The Latest & Greatest Fun w/Digital M Images

[eleanorbrown]

Joe, awesome shot...love the lines, shapes, the light in really really great in this one! eleanor

Here's one from last week, taken at IAH Houston on the way back to Boston. M8 35CronIV.

Joe

 

[RF_Licks]

Nice one Joe. I like the graphical nature of the shot, and the b/w is really good. Did you get your M9 yet?

Thanks Lloyd . Yes, the M9 arrived when I got home from Houston last Friday ... unfortunately the weather has been quite bad past few days and I could not get out to shoot. Joe

 

[RF_Licks]

Pretty shot,tone & comp Joe!

Thanks Steve! By the way, my M9 arrived Can't wait to go out and shoot!

 

[RF_Licks]

Joe, awesome shot...love the lines, shapes, the light in really really great in this one! eleanor

Thanks Eleanor! :salute: Joe

 

[CharlesK]

Wonderful shots with diverse subjects as usual Woody!

+1

Wow, I haven't visited here in a couple of weeks. Long story short, working like a dog and also had to attend to family matters (nothing serious).

There are some wonderful photos here. Will have to work backwards and look at them more closely.

I haven't taken any new photos. I did find a few images from March that were worth processing. All with the M9 and 18mm SE.

Great shots! Love the shapes and angles. Charles

M9 + Noctilux .95
Back from Turkey, more coming soon.

This one for Osman

I love the colour and feet to this shot Charles

Back to the M world, here are a few shots :

Paris from The Jules Vernes Restaurant. (Tour Eiffel)

That's it for the moment,

Taken with the M9, Cron 50 the first and cron 28 the 3 others.

Beautiful shots. Love the pastel rendering to the shots.

Thank you Otumay, Lloyd, Ashwin, Steve, Matt and George (it really is a small world, and welcome to the forum) - thank you all for your very generous comments.

Ashwin - the cartoon character was a gift wasn't it lol ? Here's one from the same session which I actually prefer, being slightly more subtle, although the exposure was trickier....
Regards

Mike

Mike, excellent street shots!!! :thumbup:

Here's one from last week, taken at IAH Houston on the way back to Boston. M8 35CronIV.

Joe

Outstanding shot Joe! Love it :thumbs:

 

[steflaurent974]

+1 Woody : I love your NY photos...So exciting, I am planning a trip to Ny from reunion Island : I'll be there on the 17th october : taking the M9 and the ALPA to shoot this incredible city. Till then, I am lurking at your shots !!

 

[emaxxx]

Great pictures Stef, would you like to share the development process of this one? I'm really curious is it Lr3? Do you have a personal color profile?

Thanks,
Emanuele

 

[Woody Campbell]

Woody, to me this is a powerful shot that elicits lots of questions....I have always been fascinated with Manhattan and on my visits there I have been most interested is seeing...not the tourist stuff---museums and plays, broadway, etc...I have always been interested in the "neighborhoods"...I am fascinated by what it must be like to live among so much concrete day to day. Do people use their cars (we LOVE our cars in Houston!), do you have supermarkets? It is always noisy when out and about??. This image makes me think of all this! Buildings, and windows and traffic everywhere. Really well done! eleanor

Eleanor - The answers to you questions are a suitable subject for a book. One of my goals in doing a daily photo blog is to write this book in a visual sense. Your question encourages me to get out into neighborhoods.

Compare and contrast Houston and Manhattan - where to start. People walk a lot more here - where I live in Carnegie Hill is about a 45 minute walk to my midtown office, which I do when it's not too humid, wet or hot (conditions that are well-understood in Houston), or cold. Public transportation, the subway, is safe, fast and cheap. Car ownership is expensive: monthly garage rental for parking is equivalent to lease payments on a good car - car ownership here basically costs twice what it does in Houston. People tend to use cars for escapes and major errands. It's common for people to own weekend escapes outside of the city, modest or grand depending on the person's means.

On 24 hour noise and congestion, it depends on where you live. Carnegie Hill, parts of the upper west side and of Greenwich Village are like leafy suburbs, populated with families with school-age children. People tend to find communities in organizations such a churches and schools, or in their work, much like anyplace else.

One critical difference between the cities is zoning vs. no zoning at all. When you look at Manhattan what you're actually seeing is the zoning envelope - buildings are built to the edge of it, within millimeters because the real estate is so expensive. Park Avenue north of 57th street is a result of the zoning envelope without setbacks or "air rights" transfers; the lipstick building is built within the envelope for its plot, but with credits for setbacks, some limited "plaza" space and an "amenity" - a street level subway entrance, all of which permitted IM Pei to add floors at the top. It's viewed by critics as a cynical exploitation of the zoning regulations. The Seagram building got to build higher because of the plaza; the building behind the Racquet Club built higher because the Racquet Club sold the developer the "air rights" above the club. Air rights transfers are the main cause of the skyline's jagged appearance.

 

[Woody Campbell]

+1 Woody : I love your NY photos...So exciting, I am planning a trip to Ny from reunion Island : I'll be there on the 17th october : taking the M9 and the ALPA to shoot this incredible city. Till then, I am lurking at your shots !!

