W
Walt
Guest
P.S. I've just noticed that these images look much better when you click on them. Maybe the Leica forum was always like that and I never noticed.
Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!
Hi Mitch,Sean:
Sometimes the blown highlights can be intentional as in the following picture, which I've posted before, and which is one of my favourites because I feel it expresses the loneliness and alienation of living in a huge, hot city, somewhat in a manner of an Edvard Munch painting, (although I'm not claiming the same quality). The blown out highlight around the woman are intentionally induced in post-processing, as is the heightened contrast, to express the bright light and heat:
The M8 is one of the best handling digital cameras I've ever used, as is the Epson R-D1. Walt and I are friends, have great respect for each other's work and have very different views about the M8. I love it, warts and all, and he can barely stand it despite (or because of) owning two bodies. And the reason for that, in part, is that different people need, and want, different things from cameras.For those who haven't used one, the M8 is not a svelte handler, it is a bit of a clunker in my experience. Sean disagrees with me, but I find the handling of the GRD much better than that of the M8.
Hi Mitch.Sean:
Sometimes the blown highlights can be intentional as in the following picture, which I've posted before, and which is one of my favourites because I feel it expresses the loneliness and alienation of living in a huge, hot city, somewhat in a manner of an Edvard Munch painting, (although I'm not claiming the same quality). The blown out highlight around the woman are intentionally induced in post-processing, as is the heightened contrast, to express the bright light and heat:
I had somewhat of an angst-hangover all day and thought I wouldn't post for a bit, but Walt, that's a great picture and it's made my day.The photograph below is a recent ISO 200 image from the II. I'm looking forward to getting back to photography after a couple of weeks of goofing around learning the PP issues for the camera. The GRD II has been very liberating for me after a year of struggles and toil with the M8 problems.
Walt
Thanks David. I've had an angst-hangover for about a year, but I won't say what from while Sean is listening.I had somewhat of an angst-hangover all day and thought I wouldn't post for a bit, but Walt, that's a great picture and it's made my day.
- David
Walt:...On the other issue of comparison, the GRD, compared to the M8, makes me invisible to people I am photographing to an amazing extent. In thinking why this is so dramatic, I realized that when I shot with the M4s, that was a typical sized camera you'd see tourists with. Today the M8 is a distinctly large camera and the GR-D puts me back in with the tourists. So, this is a huge advantage to me...
David:...About your personal ideas of photographs and expressivity: You may be right and I won't argue with you, but I think Garry Winogrand makes a very well stated case for how you might be wrong about your ideas of what a photograph is and isn't capable of and I think you should at least be aware of it if you aren't already...
Cam, what happened? How did your GRD break down?...but but but... my GRD died, lens out. having absolutely no self-control (and not being able to deal with being cameraless for a few weeks), i bought the GRD II. the difference is astounding -- and i don't think it's merely the 2 megapixels. it's made me realise what i was calling 'operator error' really was the lens failing....
Hi Walt,Sean and others,
So let me try to "run down" the Ricoh to keep things in balance. I've little experience with autofocus and I'm normally just zone focusing the Ricoh, which seems to work just fine. But I like the idea of the "electric rangefinder" using the function switch to go into auto focus and then locking that into the manual mode by pushing the FN switch again. But when I auto focus with the Ricoh and then lock it, the manual focus scale seems to show almost random numbers--in a test just now, five meters on something that was about a meter away and then when I moved ten cm closer, suddenly half a meter, etc. Both my cameras do this and, as a matter of fact they don't at all agree on focus judging by what they show on the manual scale. Is this just something that doesn't work? I have an intuition, without quite being able to confirm it (other than visually on the camera LCD), that the autofocus is working, but the manual focus scale is not. The manual focus scale does seem to work when using it manually (though it jumps oddly and will only land at certain spots), but not when coming from autofocus with the presumably locked measurement.
Walt
I agree that aspect ratio is very important. I also feel that there is no such thing as a, general, "better" or "worse" aspect ratio but there certainly are aspect ratios that can be better or worse for a given photographer. I think that finding one's natural format and one's natural aspect ratio can be important.Hi Mitch.
About the aspect ratio of the image: For me there is a lot of importance in the relative height and width of the image - I think it changes everything.
after being funky all day, it died saluting, lens fully extended. multiple attempts at resuscitation failed. Marcel asked if i had bashed the lens, but i hadn't. i think it was suffering from day one, only i wasn't experienced enough to know.Cam, what happened? How did your GRD break down?
The M8 is one of the best handling digital cameras I've ever used, as is the Epson R-D1. Walt and I are friends, have great respect for each other's work and have very different views about the M8. I love it, warts and all, and he can barely stand it despite (or because of) owning two bodies. And the reason for that, in part, is that different people need, and want, different things from cameras.
But, so far, I think the two Ricoh cameras I've reviewed have the best designed controls of any compact small sensor cameras I've tested. I do like them very much and think they have much to offer. And fortunately, we can appreciate their strengths without needing to run down the strengths of any other cameras. <G>
Cheers,
Sean