It's A Life

I recently saw an exhibit by Brain Brake, a world renown

photojournalist best known in his native New Zealand. Brake jogged

me to think of recording ordinary life unaltered. He shot with a Leica

rangefinder camera that he kept in his pocket to be unobtrusive. The

setting here is Manhattan Beach, California, a casual, upscale

community not too far south of LAX airport. The aura is an

intermingling of yuppie shops, tourists, locals, and classy beach

homes. L.A. smog, power plants, and industry accent the scene.

The couple, sleeping in the foreground and people playing beach

volleyball at a court down-beach provide the human element. Thanks

in advance for taking your time to comment. Larry

Of course, this image must be viewed "large."  Thanks for looking.   Larry

It's a great "slice of life" too!

But first let me say how impressive the sharpness and detail is, particularly in the LARGE view!  Also the colour, exposure and composition deserve a mention as they are also in my opinion very credit worthy aspects of the photograph.

The wide angle takes in a lot of detail and it is interesting to get a "feel" for an area from seeing the "ordinary" aspects of the scene. I am curious as to what time of day this is? And is it a weekday or weekend.  It looks to me like a Tuesday morning at 11.00 am : - )

Very well documented Larry!

Best Regards

Alf

Hi Alf,   Thanks for your wonderful compliments on this image.  At first, I thought it too ordinary to post; then I found this to be the reason to post it.  I took this with my Lumix LX5 point and shoot while at the end of a "business" trip to California.  This was Wednesday evening around 6:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time.  I often just carry this pocketable camera when traveling.  It has a Leica lens and records terrific images, offering all the manual or mode settings of a DSLR.

My question to you relates to Lightroom.  I just purchased CS6 and Lightroom4. I the manual I am reading for LR4, Kelby - the author - recommends converting files that one is importing as .dng files as opposed to leaving them in as designated as NEF RAW files.  Do you suggest the conversion?  Would I have problems getting the full flexibility and benefit files converted to dng in ACR?  Do you both process/edit files in Lightroom and then also use ACR in Photoshop?

Thanks for your comment and for responding to my basic LR4 question.  Larry

Yeah ordinary is sometimes a lot more interesting than the exotic, we can all relate to "ordinary". I got the wrong end of the day, but its pretty much the mood I'd expect on a weekday.  Great results with the Lumix LX5 in fact I think I have mentioned my open admiration for the results of this camera once before, quite remarkable and superbly portable!

I am still on Lightroom 3 and find it is all I need at the moment, it does everything I want it to do. But I have heard great things about LR4

To answer your question honestly I really don't know!

I import all my files to LR3 as NEF raw files and don't have a problem with them. The only problem I experienced initially when exporting files from lightroom, was the Jpegs arrived as Pro Photo RGB colour, which is supposed to be a superior wider ranging spectrum of colour, but it didn't work for uploading onto PN and it didn't work for printing either.  I changed it to sRGB and all was solved. I also changed the 270 dpi resolution to 300 dpi and that improved things too.

I then use the Jpegs in photoshop, no other conversions necessary.

But as for your question regarding Dng files I don't much about them except that they are another Adobe file, which I would suggest could be trusted. And that I remember something about there being a good use for them as achivists find they don't lose any information over periods of time.  (I'm not 100% sure of the accuracy of the last statement)

Not much help this time I'm afraid Larry, other than to say RAW files will work fine.

Best Regards

Alf

Alf,   Thanks for your help with Lightroom.  I will be learning it gradually.  I have not used it before.  It will take some time to learn its ins and outs, that's OK.  Thanks again.  Larry