Imsticking’s Leica D-Lux 4 Blog

I post it here and it sticks.
 

Gumball Raccoon and the Kodachrome Tribute

Gumball Raccoon Kodachrome - 12.8mm at f/2.8, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/2000 sec

 
The Associated Press carried a story last week about Kodachrome film. A film that has been produced by Eastman Kodak since 1935. That's a 74 year run up until roughly June 22nd 2009 when Kodak announced that they would stop producing the film. Kodachrome became first commercially successful color film in the world. It's a real shame that sales had declined to the point where producing it became a liability for the company.  
 
Back to the original story and that is one of photojournalist Steve McCurry, who I greatly regret not seeing talk at the National Portrait Gallery about a month ago. Steve was a photojournalist for National Geographic for 30 years, and has been shooting with Kodachrome film for 35 years. What a 'job'! And if you're wondering exactly how many frames with Kodachrome he's shot, you'll probably be shocked to know he has more than 800,000 images in his lab. WOW. A big chunk of one million images. No surprise then that Steve was the man given the last few rolls of Kodachrome film, and last week Monday he developed 36 slides in Parsons, Kansas. Why Parsons, Kansas? Well Dwayne's Photo Service in Parsons is the last place on earth you could have your Kodachrome film developed. If you had any, that was. They will stop developing Kodachrome film on the 10th December 2010, so you better get in fast. 
 
So what's on that last roll of film, and what's going to happen to the prints? Well National Geographic decided to (what else but) document the journey of that last roll right down to it being processed. Steve began shooting with it in New York, and then travelled to India and then back to New York shooting iconic filmmaking personalities along the way. This journey with the film took Steve 2 months  The last three frames, he shot in Parsons. I hope the very last one was in Dwayne's Photo Service.
 
If National Geographic do indeed publish the story of the last roll of Kodachrome, it'll more than likely be a spread in a Spring 2011 issue, but will only consist of 4 - 6 images off the roll. If you want to see the entire roll, you'll have to visit the George Eastman House, the International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester New York, where Kodak are based.
 
Kodak have decided to celebrate the films history with an online gallery of iconic images shot with the film. If you'd like to see them, head over to Kodak's Kodachrome Tribute. If you are a indeed a Kodachrome shooter, you are going to have to look towards other Kodak color films such as KODAK PROFESSIONAL EKTACHROME E100G or EKTAR 100. 
 
Gumball Raccoon Tri-X - 12.8mm at f/2.8, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/2000 sec

I took this shot last weekend Saturday after quite a long and hot shoot in Notting Hill, London, where I'd decided to go and shoot as many of the "Notting Hill" movie's film locations as I could. The top image has been 'shopped with a Kodachrome film type in Photo Tools Pro. It's also been cross processed to bring out the blues and greens. The image above was processed from the top effected image and I used Silver Efex Pro to apply a Kodak Tri-X film and a very light blue toner thereafter. You can download the SFX preset at the end of this blog post.
 
Why did he take this photo?
 
Blogging inspiration comes from a video recording of a U2 gig I was at in Jo'burg, South Africa in 1997, the song "Gone ♫".
 

Click here to download:
Gumball Tri-X Bluetone.sep (3 KB)


Filed under  //   kodachrome   Leica   London   monochrome   photography   street  
July 18 2010
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Incident At The Window

Incident At The Window - 5.1mm at f/2.2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/250 sec

 
This first photograph was shot on the same day I took a series of shop window photographs and blogged about earlier in a post titled "In a West End Town". The title of this blog post is taken from the title of the story pasted at the bottom of the door. I have a close up of it I may process and publish for you to read. 
 
I love shooting with a really low ISO. You can get some really great results with the Leica D-Lux 4. You have to keep the shutter open a bit longer, but that only allows the sensor to drink up all that wonderful light, without generating (any/much) noise. Something else I keep getting consistently good results with is adding a lot of structure to Ilford film in Silver Efex Pro. I like the tones that film generates. The tonal range seems a bit narrower than with something like Kodak Tri-X. I could be wrong of course. I'm just going by what I see with my eyes, at this stage. 
 