Feel free to PM me - we can meet for a cup of coffee. On the ALPA I'm not certain what the deal is on tripods in the city. They were banned; there was litigation; there was some sort of compromise. The average cop probably doesn't know about the compromise, but it has something to do with pedestrian congestion and sidewalks. There are many places you clearly won't be able to use one - interiors (Grand Central, museums and churches); "private" outdoor spaces (the plaza in front of the Seagram building or any similar site, and surprisingly Bryant Park), and surprisingly much of Central Park. Here's a link: Thread on tripods in NY. New York is no worse in this respect than most other large cities.

This is why I get much more use from my M9 in New York than I do from my H3D -39. It's also why I've mastered handheld stitching - I've proven to my satisfaction that a three frame stitch cannot be distinguished from the H3D on a 24x36 inch print. A tabletop tripod (the sturdy Leica version) is invaluable in this context, using a convenient tree, pole, parking meter, whatever, as a support. But I was hassled even with the table top tripod in the plaza at Lincoln Center.

 

[steflaurent974]

Great pictures Stef, would you like to share the development process of this one? I'm really curious is it Lr3? Do you have a personal color profile?

Thanks,
Emanuele

Ok : the picture has been shot RAW, ed of the day golden hour, exposed to the right. Then processed in Lightroom, here is my worflow :
0) Reset to zero every slider in LR
1) Adjust WB : warm tones was needed and color correction : in the idea of using an old time velvia : Blue Luminosity -30 , and Orange Luminosity +30
2) Boost exposure until the first RED saturated piwels appear, without taking care of the sky (after this the sky is overexposed).
3) Boost the black slider until first BLUE pixel appear.
Now white and black point are defined.
4) Apply a graduated filter for the sky : bring down the exposure and luminosity to dramatize the sky, boost contrast and clarity
4) Ajust Luminosity and Contrast as needed (the less lluminosity the more color will naturaly saturate)
5) Add Vibrance and Clarity

Take a coffe,

and check if it's not too much !!!

That is my general landscape workflow with LR3.

Hope it helps and sorry if you spot mistakes in my english...

Stef

 

[emaxxx]

Ok : the picture has been shot RAW, ed of the day golden hour, exposed to the right. Then processed in Lightroom, here is my worflow :
0) Reset to zero every slider in LR
1) Adjust WB : warm tones was needed and color correction : in the idea of using an old time velvia : Blue Luminosity -30 , and Orange Luminosity +30
2) Boost exposure until the first RED saturated piwels appear, without taking care of the sky (after this the sky is overexposed).
3) Boost the black slider until first BLUE pixel appear.
Now white and black point are defined.
4) Apply a graduated filter for the sky : bring down the exposure and luminosity to dramatize the sky, boost contrast and clarity
4) Ajust Luminosity and Contrast as needed (the less lluminosity the more color will naturaly saturate)
5) Add Vibrance and Clarity

Take a coffe,

and check if it's not too much !!!

That is my general landscape workflow with LR3.

Hope it helps and sorry if you spot mistakes in my english...

Stef

Wow thanks Stef. :salute:

 

[steflaurent974]

Woody : i'm really surprised by the use of tripods being forbidden in NY. I have traveled to many cities (London, Beijing, Shanghai, Paris, Cape Town, Santiago, Marrakesh, Dakar, ...) but have never been facing an anti-tripod Law...very strange indeed.
What a pity, I will have to let the Alpa at home...

 

[Woody Campbell]

Yesterday's post - Citicorp in the fog. M9 + 40mm cron-C. This is a new lens for me. This image doesn't show it up very well.

 

[otumay]

Stef, thank you for sharing your wondrous shot and work flow.

 

[KurtKamka]

A ghoulish looking abandoned farmhouse just down the road at the end of a soybean field.

Kurt

 

[Lloyd]

Stef, thank you for sharing your wondrous shot and work flow.

+1 Thank you indeed. :thumbup:

A ghoulish looking abandoned farmhouse just down the road at the end of a soybean field.

Kurt

Nice! Is that effect in the image (vignette, etc) processing or the lens?

 

[KurtKamka]

Thanks Lloyd. It's mostly from using an ND filter at midday and then backing the exposure down a little.

Kurt

 

[Mike Woods]

Chairs....

Regards

Mike

 

[Jan Brittenson]

A tabletop tripod (the sturdy Leica version) is invaluable in this context, using a convenient tree, pole, parking meter, whatever, as a support. But I was hassled even with the table top tripod in the plaza at Lincoln Center.

Make a bean bag! Find an old sock, preferably something thick that has lost as much of its elasticity as possible. Pour in a cup or two of chick peas - I like chick peas because they're unevenly surfaced so resist shifting, and they're lighter than kidney beans. Lentils are too small and can sometimes leak out through small holes. Stretch out the open end and tie it off. Cut off any extra neck.

When not in use mine doubles as bag padding...

 

[Lloyd]

Chairs....

Regards

Mike

Very nice, Mike. The b/w is huge fav!