[Leica] Re: Landscapes with M Cameras (long)

["Craig W. Shier" <shier@mnsinc.com>]

At the risk of offending purists, the blown out sky is a perfect
situation for digital manipulation using negative film originals.
Allow me to explain.  My experience is that ND grads work fine on an
SLR with wide angle landscapes and relatively flat horizons.  However,
I find many situations where the horizon doesn't cooperate. M or not,
with a jagged horizon you are not going to be able to use an ND grad
at all.

With all but the nastiest skies, neg film pulls in a couple stops more
detail than chrome.  Photoshop lets you select the sky precisely and
burn it in using levels or curves.  There are two examples of this
technique on my website (shameless plug, see address below).  The
first is a cityscape in New Orleans.  The machine print from my local
processor has a white sky.  The detail was in the scan however to make
it more like what I saw.  The second is near Manly NSW, with jagged
cliffs and bushes on the horizon (machine print also blows the sky
out).  In neither case could a filter or darkroom manipulation
recreate what I saw as precisely as digital burning.

Both pics are taken with M6 and 35mm summicron.

Craig Shier
shier@mnsinc.com
http://members.tripod.com/~rigmarole

- -----Original Message-----
From: Khoffberg <khoffberg@email.msn.com>
To: 'LUG' <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Date: Sunday, November 22, 1998 5:43 PM
Subject: Landscapes with M Cameras (long)


>
CLIP
>Thus my question.  How do the rest of you deal with these types of
shooting
>conditions with your M cameras?  Do you just frame out the sky in
order to
>avoid the huge EV range?  Do you take a shot with an ND Grad?  Do you
go for
>the intimate scenics when the EV range is too great?  Do you stay
away from
>transparency film under these conditions?
>
>Appreciate any thoughts you might share.
>
>Kevin Hoffberg