That pretty much sums up how I processed this photograph above. I've applied a very dark Sepia tone to it. Preset 18 with the saturation backed off down to around 35. Check out the preset file at the end of this post for the details. One thing I didn't apply or experiment with were color filters. 
 

The Darkest Line - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 400, Shutter speed 1/200sec

 I thought I'd publish the black and white version of The District Line image I posted a few days ago. I ran this through Silver Efex Pro and spent most of my time concentrating on the light in the shadows. I thought it would be better to bring out some of the sides of the train hoping it would give more depth to the image. The area I'm attracted to most in this photograph is the foreground with the two young women waiting for the train to pull into the station. The way the light touches the crumpled jeans looks really cool to me.

 
I've kept the post processing really simple for this photograph. It's Kodak Tri-X film and no toning of any sort. Help yourself to the Silver Efex Pro preset file below.
 

Click here to download:
IncedentfordXP2Super400Sepia.sep (3 KB)
 

Click here to download:
Tri-X Train.sep (3 KB)


Filed under  //   Leica   London   monochrome   photography   street   transport  
July 8 2010
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No Purchase

Calling Home - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/320 sec

 
I had to dash to the Apple Store after work today. No purchase this time, simply returning something I didn't need. Was it a 30" Cinema Display? Hardly! You could never have too many of those. Apple have a 14 day return policy on all item purchased, just as long as you don't actually unwrap those items. I quite like the new Mac Mini that was released a few weeks back. A great little machine to sit under the 50" HD TV. I splashed out on a £14 HDMI cable this week (apart from the new iPhone 4), and I think a Mac Mini sitting under the TV with all my music and HD movies would be pretty cool. Then I could finally make good use of the EyeTV Hybrid I've had for about a year and not been able to setup permanently, and use my old iPhone 3G as a universal remote.
 
Presented in the order in which they were shot (with my Leica D-Lux 4), around Oxford Circus there's not a huge amount to say about them. So I'll keep this short because I'm off to Wimbledon tomorrow morning, and if I don't wimp out, I'll be setting my alarm for 4am.
 

 Repairing London - 12.8mm at f/2.8, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/40 sec

 

Would you like it in a bag? - 11.1mm at f/2.8, ISO 400, Shutter speed 1/60 sec 

 

Miles Away - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 200, Shutter speed 1/30 sec 


Filed under  //   Leica   London   monochrome   photography   street  
June 25 2010
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Crystal's Room

Crystal's Room - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/250s

 

I found myself walking through Leicester Square early on Saturday evening. It wasn't exactly by choice, especially as it was really busy. Somehow I managed to catch a lull in the throng, so my own photography is calling me a liar, but that's OK. There was a free concert, a West End Live gig, on in the actual square which is to the left of this photograph. The fact that it was free might give you a clue as to my impressions of the talent. Before all of this I went to the Saatchi Gallery, again not exactly my first choice. I'd gone down to Sloane Square because I know there are a few other galleries on Kings Road that regularly exhibit really great photographer's work. Turned out they were quite dull from their description in the latest BLACK+WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY magazine, so I think next weekend may just be a double-header: Wimbledon on Saturday and a most excellent (honestly I'm not a fan of Bill and Ted) photography exhibit on Sunday.
 
A world away from the free live music was this young woman. Clearly setting her own agenda and while I'm not sure anyone can really claim to have a style that is uniquely their's in 2010, I'm still impressed by her lack of attention to what's in the fashion magazines that a lot of women seem to follow as if they simply couldn't dress themselves without them. That still fascinates me. That part of the human psyche that drives people to want to conform and feel accepted by wearing what everyone else has allowed themselves to be told to wear by fashion "experts". 
 
Anyway, enough of that rant. I used to have my hair long and buzzed on a number 2 around the sides and back, but not quite this extreme.  
 
I really do love this split tone I've applied to this photograph using Silver Efex Pro. It's at the bottom of this post, as usual for those who want to play around with Kodak FP4 Plus 125 film, or the split toner preset 3 that you see applied to this image. Just bear in mind that I've put it through a green filter, so you may want to neutralise that before you get started. Shot with my D-Lux 4, what else? For now anyway! 
 

