Gee...amazing resolution in the closely cropped frame. Leave it to Leica. What glass is this? I remember when this camera was released, I never did see a comprehensive review on it - but I never did go looking. what film system do you use? I went digital in 2009, but in 2015 took back out my Minolta XD-11 and XD-7 film camera system. I shoot about 50% BW film now (Eastman Double-X/5222) Missed the aesthetics - now I am enjoying it again.
Regrading resolution my b/w photo came from the Nikon D200 at 10 MP. I have it printed at 60x80cm and it looks amazingly sharp even at close distance (I used a tripod). So with my current D800 at almost twice the resolution I could have printed it at 120x160cm with the same visual sharpness (if the lense would deliver). What more does one really need?I still use B&W film. For 4 or 5 years I used a Leica M9 Monochrom, which does not use RGB, rather each pixel measures luminosity only. Pixel-counting then becomes largely irrelevant (it was 18mp) and you avoid all the problems of RGB imaging and B&W conversion, as it is never as good. You just can't get the dynamic contrast. I sold it, which I regret.
Out of cam but not raw since it's an jpg (created by the jpg engine in the M9M). But quite good.This is an example test shot I took after buying it and a crop from the same image. There is no editing at all, this is the RAW file, and editing was rarely needed.
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I had a look at your website. I like your photographs, especially landscape and family pix (they are very life like).Good afternoon! Really appreciate this entry: love the BW conversion to this engaging Landscape!! I too follow and embrace your thoughts (insights) on post-production, and happy you shared them here. Hope you visit my website to learn a little more about my perspectives from behind the glass and teaching philosophy, they may interest you. visualizingart.com
We need to have a special place for Leica fandom, nutritional supplements and audio tweaks, like /dev/null. I have owned a whole lotta Leica including M8 and M9, but like audio components, their performance parameters can be measured:
https://www.dxomark.com/dxomark-review-for-the-leica-m9/
Being new here, I did not see this thread until it popped up on the New Posts list yesterday.
And the first post I read in response to the OP was on semiotics and indexicality. I thought for a moment I was on the Large Format Photography Forum (where I am even now one of several overseers, now mostly performing that role in silence). My last discussion that involved those concepts was on that forum, quite a few years ago, and it was with at least one of the posters in this thread (Paul, who taught me what the words mean). Small world!
One of the problems with art is that artists feel rather passionately about it, and are subject to drawing boundaries through the concept of art to include and exclude. C. S. Lewis wrote about literature as art, and demonstrated that art is art if it is intended as art, and if anyone--anyone--accepts it as art. As Paul said, not necessarily good art, but intentional art. Then, John makes a fine (rather, coarse) distinction--photography as art versus photography as reportage. But even journalists think of themselves as artists, and even those whose manipulations completely obscure the indexical content think of themselves as conveying truth, at least of a sort.
It's funny that much of the history of photography was represented in monochrome, which is an enormous abstraction of the world around us. Adams commented on that--but he preferred black and white primarily because it allowed him to strongly manipulate the image without undermining the illusion of being real.
Anyway, threads about photography need photographs. Here's one of mine:
Rick "is it digital or film, straight or manipulated?" Denney
I've looked at those Leicas, even though I've always preferred cameras that would give me a good upper-body workout. But the prices are a bit breathtaking, and I fear modern Leicas have become the same sorts of fetish objects as a lot of high-end audio. That does not in any way diminish my admiration of Leica's no-compromise approach.
My current digital camera for serious work is a Pentax 645z, which wasn't exactly cheap itself. (See above about upper-body workouts). But I work in color much more than black and white, and the big Pentax makes simply stunning images.
For stuff that's more production-oriented, I use a Canon 5DII (despite that it's now a decade old) and just had a new shutter and mirror box installed in it. But for the sheer illusion of endless detail, it can't touch the big Pentax.
On the topic of digital editing, my darkroom printing days are over, notwithstanding my unwillingness to pass along my Omega D2 enlarger, which still resides in the store room. When I use film, it's in a Pentax 67, or one of my large-format cameras (the preferred ones being a Sinar F2 and a Sinar P, depending on how bulked up I'm feeling that day). But like Paul, most of my personal serious stuff is done using digital cameras. And even when I use film, I scan and make prints in the computer.
