After writing in a earlier post about "shooting into the light" I reviewed my pictures of this type that I've shot earlier. Here are two of them. The first one is part of a 17-picture portfolio on the environmental devastation on the Sam Roi Yod National Park in Thailand. The second one shows a shack that is a shrimp farm station, with radio antenna and a solar panel. It is within the boundary of the national park. Another photograph of this shack is in this portfolio on Sam Roi Yod, which you can see by clicking here. Your comments on the portfolio, both positive and negative, are welcome.
Here is the statement for the portfolio: The name "Sam Roi Yod" means "three hundred peaks" and applies to a range of dramatic limestone hills that rise up from the coastal plain at the edge of the Gulf of Thailand, about 250 km south of Bangkok. The area is a national park, whose wet-land ecology has been devastated by years of illegal shrimp farming, cattle raising and poaching.
A traveler driving across the national park — two bitumen-paved roads cut through it — will see the natural beauty but only some indications of the environmental damage: plastic bags littering the ponds and beaches, and shrimp farms along the periphery as well as within the boundaries of the park. But the extent of the damage — poisoning of the ponds and soil by the effluents from shrimp farms — will not be visible. What is not there cannot be seen: the former richness of the waterfowl and of the flowering lotus ponds.
When I stopped at a coffee shop on the way to a pond famous for its lotus blossoms, a woman asked me whether I was going to worship at the temple that had been built there because, if I was going to drive 30 km to see the lotus blossoms, she didn’t want me to be disappointed. At the pond, a park official told me that he had been trying to plant lotus there for the last 10 years without success.
M-Monochrom | Summicron-28 | ISO 320 | f/8.0 | 1/180 sec Pak Nam Pran
Joakim - congratulations on the S2 (S006?) purchase and I've really enjoyed your initial posted images.
My own MF DSLR purchase within the last 6 months was a 2nd hand P645D that I use with P67, P645 and a couple of Hasselblad V lenses. I love it but not the size and weight after loving small cameras like the M9 and dare I say it, the Sony A7R.
Today I carried my M9 and a ZM25 Biogon on my motorbike. The light was harsh and the screen display so crummy that I thought most of my shots very poor in terms of lighting at least. That changed when I viewed them on screen and I'm amazed once again at the resolution available from this combination. Minimal PP in C1 Pro 8. (Flickr images step-resized using versions of Samuli Verhonen's scripts employing ImageMagick).
A shot with provia 400X. My 35 cron defocused halfway through the trip so the pics are looking a bit off. I thought I'd really bond with this film but it doesn't seem to put out nice colours like the velvia on nice sunny or overcast days. Still a nice film for low light.
Yep, I have dusted off my old S2-P, which has pretty much been neglected over the last couple of years. It is not for the low-light shooter, but with enough light to keep ISO below 600, it is virtually unrivaled. The 007 is awfully tempting, and if I were shooting with only the S system, then I would definitely move up to the 007. But I will give myself some time with the SL.
I am especially anxious to see how the SL performs with my S lenses. I am thinking and hoping it will be a dynamite combination.
Gary, I love the "hands" last page, and your last is really nice too
Reims: great to hear the SL is working well with M The 50 cron just smokes at that range (your last), and Puts says it beats the 50lux ASPH close up, which is really saying something. What a design
Mitch, TY for the comments, I let it go to 800, maybe I should cap at 640. I agree on that first color shot: to my taste the M9 often delivers a rich and subtle palette.
Rene, great imagination
Werner, color graveyard outstanding
Lenticular, that 25 looks very good. It's funny, the Sonys oversell on the LCD, while the M9 can undersell and delight once you really get to look at them. Very good in strong light. Re "Putin" This is the look you get after teaching skiing 45 seasons. I first met him in 1983
Rocky, love that last one, inspiring.
Joakim, the 006 is looking very rich.
uhoh7 wrote:
...Lenticular, that 25 looks very good. It's funny, the Sonys oversell on the LCD, while the M9 can undersell and delight once you really get to look at them. Very good in strong light. Re "Putin" This is the look you get after teaching skiing 45 seasons. I first met him in 1983
Re 'Putin 10 years on' I'm sure the subject is a much nicer person and the real P will probably look much worse!
ref your low-emission cats, with Australia's recent 3rd-from-last world ranking, just send the old ones to us as it doesn't look like anyone in authority gives a d*** about emission-control, despite smoke-and-mirrors from our senior politicians at COP21 in Paris.
We're also such a nanny nation, despite our 'Desperate Dan' European settlement origins, that I'm pretty sure no kids would be permitted on top of the caterpillar track, just in case somebody decided to start it up. It's a great photo.
uhoh7 wrote:
Reims: great to hear the SL is working well with M The 50 cron just smokes at that range (your last), and Puts says it beats the 50lux ASPH close up, which is really saying something. What a design
Charlie,
What a design! is right. I frequently move back and forth between the Cron 50 and the Lux 50, normally leaving the Lux on the M240 and the Cron on the M246, where it absolutely sings. But a month or so ago, I sent the Lux to Leica NJ for 6-bit coding, and since then I have been switching the Cron back and forth between the two cameras, and now with the addition of the SL to the mix, between the three cameras. The Cron is, indeed, an impressive design, equally at home wherever it's mounted. I take issue with those who claim it is "too sterile" in its rendering. If what I am seeing from the lens is what they are calling sterile, then I'll take all I can get.
