Same composition as on the previous one but with less exposure. The contrast between the darker foreground and the lighter background looks "amplified" here, or is it only my impression?
Nothing against "embelishment", Andre, and nothing against amplifying some effents more strongly than "average". By itself it is not anything to "complain about". Still we have to call things by their name. And this is the distinction I have to refer to, since otherwise we would be in danger to mix up the exceptional work (like Luis' indigenous people) with everything else too. So, if there has been "embelishment" then I see no reason to discuss about it as if there has been none, and as if it has been the result of some intention to do something special. It is preferable to just stay open and sincere in this case, or else... I see that nothing more remains than to invent always new explanations for the contradictions that the old ones brought. The image I referred to was an example in order to have also a visible reference to what I mean.
But I also can understand that many times there will be a strong intention to get some special image, which then doesn't work as one intented. In such cases I can understand that one could also grasp the intention too firmly and try try to "save it" no matter of real existing possibilities. So, in such cases we will all tend to see not the real image but the image that we had in mind when we were shooting - perhaps "too much love" if you wish. STill it will be no use to deny reality. It is better to retry it. Especially when there has already been such an exceptional work like the images of the indigenous people.
Hi Nick, I have had a couple of conversations with Luis in the past about some of his images. He really likes to pour on the special effects sometimes. I like him and I find his images very powerful. I have commented to him in the past that I feel he doesn't need to embelish his images at all. But, if he chooses to, that is his perogative. He has some exceptional images of the indigenous people of South America. Andre
Fantastic! Andre, you gave me another very very good argument to adopt in my arsenal... Exactly, exactly... Did perhaps DaVinci ever need something like the "absolute technical means" of his days? No..... You could give him just some pencil and some piece of paper, or even cheese and chalk...
And exactly this is what most wannabes seem to be so confused about, unfortunately. So many guys who shift the fundaments of any artistic work from the conscious vision and necessarily skill which doesn't depend on "means", towards... unconscious application of filters and distortions of software - software produced by houses that apparently think, they set the very definitions about all aspects of photography. And the quite blind wannabe will of course follow the promised "easy paradise", and we see the results here in UF too. Just have a look at:
http://www.usefilm.com/image/1555496.html
and you will understand, Andre! Luis is telling me about the... Dragan effect. ;-)
What can I say? I stay with simple cameras with good optics as you say, and also I stay with exchanging knowledge with guys like you, instead of referring to self invented pseudo-explanations.
Thanks a lot for the info and I will be surely waiting for the email with the image, Andre! It will be a pure joy, I know already now! And I guess you really should post such good images here in UF too. If there are guys like me here, being so "unshameful" to post their own failures and get even DoD awards for them, then you surely should post your good images.
The fact that the good lens worked so good with your D200 may be only the result of optics quality... simple well designed and well manufactured optics, that is. Nowadays they save costs from optics so often in order to add "othe features", but light won't pass through "other features". It will pass through optics. ;-)
Hi Nick, I do remember at the time when I bought my Nikkormat FTN, the standard issue lens was the Nikkor H 50mm F2. It was certainly a pleasent surprise how well this lens works with my D200. The first few times I tried it, I couldn't believe the image quality in digital. At the time when I bought that old Nikkormat, I believe the Nikon F series cameras came standard with a 50mm F1.4 and you could also buy an f1.2. I think those are the prime 50mm manual lenses that I should be keeping my eye open for. I will email you a copy of the image I attached in a larger format. Keep in mind the image is a little bit cropped, so it isn't the full image. I cropped it becase there was an unsightly broken picnic table in the original image. Let me know if you get the image. Maybe I'll post a version here too. Andre
I take the good example from my girlfreind (and government ;-)) here, since she will always look for example at shoes of which one can immediately see that they will lose their soles in three days, and she just puts them back to the shelf and says, "These shoes are not only unnecessary but also a waste of the money I worked for." (About CD-players she has to consult me. ;-))
And another factor is that certain shift of intererest of the "ordinary people" from the good toward the plenty. I have the impression that we just have to have everything we see. We seem to want so much to be able to do everything at any given time. And so also the industry will respond to that, since the guys that examine market are really clever. They are not always also very humanistic in their approach but clever they are certainly.
So, put all the factors together, and you can see that they all lead us to the very strange situation, in which we have (for example) worse optics than before, despite the fact that much better materials are known now, and that we understood much more about optics, etc.
Another result from all that is also the definite "coarsening" of out taste. We seem to be satisfied with a much lower quality of things, but this is another story.
