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S Is For Show Us Your S2 Shots

docmoore

Subscriber and Workshop Member
they would have absolutely crushed me under the scrum if I happened to get in the way.




So thats what big guys do on the weekend.:ROTFL:

Superb shots and BW really shows them so well. I love this picture...180 seems the perfect focal length for these.

Any shots from the pub afterwards?

Bob
 
Great rugby photos Kurt. The B&W treatment adds to the grunge of the muddy field and players.

I am curious about your technique - focus method (AF-C, manual), crop, etc.
 

gogopix

Subscriber
Great rugby photos Kurt. The B&W treatment adds to the grunge of the muddy field and players.

I am curious about your technique - focus method (AF-C, manual), crop, etc.
Yes, me too.

Kurt, if this was AF, seems the new firmware really improved it.

Now, if they would ONLY put in a SPOT FOCUS option:rolleyes:

I understand the AF changes the focus area as the range increases. Thus no reason they can't do that in FW...

regards
Victor

PS: To LEICA. Add SPOT FOCUS and I will get the S2!
 

D&A

Well-known member
Kurt,

Astonishing good Rugby shots! Especially love #1 & 2 of the original posted ones and the first one of the two additional shots you posted. The grittiness is especially enhanced by presenting them in B&W. Nicely done.

Dave (D&A)
 
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Paratom

Well-known member
since this turns into a Tulips thread ;) ...
the S2 really shows the colors I see...the full resolution shots show a lot of detail - more than I would see in reality with just my eyes.





 

Paratom

Well-known member
and yes.... to be honest...for some subjects I often seem to prefer 3:4 over 2:3...no big deal-enough MP to crop though
 

docmoore

Subscriber and Workshop Member
and yes.... to be honest...for some subjects I often seem to prefer 3:4 over 2:3...no big deal-enough MP to crop though
I love #2 and #3....

I agree that 3:4 is usually easier to frame for many subjects.

Colors do seem dead on correct ... it is easy to overemphasize them if one is not careful.

Must have been a fairly still day as movement blur seems minimal in your posts.

Bob
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Honestly and i know I am going to pay for saying this but honesty is Guy's policy to a fault sometimes. These are about the best images I seen come off the S2 yet. Or maybe said gives me any interest in this system.
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
I should also say don't get me wrong there are some great images here as in the art sense. These images actually show the IQ i am looking for that I have yet to really see yet. Well done Kurt
 

KurtKamka

Subscriber Member
David, thanks for the comment

Steve, thanks for checking in on the thread. I try to peak in on the M photo thread once in awhile ... but not too often as it makes me wistful for the M9/Noct combination.

Thanks Bob. No pub shots ... but some very wet feet.

Mark and Victor. It's a learning experience trying to shoot fast action with the S2 but I feel like I'm making progress in capturing what I'm seeing in my head before I shoot it. I used AF-S and AF-C intermittently for the 30 minutes I was watching and shooting. I typically like off-center shots so I tend to focus and recompose a lot with AF-S for situations where I was trying to attain subject separation from the background. For pure action shots where I wanted to capture the emotion of an individual or a group, I'd flip it over to AF-C and the camera would nail focus every time. Of the shots shown, only one or two are cropped. I like trying to hang onto the compositions of what I was seeing when I was shooting.

Thanks Peter. While shooting I kept thinking about what it'd be like to play the sport ... although I played a lot of sports, it was quite an experience to be this close to a sport where guys this big were flying around with reckless abandon and no pads. It takes a special kind of crazy.

Thanks Dave, it felt like B&W would work with the mud. I've attached one in color, though, as I thought that you might like to see how the S2 handled the colors on an overcast day.

Thanks Paul and Doug.

Thanks much for the comments, Guy. They are very much appreciated. I think that as people continue to become more comfortable carrying around the camera in a wide variety of scenarios where they might not have carried a medium format camera in the past, we'll see a lot more interesting shots. If I was shooting fairly static subjects, I might have gone with a Hasselblad or Phase this time around (even though each of those systems are also immensely capable in a wide variety of scenarios). The S2 works for me because I get to use fast Leica lenses (with autofocus) to set up some interesting shots with a lot of subject separation from the background.