Click here to download:
CrystalK-FP4+125GreenSplit.sep (3 KB)


Filed under  //   Leica   London   monochrome   photography   street  
June 21 2010
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This Is My Playground

This Is My Playground - 7.9mm at f/2.4, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/8 sec.

I came across some truly incredible long exposure black and white photographs some weeks back. Shot by Russian photographer Alexey Titarenko. You can view his portfolio at alexeytitarenko.com. I wish I could reproduce one or two images here for you to see, but that would not be cool, so please do go and have a good look at his portfolio and the other online gallery. It's called the Nailya Alexander Gallery. I like his City of Shadows series the most. 

These photographs, taken with my Leica D-Lux 4 of course, aren't particularly long in terms of exposure and look nothing like the others, but I wanted to share them, because well, they're the best I shot at the time, and I like them, for different reasons. I wasn't trying to produce photographs like Alexey's because I didn't have a tripod. I like this one above the most. It's cool how the woman just seems to have faded away from both sides, and it's quite extreme too. Reduced to just a whisper. I was on my way to St James Park and had just descended the escalators at Oxford Circus tube station when I spotted this advert on the side wall of the tunnel I was walking down. Again, it was crazy busy with people. I think I took about 10 shots as people walked across my point of view. Even though the shutter speed was constant for most of the shots I took, this photograph seemed to just turn out better. I was very lucky I didn't get anyone else in the frame, and it was only by a fraction of a second. It's quite a rush realising you only have a split second to get a (potentially) cool shot. 

Running for Nothing - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 200, Shutter speed 1/10 sec.

With the photograph above I was trying to keep the structure of the tiling on the floor as close as possible to what you'd naturally perceive. Not the colours of course. We like to strip those right out. If you want to see what it looks like in colour you'll have to go to Baker Street. I wanted to keep some structure in the glare from the overhead lights reflected in the floor tiles in the top left area of the frame, but still keeping the rest of the floor looking flat and smooth, as you would see it when standing directly on it. I find my eyes circling with this photograph, which is what I like about it.

Both of these photographs have been split toned in Silver Efex Pro with the top photograph being processed with Ilford FP4 Plus 125 film and the shot above processed with Kodak Tri-X 400 TX Pro. You can find the Silver Efex Pro presets below.
 

Click here to download:
VansIlfordFP4+125Split.sep (4 KB)

 

Click here to download:
BakerStKTriX400TXProSplit.sep (4 KB)


Filed under  //   Leica   London   monochrome   photography   street   underground  
June 17 2010
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In a West End Town

Cava - 12.8mm at f/2.8, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/100 sec

I went wandering around Soho on Saturday. I was making my way up towards the iPads from Piccadilly Circus you see. The top of Regent Street. The Apple Store I spent so much time in when I was off ill for a few months at the end of last year. It was slightly chaotic with so many people crowding around the iPad tables, you really couldn't even see an iPad when you walked in. Unfortunately my time was rather limited in London this weekend and I only had an hour or so to shoot with my Leica D-Lux 4. I really should get out of bed a bit earlier on a Saturday. 

There are a lot of small shop fronts in Soho, and I thought I'd try and photograph as many unusual ones as I could find in the time I had. The store above, is a butcher I believe. It still seems a little odd that someone is sitting down with a drink at the front of it. I guess they sell wine too. The meat hanging in the window isn't actually real. But it does look really gory from a distance. A bit like Texas Chainsaw Massacre comes to Soho, only with less screaming.
 

England - 5.9mm at f/2.2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/250 sec

The building in the photograph above isn't really a shop of course, but I thought it looked really incredible processed with Ilford film. The paving and the brick work really came out great (in my opinion). 

As for the gun maker's shop, John Wilkes, with the musical instruments hanging in the front windows, you could be forgiven for not having the slightest idea what was actually for sale inside the shop. Certainly not guns. This isn't Texas. They actually sell art work. I thought the front of the shop looked really well preserved and it would be interesting to know how old it is.  I thought it would work quite well processing the shot starting with the Pinhole preset in Silver Efex Pro.
 

