Trafalgar Rooftops : Pseudo Leica M9
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.
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.