For me, the dividing line between traditional and au courant is between those who make physical prints (or, at least, books) and those who display on computer screens. I do the latter but only as a means to an end. My endpoint is always the print, but I suspect that would be rare for those much younger than most of us.
If I take final prints and a bunch of Photoshop files to a book publisher, and tell him to make a book, I expect the reproductions in the book to be as close as possible to my final print. That's the line between music and "audio"--the job of audio equipment is like that book--convey as much as possible the original artistic intent. But some have taken pictures off my online pages and edited them to be more like what they want (usually with greater saturation, although I'm not that afraid of a little color intensity). That's not reproduction--that's derivative art.
Rick "who comes far closer to his original vision using digital editing" Denney
C. S. Lewis wrote about literature as art, and demonstrated that art is art if it is intended as art, and if anyone--anyone--accepts it as art. As Paul said, not necessarily good art, but intentional art. Then, John makes a fine (rather, coarse) distinction--photography as art versus photography as reportage. But even journalists think of themselves as artists, and even those whose manipulations completely obscure the indexical content think of themselves as conveying truth, at least of a sort.
Well my kind of photography is not very art related. I agree with @amirm that fixing colors, lights and shadows and editing minor flaws is acceptable (to me). Using montage techniques to assemble a final photograph from different photographs is not what I understand a photograph is or should be - I might call it photographic art or something like that. To be clear I make no distinction between analog or digital techniques. It's the final result that counts.
Dynamic range of photographic paper is a joke compared to what modern sensors (and negative film) can deliver. You basically have to lighten up shadows and darken highlights to prevent blown out highlights and black shadows. This is what Ansel Adams did in his photo lab. I don't see any difference between using analog or digitasl techniques, other that digital is much faster, much cheaper, repeatable and better for the environment.
Here is an example, first the b/w photo, then the jpg from the cam (Nikon D200, resized):
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I used a plugin which emulates b/w film. To make the white clouds visible in the light blue sky I had to enhance contrast by a lot. Then I had to lighten up the central region quite a bit, and the darker regions heavily, otherwise most parts would have been black. I remember having used several layers of lighting up specific regions to look natural to my eyes. This kind of post processing is fine for me.
What I absolutely abhor is the abuse of HDR techniques. What I also don't like is the rise of more and more artificial color saturation, especially in landscape photo books and calendars. If you look into 30 year old photo books you see what the landscape really looked like. Today you visit the landscape and don't recognize it any more. But one is getting used to it (it's impossible to oversee color saturated images) and I realize that I myself apply more color saturation today then I used to do 10 years ago.
Where do you stand in respect to Ansel Adams. The guy wanted to move away from photography movements prior to his, which all attempted to take cues from art masters of the past, and instead said letting photography stand on it's own as it's own medium. He then proceeded to do extensive processing work of his images.
One of his most famous, before and after
Zone IV didn’t exist for 30 years after that photo was made...
You notice that I poked a bit of fun, too, by downgrading the company’s exposure two stops.I love making fun of that company, and the ever-pompous / lovable Fred Picker. But I've been happily using one of his tripods since about 1994. Kind a frugal workman's version of a Reis. I think it's actually a surveying tripod with a piece of plywood bolted to the top so you can screw on a regular tripod head.
I still use the thing today with a dslr. When you carry it through the city slung over your shoulder, people look at you like you think you're Jesus dragging a cross to Golgotha.
I was rolling a Cambo view camera into the grounds of Mission San Jose in San Antonio many years ago, with a huge Bogen tripod and a foot-locker-sized case...
The view camera at my college (I was in the architecture school) was a Linhof Kardan Color from probably the late 50's. It weighed what seemed like two or three hundred pounds. The Cambo was a wonder of light weight by comparison. But the worst of all was the Newton NewVue that was the best camera I could afford after college. The Linhof was heavy but beautifully made. It was like going from a pristinely maintained Thorens TD124 to a cheapie Decca record player with a molded plastic tonearm and a sewing needle for a stylus. The Sinar P I use now is more like the Thorens TD125.That exactly describes the large format kits you could borrow from my college's art dept. back in the day. It was impossible to lug that stuff even 50 feet from the car without ending up covered in bruises.
One thing I like about the Zone IV is the lack of sharp edges and little sheetmetal bits to pinch your fingers. And it doesn't freeze to your flesh!