Imsticking's Leica D-Lux 4 Blog

And The Witch Is Coming To You

Hands All Under The Sea - 5.10mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/2000 second

What a wonderful day it's been this Saturday. I almost get the impression god thinks it's a work day. I feel like I'm back living in Africa again with such a beautiful blue sky above us in Hampshire. Not a cloud in the sky. I was on my way back from a shopping mall, and just couldn't resist pulling over next to a wonderfully arid farmland to take some photographs of a very large tree left to grow right in the middle of one of the fields. I thought at the very least I'd get some usable black and white images.

These two prints are from the same RAW file, nothing different there. I'm busy trialling Capture One Pro 5, and with it comes extra ICC profiles that you don't get with the non pro version. These include camera systems such as Leaf & Phase One. Phase One I think is awesome. I used the P45+ Outdoor Daylight ICC Profile for this image above and selected the High Contrast Film curve too. Beyond that, I pulled it into Photo Tools Pro and performed a very light cross process, OK it was 69%, but that's light when seen with the eye. That was a good starting point for my black and white below.

And The Witch Is Coming To You - 5.10mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/2000 second

Once I'd cross processed the image I pulled it into Silver Efex Pro and used, what is starting to become a firm favourite with me, Ilford PAN F Plus 50 film and added some toning to the image using the Coffee 7 preset. There's a bit of a vignette going on there too to add a bit of dramatic atmosphere to the image and I think it does something to balance out the tones too.

I have a lot more photographs from the half an hour I spent walking around and photographing things, so I'm sure this won't be the last time I post photographs of arid farmland and trees.

The Witch by The Cult - one of my favourite tunes.

Filed under // Hampshire Leica landscape nature photography

My Backyard Stream @ Night

My Backyard Stream @ Night - 5.10mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 6 seconds

This stream actually runs through my backyard. If we chopped down all those trees in the distance, well, you probably still couldn't see my backyard, but only just I think. This is a part of Alton I don't see very often, which is a shame because it's beautiful. If you drive through Holybourne from Alton, you will find it. It's rather impossible to miss.

I thought I'd look around for something to photograph after work. It was getting dark, and that's just what I was looking for. OK, I was going to need at least a little light too, and a subject. I was on my way to the top of a hill that sort of overlooks the town, when my eyes nearly popped out my head. Slammed on breaks, reversed back over the little bridge, and found what I was looking for. It was pretty dark by the time I took this shot. In fact I remember it was so dark I couldn't see the controls on the back of my Leica D-Lux 4. But don't worry. That's OK. I know my way around the camera pretty well by now. I took this using Manual mode. I spent most of the time before shooting with Aperture Priority mode and I can honestly say that using Manual mode is the way to go.

I spent (read 'wasted') an hour or so of my life pulling this image into PhotoTools Pro and realising that nearly everything I did just made it look unrealistic. So here it is, the RAW file converted to a TIFF after using Camera RAW to try and recover the overexposed sky in the top right corner of the image, and a 20% Super Sharpen with PhotoTools Pro.

I'm really glad I discovered this little spot. I'm sure I'll go back many times in varying weather conditions to experiment.

I post it here and it sticks.

And The Witch Is Coming To You

My Backyard Stream @ Night

Ray Scott

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