopefully subtle effect -- different styles because the net amount of diffusion from a given filter is dependent upon focal length.
I'm happy to discuss this more if folks are interested in technique discussions, though I realize this is regarded as an "image" thread and technique discussions may not be welcome. ...Show more →
It's a coincidence you mention this Jack. I was "playing" in Nik HDR and SEFx and was using their color filters. I was able to get some of that sheen I speak of and you have mastered within those filters. In fact I posted one in the "B&W forum" of a wall mural where I used the HDR's B&W filter to obtain a "sort of" the sheen I am looking for. Key word here "sort of look".
I would love to hear about your techniques Jack! If you feel that it would disrupt this forum, PM me..But I doubt members would object to learning how some creates their art.
Thanks!
Dan
Danpbphoto wrote:
It's a coincidence you mention this Jack. I was "playing" in Nik HDR and SEFx and was using their color filters. I was able to get some of that sheen I speak of and you have mastered within those filters. In fact I posted one in the "B&W forum" of a wall mural where I used the HDR's B&W filter to obtain a "sort of" the sheen I am looking for. Key word here "sort of look".
I would love to hear about your techniques Jack! If you feel that it would disrupt this forum, PM me..But I doubt members would object to learning how some creates their art.
Thanks!
Dan
To my thinking, color filtration on the B&W conversion from a color original is different than using the diffusion. It is important to the look of the image and I use/adjust the filter pack regularly depending on image. In the above set as an example, I have an "Acros + Yellow" filtration preset I built in C1 that I use a lot. (However I also added a very subtle sepia tone to the above.) Combined with contrast, exposure, saturation and clarity, post color filtration choices can accentuate or nullify some of that sheen and your image above is a good example of that -- but to my eyes it's different than how the diffusion filters work.
My main goto diffusion filters are a 1/8 and 1/4 black net and a cine-swirl 1 by K&F. The KF cine-swirl 1 is about half way between the Moment cinebloom 5% (hardly any effect) and 10% (a bit too heavy for me) and why I prefer it. All of these will render a glow around highlights, depending on focal length of the lens. The cineswirl/cinebloom will obviously soften detail at open apertures on longer lenses, so I relegate its use to lenses wider than normal -- which is what I had on the camera in the above images. I like the 1/8 black net on lenses longer than normal lenses, and the1/4 for normal lenses or occasionally midrange zooms; and following this general rule, fine detail is not detrimentally or notably affected in most images from these combinations. The other thing these filters do, is "flare" a tiny bit of light into shadows, opening them up slightly and again replicating one effect of silver films halation; though this is so subtle it's not obvious at all with the above filter/lens combos and you need to go stronger if you want to "see" it more distinctly.
Final comment. These filters basically live on the prime lenses they're used with. When I grab a prime, it's because I'm after the specific look they render here and each filter assists in that on their respective lenses. I typically do not use them on my zooms for landscape or travel photography; again the effect of each gets stronger at longer focal lengths so the results can be inconsistent. For example, the 1/8 black net while wonderful on a light tele has virtually no visible effect on a moderate wide; yet conversely the cineswirl 1 is wonderful on a moderate wide but obviously softens important detail with a light tele. That all said, when/if I want this effect on a typical wide to tele zoom, I would choose the 'tweener 1/4 black net.
Jack Flesher wrote:
Little Italy in San Jose. My attempt to process for a vintage feel... C&C welcome as always.
Outstanding PP on this. I also am interested in the halation effect & how you do that. It is very nicely done here! As a former Tri-X and Portra shooter, where you can get this halation glow very naturally, I am always interested to see how people do it digitally. I've had *some* success with making a mask layer in PS and applying some Gaussian blur to highlights in some images, but I haven't really refined a method that's generally applicable. What you've got here is excellent.
photonoclast wrote:
Outstanding PP on this. I also am interested in the halation effect & how you do that. It is very nicely done here! As a former Tri-X and Portra shooter, where you can get this halation glow very naturally, I am always interested to see how people do it digitally. I've had *some* success with making a mask layer in PS and applying some Gaussian blur to highlights in some images, but I haven't really refined a method that's generally applicable. What you've got here is excellent.
Thank you! As I indicated above, the halation effect is mostly from the diffusion filters I choose for that specific purpose
jon.oman wrote:
Great set of images Jack! I'd like to sit down in the Hi-Life for a meal!
Thank you Jon! The reason Henry's remains a downtown SJ icon is because the food has been really good for years and remains so. Plus it's got a great old time bar inside
Really nice work, Jack. You definitely succeeded in getting the look you were after. I appreciate the filter explanation and will use your descriptions to do some exploring.
Brent
bnfotografie wrote:
Really nice work, Jack. You definitely succeeded in getting the look you were after. I appreciate the filter explanation and will use your descriptions to do some exploring.
Brent
Thank you Brent. Glad you found the filter explanation helpful. I wasn’t sure it was appropriate here, but wanted to give other B&W enthusiasts what I feel is a helpful tip.
Great shots, glad you added more. Thanks also for the detailed explanation of the filters you use. Doubt I will ever do so, but I like to understand how the experts get their unique looks.
Jim Dockery wrote:
Great shots, glad you added more. Thanks also for the detailed explanation of the filters you use. Doubt I will ever do so, but I like to understand how the experts get their unique looks.
Thank you Jim! However, I am no expert, not by a long shot. But I did shoot a lot of film before digital arrived, and to achieve certain desired effects we needed to understand and use filters. I had 2 large filter wallets with me at all times back then. Today I only carry a few in one small case. Digital is good
These were taken that same day -- every year Little Italy hosts a "Boss of the Sauce" tomato sauce tasting competition. It's a ton of fun with great eats! (Henry's High Life is an old time San Jose Bar-Restaurant institution.) 
