[Leica] FLOWERS -believe it! ;-)

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

Philippe Orlent offered:
Subject: Re: [Leica] FLOWERS -believe it! ;-)

>>http://gallery.leica-users.org/album469/Leica_Gallery_flower_FLOWERS<

> How I love the smell of vaseline in the morning :-)
> No, seriously, as was said before: painterly.<<<<

Hi Philippe,
Nope no Vaseline at all. :-) Just plain old fashion using the aperture to 
make an interesting photo.:-)

When I acquire a new lens one of the first things I do is.... Shoot 
something or sometime the same object using every aperture wide open to 
fully stopped down.

If you do not do something like this you have absolutely no idea what a 
picture will ___ actually look like. __ Sure you know the wider an aperture 
the shallower the depth of field/focus. But you do not know "exactly what 
effect an image will look like" wide open & focused at it's closest point.

The opposite of course "what does an image look like stopped down to it's 
smallest aperture at the closest point of focus?"

Yep I suppose most people have a rough idea what it "should look like." But 
that doesn't mean what it'll actually look like and what benefits can be 
derived wide open or stopped right down when needed.

And the flower picture effect is as simple as shooting wide open because I 
had shot many frames over the years with the 80mm wide open and knew what 
kind of effect was derived from shooting in this manner. ERGO.... "what you 
see!"

The soft "painterly" quality is strictly from the results of the lens and 
point of focus. The soft glow is just the 80mm doing it's thing wide open. 
Did I know it would look like that without test frames many years ago and 
years of experience using it? Yep I knew the glow effect would happen. It's 
knowing when to use it that counts.

The only PS stuff is "auto levels, auto contrast and a slight crop off the 
bottom."

And no Vaseline! ;-)

ted