BACKSTAGE ..

This should please MIke .. : -)

It was taken with a fully open 50 mm lens at F 1.4 with my wonderful old NIKON D70

Hi John,

I am elated by your use of the old stand Nikon D70 camera and the fine Nikkor 50 mm F/1.4 lens !

The results very much remind me of the film days, when using Kodak TRI-X film (ASA 400) developed in D-76 (1:2), provided wonderful BW tones for portrait use and scenic work.

This young lady is quite attractive in her natural setting of the world of make-up, too.

Best Regards my friend, Mike

Hi John,

Now for the analysis:

The skin structure is NOT over defined by super high resolution because of several factors:

The lens is good at F/1.4 but not outstanding. The camera has a limited pixel sensor size, which acts as a filter to any higher definition levels to be obtained. This is great for portrait work, because a face does need to be resolved to the sub-pore level anyway. It is different for medical imaging, where I use even better lens to resolve everything on or in the skin during an examination.

The use of F/1.4 provides a nice transition across the eyes, from the left (a bit sharper) to the right (a mild softness). Her lips are natural in appearance, too.

When I mentioned Kodak Tri-X film developed in a certain way :

I was addressing the films characteristics to provide a wide range of dynamic tones, without being too harsh on the absolute resolution possible from such an emulsion. The development methods are in effect like using Photoshop to control the levels of an image, its sharpness or softness, etc.. digitally.

The analog chemical processing is all that a photographer had after a shot was taken.  The use of the Nikon film camera (any version) with the Nikkor 50 mm F/1.4 lens provided very nice results in the studio as well as in the real world.

For low light level work, the film was chemically developed (processed) to provide its maximum useful ASA rating of nearly 2000 (like ISO 2000), and the Nikkor 50 mm F/1.4 lens provided acceptable low light level results across the full frame in most cases.

It is always nice for me to reference today's digital work with that of the film ere, since film still provides a " look" that rivals the best digital works and film still holds some essential advantages over digital sensors as of today, too.

Best Regards my friend, Mike

How beautiful skin tones, excellent portrait!!

Cheers

Alberto, thank you.

Mike, that is truly wonderful, informative reading, thank you for going to so much trouble.

There appears to be a bug circulating which is attached to the word "work" (in your first message above), which links to an add when it is clicked on. It seems to come and go, as it appeared also under someone else's comment under another photo recently and then disappeared again. If it is still there on reading this, I would suggest not clicking on it. I have reported the incident ..

Hi John,

You are welcome my friend.

I enjoyed furnishing you and the readers some background about your image. It is not ever a bother for me to speak to the topics of photography.

I agree about the "bugs". I have seen this before on PN. I have  had my computer defense systems report "malicious attacks" from the PN site. Perhaps someone has hacked into the site and placed an active bug there.

Best Regards, Mike

Dear friend, we know you are a master of nude but I think that like portraitist you must show us more works, your style in this field is...superb!!!

Thank you for your visit Alberto and Maurizio ..

PLEASE NOTE:  the "bug" reported above  is not due to PN but to my browser CHROME. As advised by Symantec, I de-installed and re-installed and the problem has disappeared.