Imsticking's Leica D-Lux 4 Blog

I post it here and it sticks.
 

Streatham Rider

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Streatham Rider - 5.10mm at f/2.5, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/1000 sec.

I took this image a while back and for some reason, I'm in a super sharing mood this week. Don't abuse it. I'm ridiculously critical of my work. Which means my options are decreasing mostly rapidly when it comes to posting something that won't make me recoil in horror when I see it some time after. 

I love the light in this image. I know, that's what photography is all about, but it's nicely accentuated by the fact that it's dark around the corner. Could somebody please put the Jaws music on? Thanks.

Processing details, for those who are interested: OK firstly, when I get my WordPress blog built I'm going to have a small glossary to refer back to so you'll be able to get the run down of how I create, what I create. The M9-ification etc etc. I'll just detail it all down in one place: the tools I use, the work flow etc. because after 132 to posts on my little Posterous blog, you can't really blame me for getting a tad bored with mentioning it yet again. Plus I'm sure you'd rather not have to see it, yet again. 

Extremely briefly then, in Silver Efex Pro, I removed 19% worth of Structure, processed it with Kodak Tri-X 400TX Pro film and used a split toner that can only best be described with a screenshot. This is the section where I invite you to let your imagination go wild. Now apply a -30% vignette and you're pretty much set to go.

I should mention, if you want to find this location and sit and wait very patiently for a cyclist to come along, you need to be behind Jacobs camera store on New Oxford Street. #justsaying

Filed under  //   Canine   Leica   London   Street   photography  
May 5 2010
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AT 62° FAHRENHEIT

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AT 62° FAHRENHEIT - 6.8mm at f/2.2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/2000 sec

I promised I'd share the original image today, that I referred to in my previous post from yesterday. I took this shot at Trafalgar Square during the St George's Day celebrations, which involved a concert at the square. 

To recap the process used from yesterday:

I bumped the Structure up to 49% in Silver Efex Pro. I chose to apply the Ilford FP4 Plus 125 film type, and spent far too much time tweaking the split toning effect, Preset 3 to get the look you see here. I also added a Vignette of -31% with a size of 75%.

Filed under  //   Canine   Leica   London   Street   photography  
May 4 2010
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Protection

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Protection - 11.1mm at f/2.8, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/125 second

I've had this image laying around for, well, since the 24th April 2010. I knew I'd post it eventually. I took it during a full day photo walk around the west end. I find that if I don't get time to process all the cooler images I take, they end up getting left behind. I didn't want this one to get left behind because I like it too much. 

I spent the most part of an hour on the train home working on a different image, trying to process it to a look that I wanted using Silver Efex Pro. By the time I got that lovely battery warning from Mac OS X I decided I hated the image and was never going to ever post it.  Was I just finished with that particular image because my battery was empty? No. It's like looking at the values on sliders when you're effecting an image. They mean nothing, and even though I'm often drawn to round off to the nearest 10 if I'm close to it, I ask myself why? Why would it look cooler just because I've rounded off values to satisfy my own desire for order (in this circumstance). Madness.

Processing for this image involved bumping the Structure up to 49% (no rounding) in Silver Efex Pro. I chose to apply the Ilford FP4 Plus 125 film type, and spent far too much time tweaking the split toning effect, Preset 3 to get the look you see here. I also added a Vignette of -31% with a size of 75%. Tomorrow I'll post the image I used to create this split toner, because it actually looks cooler applied to that image. I don't hate it so much anymore. It actually looks very very cool. When in doubt, step away and come back to it with rested, fresh eyes. 

  

Filed under  //   Canine   Leica   London   Street  
May 4 2010
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Burning the Cross

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Burning the Cross - 5.10mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/125 second

I took my twin brother to the industrial site I went to shoot at yesterday. The weather was quite different also, which although brings new challenges, weren't my favourite conditions. I have some images to process from today, but before I do I wanted to share this image I took yesterday. I will be entering it into the BLACK & WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY magazine's alternative printing process assignment. Luckily they accept digitally processed images too, or I really would have nothing to submit! 
 
This is a selenium print.  I pulled the image into Silver Efex Pro and processed it with the Kodak 100 TMAX Pro film type. I then used selenium (preset 13) toning to give it the style you see. One other thing I experimented with was the color filtering. I went with a yellow color filter as this seemed to accentuate the grass in the foreground in a way that was more pleasing to me. Which ever color you choose to filter, essentially lets more of that color through thereby rendering those tones lighter. Choosing a yellow filter allowed me to bring more definition to the grass in the foreground.  
 
I was tempted to post the M9-ified color version of this image because it looks cool too, but didn't want to spoil the mystery. This image was shot with my Leica D-Lux 4.

Filed under  //   Canine   Hampshire   Leica   Monochrome   Selenium  
May 3 2010
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Trafalgar Rooftops : Pseudo Leica M9

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Trafalgar Rooftops - 12.8mm at f/2, ISO 400, Shutter speed 1/640 second

I had dinner at the rooftop Portrait Restaurant of the National Portrait Gallery last night, and had a wonderful time. I wanted to share the view because it's just so special. The weather was typically English, but it made for some lovely tones in the cloud as the sun began to set. I'm sure you could get some really amazing results with the right weather conditions and gear if you sole reason for visiting was to photograph the view. I almost didn't take my camera, because I thought it may be a bit rude, but it went down rather well. 