John Wilkes Rifle Maker - 6.8mm at f/2.2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/500 sec

I've included the Silver Efex Pro presets for all three of these photographs at the end of this post. The top image was processed with Kodak 100 TMAX Pro film and then I applied a custom split tone to it. The middle image was sent through a green filter and processed with Ilford Delta 100 Pro film. The toning is simply the Selenium 15 preset with no modification at all and the final image above I started with the Pinhole preset and applied Ilford Delta 400 Pro film and again it's a Selenium toner but slightly lighter than the previous, with preset 14 my choice this time. 
 

Click here to download:
CavaK100TMAXProSplit.sep (4 KB)

 

Click here to download:
EngG-Fltr-IlfordD100ProSel15.sep (4 KB)

 

Click here to download:
WilkesPinHIlford400ProSel14.sep (4 KB)


Filed under  //   Leica   London   monochrome   photography   street  
June 14 2010
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Wicked White Hats

Wicked White Hats - 12.8mm at f/2.8, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/250 sec

I think I have writer's block. Either that, or I just can't think of anything remarkable to say about this photograph beyond the obvious. I'm well aware of the fact that the lines aren't perfectly vertical. I have several shots of this scene with perfectly vertical lines, yet it gives a strange forward leaning feeling to the kiosk, which I don't like. Composition "rules" are meant to be broken, and I think this is one of those times. 

I didn't notice at the time of taking this photograph but the kiosk is also wearing a white hat! I shot this at Piccadilly Circus a few weeks ago straight after taking the photograph featured in my previous post "We're Shouting Out".

Taken with my Leica D-Lux 4, this image was processed with Silver Efex Pro using the Kodak 100 T Max Pro film type. I've added a bit of a vignette. Check out the preset file below for the rest of the tweaks.
 

Click here to download:
WhiteHatsK100TMaxPro.sep (4 KB)


Filed under  //   Leica   London   monochrome   photography   street  
June 13 2010
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Stand In Line

Stand In Line - 5.10mm at f/6.3, ISO 100, Shutter speed 1/40 sec

Often when I'm out taking photos in London I find other people with cameras will come toward me to take a photograph of whatever it is I'm photographing. Sometimes I'll be shooting something for it's potential as a black and white image and I'll still get a guy, usually, with a huge SLR, curiously come up to my view point and start looking in vein for the awesome subject he's sure I've found but can't quite seem to find. He'll take a quick snap and hurry back to whoever he's with, still not sure why or what he just took a photograph of. 

On this occasion I got the opportunity to reverse the roles and I think it turned out quite well. I was originally standing where the woman in the foreground is, and they came walking up towards me from the path on the right. As soon as I saw they were pulling out their phones to take a picture of the Cherry Blossom tree, I retreated back to the pavement. I really couldn't believe my luck when they just naturally moved into this position, and I quickly composed and took the shot. 

Taken with my Leica D-Lux 4 as usual, and processed with Silver Efex Pro applying the Kodak Tri-X 400TX Pro film type and some custom Preset 1 toning. I'm not a massive fan of long hair (anymore, even though I've had mine long several times), but do like the way it looks in black and white sometimes. Awesome!
 

Click here to download:
PhotogPhotogKTX400TXPro.sep (4 KB)


Filed under  //   Leica   London   monochrome   photography   street  
June 8 2010
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Leica M9 Akademie Day (Camden Town Remains)

India 2 China - 12.8mm at f/2.8, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/125 sec

I was on the train in to London today for my first of 3 workshops at the Leica Akademie in the Mayfair borough of London, and started experimenting with Silver Efex Pro. I have quite a lot of photographs that I'd still like to share, but simply haven't had the time to process. 

But firstly, the Leica M9 Introduction Workshop: it was a total blast! Really, really cool. Brett (@bybrett) had an M9 and an M8 for us to look at and had no less than a Noctilux M 50mm f/0.95 on the M9! Whoa. The world's fastest aspherical lens. While you don't get hands on time with an M9, because there just aren't M9's laying around of course, being in such high demand, it is a great introduction to the camera. Go armed with questions because Brett is very clued up on all the Leica products. One thing is certain after spending the afternoon in the company of a pro Leica shooter, I need a new camera!! (and a few lenses, FAST!) 
 

