Guy Mancuso
Administrator, Instructor
You bet , Guys we all love to see images so please post them anywhere you want . This IS a photo forum, what's better than images right.
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Stuart Richardson
Active member
Finally! I tried to link an image in the darkroom forum on photo.net and it would not even let you display it. I was shocked! I thought it was a photo forum.
Anyway, Mark, that photo on the right is fantastic. I love the tonality and sharpness. I recommended a GRD to my father not long after it came out, and he absolutely loves it. He is an amateur who used to use Leica and Canon, and now the only thing he wants to use is a GRD. I tried to get him interested in the 5D, but he wanted none of it. Just the GRD. It really is impressive how well the camera draws despite the small sensor.
Anyway, Mark, that photo on the right is fantastic. I love the tonality and sharpness. I recommended a GRD to my father not long after it came out, and he absolutely loves it. He is an amateur who used to use Leica and Canon, and now the only thing he wants to use is a GRD. I tried to get him interested in the 5D, but he wanted none of it. Just the GRD. It really is impressive how well the camera draws despite the small sensor.
not that i think you're wrong on this (it does make sense that GX100 would be softer than a fixed lens), 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.
i love Ricoh (and the GRD's in particular) to death -- otherwise i would not have bought a second -- but i do think there may be something to the variance that people are seeing in their images. granted, most people are more knowledgeable than i and would have realised this before i did. your GX100 shots are stunning (not nearly the difference i saw), but perhaps Sean is right?
i've turned people on to the GRD with shots from the II that i never did (but should have) from the original. mostly because of you (but also Iansky), i thought the GX100 was inferior. it would be nice to know what the reality is when forced to recommend to friends who want the zoom. i know Sean's coming out with a review (hurry!), but still. you're more intimate with the GRD and GX100 than most.
p.s. Paris misses you.
M
Mark Turney
Guest
Thanks for the nice comment Stuart. I assume you mean the image of the girl smiling; I love that one too. Had I actually planned that shot, I would have placed the two women in the left, lower part of the frame facing right....I think it would improved the composition. But, to be honest, it was a 'snap shot' - jpeg straight from the camera.
Stuart Richardson
Active member
Yes, it is excellent. It reminds me of this series of shots that I took in Sapporo:
And that's with a hasselblad. But I just mean the general tonality and "feel" to the image seems akin. I don't know what it is. Perhaps just the city location, but regardless, it is an excellent capture.
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Mark Turney
Guest
Thanks also Maggie. Here's another color shot (high ISO) that I like from the GRD:
S
Sean_Reid
Guest
E
ellemand
Guest
Hey.
I've signed up for this forum today - and I allready love it;-)
Here's af pic from my GRD.
I've signed up for this forum today - and I allready love it;-)
Here's af pic from my GRD.
M
Mark Turney
Guest
I like that image a lot. Very sharp and detailed. Forget the 'don't blow highlights' that many folks spew....you have to expose for the details that you want to see; and, if the highlights get blown...who cares unless they are the subject of interest.Hey.
I've signed up for this forum today - and I allready love it;-)
Here's af pic from my GRD.
BTW Maggie - my shots are from the GRD model I, not II. Just wanted to clarify.
S
Sean_Reid
Guest
may i frame that?
*****************
i still don't understand that 'certain something' from GRD photos, but it is definitely there. every one here is superb. please keep them coming!
E
ellemand
Guest
Thanks for the comments.
cam wrote: "please keep them coming!" - Okay here's another (still GRD).
Have a great day.
cam wrote: "please keep them coming!" - Okay here's another (still GRD).
Have a great day.
S
Sean_Reid
Guest
I believe that everything in the frame is subject - must be subject - even though some elements will be primary and some secondary. I don't know about "spewing" but I agree that there are no absolute rules about exposure. One of the best examples I can think of is this photograph by Robert Frank from "The Americans".
What I do find, however, is that one's eye tends to be drawn to the brightest parts of a picture so if a highlight is blown, that tendency of the eye is worth considering, worth using compositionally, in fact.
Cheers,
Sean
Will
New member
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Mitch Alland
Guest
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:
GX100 ISO 400 EV -0.3 RAW
—Mitch/Bangkok
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/
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Walt
Guest
Gosh folks, I don't know why, but I lost my train of thought on this topic.
Rather than try to move all those old post and images from the forum that shall be nameless but whose initials begin with The Leica Users Forum, I'm going to just try to pick up where I left off on the technical stuff.
Sean and David were a big help in getting me to a useful PP scheme on this camera. I had a GRD, but spent little time on it and never really much liked it. The II is a whole different kettle of fish for me and the ISO 800 images, printed to 13 x 19 and 16 x 20, are unbelievably good. Chrominance noise reduction before RAW conversion and careful control of sharpening in both ACR and PS are producing wonderful images. I am also using a different tonal curve and chromatic curve for the BW conversion than those I use with the M8. This has also helped a lot.
