Summicron 50/2: Ochre Sunset

I went to the annual flyin at the coliseum sports centre and took my family with me, and my trusty leica :)

 As we left, this was the view from the front steps of the sports centre, I think we should have left 5-10 minutes earlier

ISO 160 f4 1/20th of a sec

Super MC Takumar 50/1.4 : Pat Benatar ?

My wife looking gorgeous and channeling her inner Pat Benatar

 a Lo-fi shot using the SMC Takumar 50 and my Pentax K-X

Ive been trying to take shots as technically perfect as I can with the gear I have available, but Im in a sort of lo-fidelity mood lately and I am trying to convey more of the actual emotion/action than the perfect portrait ( that sounds artsy and pretentious, but I meant it with all sincerity)



settings


f1.4 ISO 3200 and 1/30th of a second ( thats a dark house!)

Digilux 1 : Macro Madness

I bought a leica Digilux 1 for a good price and took it out today, too bad it was overcast and 2C and windy ( chilly!)

 Now why would a point and shoot be on a vintage lens blog?  well it was made in 2001, so I guess 11 years old might actually be the newest item I own ( except for the 2 camera bodies of course!)

this was one of the first shots Itook with it, and the flash made my daughter look alabaster white, but her eyes looked awesome, so a little cropping and B+W and voila!

not bad for a 4 megapixel 11 year old point and shoot

ISO 100 f4.1 1/60th of a second

Leitz Canada Elmarit 135/2.8: Sad Knight

hmm

Everytime I think about selling this lens I end up using it and am impressed with the results, so this was a double test:

1: Testing some settings in LR I never use , and
2: High ISO on the M8, this is ISO 2500 , which is nothing radical for a new camera ( my Pentax KX shoots 12800!) but for a 6 yr old rangefinder its not too bad.

 I can see where the *rumour* that Leica made the higher ISO  noise look like film grain came from, what do you think?

Its desaturated it about 20% for that retro look that I like :) I am presently enamored with the idea of film, but a digital darkroom is so much simpler and also easier to clean up ( and doesnt smell or pose a danger to the kids)

here is the look I was going for

 What I could do is use a 256MB card and that would give me 24 DNG files just like an old roll of film, but I'd end up chimping and deleting the ones I didnt like anyway.........

ISO 2500 f2.8 1/45th of a second

Summicron 50/2: Ghosts in the Machine

My 2 gals acting funky, the youngest is under the sheet trying to scare people, my oldest is trying to ignore everyone :) 

 I was getting frustrated so I was goofing around trying to capture some longer exposures at high ISO values, the noise on the M8 actually looks like film grain once you push the ISO above 640, 1250 is semi OK, but 2500 looks very retro.

 now Im kicking myself I didnt make this just a tad faster, perhaps 1/10th of a second :(  oh well, next time

 ISO 2500 at F11 0.7 seconds

Summicron 50/2: Careful!

We went to a Viet restaurant for my fathers 72nd birthday and I snapped these shots of the gift-store adjacent to it.
 the food was great BTW

ISO 320 f2 1/15th of a second

Summicron 50/2: w00h00!!

another of the kids swinging on that crazy hotdog, converted to B+W because of 2 reasons:

1: it looks arty :)
2: I couldnt get the white balance right :(

the colours were a bit over the top with the kids clothes and the actual Gym itself, so i converted it to B+W because I liked the action and the look they all have! w000h000 indeed!


ISO 320 f2 1/90th of a second

Summicron 50/2: Lil Bro'

The birthday boys mom and little brother, this shot came out REALLY nice, I think its because behind me was a pair of white wooden doors that acted as a reflector .

 ISO 320 f2.8 1/90th of a second

Helios 40 85/1.5 : Not just a 1 trick pony.....

The Helios 40 has such a wonderfully smooth out of focus bokeh that a lot of users tend to get intoxicated by it and keep taking shots that way, oh wait, Im talking about myself!

 I do try to take *normal*  shots with it that utilise its strengths : Sharp in the centre and a fall off to the edges that brings the eye to the centre of attention. I stop it down every once in a while mostly to get teh sharpness back , so this shot is at F2

Also,  In this case the centre of attention is my fathers right spectacle lens , and despite outside being very bright , the lens which I think is only single coated held up quite well!

ISO 1600 f2 1/640th of a second

Summicron 50/2: Kite Festival Revisited

Im going through some shots I took last year that I either didnt get around to processing, or forgot to :)

 This is my youngest at the kite festival in the bright sunlight . I processed this 2 different ways, using photoshop and lightroom, I found the lightroom one came out better as this is it , perhaps I should have kept the other one too to post as a comparison? hmmm



 ISO 160 f2 1/3000th of a second

Summicron 50/2: Into the Night

I discovered a new trick and was testing it out, if I set the M8 to capture:

DNG + JPG Fine , And set the colour to Black and white, everytime I take a shot it takes a 10 MP RAW ( in colour of course) and a 3 MP JPG.

 In lightroom you have to set it to:

Edit> preferences>general> "treat JPEG files next to RAW files as separate photos"

 So here is a photo taken a minute or so different from the yellow sunset, but cropped to widescreen and adjusted  with +15 recovery and +10 brightness in Adobe Lightroom 3


here is where I discovered the technique

www.overgaard.dk/leica-M9-digital-rangefinder-camera-page...



ISO 160 f4 1/4000th of a second

Summicron 50/2: January Sunset

Happy New year all


Now that my 365 project is up I think this year will become a colour project.

 And luckily for me we had a nice sunset a few days ago :)  I adjusted the WB a tad to get the colours I wanted, but the backlit tower and clouds complete with sun rays are 100% authentic

ISO 160 f4 1/1500th of a second

Leitz Canada Elmarit 135/2.8: Ethereal

Despite being incredibly impractical , this lens really delivers IF you get it right , in this shot I think I did!

 This a friends daughter at our summer work BBQ , I told him I'd get a print to him, but I misplaced the files and couldnt get to him before Xmas, I found them today so this is what I came up with .



 ISO 160 F2.8 1/125th of a second