 

D&A

Well-known member
Hi Kurt,

This last color shot works for me (in color) partially because it's an overcast "gray" day and with the assciated muted colors, the grittiness of the subject matter is not lost. If it was bright blue skies and their uniforms were bright and colorful, the shot wouldn't work for me as well as it does.

On a seperate note and in regards to your reference of shooting action shots (like sports) with a MF camera.., its much like it was in the 50's and 60 with some of the great sport photographers. They actaully had to think out each shot in their head and pre-plan where the action would be (and of course often pre-forcus), knowing they would only be able to fire off one shot, maybe two (if lucky) to capture the moment. In some ways, although admittedly different, shooting these kinds of activities (as well as wildlife) with the MF camera, is much akin to those manual focus, non motor drive days.

Dave (D&A)
 
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Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Agree Dave . Honestly I can shoot almost anything with MF. I shoot Golf and other high action stuff as well. It all comes down to the decisive moment. Sure it is more work , more thinking and more hassle but as you get more experienced in any of these systems it becomes less a chore. The S2 given by design will make that easier as folks get that experience down a little quicker. I wish it was a 4:3rds format it would entice me more.
 

D&A

Well-known member
Agree Dave . Honestly I can shoot almost anything with MF. I shoot Golf and other high action stuff as well. It all comes down to the decisive moment. Sure it is more work , more thinking and more hassle but as you get more experienced in any of these systems it becomes less a chore. The S2 given by design will make that easier as folks get that experience down a little quicker. I wish it was a 4:3rds format it would entice me more.[/QUOTE

I was going to use the term "decisive moment" in my post above, but at the last second decided to defer from using it. Reason being that these sorts series of sports shots all have various defining moments which tell a part of a larger story as opposed to one single shot that represents the entire story aka: HCB (with just that one shot). Guess maybe it's just a matter of semantics.

Not to get off topic from all these great images posted, but a few years ago when I was meeting with a surgeon prior to some minor surgery, he pulled out a scrap book originally belonging to his dad, with dozens of tear sheets from the sports section from one of our largest National Newpapers....most dating from the 1950's and early 60's. Fantasic shots of game day NFL players making unbelievable plays and of course all made with a single shot manual focus camera. As Guy and Kurt said, it can be done when taking the time to think things out and work at it. I've actually found in some instances, having far fewer but well planned "actions" shots taken with Medium Format, often yield not only the requisite number of useable images, but high quality satisfying ones as compared to the usual high yield 35mm DSLR multishot approach.

Dave (D&A)
 
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paulmoore

New member
Hi Kurt,

This last color shot works for me (in color) partially because it's an overcast "gray" day and with the assciated muted colors, the grittiness of the subject matter is not lost. If it was bright blue skies and their uniforms were bright and colorful, the shot wouldn't work for me as well as it does.

On a seperate note and in regards to your reference of shooting action shots (like sports) with a MF camera.., its much like it was in the 50's and 60 with some of the great sport photographers. They actaully had to think out each shot in their head and pre-plan where the action would be (and of course often pre-forcus), knowing they would only be able to fire off one shot, maybe two (if lucky) to capture the moment. In some ways, although admittedly different, shooting these kinds of activities (as well as wildlife) with the MF camera, is much akin to those manual focus, non motor drive days.

Dave (D&A)
I have to put in a varied opinion about the color shot.. just does't grab me like the others..and I think it would have if treated the same.. the bw allows for 1. increased use of contrast, adding a liveliness to the shots.. and 2. abstract the subject matter, giving the shots their own world to exist in a conceptual way. The striped jerseys play into this..they become metaphors for prison garb.. the players loose their color individuality and become players on the field of life...sometimes it is hard to forget art school!
 

woodyspedden

New member
So thats what big guys do on the weekend.:ROTFL:

Superb shots and BW really shows them so well. I love this picture...180 seems the perfect focal length for these.

Any shots from the pub afterwards?

Bob
Kurt

This is IMHO, a very special series. It tells a real story in a dramatic way and the photography is just wonderful.I think you need to get this to various photo mags, including LFI, and show what is being done both by you and the S2.

Congratulations my friend............well done

Woody
 
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