What I have below, in order, are the full frame shot with the new PP approaches, as well as 100 and 50 percent crops of the same image. In the 100 crop you can still see a peculiar structure to the image in the face, though this is not visible, even in the 16 x 20 printing. David described it as looking like reticulation, which is pretty much what it looks like.
I've added a forth image, the 100% crop of the old workflow, which shows the artifacts more clearly.
Remember that this is an ISO 800 image, which I find quite remarkable. Even with a big boost in contrast and more USM wide-radius than I've used, Mitch might find this image too smooth. I like having this option if I want it.
Walt
Rather than try to move all those old post and images from the forum that shall be nameless but whose initials begin with The Leica Users Forum, I'm going to just try to pick up where I left off on the technical stuff.
Sean and David were a big help in getting me to a useful PP scheme on this camera. I had a GRD, but spent little time on it and never really much liked it. The II is a whole different kettle of fish for me and the ISO 800 images, printed to 13 x 19 and 16 x 20, are unbelievably good. Chrominance noise reduction before RAW conversion and careful control of sharpening in both ACR and PS are producing wonderful images. I am also using a different tonal curve and chromatic curve for the BW conversion than those I use with the M8. This has also helped a lot.
What I have below, in order, are the full frame shot with the new PP approaches, as well as 100 and 50 percent crops of the same image. In the 100 crop you can still see a peculiar structure to the image in the face, though this is not visible, even in the 16 x 20 printing. David described it as looking like reticulation, which is pretty much what it looks like.
I've added a forth image, the 100% crop of the old workflow, which shows the artifacts more clearly.
Remember that this is an ISO 800 image, which I find quite remarkable. Even with a big boost in contrast and more USM wide-radius than I've used, Mitch might find this image too smooth. I like having this option if I want it.
Walt
M
Mitch Alland
Guest
Hej då! (jag har bort i sverige fem år när jag var barn.) I like both your picture in terms of composition and tonality; the first one I find somewhat stronger in meaning.
Since we're dealing with new cameras (the GX100 and GRD II) perhaps it would be a good idea with each picture to state not only the camera but also the ISO speed, EV and whether it's from RAW or JPG.
—Mitch/Bangkok
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/
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Walt
Guest
I also wanted to take off on something else I had started on the nameless forum, which is that, for me, in many ways the GRD II is more like a film Leica with Tri-X than the M8 is. The M8 has gotten off on this medium format thing (and a lot of people seem to want that and talk about it as image "quality" rather than "character") and I'm just not interested. It is not just the image character that I am referring to in the M4/GRD comparison, it is the handling of the camera and the way people relate to it out in public. 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.
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. A few months ago, I was "detained" by sheriff deputies in an airport for taking photographs with the M8. Last week, I was in the same airport and photographed two deputies (standing by the check-in security equipment, no less) multiple times with the GRD. They smiled at me. And I smiled back.
When I shot with M4s, I often tried smaller cameras, not to be less conspicuous, because that wasn't a problem, but for convenience. These small cameras included a few of the little Rolleis with the two dials on front, the collapsible lens and the upside down film; the plastic Olympus XA; and a couple of small, earlier Olympus auto exposure 35s. The image quality of the Rolleis was always a disappointment to me, the Olympuses were somewhat better, but I always ended up using the M4s just because of image quality. The GRD II is head and shoulders above an M4 with Tri-X in it. I think--but I need more experience with the II--that it will replace my M8s, which I really don't like and have had incredible trouble with. I have a second GRD II body for permanent mount of the 40 when it arrives, and I plan a spare or two. (The M8 has made me literally paranoid on the subject of reliability.)
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
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. A few months ago, I was "detained" by sheriff deputies in an airport for taking photographs with the M8. Last week, I was in the same airport and photographed two deputies (standing by the check-in security equipment, no less) multiple times with the GRD. They smiled at me. And I smiled back.
When I shot with M4s, I often tried smaller cameras, not to be less conspicuous, because that wasn't a problem, but for convenience. These small cameras included a few of the little Rolleis with the two dials on front, the collapsible lens and the upside down film; the plastic Olympus XA; and a couple of small, earlier Olympus auto exposure 35s. The image quality of the Rolleis was always a disappointment to me, the Olympuses were somewhat better, but I always ended up using the M4s just because of image quality. The GRD II is head and shoulders above an M4 with Tri-X in it. I think--but I need more experience with the II--that it will replace my M8s, which I really don't like and have had incredible trouble with. I have a second GRD II body for permanent mount of the 40 when it arrives, and I plan a spare or two. (The M8 has made me literally paranoid on the subject of reliability.)
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