Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/10/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]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 - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html