frezeiss wrote:
rscheffler,
are those colors OOC from the M9, or you did some tweaking later on? I've always liked your entries on the M9 thread, especially the colors & tones.
Thanks guys!
Everything I post has been tweaked to some degree.
In LR I generally apply around +35 contrast and +30 clarity. Additionally I tweak the tone curve to generally make it more aggressive, more contrast, usually compressing the shadow zones and brightening upper mid tones. Depending on the scene, I will tweak the hue and saturation of various colors. I find the M9 sometimes is too weak with blue skies and I will shift the hue to pull excessive magenta (seems to depend a lot on the lens used as well) and often also some negative luminosity of the blue setting, which I consider to be my quick and dirty polarizing filter solution.
Both of the images posted above received selective burning/dodging.
In general I don't post sooc images unless it's to illustrate a technical issue. Sooc images IMO look very digital. Shadows are quite open and the files are often too flat for my liking.
Having used the M9 now for over 6 months, compared to my Canon bodies, I feel it does respond differently to tweaks in post. I think I can push the low ISO M9 files more before running into problems, and when I shoot the same scenes side by side, find I can never tweak images from one to match the other - there are too many variables involved with different bodies and lens systems. It's possible I've also over processed some of the images I've posted in the past with too much fill light combined with a strong clarity setting, for example. But it can work for some images, and depends on my mood. It's definitely a learning process.
IMO most of the images in the various camera/lens threads here are more so indications of photographic talent in respect to both image composition as well as post production than sheer camera/lens capability. Certainly the rendering of a specific camera/lens combination is important, but it is often enhanced or muted by a given photographer's interpretation and skill in post. Meaning, if you like images you see here from a given camera/lens combination, there is no guarantee you will get matching results with your own post production workflow.
Ron