Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/08/30
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 01:51 AM 8/30/2005, Philippe Orlent wrote: >Is this a testshot, Richard? > >If not, I think it needs something happening in the foreground to make it >more interesting. One person walking towards you in medium to close medium >could have done the trick. (at about the golden section, smallest rectangle >on the right) > >If it is a testshot, it is an interesting shot for analysis: Hi Philippe, everything I do is a testshot :-). Actually, it's a 37th frame shot. I know I have one shot left and there it goes... I wish I have the talent of GB etc. What I really like about this picture though is the details and the tone and the lights... May be it's old news to you old timer B&W shooters, but to me it's new all over again. I agree it needs a stronger focus in the foreground. I try to make hay with timing the walker and the car lights. The scene seems to me harmonizes reasonably well... >A bit of lens flare (right below corner). Was it shot with or withoout >hood? With the built in hood but there are couple lights right in front and on top of it, including the car's head lights of course. Since it's the 37th frame, I said, what the heck, lets see how it performs with the bright lights everywhere. >If you shot this one at full aperture, the 'Lux is indeed incredibly sharp >all over. Did you put it on hyperfocal? >Even then, sharpness at that aperture would only start at about 59m/200ft. >So the foreground would suffer from lens blur. I focused around the middle of the cross walk, I think. >1/15th seems a bit low, too, since there is no motion blur. >I did a comparable shot last winter, and if I remember correctly, I shot it >at 1/15th or 1/8th at f.2 (Summicron 50) on a 200 ASA film. >So that would be 1/30th or 1/15th on a 400 ASA film. Well, this is about 10PM with usual lighting from the streets and cars. Taken Saturday night so not too much of a moon light. ASA400 for sure. I know I have set the shutter as reasonably low as I dare, which is usually 1/15 or 1/30. I haven't tried 1/8 much. >Transposed to one more stop open, would lead to 1/60th or 1/30th with the >Summilux. And 1/60 could indeed exclude most of the motion blur. But can the 1.4 aperture gives that much depth of field? >Which still not includes the non existing lens blur in the foreground. >So hyperfocal is out of the question. >So you focus probably was put on the middle of the street, between >foreground and background. Yup! >Still very sharp, though (looking at this jpeg). I was surprised myself to >see the results of my comparable shot: also pretty sharp all over. > >Is this due to low light conditions? Does sharpness extend when there's less >light? Does anyone know this? Hmmm..... interesting question! Thanks for the analysis! // richard (This email is for mailing lists. To reach me directly, please use richard at imagecraft.com)