Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/10/15

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Subject: [Leica] New Photo Site (followup and comments)
From: Arne Helme <Arne.Helme@stelvio.nl>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 20:48:03 +0200

Thanks to all of you who provided feedback and comments to my previous
posting in which I announced the availability of my new web site.  In
the following I summarize the feedback I have received and add some
comments on my own.

Jason Vicinanza suggested that I should use smaller scans that would
fit 1024x768 screens including frames, menu bars, etc.  In addition he
informed that the home page link did not work.  I will re-edit the
Foetus collection and make smaller scans .  They are clearly too big
for 1024x768 screens (too bad the new ones will appear as thumbnails
on my 1600x1200 TFT screen...:-)).  The home page link was wrong as
there is no real home page yet.  To be fixed.

Kyle Kassidy and Nathan Wajsman both suggested that I could have done
some tighter editing of the series.  As they are now, each series is
just a collection of photos.  There is no story being told.  Will do. 

Oliver Bryk mentioned that the Stelvio pass has 48 pin turns and not
45 as I said.  Note that on the pictures one can only see the upper
half of the turns.  Further down in the valley below there are just
about as many pin turns.  The bicyclists had a hard time...

Nathan Wajsman missed photos of the the brave souls bicycling up the
pass.  I primarily went to Passo Dello Stelvio to enjoy myself and
make landscapes photos.  My colleagues (the bicyclists) went there to
enjoy themselves too --- in their own way.  

John Brownlow wrote that Jim Foetus didn't appear to have aged.
Also, from my memories he looked exactly the same way as he did during
his Euro tour of 1987.  I spoke to him after the concert.  He is
definitely still going strong!

Henry Ambrose asked if I carried all my R gear on a bicycle.  Luckily I
did not bring a bicycle.  I carried the equipment in a Lowepro Top
Load Zoom Pro AW camera case + chest harness.  

Michael Yoder asked me about the use of the orange filter and the high
contrast in some of the photos.  The filter was one part of the
solution while Vuescan provided the other part.  I tweaked the
contrast using the gamma and black/white point settings until I had a
photo that represented my impression of the scene.  I set Vuescan's
color scan tab to Neutral to allow for a maximum stretch of the
contrast range, and from there on I carefully select the other values.

Pascal Heynman asked whether there where occasions where I wished for
something wider than the 2.8/19mm.  Actually, no, I did not.  The 19mm
was wide enough for me.  I find it rather challenging to fill the
foreground with such wide (and wider) lenses, and I already have a
huge collection of "empty" photos of various landscapes.

Andrew Nemeth and others commented that some of the landscape shots
would be nice in color.  I intend to add some color photos to the
Passo Dello Stelvio collection.  Unfortunately, I have no color photos
from the Foetus concert.

Andrew Nemeth also asked about flare.  I deliberately kept the sun out
of the shots to avoid flare.  There are simply to many undesired side
effects of flare and I don't want to provoke flare more than
necessary.

Otto Anshus commented that the photos made with the new Summilux R
1.4/50mm have a nice appearance.  I agree with him.  It is a truly
remarkable lens.

The use of a tripod would have enabled me to facilitate longer shutter
speeds to provide me with more depth of field.  Because I usually
focus at infinity for most landscape shots, I could have had the
foreground in some of the photos more sharply rendered.  Generally, in
landscape photos I don't find it disturbing that the foreground is not
100% sharply rendered.  On this occasion it went OK without the
tripod.  However, I belong to the minority of the LUG that cannot hand
hold steadily at shutter speeds slower than 1/250s-1/500s without
seeing image degradations...

Most chromes were under-exposed between 1/3 and 2/3 stop.  This turned
out to be great for landscapes, but a little too dark for the
portraits. 

Some of you commented on non-professional (amateur) vs professional
scans and scan quality.  I would like to point out that I have used
Vuescan for about two years and spent quite some time and efforts on
learning its behavior.  As I noted in my initial posting, I am not
into Photoshop and such things.  By keeping things simple (read: only
allowing a few parameters to be modified --- and Vuescan only provides
a few parameters) I manage to obtain good quality scans not only for
web publishing, but also for printing.  The scans do also exhibit a
high level of clarity at other resolutions.

A few final words.  It *is* time consuming to produce high quality
scans.  In my initial posting I wrote that the photos that I have
published express *my* interpretation of the scenes.  That's simply
not possible without being involved and controlling the process.
There's an analogy to traditional darkroom printing here.  My current
digital working method is designed to complement my darkroom
activities.  I strive to obtain comparable results (interpretations)
with both mediums.  Simplicity (as also is the case with Leica M and R
cameras) is the solution to better imagery.  So much for digital
perfection. 

Regards,

- -- Arne
Arne Helme
Email: Arne.Helme at stelvio.nl (^" at "^@)
Work: +31-33-4697340, Fax: +31-33-4697341, GSM: +31-620135827
M&I/Stelvio bv, Zonnehof 41, 3811 ND Amersfoort, the Netherlands
- --
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Replies: Reply from Jeff Moore <jbm@oven.com> ([Leica] Re: New Photo Site (followup and comments))
Reply from "John McLeod" <johnmcleod@att.net> (Re: [Leica] New Photo Site (followup and comments))