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Fun with MF images - ARCHIVED - FOR VIEWING ONLY

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Paratom

Well-known member
Re: Fun with MF images - Part 3

Ok, here I come with a different opinion: Dont zoom into the image 100% to judge it. In the print and from some distance the areas which might look a little OOF at 100% still look ok at normal viewing distance, and with medium format the transition between sharp and unsharp is smoother and more forgiving. (still less DOF than smaller sensors of course)
I feel with some "luck" one get even good shots at f2 or f2.8
 

carstenw

Active member
Re: Fun with MF images - Part 3

Interesting that some people like the first version better. The second I made a bit too light, on purpose, so maybe I will find a happy middle when I am home again and can work in a stable light situation. The focus is the tree itself, i.e. the left third of the image or so. Most of it is in decent focus. The leaves are just a bright, OOF backdrop for the tree. I know it is a bit unorthodox, but it has really grown on me. Here is another from the same series, a bit more normal:

View attachment 18797
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Re: Fun with MF images - Part 3

More than just luck though , you really have to pay attention to the exact point you want. It's very easy to miss wide open
 

Paratom

Well-known member
Re: Fun with MF images - Part 3

More than just luck though , you really have to pay attention to the exact point you want. It's very easy to miss wide open
I agree. I try anyways and here and then you get one which is fine. but its a bit trial and error. Shoot 10 and 1 or 2 are fine.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Re: Fun with MF images - Part 3

Bill,

this is a case where number 2 is way cool!


:)D),
 

Bill Caulfeild-Browne

Well-known member
Re: Fun with MF images - Part 3

TX Stuart. I'm like you - I rarely clone anything out because I want to show things just as nature left them. But I find that twig draws my eye...

I'll try it on my dear wife who has a very good eye for such things!

Thanks for your comments. I must post a few of my Iceland shots though they pale beside yours!

Bill
Here's a few of Iceland from a few years ago.

View attachment 18825

View attachment 18824

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Paratom

Well-known member
Re: Fun with MF images - Part 3

handheld or stills from tripod?
I dont see the problem so much when shooting from a tripod, I was speaking about handheld.
The follwoing image was the 110 handhold at f2.0 and I think the image has enough DOF/sharpness for my taste:
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Re: Fun with MF images - Part 3

tim you have the eye of an eagle. how could you see those eyelashes critically enough to focus in the viewfinder?
Thank you! It's actually a nightmare. I am doing project to make a portrait of everyone who visits my house and have pretty much settled on the 150 as the right lens for the job. Much as it would be nice to shoot handheld, an inch or two of body sway post-focus makes the shots OOF so I use a tripod, and that means focus and recompose which is almost as bad but not quite!

In any event I have found that my first effort usually gets better focus than any attempts at bracketing and that about 80% of the shots have good focus with fewer than 10% being unusable. I do ask the models to open their eyes very wide so I can focus and that also tends to create a good expression when they stop!

I'd be really interested to hear how other people deal with this?

Tim
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Re: Fun with MF images - Part 3

thanks Tim, I thought maybe one thing is missing is a subject (or person or model) in front of the wall.
For me, not. I like it as it is. Hard to explain why but here goes...

A person is a person is a person and that means that taking a shot of them makes that shot mainly interesting to them and their family/friends (unless they are famous or of rare beauty etc). The way to take a shot of a person further than that is to either to to take a shot that makes them and their situation full of resonance in a wider way that tells the audience something more universal about age or youth or hunger or happiness or whatever; or to place the person in a context that intrigues in a narrative sense.

Your setting might be able to do that, depending on how it were done - but for me the scene has enough to stand without a person. The colours and composition are immediately arresting and the lead in line is compelling - literally a corridor or path that pulls the viewer forward. Then there's (for me!) a dialogue between the nature of shipping containers (being 'product for delivery') and the pulped trash in the background, being the end state of what started as product and being, though trash, still formed into regular shapes as if they were still product. So there's a story and a series of observations here for those that want them!

