Avignon, October 2009

Unique in many ways: You must be very close but there is no distortion, the dynamic range and the DOF are just amazing and the signboard speaks a clear language. Best wishes for the holidays. Karl

Karl, thanks for dropping by ! Distortion is probably low due to medial camera point. Dynamic range was kind of head-scratcher: how much shadow detail in the upper part ? I toned it quite dark as counterpoint for the arrow.

 

A Merry Christmas to you and yours, and a Happy New Year !

Karl is right, this is unique. That arrow is great. Without it the image falls apart. The light at the end of the tunnel with the two pedestrians is excellent. You are really getting great results with your new Leica. Does this mean that the H4D is on hold momentarily?

Jeff, thank you ! Yes, the Leica is really fun to use. Maybe kind of honeymoon effect, but I am getting more keeper than with a DSLR. The Hassy is not just yet on my radar, a moratorium with my financial CEO :-)

 

BTW, Michael Reichman from Luminous landscape converted from P65+ back to a M9 for more comfortable landscape work...

Carsten, I don't think he converted. He just added the M9 to his collection. I tried to use the M8 that way but it just didn't work for me. I wanted it to be more than it could be. I have also given up the idea of trying to do serious work combined with holidays and now plan on using my D Lux as a sketching camera. Six weeks in the UK and Scotland on holiday finally convinced me. I came back with zero shots that I could take further. That was a lot of pain for zero gain.

Jeff, your New Zealand shots are outstanding - not a holiday ? But of course you are quite right, most rewarding is to shoot where you are, but when the light is right, not when you are somewhere by chance....

A nice find, Carsten. Good use of the extremely wide angle lens, I guess the back-to-front sharpness is mostly due to the short focal length. I feel kind of drawn into the tunnel. The dark tones add a feeling of suspense and mystery. I am not able to appreciate the detail in the shadows - my old but marvellous Eizo T68 monitor crashed yesterday and I have only a makeshift replacement I have not yet calibrated.

Thank you, Peter. The 15 mm lens DOF is really nice, prefocus 3 m f:5.6, and fire away, good for fast framing (I would have missed the pedestrians for this shot, otherwise). Bad news with your monitor, I hope you get good replacement soon.

New Zealand is different. It is one of the easiest places in the world for photography where you can pull off the road just about anywhere as opposed to Scotland or England where the roads have nowhere to pull over. Going to New Zealand is always a driving around looking holiday in a hired van with the camera gear close by. As for light, NZ has pretty changeable weather so there is often good light, even in the middle of the day. That;s also why I prefer Autumn or Spring over Summer.

Your B&W conversion decision was probably a good one. This one has a full range of tones and, in spite of the overcast lighting, lots of textures are displayed. The addition of the element of colour would only complicate the image. The icing on the cake, for me at least, is the light at the end of the tunnel which draws the eye to the two people who provide a dynamic to an otherwise static scene. The balancing element to that light area is the arrow at the bottom of the frame. Since there are so many elements to explore in this one I think it would be best displayed as a very large print, perhaps so large as to push the limits of the optics and sensor (whatever you feel that might be). Good one! Best, LM.

Jeff and Len, thank you for your thoughts !