The image above is simply a TIFF version of the RAW file off my Leica D-Lux 4. I ran it through my usual M9-ification process using Capture One 5 Pro to use a more captivating color space than the default that comes with the camera. This gives you richer reds and greens, and for me, makes the image come to life that little bit more. Beyond that, I haven't modified the colors in any way on this image above.
 

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Trafalgar Rooftops Dynamic B&W - 12.8mm at f/2, ISO 400, Shutter speed 1/640 second

I thought I'd also post the black and white JPEG that was processed when I shot the image. I'm not sold on the noise reduction functionality that comes built into the Leica D-Lux 4. Although I haven't posted anything original for nearly a week, I've been out shooting on several occasions, with the noise reduction set to +2 and didn't like the smoothing that resulted from the noise reduction process. It's not criticism I'd reserve for this camera, it's something I don't like in general, and it's easy to effect with post production software like Adobe Camera RAW or Capture One 5 Pro.

Filed under  //   Canine   Leica   London   Reality  
April 30 2010
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The Hampshire Tree Album

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Treeup - 5.10mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/320 sec.

I did say I'd post more photographs of that tree. I went back to it today, purely to photograph it a little more and look for something else to capture too. I was reading the latest edition of BLACK+WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY magazine that has a feature on creating your own cyanotype images manually from a digital negative. Right now, life's too short for that malarky, so I've used Silver Efex Pro. The important thing is, I was inspired. I don't know why, but I like the effect it gives the dead wood in the image above. It reminds me of those really really old photographs from a time when we didn't use one's and oh's quite as much as we do today.
 
Both images were shot with my Leica D-Lux 4. In the magazine, there is also a really cool feature article on Prime versus Zoom lens and the reviewer compares some really excellent Zeiss lens to their Canon equivalent, with the Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 T* Distagon impressing the most. The sharpest lens he's ever seen, apparently. 

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Treescape - 5.10 at f/2, ISO 80, 1/320 sec.

Filed under  //   Hampshire   Leica   canine   cyanotype   monochrome   nature   photography  
April 23 2010
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Self Portrait In a Box

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Self Portrait In a Box - 5.10mm at f/2, ISO 1600, Shutter speed 1/25 second

Here for your amusement, a self portrait in a box. It's very clever isn't it? How did I find an empty room in England you may ask? Or may not ask. I realise I've probably just alienated all 5 of my readers. Sigh. For those of you who've made it this far, I'm not going to tell you how I found an empty room. It's far far too big of a secret to ever reveal. Shot with my Leica D-Lux 4.

Filed under  //   Canine   Leica   Photography  
April 11 2010
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Wagamama Surprise

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Wagamama Surprise - 5.10mm at f/2, ISO 400, Shutter speed 1/25 second

I think I could spend all day photographing in the Wagamama's in Guildford. The staff are super friendly, and most of them seemed quite flattered that I was taking photographs of them at work. The waiter in this photograph was a little too busy to notice me with my Leica D-Lux 4 (I think). This one in Guildford is probably the smallest of the restaurants I've been to, and the one in Covent Garden has a maniacally busy open plan kitchen which would make for some great action photographs of the chefs preparing and cooking the orders. Maybe next time I'll have a word with one of the staff and spend sometime capturing their light.

This image was M8-ified with Capture One and the pulled into Silver Efex Pro where I applied the Ilford Delta 100 Pro film type and added the preset Sepia 17 toning style and pulled the strength down to a more subtle 9%. I also increased the Brightness, Contrast & Structure levels to somewhere in the range of 21% - 31%. 

Filed under  //   Canine   Leica   photography  
April 10 2010
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Strangers On The Underground

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Strangers On The Underground - 5.10mm at f/2, ISO 200, Shutter speed 1/30 second

I took this today on the Underground. It's virtual Kodak Tri-X 400 film from Silver Efex Pro. No big mystery, no big blog post. 

Filed under  //   Canine   Leica   London   photography  
April 8 2010
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Tanked

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Tanked - 5.10mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/8 second 

I thought I'd go out to an industrial park and see if there was anything remotely interesting to photograph. Heavy machinery, that sort of thing, without actually trespassing on private property. Came across a vehicle that I assume they use to haul containers around. Spent half and hour shooting it from just about all angles and found these three to be my favourites, coincidentally all from a similar point of view. As the sun descended I pushed the ISO up to 1600 to go for that Kodak Tri-X look while compensating for the bad light, but sadly, all the shots I do like didn't come out very well under closer inspection. The Leica D-Lux 4 seems to struggle to autofocus in poor light, like other camera systems. I tried a bit of manual focus but by then it was a bit too dark (and late).

This first image above is processed using the Kodak Tri-X 400TX Pro film type in Silver Efex Pro. I bumped the structure up to 100% and that's it. No other changes made apart from my usual Capture One Leica M8-ification.

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Parked Lot - 5.10mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/8 second 

No specific film type applied to this image in Silver Efex Pro. Just a simple split toner and backed off on the Contrast and Structure 17 and 10% respectively.

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Holga - 5.10mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/8 second 

This image above was processed in Silver Efex Pro with the 'Holga' preset. Seemples.

Filed under  //   Canine   Leica   Photography  
April 5 2010
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