Ron - did you shoot that last shot wide open? Very nice processing and recovery. I am not too happy with the PP on my last set. Shooting JPG and AWB on the M8 really bites - expecially with skin tones (the shot of my daughter). Oh well - I keep on trying...
I have not a chance to go for any real shoots, but will be in Bangkok and Taiwan, this Friday for about 2 weeks
Adam, beautiful shots at the wedding. The 50 Lux is a definite favourite of mine here. I would like to try the earlier version too, for portraits!
Andrew, loving your series from Shanghai!
Profus, nice set with the 50 Cron! The 50 Cron definitely has a magic about it, and is different to the 50 Lux Asph. I feel you can have many different 50's M lenses, and not overlap the rendering styles.
Michael, very nice set!!
Ron, excellent series as usual, but love that first shot!! It is great to see Hilmar as the subject Very nice set with the 28 Cron! The 21SEM has a very powerful feel to the shots. Love those compositions.
airfrogusmc, great compositions and love the colour placement The B&W set is excellent too.
Gary, nice set with the 28 Elmarit!
Edward, very nice series!
Bruno, love your street work
Hilmar, Great stuff! I really like the PP'ing, but the vignetting is a touch too strong IMO
Justin, excellent shots! Very nice PP'ing too
Thanks Charles! Looking forward to your upcoming images!
Gary, EXIF says it was f/9.5. I don't recall if that is correct, but it was probably in the f/8 range. I recall you're shooting JPEG and AWB, and considering this, I think the pp in your last set is pretty good. Maybe try shooting outdoors with sunny or cloudy WB as an experiment? BTW, Justin's image was with the 35 Cron, according to his Flickr page.
Hilmar - I don't feel these are over processed and in fact look quite contemporary, as it's a look that's been made pretty easy to achieve now with apps such as LR/Aperture. For this kind of subject matter, I think the high level of clarity works. And I agree with Adam about the vignetting, unless these were shot wide open on the 24 Lux, which I imagine would have a fair amount of vignetting, if it's at all similar to the 21 Lux.
Edward - very rich images!
Bruno - great set and characters. I really like the closer colour portraits.
Justin - love the second image in particular!
Edward, it is so fun to see how much fun you r having with your new M9 and of course your photographs are wonderful, the clay figures of the children r so cute!
rscheffler - Like the first shot and the 4th shot. It really seems like the lens does have high amounts of contrast, and a lot of the photos really do have that (hard to pin down, hard to quantify) 3D look. The forth shot from the Lux is pretty nice also.
And just noticed I missed the before and after shot you posted. Neat to see it. Thanks, it gives me an idea of what you were working with!
I've also been shooting at ISO160 and pushing in post instead of shooting at a higher ISO. Very interesting since pushing 4+ stops is easy in lightroom and you can retain more highlight headroom.
thrice wrote:
I've also been shooting at ISO160 and pushing in post instead of shooting at a higher ISO. Very interesting since pushing 4+ stops is easy in lightroom and you can retain more highlight headroom.
Nice shots Dan.
Certainly the M9 loves underexposure and hates overexposure.
I find that files are richer and have more depth when correctly exposed or slightly underexposed. It's also amazing how much you can push the files in LR. I never went as far as 4 stops but about 1-2 stops pushed files almost indistinguishable from correctly exposed files.
Wrote a rant about having to much gear... Decided not to bore anyone so I erased it.
Anyway, here are some images I took at a friends KTV Bday... Lots of people around, but I only took a few (25 or so) shots of people sitting next to me for fun. And I'm only gonna post 6 not to overwhelm y'all...
All shot with M9p SF-24D flash and 35summicron-asph @ f/2:
(Pretty dark, hard to focus, tried my best)
JustinZ850 wrote:
The 35 summicron, it's not a focal length I'm use to, but starting to like it!
Yes, the results you get are certainly nice - especially in B&W. It's funny - I have many almost identical pic's as yours from when I was living in the phils.
Certainly the M9 loves underexposure and hates overexposure.
I find that files are richer and have more depth when correctly exposed or slightly underexposed. It's also amazing how much you can push the files in LR. I never went as far as 4 stops but about 1-2 stops pushed files almost indistinguishable from correctly exposed files.
Yeah, if you don't mind dark preview images when chimping, you can pretty much leave the camera at ISO 160 and push from there. In fact, I was involved in a thread on the Leica forum, and one user showed that ISO 160 pushed 3 stops had a little less noise than ISO 1250.
I pretty much leave the camera at base ISO outdoors, and I switch to ISO 640 indoors and push from there.
Very nice Dan, Justin and Bruno!
Adam - you have a great looking group of friends!
Agreed about pushing the M9 files in post, but haven't been brave enough to shoot ISO 160 indoors instead of 1250. I'll have to test it sometime. The biggest issue I have with pushing M9 files is I still get random banding in a fair number of images that normally isn't visible in correctly exposed files, but becomes apparent when opening shadows. I don't know if it's related to the cards I use or because my camera is from early in the production run, probably sometime late 2009.
Back to the Monopteros overlooking Munich's Englischer Garten - a popular place to hang out and watch the sunset, for both tourists and locals (it seems)...
The fellow at the bottom was shooting with a Sony RX100... I'd still like to get one, but will probably wait until their a bit cheaper.
