Ryan, excellent shots! I really like#2... beautifully rendering
KL, great street shots! Last shot is my favorite ...very nice conversion
Luka, stunning shots!!! My definite favorites are #2 and 4. Did you use Lab for PP? It would seem like #4 does, as it has those very rich colors in the cabin and the ocean.
Great shots luka! I definitely want to visit Lofoten.
Thanks for the kind words all.
Thanks Ryan for the account of the 35mm - i think my mission (should i choose to accept it) is clear - 35 summicron sounds like what i would be happy with.
Onaujee, KL ... thanks guys
This is my favourite lens for portraits. It is best combo of sharpness and fall off, as I perceive it. I must agree with Carsten about this lens
Nice feel to that last one KL, and Juano, I really like the first one.
Today we had the prime minister in town, as well as the leader of the official opposition, both on the election trail at support rallies. It's kind of unusual for both to show up in a medium size town (~500K) on the same day, within an hour or two. I photographed both rallies. As well, I did a 'streeter' where one stops people on the street to get their opinions for an audio slideshow. Funny thing is a lot of people didn't want to talk - no surprise there, I guess. But I still found enough, including these guys below. The downtown street I was on has a lot of 'clubs' - primarily Italian & Portuguese where old guys seem to hang out and do nothing much. But some of them are quite interesting characters.
The first character is Gennaro. When I asked if I could photograph him, he said "no, why?" to which I replied "because you look great." Then he said OK... it was worth it, just for the photos. He wasn't interested in being interviewed. I was just happy for these photos.
The next guy is Jim. Lifelong resident of Hamilton. Loves James Street, he says. He was very keen on being photographed and actually gave a good interview. Sometimes you never know unless you ask.
Last we have Jimmy. Half a block back there were four guys standing out front of one of the clubs. Younger guys, not the oldtimers. When I asked if I could photograph them, one guy got quite upset, but Jimmy followed me down the block saying he wouldn't be opposed to some photos. Unfortunately he didn't give a good interview, but got a few reasonable photos out of it. I think he just wanted the attention.
Not that I only photographed white men, but these were the more interesting images to share. All were M9 & ZM50 Planar.
Also, none of the photo sessions were candids. I stuck out like a sore thumb with all my camera equipment (had some Canon gear with me too), so the best tactic seemed to be to get close and talk first, then ask for photos.
Juano, stunning 1st shot! Perfect lighting I don't use a magnifier, but I make sure the viewfinder and RF window are very clean. I have also tried a number of different diopters, to make sure it optimizes the detail for focusing, and for me this is +1.0. Now having the 90 Cron AA back, consistently and accurately focusing, it has made a huge difference. I will say this though, I still find the 90 Cron V3 easier to focus. May be it is just the design of the lens.
KL, the last portrait is amazing!! It captures the essence and feel
Ron, great series of portraits and story! They are all excellent, but the last one I really like, with the scar on the guy in the foreground, and the hooded guy in the back ground The ZM 50/2 is an amazing lens for portraits.
Remember about a week ago I mentioned that I used the M9 to shoot a significant portion of a job? Well, it turned out to be a significant learning experience...
I learned that business attire and an AA free sensor can make for bad combinations:
I'd say that virtually all of the M9 images where the people were more than 50% of the image resulted in some moire. It depended on a lot of variables such as fabric type, lens, distance, depth of field, focus, etc.
I was dreading that I'd have to fix all of the images in Photoshop, but luckily was able to find a reasonable solution within Lightroom. But it meant spending a lot more time fixing each afflicted image. It's not perfect, but these photos are not for a clothing/fabric manufacturer, so chances are slim that the residual moire distortion visible in the full rez images will be an issue. The photos were for the school of business at the local university, fwiw.
The quick and dirty fix was to brush in 100% desaturation and apply a suitable color to it from the color picker. In this sample, the woman on left was left at neutral desaturation, while a slight blue cast was added to the guy in the middle.
M9 & ZM21. It tended to be worse with the 35 and especially the 50, which are both sharper lenses. FWIW, I also noticed some moire in certain Canon 1DIV images, but it was the exception and generally already subdued. This has got me wondering about using the M9 for corporate functions as well as weddings, though for weddings usually the wedding party's attire should be less of a problem.