Heapie & Child - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/100 sec

Brett has a 15" MacBook Pro plugged in to a sweet 30" Apple display, running Lightroom for demoing. While I get by fine on my 15" MacBook Pro, you can't compare it to that huge 30" display, and the extra space is so well used by the panels that surround an image while you edit it. So the 30" Apple display goes on the shopping list now. It's all good :)

The format of the workshop is relaxed and with a group of 4 plus Brett sat comfortably around a round table with the cameras out for us to look at and watch as Brett showed us the menu system and how to go about cleaning the sensor. He does a good job of relating the M9 to whatever Leica camera you are currently using, and gives advice on what lenses to use together as a set, to cover as many bases as possible. I learnt a fair amount about film too, as one of the guys on the workshop was also a pro and pretty clued up too, having shot with Hasselblad's and Leica's for many years.  

Hot Records - 7.9mm at f/8, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/320 sec

The 2 hour workshop flew by and ran late by half an hour through sheer interest by everyone there. No one seemed to notice or care. I'm going back soon for 2 other workshops at the Akademie. Also, the M9 introduction is completely free, and there is no obligation to buy, and you can't really hold them responsible if you feel the compelling urge to go out and rob a bank overnight so that you're back at the store bright and early the next day to place an order for an M9.

If you want to learn more about the Leica Akademie in London or the courses that they offer, checkout the Leica Akademie section on the Mayfair store's website. 

Oh, some of you may have noticed the photographs with this post. I shot them in Camden Town two weekends ago, and thought they came out rather well with the Silver Efex Pro preset I was working on on the train this afternoon. It's Kodak 100 TMAX Pro film with a light split tone that I really like. The preset is available for download at the end of this post.
 

Push It - 6.8mm at f/2.2, ISO 400, Shutter speed 1/200 sec


Click here to download:
Heap Kodak100TMaxPro .sep (4 KB)


Filed under  //   Leica   London   monochrome   photography   street  
June 3 2010
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Hide Behind The Stairs

 

Down In It - 5.10mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/100 sec

I find it quite difficult to post photographs that don't thrill me. There has to be something there, something that raises the pulse while I'm exploring a composition that ultimately tells me if I like it or not. Over the past 24 hours I must have attempted to breath life into a handful of shots that, while not poorly composed, simply didn't thrill me. Maybe I should get more creative with my post processing. They may thrill someone else of course, just not me. 

These images kind of remind me of those fine art photographs you see in posh offices. Like the ones you pay for in your private doctor's waiting room. Except in those photographs someone's actually gone and swept up before the photographer even gave the slightest thought to going shooting. And they don't shoot with a digital compact you can slip into the front pocket of your jeans, but a huge DSLR that weighs a ton. While I'm still learning and experimenting with photography: light, composition and post processing, I often think long and hard about just how much manipulation I am performing, and whether it comes across as inexperience, which lets face it, I'm pretty new to this, or if it comes across as my sometimes intended experiments with the dark and not the light. OK, let's stop right there: before I get stuck in the moment and launch into a completely inappropriate rant about something entirely unrelated like what I'm likely to do if I read one more word about Flash and the iPad. 

Hide Behind The Stairs - 5.10mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/60 sec

So I began processing these photographs by heavily effecting the bottom one. It was far moodier than the image you see here now. Why post this version and not the original? What was wrong with the original? Well nothing really. I like it. But after looking at a few blog posts last night and today, I'm beginning to feel like I'm trying to create fiction, not take photographs. Luckily I enjoy both.

These photographs, I took with my D-Lux 4, have been processed with Ilford FP4 Plus 125 film in Silver Efex Pro and a modified Sepia 17 preset and a 10% vignette. I burnt the top edge too, which is something I almost never do. The rest of the details are in the preset file at the end of this post. 

Gated Lower Life - 5.10mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/100 sec


Click here to download:
Ilford Underground +125.sep (3 KB)


Filed under  //   Leica   London   monochrome   photography   street  
June 2 2010
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