Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/11/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Folks: I came up with what I think is a very nice shot today. It's taken with my "Oleicus" E-1, so if that bothers, you don't look. I'd like a reality check on how much editing to do on this one. Here's the original image, with some minor curve adjustments and burning in, reduced for the Web. I like the warm cast--it was shot during the "golden hour," so that stays: http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/E1/temp/Pb200160crvburn.jpg Now, the first thing I noticed was that the almost-in-focus people in the background take attention away from the foreground figures. The E-1 has more depth of field than a comparable shot in a Leica. OK, so let's add some artificial shallower DOF, in the form of some Gaussian blur through a mask (the mask also blurred to make the blur fade in gradually at the edges). Do you think this is OK, or am I going to far here? http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/E1/temp/Pb200160crvburnblur.jpg Now, here's my first instinct on how I would crop the photo: http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/E1/temp/Pb200160crvburnblurcrop1.jpg And here's a ruthless "eliminate all non-essentials" crop. Again, did I go too far and lose needed context, or did I make the picture stronger? http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/E1/temp/Pb200160crvburnblurcrop2.jpg Whatcha think? P.S. Confidential to Ted Grant: In this case, I *wanted* to photograph their clothes, so it's in color :-) --Peter