Returning to your image, one *can* see the incredibly high fidelity of reproducion - this is what I use for the otherwise perhaps a bit too indifferent term of "sharpness" - I think that "sharpness" alone doesn't do justice in cases like this. One can see such fine details but without any kind of "pressure" or "violence" applied from the side of the image onto the spectator, in the sense of "look exactly here and exactly there" - I hope you understand what I mean. It just evolves so.... freely, I would say, in front of my eyes. Yes sir, we do have details and textures, but we have no pixelwise contours that literally try to impress by distorting a world in the direction of an artificially introduced "sharpness" as a concept of pure "sudden difference to adjacent pixels". This here, is much much more than that.
Andre, I really would like to see that as big as possible, since form what I already see the original muct be breathtaking. If you have it and if you have the tome, please send it to me via email. But of course only if you have the time and the will, OK?
Thank you so much for the attached image! It is really a direct manifestation of the quality of your Nikkor. Indeed the used optics of such lenses is better than the lenses that you can buy at about the same price today. It is not of course that we have less expertise in optics today than we had some years ago. It is simply the result of some factors which strengthen each other if taken in combination.
One of them is nowadays much more has to be included in a lens. It has to autofocus, it has to cover the range from down to 18 up to 300mm, it has to stabilize the image, etc, etc. This is too much to keep all in high quality at the same tome and to not raise the costs. So, provided you want to keep all the "necessary luxury" (;-)) you have to cut from quality here and there, you have to make much more false compromises.
Another factor is the total designation of prodcuts and companies to one and only reason for being, and this is of course profits maximazation. This term, the maximum profits, is completely ill defined, if you examine that a bit closer, for at the end it might also minimize profits. Wanting to sell as many pieces as possible has something to do with the mass that can afford to buy, and so cheap products are a must. But going this way also includes the possibility of not only market saturation but also... saturation of the "appetite" to buy. You know, when you buy 100 cheap artcles just because they are cheap, and when they don't really fit ylur needs, perhaps at some time you don't have any interest anymore. It is expectable and very natural to happen, isn't it? But still most companies nowadays woll try to raise their market share by increasing the number of sold pieces, which implies a wide buying mass, and which therefore implies also low costs and so many times (not always!) also lower quality.
Now, of course this is not meant for saying that only the "rich" should be able to afford for example photo gear (or anything else too). It is only meant as a questioning of the typical behavior of buying immediately anything one likes just because it is affordable. Perhaps it is better to save money little by little and then buy one thing and a good thing.
Hi Nick, I've had such great results converting my old 50mm Nikkor f2 lens to work on my D200 that I wouldn't have any hesitation picking up some old used lenses. I really believe that as long as they haven't been banged around much, the optics are certainly as good, if not better than most of the stuff made now. Attached is a sample of a landscape that I took with the 50mm lens. The camera was set at Aperture priority for a non cpu lens. (I can also go 100% manual of course) I used iso 200, 1/250 @ f16. The colour looks great. But the sharpness is incredible. Unfortunately, the small file size here does not do justice to the quality of the images. When I blow up the original file, those small stones on the beach and the small branches in the distance show wonderful detail. I will post a few images taken with this great little lens in the near future. It is a great lens for city scenes, candids and even landscapes like this one. Andre
So I am surely going to try some more work in the darkroom, definitely. Except of all that joy that it contains it is also good, I guess, for a better understanding of what is going on, when and how to correct things, how much one can correct, etc, etc. It will be much like understaning also what all those sliders in PS mean in the direct photographical way. And of course knowing the reasons and the relationships of things that happen is worlds better than the rather "phenomenological" way of concluding.
About your Nikkor lens, I would understand what you mean also without having this gracious luck. But having had that allows for a kind of, let's say, "deeper" understanding. Not only that the word "quality" is of course written with capital letters on such kind of equipment, but also something additional. I notice from my own self that I do things completely different when I use the Hasselblad. Then it is for example also much much less of the usual overload of lenses and equipment. Not anything against equipment but being able to use less also seems to free one up for sharpening the own perception.
As about pure quality with no additional consequences on what we do, well, I already had my favorites like my 24mm for the T90 that I use so often. But in the short time of using the 80mm Synchro Compur I came to not just "like" it - it is a mixture of trusting and liking and treasuring and everything else.
BTW, I am about to buy a 40mm Synchro Compur of the same series. It will be the wide angle for the Hasselblad and so I am really excited to see what it does. I already went to the shop for a first inspection, and what can I tell you. It still works like a charm.
