Alex_Es Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 <a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2274/1568187319_f424681de7_b.jpg" width="1024" height="682" alt="Mikoshi (Portable Shinto Shrine), Okubo, Japan" /></a> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex_Es Posted October 14, 2007 Author Share Posted October 14, 2007 Above is a photo I took yesterday at the tail end of the local autumn festival. I shot these men carrying a Mikoshi (portable Shinto shrine) with my M8 + Voigtlander 25/4P at ISO 320. It seems to me that the M8 was the perfect camera for the moment. It was quiet, it was unobtrusive, and, man, was it fast in catching the decisive moment. A big and noisy DSLR might have disturbed the atmosphere. I walked quickly ahead of the Mikoshi, stopped, let it move into the 24mm frame lines, and shot. I think the above is the best of the lot. The man with the dubious look on his face smiled at me in another frame. And check out all that black. No magenta where it shouldn?t be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
didier Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 Hi Alex. I like this picture very much. Great Colours and good eye contact with the man in the middle of the frame ! The M8 is the right tool for you ! Didier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vivek iyer Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 Good stuff, Alex. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteradownunder Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 A simple check of histogram and RGB eye dropper - will tell you that there are no blacks in this shot Alex. I can also see a purple caste on my calibrated monitor in the man's ceremonial jacket - who is making eye contact with you. One of the hardest things to get in a digi shot is black.<p> I am surprised that you are buying into the BS regarding slr vs rangefinder for making so called decisive moment shots ( like this?) hmmm.. <p> Still I am glad to hear that you are happy - use it in good health and show more pics! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike dixon Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 <i>A big and noisy DSLR might have disturbed the atmosphere. . . . I walked quickly ahead of the Mikoshi, stopped, let it move into the 24mm frame lines, and shot. </i><P> If a guy walking along side, stopping, raising his camera up, focusing, and shooting didn't disturb the atmosphere, it's unlikely a little mirror slap would have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nesrani Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 Does photography get any more boring than this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nesrani Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 I'm sorry Alex, but really, this is a completely lifeless image. Surely you can do better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul_neuthaler Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 Alex, I always love your efforts, but is there such a thing as a TRUSTY M8? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jack_lo_..._t_o Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 Alex; this is the Leica and Rangefinders Forum. Which means that you can never mention the reasons you and so many others have bought and used Leicas and Rangefinders in the text to any of your posts. Articles in the New Yorker, interviews with Nan Goldin or Ralph Gibson-that's OK, but not in the Leica and Rangefinders Forum. Your M8 may be trusty, but your perceptions are not. BTW what purple cast there is in this can be changed via "image >adjustments >auto color" if you have it in PS. I just tried it. When that works, it works very well. I think you have a good shot, but I wish there were more of a sense of the back and shoulder strain that some of these guys are enduring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad_ Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 Alex, the blacks are crushed, meaning all the subtlety in the shadows has been lost. Maybe <a href= "http://pages.sbcglobal.net/b-evans/Images23/Alex.jpg">this</a> is a little better? www.citysnaps.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ian_tindale Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 I like how you got the Amazon web ad superimposed across the chaps back - that must've been a once in a lifetime shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vivek iyer Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 <i>..but I wish there were more of a sense of the back and shoulder strain that some of these guys are enduring.</i> <p> That would make it a fake. Jack, I think this one (chariot or the whatever it is) is on wheels. The picture does not show anyone carrying it. Look again. <p> The blacks are suggestive in this image. The true color is a maroon here and not black. Alex, Use an IR cut filter on the lens. Get it coaded (marker pen). No two ways about it. <p> This sort of (IR sensitivity/color balance) problems are encountered when using Nikon dSLRs (old "pro' cams, like D1 and the like and until recently the D70/s and such), Epson R-D1s, Olympus cams, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex_Es Posted October 14, 2007 Author Share Posted October 14, 2007 Thanks everyone for the comments, observations and advice. You are right, Brad, that is better, though I'd have made it a touch darker. How did you do it? Light and Shadow in Photoshop perhaps? I'm now working on an article on M8 & the 25/4P. I was considering including this shot with the article but I might not. Actually I don't care about the DSLR vs M8 debate. (Am in fact considering a Nikon D300 one of these years.) I just thought that if I was a bit provocative for once I'd conjure up a varied response. Again, thanks. Life so short, the craft so long to learn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jack_lo_..._t_o Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 Oh my God Vivek you're right. Damn thing might even be motorised. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ray . Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 Did Brad post a corrected image? If so I'm not seeing anything. The 5D I got this week has a nice soft sounding shutter. The thing that makes DSLR's somewhat awkward is the tendency to put zooms on them. With a compact non-L 35mm prime, the Canon is as agile as a Leica, and with the viewfinder, manual focusing is faster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uhooru Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 Ray click on the word "this" in Brad's post for the corrected image. The "silent rangefinder" myth once again? Leica's aren't silent, for one. 2ndly I shoot with both M's and a D200, never had anyone disturbed from the mirror slap. Now the FE2 with a motor, that's a different tale! The 5D? I was walking around with some character that was shooting one of those beasts just yesterday, and I couldn't hear a thing. Alex, why engender remarks by parsing out old cannards about non-existent equipment issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pc_b Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 Now that's funny, Superbrad plays IR-filter and all we get are bluish trousers that used to be white (I'm on a non-calibrated monitor). Brad, after years in digital, hasn't anybody told you that one gets good blacks only by applying whatever corrections to the blacks alone? Besides, who in the 3rd millennium still considers pitch black areas in a picture an aesthetic must? Alex' original version is far from perfect - yours isn't better (IMHO, of course). Save bandwidth! Barry, I know the MD-12. A real head-turner! Do you know whether the F2/MD-2 is louder? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
didier Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 What is important in my view is to feel at ease with one's camera, be it noisy or silent, unobtrusive or not, big or small, film or digital, plastic or metal... And all this is very personal. If you feel comfortable with your camera you'll get a chance to make better photos. If you appreciate the process of taking a picture in itself because you like using your camera, you'll be better at taking photos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael s. Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 Alex, you're a gentleman and a scholar. Your reaction to comments/criticism shows that you regard this as a journey. Well said.<p> Barry wrote:<p> << ... <i>The 5D? I was walking around with some character that was shooting one of those beasts just yesterday, and I couldn't hear a thing.</i> ... >><P> Gotta turn down the ipod, pal. Either that or too many rock concerts in your (our) youth. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael s. Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 Seriously, in all but very quiet settings, I've found that ambient noise on the streets generally results in my camera -- <i>any camera</i> I use -- being audible only to me.<p> Of course, there are some exceptions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uhooru Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 PC B, I don't know, but I know I've popped that FE2w/motor from quite a distance away and the subjects snapped around as if they heard a friggin gunshot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex_Es Posted October 14, 2007 Author Share Posted October 14, 2007 Thanks Michael. Probably, as Ray says, a DSLR like the Canon would have been as unobtrusive without a big old zoom. For the record, the mikoshi is carried. It isn't motorized. What is helping those guys in the picture is that it is also being pulled by a lot of people. Amazingly, with all those people, carrying the Mikoshi isn't as strenuous as might first appear, I did it once many years ago. I had a second camera with me, an M2 with a pre-Asph. 35/1.4. I got the roll to King Camera in my neighborhood and got the negs. in about an hour. Scanned them that night. Again thanks for the commets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leicamshooter Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 Wonderful shot. Good job capturing the expression on the man's face. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteradownunder Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 What a silly thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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