gerafotografija
Member
I think I unintentionally convinced myself that shooting tri-x and manually setting exposure on my "new" (lightly used) M7 is actually giving me better results in extreme lighting situacions than either of the matrix metered cams I've had for the last couple years.
I go to the Treasure Island flea market from time to time, and have shot there with the em5 + PanaLeica 25/1.4, the Ricoh Gr, and just last weekend with a recently acquired M7 + Zeiss Sonnar 50/1.5 using Tri-X.
Guess which one gave me the most consistent exposures whether I was outside in blinding sun stopped down to f/16 or inside with charroscurro shafts of light in a dim room opened up to f/1.5?
I'll stick to b&w for these examples, since I'm not shooting color film right now. Here is the usual tonal range I get from the em5 after some effort working with the raw file.
I hate how lifeless the sky looks compared to film, and while I can crank up contrast, the digital noise that I see even at base iso is just not pleasing.
The gr gives me a better jpegs right out of the camera, but if I'm not really careful with the exposure, it can get clipped and ugly looking. Exposure compensation to bring up a mid tone usually ends up blowing out something else in a highlight.
Yes layers and local adjustments work, and until now I thought that was mandatory for well balanced results. This example is straight OOC using a a little shapening, contrast boost and weak DR enhancement in the jpeg settings.
With the M7, I set the aperture about where I wanted it, pulled out a grey card, got an incident light reading in A mode, set that shutter speed to manual, and then made third stop aperture adjustments as needed for the particular subject until the light changed drastically.
The whole roll just looks awesome, even when going from f/16 outside to f/1.5 inside with mixed lighting, all it took was a few seconds readjusting.
I should also mention I had never shot a rangefinder until a couple weeks ago, so i think i can do better after exploring this Leica/Zeiss/Kodak combo a bit more.
I could have used a filter outside and gone with a little less contrast, but the Tri-X grain adds such nice texture to bits that would just be blown out pixels in a digital capture, that little imperfections seem to add rather than detract from the look.
You can see a few more shots from that day's roll here.
Wow, now I understand why rangefinders are fun! Why exactly is it that digital is supposed to be an improvement over film?
I go to the Treasure Island flea market from time to time, and have shot there with the em5 + PanaLeica 25/1.4, the Ricoh Gr, and just last weekend with a recently acquired M7 + Zeiss Sonnar 50/1.5 using Tri-X.
Guess which one gave me the most consistent exposures whether I was outside in blinding sun stopped down to f/16 or inside with charroscurro shafts of light in a dim room opened up to f/1.5?
I'll stick to b&w for these examples, since I'm not shooting color film right now. Here is the usual tonal range I get from the em5 after some effort working with the raw file.
I hate how lifeless the sky looks compared to film, and while I can crank up contrast, the digital noise that I see even at base iso is just not pleasing.
The gr gives me a better jpegs right out of the camera, but if I'm not really careful with the exposure, it can get clipped and ugly looking. Exposure compensation to bring up a mid tone usually ends up blowing out something else in a highlight.
Yes layers and local adjustments work, and until now I thought that was mandatory for well balanced results. This example is straight OOC using a a little shapening, contrast boost and weak DR enhancement in the jpeg settings.
With the M7, I set the aperture about where I wanted it, pulled out a grey card, got an incident light reading in A mode, set that shutter speed to manual, and then made third stop aperture adjustments as needed for the particular subject until the light changed drastically.
The whole roll just looks awesome, even when going from f/16 outside to f/1.5 inside with mixed lighting, all it took was a few seconds readjusting.
I should also mention I had never shot a rangefinder until a couple weeks ago, so i think i can do better after exploring this Leica/Zeiss/Kodak combo a bit more.
I could have used a filter outside and gone with a little less contrast, but the Tri-X grain adds such nice texture to bits that would just be blown out pixels in a digital capture, that little imperfections seem to add rather than detract from the look.
You can see a few more shots from that day's roll here.
Wow, now I understand why rangefinders are fun! Why exactly is it that digital is supposed to be an improvement over film?