Best

Tim
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Re: Fun with MF images - Part 3

I dont see the problem so much when shooting from a tripod, I was speaking about handheld.
The follwoing image was the 110 handhold at f2.0 and I think the image has enough DOF/sharpness for my taste:
Blimey that's good!
 

carstenw

Active member
Re: Fun with MF images - Part 3

A person is a person is a person and that means that taking a shot of them makes that shot mainly interesting to them and their family/friends (unless they are famous or of rare beauty etc). The way to take a shot of a person further than that is to either to to take a shot that makes them and their situation full of resonance in a wider way that tells the audience something more universal about age or youth or hunger or happiness or whatever; or to place the person in a context that intrigues in a narrative sense.
Well, I disagree :) I think you missed one category, and not a trivial one either: the standard (non-famous, non-relative) portrait. Whether full-length or close-up, with or without an environment, which is or is not theirs. In other words, people as objects. Or perhaps, people as people, not as objects. They don't have to be famous or beautiful to be interesting.

Tom's scene to me would be an interesting place for a portrait. In my opinion, it would be interesting to have someone who belongs in this environment in this place, but it would also be work to just have someone interesting there. I could also imagine a fashion-shoot there, but fashion as done by most people nowadays doesn't really interest me. In fact, it is hardly about fashion any more. Graham's work interests me because he goes beyond the cliches, and into make-believe, hinted-at stories for each mind to finish.

However, I prefer Tom's photo as shot. With someone there it is something completely different.
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Re: Fun with MF images - Part 3

Well, I disagree :) I think you missed one category, and not a trivial one either: the standard (non-famous, non-relative) portrait. Whether full-length or close-up, with or without an environment, which is or is not theirs. In other words, people as objects. Or perhaps, people as people, not as objects. They don't have to be famous or beautiful to be interesting.
I'm not trying to nitpick (heaven forbid :ROTFL: ) but to me personally that category has to be the same as my 'wider resonance' category. A portrait to me is only ever interesting if it is of someone I know, someone very famous or beautiful, if there's a strong story implied or if somehow it is imbued with wider human resonances. Well executed shots of total strangers are unlikely to interest me unless they hit that last button, other than technically.

Tom's scene to me would be an interesting place for a portrait. In my opinion, it would be interesting to have someone who belongs in this environment in this place, but it would also be work to just have someone interesting there. I could also imagine a fashion-shoot there, but fashion as done by most people nowadays doesn't really interest me. In fact, it is hardly about fashion any more. Graham's work interests me because he goes beyond the cliches, and into make-believe, hinted-at stories for each mind to finish.

However, I prefer Tom's photo as shot. With someone there it is something completely different.
I agree with you about fashion and about Graham's work - which really is different. I also think the container shot is partly so successful because there so obviously could have been a person included and wasn't... but then I would say that: most of my fine art work that gets exhibited is about the spaces that people make and then desert, the way they use the landscape and leave it, their traces and their absences and their territorial markings. So in other words I love the shot cos I wish Id taken it!

Hmmmm, wonder where it is..... :D
 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
Re: Fun with MF images - Part 3

I think the most important thing is of course what we all know -- there is no one way to take a good photo.

Bill -- lovely shots of Iceland. It's funny, other than the second one, I am not sure exactly where they were taken, but they are very obviously Iceland to me -- it is a hard place to mimic!
 

JimCollum

Member
Re: Fun with MF images - Part 3

Jim, I *love* that cruise ship shot! Cruise ships aren't really my cup of tea, but that shot is gorgeous.

Tom, congratulations on getting the arTec up and running, I like the last, yellow shot a lot.

Ed, great pano! Is there some kind of artifact in the trees on the shoreline nearer the right side? There is some kind of dark-light thing going in with an odd shape.

Here is my first MF digital post. Taken on Rügen, near Sassnitz, on a path to the chalk cliffs:

View attachment 18758
i like the darker one better... and being 'sharp' isn't what all images are about. this image works as is.. very nicely done!!

jim
 

carstenw

Active member
Re: Fun with MF images - Part 3

Thanks Jim, and everyone else who liked my shot. It *is* sharp, by the way, just not where one might expect it :)

Here is one I am not quite sure about. The forest was quite dark, but there was a bright clearing in the middle. It was hard to find a good place to shoot from, and my girlfriend was walking very fast since our daughter was getting hungry, so I couldn't find the kind of spot I envisioned. I am curious if there is enough there, or if it falls short.

View attachment 18832
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
Re: Fun with MF images - Part 3

Carsten,
I think this last image begs for some more brightness in the center.
-bob
 
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