philber wrote:
Another brilliant set, Luka! Like the one before, for which I didn't congratulate you. How dare you shoot and process faster than I can post?
Your first shot looks very much like the one with which Donat (donuss) won the Zeissimages competition. Very, very nice!
Thanks Philippe Yeah, I thought that image looked kind of sort of familiar
My trick for keeping up the pace is simple - I was out shooting yesterday for almost four hours so I've got a pile of shots both with Zeiss glass and the Rokkor. The Zeiss glass requires seldom any PP, just resize and post. The only problem is that I usually start with the best images and so the quality diminishes over time
I'm running out of shots now actually, so this is the from the bottom of the barrel, but to keep the principle of always posting images with posts..:
Edit: Now you were faster - great 3D in those military shots! The first one is my favorite.
Excellent shots Martin!
Really nice shots Philippe. I do like the rendering with the 50 Planar
Luka, love the shot of the horse.
Nice shots Akul, fav #1.
Boris, did you use sky from other photo in that "Myvatn, Iceland"-image and bottom from other image? I kind of like the image but the eye somehow gets distracted because reflection on water is brighter than the sky itself which more or less always make images look weird for me.
1banger, typically you get best results if you use f/5.6 or larger aperture. f/11 is pretty much ruining images due to diffraction and f/16-22 are useless due to softness (sure you can sharpen them to websize images but they do no longer have Zeiss look). When you take close ups the aperture is even smaller than camera body indicates, at 1:2 magnification when you shoot at f/11 your actual aperture is f/16. It seems that if you want to maintain the Zeiss look you it's better to shoot f/2-5.6 on macro situations. When shoot at f/8-11 at macro the images don't that much "jump out" from screen/paper as they normally do.
Luka, great metro tunnel image, and I liked also the bicycle on the top of cliffs as well.
Makten, great shot of leaves.
Philippe, I realized while watching your army trucks that this is the way how I assume images to look nowadays. It might be interesting to restore my mind how dead Canon glass images look by taking some photos with EF50/1.4 and EF100/2.8L about same subjects as with 50ZE and 100ZE - I'm not sure but I think I have not shoot anything this year with Canon glass except one macro comparison shot.
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Other study to light painting. This one failed, the reason why I tried light painting with this one I wanted to show the fog which was raising from lake (water was warmer than the air). If anybody has good ideas how to show this kind of fog in photos, I'm all ears.
Samuli Vahonen wrote:
Philippe, I realized while watching your army trucks that this is the way how I assume images to look nowadays. It might be interesting to restore my mind how dead Canon glass images look by taking some photos with EF50/1.4 and EF100/2.8L about same subjects as with 50ZE and 100ZE - I'm not sure but I think I have not shoot anything this year with Canon glass except one macro comparison shot.
Samuli
Samuli, fascinating that you should write this today. Yesterday I was browsing through other parts of FM, like the landscape forum (I hadn't been there for quite a while), and was shocked to see the difference with the pics on this thread. And, yes, there are some really excellent photographers here, like you, but that was not the only difference, because some shooters there looked very fine also. I was actually thinking that I might start an "alt" thread on this topic when I read your post....
And yes, it means I am an altoholic. My name is Philippe, and I am an altoholic...
Regarding Zeiss vs Canon, since getting into the whole Zeiss racket I have tried a couple of times to use one of my Canon lenses. I gave up quickly each time after seeing the produced images on the small camera LCD. Although I'm perfectly aware that they can be fixed up to look much better in post it still kills of my enthusiasm for continuing taking pictures.
Regarding Zeiss vs Canon, since getting into the whole Zeiss racket I have tried a couple of times to use one of my Canon lenses. I gave up quickly each time after seeing the produced images on the small camera LCD. Although I'm perfectly aware that they can be fixed up to look much better in post it still kills of my enthusiasm for continuing taking pictures.
Same with Nikon, took out my 70-200 VRII to shoot some night pics and they looked flat and dull compared to ZF glass. Not to mention less sharp. I really needed about 100mm (I don't have ZF 100) and my ZF 50 shots were saved and 70-200 VR shots were deleted even though they were half the size that I wanted.
I have been using the new Nikon 24 1.4 a lot lately and that is the only Nikon lens that I can say is even remotely close to the look that I want/get with Zeiss glass
Philber, Charles, Denoir, thank you very much for your kind words.
Samuli,
That picture reminds me of Kurosawa's film, either Kagemusha, or Ran. Sort of ghostly beautiful.
Regarding fogs. I notice that I can see the fog up to the border of water and trees, and it is quite visible on the lower side of the picture on reflection with brighter background ( sky ), or it could be above water? I can't tell. It is beautiful and mysterious as it is to me, and drive me crazy to hear it was a failure !
Well, having said that, your comment got me thinking of my past 'life' experience as theater lighting designer long time ago. I was quite obsessed with using theatrical fogs, and fogs tend to pronounce very dramatic when back lit or side lit in theatrical setting ( like Blade Runner), it tends to be less dramatic when front lit. If this was a theatrical setting ( meaning to fool human eyes in controlled setting ) , I would probably find strong spot light, hide in the trees on the left of the image so you would not see the light source at all, and side light the fog with 'barn doors' so that light cone is wide rectangular horizontal pyramid, this will prevent light to never touch water but cover wide depth of fogs. Problem is, camera eye is so much more sensitive and this can easily look too fake and 'staged'. This may or may not at all be helpful, or even close to what you are after, but, like I said, you got me thinking.
I want to buy another CZ lens, but I'm not sure witch one. The 35/1.4 will be one of them, but the launch date is only in 2011.
I don't like very much the sigmalux that i have, so I'm thinking on the MP 50/2.
What do you guys think?
1banger wrote:
It rained on me this morning, but at least I captured this curious effect. The 100mp really give some excellent flares stopped down! I'm lovin this glass!
Luka, really like #1. Highlights are a bit distracting on 2
1banger - excellent. As has been mentioned, I think it would have been even better being a couple stops faster than f/13. You lost quite a bit of sharpness. Not sure what effect that would have had on your delightful stars, though. I would keep the stars for a little loss of sharpness too
Hugo - very nice. As Luka said, I find the 100 and 50 MP very similar, just different lengths. I prefer 50 so that is the one I have.
rsolti13 wrote:
As has been mentioned, I think it would have been even better being a couple stops faster than f/13. You lost quite a bit of sharpness. Not sure what effect that would have had on your delightful stars, though.
There is no loss of sharpness at f/13. Diffraction on 5DII (FF) kicks in noticeably at about f/16. The lack of sharpness in the image is simply because the focus is off.
There is no loss of sharpness at f/13. Diffraction on 5DII (FF) kicks in noticeably at about f/16. The lack of sharpness in the image is simply because the focus is off.
I see. Focus is on front edge of leaf. Diffraction seems to kick in for me (inferior D700 ) at anything past f/11.
?
Yeah, I thought that image looked kind of sort of familiar 
