Leica Black and White jpegs

It's been a while since I posted, and i thought I would start again with a black and white jpeg, straight out of my Leica M9. This is a picture of my mother in law, Nancy. She objected to me taking the shot, but I took it anyway. I took it because I had just finished reading an article by Thorsten Overgaard, about jpegs taken with the Leica M9. They are not your run of the mill jpegs. Leica does something to them that makes it hard to discriminate them from a DNG file. Fine detail is held in the file, and the wonderful Leica lenses suffer little from glare problems when shooting into a bright background. In addition, I also used a gold reflector to shine some light back into her face.

I like Thorsten Overgaard's analyses of the Leica M9, since he uses it in all his photography. He works for Getty Images, and shoots a variety of commercial images. He gives workshops around the world, some for the "filthy rich". His weekly blog gives a lot of good information about Leica in general, and a lot of instruction on how to shoot in the digital age. I highly recommend him.

Yellowstone Meadow

My trip to Yellowstone did not yield a large number of images due to inclement weather, which is to be expected in the fall, but I did manage to obtain a few that I liked. This time of year can yield beautiful scenes. The skies are what make this area such a rich area for landscapes. I did find that when the sun was out, the result was very high contrast light, and it was sometimes difficult to get a decent exposure, without blowing the highlights. At one point I was mistakenly shooting in jpeg format, and the result was disastrous. My highlights could not be recovered from the jpegs. In contrast, my raw files, while having high contrast, were able to be recovered in my raw converter. Never shoot raw! This image, thankfully, was shot in raw mode.

Love affair with Trees

My love affair with trees continues. My favorite subject matter has always been trees. This shot, taken in Toronto's High Park, is an example of what I look for when it comes to trees. I love the tall trees that inhabit this area, and Ontario as a whole is a great place to see the beautiful maples, oaks, and elms. I like the repetitive shapes that the branches offer, and repetition is a great tool to produce a harmonious image. All great photographers and artists use this ploy. Speaking of art, I will be exploring painting with real paint soon. It remains to be seen how soon I will post them on my blog, though. It will take some time for me to perfect my technique. I have had a few years of art instruction to fall back on, but I know my first work will not be the greatest. Mostly I have to work on the technical aspects of painting. I'm looking at trying out water color, oils, and acrylic A few of my favorite artists are Gordon MacKenzie, Robert Genn, and Doris McCarthy.

Mesa Arch

Mesa Arch in Arches National Park, in Utah, is one of the most photographed locations in the park. I was on a workshop with Alain and Natalie Briot in May 2010. We had to get up at about 5:30, and drive for about 30 minutes to get to the trail leading to the arch. When we arrived, we were a bit surprised to see about 25 photographers already set up, waiting for the sun to rise. The goal was to photograph the sun as it appeared through the arch. The area in from of the arch spans not more than 25 or 30 feet, so it was very crowded and difficult to set up. However, everyone was very polite, and all of us were able to get a decent shot, as the sun appeared through the arch. The bright red under the arch is very real. The sun casts a beautiful glow under the arch, and it lasted for several minutes. The shot was over when the sun was no longer visible under the arch, and the red glow disappeared. The shoot lasted for about an hour, so there was plenty of time to get a few good shots.

Behind the arch is a shear cliff, dropping hundreds of feet. Bikers like to ride their mountain bikes over the arch, but that sport is not for me. I wonder how many have gone over the edge.

Sasha wide open

My friends and I often debate which lenses have the best "Bokeh", or out of focus pleasing characteristics. I like the lens I used here, the 50 mm Leica Summicron, shooting it wide open. Leica lenses are designed to be shot wide open, and most street shooters will shoot with the aperture wide open, or with the widest f-stop setting. This gives pleasing out of focus areas in front or behind the subject in focus. Some lenses give more pleasing Bokeh than others. Its just a characteristic of the design and the glass in the lens. Here you can see that the foreground and background are out of focus. The area in focus is a very narrow region, and depending on the f-stop, can be very narrow, such that only the eyes, for instance, may be in focus, while the tip of the nose and the back of the ears may be out of focus. In this image, the region in focus is not quite this narrow.

Montana Stream and Forest

One of my favorite images taken on a trip through Glacier National Park. I had recently purchased my Nikon D700, and this trip was the first opportunity to use it. I was amazed at the painterly effect that the D700 can impart to a photograph, with very little Photoshop adjustment, other than the standard black and white point, etc. Many photographs taken with a DSLR can be too dark right out of the camera, unless exposed properly, utilizing the ETTR principle. In other words, DSLR cameras have a default exposure where the exposure is too far to the left on the histogram. I learned about this principle on the Luminous Landscape website. ETTR means to expose to the right, utilizing the histogram to monitor this. Doing so can eliminate a lot of camera noise, which is more prevalent in the shadows. Exposing to the right maximizes exposure so that noise is drastically reduced. There is much less noise at the highlight side of the histogram. Still, you need to be careful not to clip at the high end. The best way to achieve a proper exposure is to set the compensation to about +2 EV.

Hugh Park 2

A second shot from High Park in Toronto. My grandson Sasha and his is mom and dad, love to go here on warm sunny days for picnics. It is also a great place for photography, and I make it a habit to visit the park when I travel to TO. As I do more and more photography, I think my style is changing, and may even evolve to an even more personal style. I think it is natural to do that  as I begin to see images differently. I try to make them more balanced as a complete image, by excluding extraneous elements that don't really contribute to the overall scene. Cropping can do this during post processing, but the challenge is to see this final image  the moment the shot is taken, but this does not always happen. This image is the complete frame, with no cropping involved, and I am quite happy with it.