The manufacturers of our days start thinking again about making things to last.
Hi Nick, I understand completely. Your enthusiasm comes through loud and clear in all of your comments. It is so true what you say about that hard to define feeling you get when you get the opportunity to work with a piece of top quality equipment. I recently had a similar experience when I converted my old 1969 50mm nikkor f2 lens to work on my D200. The lens still works beautifully! I took a few landscapes last week with it and I can't get over how good they came out. All manual settings of course.
That's a great analogy... comparing home cooking to developing your own prints. There is nothing like watching your image appear under the darkroom safe lights. And when you get practiced at it, you can feel it in your bones when you have a special print. Andre
Thank you so much for that very very certain kind of great and helpful... enthusiasm for my enthusiasm, I would say. This is the best I can describe your way to participate to my own joy for the camera and the system I was so lucky to find, by writing in such an encouraging way to me.
Indeed I am astound about the quality of the system in its extreme simplicity. It is manufactured so simply, so clear and easy that I must wonder... if they could do that to last forever back in 1969, then why can't they make it this way today? I am not simply "impressed" but rather I am converting into a real "happy person holding a Hassie in the own hands". I hope you understand. Alone that precise mature saturated sonor click-clack of the shot...
But enough of that. I am getting too sentimental and that's no good since it is not "wonders" and "miracles" here, but only solid made and reasonably thought out craftmanship. You are exactly right considering the whole process (and also joy) of film development. I definitely can say it now since even loading the film into the magazine is itself such a joy. You can touch everything, it is not just "trusting that everything was done right for you", you can see it rolling smoothly along the rolls... Oops, do I get so sentimental again? ;-) So, I really have to get more practice in that and be more often at the local photo club. The dark room is occupied almost the whole time by all other guys here, but now I see why. It is much like... well, you can enjoy the greatest recipe in some luxury restaurant but the good soup you cooked by yourself at home is something else, ey? ;-) I do think that I will be cooking my own soups very often in future.
As about the importance of consistency when it comes to developing films, I can only say that once more I was so lucky. Just imagine! To move into a flat in a city, coming from just some of the many "XYZ-wil" here, and without even thinking about it to be so lucky to have such a great great photo store just a couple of steps away, in which you can really talk with the "boss" about even the smallest detail of how you would like to have the images - and not only that! You can be present and follow all steps of development, make your proposals, try this and that... no problem. Old good Mr. Byland will always take the time. And he does an exceptional job both in developing as also offering his own knowledge.
Hi Nick, You could not go wrong buying a classic camera like that for that price. A great find!
I believe from some previous conversations that you have been intent on creating your images based mostly on adjustments to the settings in the camera. The reason I asked about whether you had your own darkroom, (for developing prints) is because the B&W shots from the Hassleblad posted so far are perfect examples of images that can be taken a step further by custom printing. I think you are doing everything exactly as you should. That is to say making as many adjustments in the camera and understanding what results happen from those adjustments on the negative. Consistancy in the development of the film is a key factor. So it is good that you have a developer that you trust. What you have experimented on with a these "church" images is the kind of thing I used to do a lot of when learning B&W. I used to find something that I wanted a nice print of and take three images at different exposures (bracketing) Then when they were processed, I would pick the optimum one to work on in the darkroom. Let's say the one above was the best of the three exposures on the negative. I would take that negative and use polycontrast paper (so that you can slightly adjust contrast with filters in the enlarger, to suit your tastes. But, just as important is the dodging and burning that you would do to get the most out of what the negative has to offer. I always found that it was best to stick to exactly the same length of time in the chemicals for the developer, stop and fix. If you haven't done a lot of darkroom work, you should give it a try again at that local club. I'm sure you would love seeing the results. Andre
The quality of the Hassie is indeed far beyond anything that we could imagine nowadays. And I was such so lucky to buy a whole system for just... 200 US Dollars! Either I am dreaming or I am insane, that is! ;-)
I have the opportunity to ise the dark room of the local photo club here in Lucerne but most of my medium format images (up to now) I give to the local photo store which makes an excellent job. BTW, another thing to feel lucky about: The local photo store! They do an incredibly clean and professional job for just 3 US Dollars per film!
Hello Nick. I'm glad to see you back with lots to talk about with your experiences with your great new tool/toy. A wonderful choice in cameras. (superb quality) Please answer a couple of questions for me before I comment further on these images.
I assume you are having the film developed at a photo lab?
I say this because I think I remember you saying that you don't have your own darkroom? Andre
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