Ghost Work

Just after setting up this first shot, these six or seven office workers walked into the frame half way through a test exposure in a busy crossroads in Tokyo, the result is a total accident. I personally love how their heights follow the sweeping curve of the lighting support. This sponteneity is what keeps me photographically alive.

 

Anyway, have a look through the Japan Pt 1 portfolio, another is soon to follow.

David, a striking photo both the original and the "lucky" add on. Regards, Bernie

It looks really as if very carefully arranged. Super composition

Beautiful image, very nice creative work

Wonderful work Dave, clarity, sharpness and colours are all outstanding. What lens did you use for this? It looks like you shifted upward a wide angle lens, but I don't think you can use a shift adapter with the Distagon. Or maybe you stepped up on a bench or something similar?

Great work, whatever you did

 

Paolo

It was the hugely debateable 24mm TS-E that I had on loan over the summer, so you are right, a shifted wide angle. I was on my knees crouched on the pavement of a busy interesection with the lens shifted upwards. Lots of busy workers were leaving for home. Like I say it was a test shot but it turned out the most unusual of the lot despite achieving stronger compositions after the 'Ghosts' were gone.

Great shot David. You inspired me to purchase new equipment and I have bought Carl Zeiss 21 f/2.8, 28 f/2 and contax N 35-70 along with the Canon 5D mkII when it arrives. I expect to produce much better images in the corners with this new gear now in the post. I am also still considering the Zork adapters we spoke about, especially the MFS for tilt shift so I can use the medium format lenses at there prime apertures. Can't wait to get in the field!

 

One thing I sure hope the Carl Zeiss fixes is the horrible yellow/warm colour tone, especially noticeable on images with grass, etc. I prefer the more realistic/blueish colour myself.

Great!

Woah John, I inpired you to spend all that?! You're making me feel somewhat guilty. Thats a great set of choices there, I know that with a 5DII you would have been scratching your head regarding the QC. A 21mp sensor is brutal on glass, with that choice you will certainly be pulling as much detail as you can out of it.its going to take some work to get them set up right...

I have been reading up alot recently on lens choices, I mainly shoot between 21mm to 200mm. Canon lenses are great from 70mm upwards although I am selling the 70-200 f/2.8 tonight and purchasing the f/4 version as it's both lighter and slightly sharper for my landscape work. All this changing of lenses does leave me wondering how good the 24L MKII is going to be and will leave me kicking myself should it outperform either of the Carl Zeiss wide angle lenses. Meh, we will have to wait and see ;) With today's adaptors there is certainly no reason to stick with Canon wide angle lenses until they catch up, I just wish I done my research when I discovered landscape photography last year. I am lucky to have come across your portfolio and read alot of your posts regarding lens choices, all of which are very true and give remarkable results compared to the normal Canon choices! For that I am grateful, thank you.

 

By the way, do you use Camera Raw or Capture one for you RAW files? I recently made the switch to Capture one which gives better colour and possibly finer detail (very little) but the sharpening in Capture one introduces small grey artifacts so I avoid sharpening in the program all together. Having said that CS4 and Camera Raw 5 is now giving much better colour than before and more closely matches Capture One now. I would be interested in knowing what your thoughts are on Raw converters.

I would have seriously considered the Nikon 14-24. I have been using it for a month or so right now and its an incredible piece of kit on Canon FF. Its perfectly rectilinear between 18-21mm and sharp literally edge to edge at f3.5. I was able to take some moonlight shots this week with sutter speeds as low as 6secs at 12am. See 'This Seats Taken'. Filters are the only issue, but dont use them anyway. If I need them I reach for the 17-40 which is light enough to carry as well.

 

RAW converters are generally decided upon because of the alterations that I can do to the image, so Lightroom wins hands down, despite Capture One 4 producing goods shots as well. The problem I get is stair stepping in Lightroom when shooting architectural images that have clean lines and sweeping curves. I find both software choices produce great images, but Lightroom has the ablilty to trol all manner of image subtlety which is where CO4 is not great. Photoshop is the final word in colour alteration for me, so as long as the RAW is looking the best I can get it, CS3 provides the sheen.

 

Have a good look at this, I hope the 5DII isnt 'iffy', although I managed to get the 28mm f2 to work despite there being mirror problems at the start.

 

http://www.pebbleplace.com/Personal/Contax_db.html

 

Thank you David, I will read up on that site as well as 16-9, both seem to have good information on the lenses I mentioned. With regards to software, capture one is my first choice. Lighroom combined with CS4 is better than Bridge combined with CS4 as it offers a much better workflow and heaps of other stuff.