Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/09/29

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Subject: [Leica] Re: digital matters (WAS: Nathan's PAW 37: Sailing around Friesland with a fellowLUGger)
From: nathan.wajsman at planet.nl (Nathan Wajsman)
Date: Thu Sep 29 21:39:49 2005
References: <BF6220E4.640D%philippe.orlent@pandora.be>

Hi Philippe,

As B.D. said, digital gives you greater DOF than film (assuming the 
sensor is smaller than full frame). The particular picture was shot with 
a 2.8/200mm lens, at full aperture or close to it, since I tend to shoot 
at wide apertures to keep the shutter speeds short. I was on a boat, 
they were on a boat, the two boats were moving in opposite 
directions--so I only had time for 3 images. This one was the 
best--there is another one that is better compositionally and does not 
include the black barge, but the dog is looking away from me.

As for manipulating the image to take the barge out or blur it in 
Photoshop--both of those would be against my self-imposed "digital code 
of conduct" which basically says that I will not do anything in 
Photoshop which I did not do when I was printing in the wet darkroom. 
This means that cropping, rotating, levels adjustments, conversion to 
B&W are all OK, but taking out or adding elements, or selectively 
blurring them, is strictly Verboten. The only exception to this rule is 
unsharp masking--I did not do it in the darkroom, but in the digital 
world it is necessary, so I make an exception there.

BTW--all camera and lens details are always shown in the list under the 
thumbnails table on my PAW page 
(http://www.nathanfoto.com/indexpaw2005.html). If you look there, you 
will note that four of the week 37 PAWs were shot with a Leica lens (the 
wonderful 100mm Apo Macro).

Nathan

Philippe Orlent wrote:

> True. A bit wider, cropped to the right to get the black barge out (or
> blurred), and it would have been perfect. The discussion about whether or
> not B&W would be more suited is just a personal one.
> But I have a question, though:
> 
> Nathan, I suspect you used digital. Don't know if it was zoomed or with a
> fixed focal lenght lens. But I imagine you shot it fairly open. Do you find
> the shallower DOF of non-full sensor digital sometimes (as in this shot)
> restricting when not combined with the full possibilities of PS? In such a
> situation, I would not hesitiate to take the barge out or blur it, that's
> why.
> 
> Philippe
> 

>>
>>http://www.nathanfoto.com/paw/2005/2005_37alt8.jpg
>>
-- 
Nathan Wajsman
Almere, The Netherlands

General photography: http://www.nathanfoto.com
Seville photography: http://www.fotosevilla.com
Stock photography: http://www.alamy.com/search-results.asp?qt=wajsman
http://myloupe.com/home/found_photographer.php?photographer=507
Prints for sale: http://www.photodeluge.com



Replies: Reply from firkin at ncable.net.au (Alastair Firkin) ([Leica] Re: digital matters (WAS: Nathan's PAW 37: Sailing around Friesland with a fellowLUGger))
In reply to: Message from philippe.orlent at pandora.be (Philippe Orlent) ([Leica] Nathan's PAW 37: Sailing around Friesland with a fellowLUGger)