Impressive photos Luka and a great write-up of your experience. I noticed that, except for one photo, all your historical sites photos are without tourists in them which surprise me somewhat. Low season or did you just manage to avoid them?
As you can see quite a lot of people. In Giza I managed to round Khufu's pyramid and attack it from an angle that was virtually tourist free. I shot the Khafre pyramid (like in shot #1 in the historical sites series) from a distance. In Karnak I shot high angles above the head of the crowd.
Luka, excellent work! I'm really glad to see that you enjoyed using the M9 for the trip. As others have mentioned, the detail that you are able to pull out of the M9 is outstanding.
rsolti13 wrote:
Luka, excellent work! I'm really glad to see that you enjoyed using the M9 for the trip. As others have mentioned, the detail that you are able to pull out of the M9 is outstanding.
+1
Outstanding shots! And excellent commentary and detail too As you mentioned you look for the different angles and compositions, and is so clearly there in your shots!
Gee, looks like at least one other tourist was using a Domke-like bag...
Great images Luka! And very interesting to read your summary and analysis. For your future trips, how do you plan to get around? Train, car rental, private driver??
Ron, the cameras I spotted were very disappointing. Mostly mobile phones and P&S cameras. The high end consisted of Canon entry level DSLRs with kit lenses. As for the next trip to Egypt, I don't know - I haven't thought about it really. Going by boat along the Nile could be a possibility.
By the way, I don't think I mentioned it but the snapshots of the tourists were shot not with my M9 but with my Leica X1 which I had along as a backup camera. I used in on occasion for documentary snapshots rather than more serious photography. The X1 did not provide any surprises. It's horrible to use (slooow AF, poor LCD) but the image quality is really good. When you use it you just want to chuck it in the nearest bin but you forgive it once you see the images. I'm hoping the new firmware that is supposed to come out soon will as beta tests have indicated improve the appallingly slow AF speed (think P&S performance as it was a decade ago).
denoir wrote:
Ron, the cameras I spotted were very disappointing. Mostly mobile phones and P&S cameras. The high end consisted of Canon entry level DSLRs with kit lenses.
Νο need for disappointment. Your photography is based on squeezing every possible ounce of image quality out of a scene, for others the priorities are different and IQ is not even a consideration. For some people there is even such a thing as too much IQ, like Sally Mann and her scratched, broken lenses.
No, what I meant was that I was disappointed not to see any interesting cameras purely out of curiosity of seeing what other photographers were shooting. I understand of course that most people just care about a documentary memento.
As for Sally Mann, she would fit right in in this forum. She really works a lot with rendering style of different lenses and goes as far as to mix her own chemicals for the large format camera she uses in order to get the the toning exactly the way she wants. And she does a great job - I'm a great admirer of her work.
Denoir - Thanks for sharing the wonderful photos. They are all amazing. Each shot is beautifully composed, exposed, and pp'ed. So great to see them also in the substantial amount together. It was very satsifying. My most favorite shot ( this was hard as I loved all of them ) was the little bedwin boy in red, Summilux 35 shot. It is one shot that made me want to travel into desert.
denoir wrote:
There is however more to the M9 than its isze. I could take my Canon kit to Egypt and get lovely professional looking shots suitable for a travel magazine or a postcard. The problem is that it has been done to death. How many shots do you suppose there are taken each day of the pyramids? Just google it. What's the point of taking the 50,000:th identical tele photo shot? I mean it's great to see that you can do it, but once you've established that you can, is there a point continuing with imitating a style that has been done to death? A rangefinder by its very nature will make you take different shots.
So by using a rangefinder instead of a DSLR I (for the most part) in part by necessity skipped the very obvious shots and tried to find other angles and compositions....Show more →
I don't have any experience with Leica Mx, but are you saying that same shots that you made, can not be made with Canon 5D? If that is true, what is the technical explanation of that?
