JaKo wrote:
^^^ Great capture Kokusai! Light is just perfect....
Thanks Jack. Spring is upon us. Nice shot of the seedlings sprouting from the ground.
Gregg -- This thread is on page 2? What happened to your daily posting? Forgot to take the camera to work? :
Almass -- Nice portrait shot with the 90 AA.
I hardly do any landscape photography with a tripod. Carrying a tripod feels really awkward to me. Hopefully with enough practice, I get better at it. CC highly encouraged...
Kokusai wrote:
I hardly do any landscape photography with a tripod. Carrying a tripod feels really awkward to me. Hopefully with enough practice, I get better at it. CC highly encouraged...
Kokusai,
I like this one a lot. It seems to have good contrast at about every level of detail, from the bulk of the trees against the clouds to the ever-more-detailed shadows among the rocks. I like the people in the shot, particularly how small they are relative to the environment. I like how the soft contrast in the sky balances the harshness of the rocks.
My criticism of it is with the color--which is pleasant, but after looking at it for a bit doesn't seem quite right. It is a bit too warm at the top right, extending down over the rocks in the central frame but not over the rocks at lower right. Also, the sudden shift from red sky (top right) to strong blue (just left of that) is a bit strong. I downloaded this and made a black and white version that stands out--although this may just be my bias, as I've been favoring B&W lately. It could also be that I've been living under cloudy skies for about the last 8 months so I might've forgotten what genuine color in the sky looks like...
Also, regarding tripods: I've gone so far as designing tripod backpacks but haven't ever found a way to actually get myself to use the clumsy things. What I do use, though, is a mini tripod: a standard tripod head bolted onto a large PVC cap. The tripod head can bolt onto the inside of the cap, which makes it rather portable. You do need to be flexible to find things to place the mini-pod on, or just accept a low point of view, but it provides stability that light sometimes requires without making me curse the thing at all other times like tripods do.
Jon -- Thank you very much for your feedback. I truly appreciate it. Your assessment on the color is spot on. I'm just now learning how to PP landscape work using LR5 with graduated filters and adjustment brush. The lower right frame looks weird probably because of the custom vignette I added in post. Also, great tip on using a mini-tripod. I may get a gorilla pod or something like that for portability.
Great captures there Mike! I've been thinking of trying out Oly's MFT offering and renting/letting the EM1. Possibly adapt some of my MF lenses on it. Thanks for sharing your Oly shots Mike!
Kokusai wrote:
I hardly do any landscape photography with a tripod. Carrying a tripod feels really awkward to me.
One of the great temptations is carrying it by one leg, which is fine until you stumble/slip and you then find how painful it can be as the other legs act as a vice on your fingers, when you make contact with terra firma
I gave up a long time ago trying to find a camera bag fit for purpose for landscaping, so a technical rucksack with side pockets and straps I've found the best for stashing away a tripod and carrying it. A decent outdoor shop will carry a range of quality rucksacks and with their sage advice, you'll find the perfect ergonomic fit. You could lash the tripod onto the back of the rucksack, however, one day you could be ascending some steep stuff and feel the need to look up for the next hand hold/best line/how far away the summit still is and the rear of your head will make contact with the tripod head next time out you've now got the tripod head sans scalp and dried blood, encased in a protective neoprene pouch and need to lean out to see the next hold/ascent line up, the weight of the tripod/head has shifted your centre of gravity out and you need to grip a little bit harder onto the rock face, which if it's loose, will give you at best an unexpected adrenaline high
I know tripods are supposed to be black and I too frowned on the aesthetics of green, but Gitzo might have finally implemented a durable leg lock sealing system in this series and I never thought I'd type that.
zhangyue wrote:
Jon, you have some very impress sunset/landscape images posted. Just beautiful. And thank you for share your very objective impression about this legendary lens. It sell like $6000+ now, a dream lens for many M240 people.
Thank you too, Michael. Ah, I can see why many M240 owners might want this lens (c/w lens profile corrections), happily I only paid about $3.2K.
Worldinlens wrote:
Fuji s5, R50E60
Alex, I'm not certain I've said this before, but I prefer the colour of the Fuji s5 over the Leica DMR images.
jhinkey wrote:
A couple quick ones just before dinner tonight - a rare clear-ish evening here in the Pacific North West, so I had to throw in the 180/3.4 APO Telyt onto the Pany GX7. Light and color were changing fast!
Wonderful atmospheric images of Mt. Rainier
JaKo wrote:
Jon: sunny UK?!
Oh yes, so far 7 consecutive days of no rain and even some sunshine, which is better than most summers
Milkman wrote:
Jon I would love to see that comparison of 28s
I managed to spend an hour field testing the three R 28mm options, in a quarry setting, I couldn't get a near far composition on the level, but I did manage a composition which does show some aspects of the respective lenses character. I can flood the R lens thread with posts (afaik I can only upload five images in any post) or post crops of interesting detail?
Edits - finally uploaded a 100% corner crop instead of 100%+ corner crop, sigh
Field test scene - 28mm/2.8 E55 @2.8 and infinity, no in camera or PP sharpening
28/2.8 E55 @2.8 and infinity, 100% crop, no in camera or PP sharpening
Hi John,
Have you tried to shim between lens and adapter. Almost all of my alternative lenses have been shimmed to some degree to get the best out of them.
Nice shot of the seedlings sprouting from the ground.
next time out you've now got the tripod head sans scalp and dried blood, encased in a protective neoprene pouch and need to lean out to see the next hold/ascent line up, the weight of the tripod/head has shifted your centre of gravity out and you need to grip a little bit harder onto the rock face, which if it's loose, will give you at best an unexpected adrenaline high 
