how come my pictures look so bad ! ?

[ferider]

Here is how you can check you equipment:

1.) at night, check the camera's infinity focus using a star or the moon.
2.) close focus check: put the camera on a tripod, put the lens on a given mark (like 1m or 4 ft or so), and put the tripod the same distance away from a given object (measured with a tape measure). See if the object is in focus in your RF. You can also do test photos like this:

using some test target, like a printed pattern, or a measurement tape.

3.) Next, your Hassi photos are good. Try to emulate them using your Leica, i.e. using the same film, same post-process/scanner and similar photographic conditions.

Then, come to our next Beer and Gear (date not set yet, but should be in a couple of weeks or so), and you'll find people who can help you if there are problems.

Cheers,

Roland.

 

[ZeissFan]

You're right that a rangefinder is a different experience. Because everything in the viewfinder is in focus all of the time (except for the focusing patch), it requires a bit more care.

Focus, then compose.

I think you know your way around photography. But forget everything you know about SLR gear and learn the rangefinder approach. Just bring your skills of composition.

 

[antiquark]

Would such an experiment 'waste' our time? Well, how much does the internet 'waste' our time anyway? What do we get out of trying to help people? Quite a lot of interesting questions.

All this help is not in vain -- this thread will be stored in google for a long long time. I'm sure that future amateurs will discover this discussion when trying to figure out why their pictures look so bad. This thread might actually be useful to hundreds of people through the years!

 

[Tuolumne]

First of all: Stanford University! Brings back many happy memories of life in Palo Alto and on campus. A great place to be shooting photos.

Second of all, these shots seem way worse than what one would expect from any "normal" problems with the gear you have described. They seem totally awful, worse than what a rank amateur would get shooting randomly with the equipment, so I would say something is really wrong here.

Not only is there bad color shift, but the exposure is totally off and nothing is sharp anywhere in you photos. Here is what I would do.

1) Isolate the problems by shooting only B&W film to see what is wrong with exposure and focus.

2) Go to Keeble and Shucat on California Avenue, a few blocks from campus. They are a great pro shop. Show them the problems you have been having and see if they will let you shoot another Leica lens on your M6 just in the store on B&W film. Better still, see if you can rent one for the week end and shoot it. Send your film to a really good developer (keeble and Shucat (last time I used them) does not do a good job developing B&W film, but that was a long time ago.)

3) Compare the results using you CV f1.2 and the Leica lens you got from K&S and see the results.

4) If both lenses are still awful, it sounds like you've got a prolem with the M6 body, perhaps the lens mount or something else. If exposure is still off, perhaps the meter.

5) Once you get those problems resolved, you should have no problem shooting color film. Again, send it to a really reputable developer and let them develop and scan the film at hi res.

Eventually you should be able to isolate your problem via this process of elimination.

/T

 

[didjiman]

anorphirith: I am going to Stanford to do some shooting. Email me if you want to meetup.

// richard

 

[Ronald M]

Color problem is a result of using daylight color balanced film under tungsten, fluorescent,mercury vapor, or some other combination thereof.

First take some pics under midday sun, no clouds. That become the "base line" color balance for that film.

If your scanner has manual color balance save the settings that make them look correct or write them down. Any time you rescan that kind of film taken under that light, use those settings as a starting point and you will be very close.

Indoor light is very red and it shows on the film. Adjust the blue/cyan to return the scan to neutral. It may be impossible to get it perfect or even close under some conditions.

An 80A or 80B blue filter is usually used and it will prevent so much of the unwanted red/yellow light from reaching the film. There are special filters for fluorescent lights also.

There used to be indoor color neg films that are balanced for that light. Been gone for a while now. You see the color bal can be adjusted in a digital camera just like film speed so all those problems have gone away. Film users are swiming upstream and things will get worse.

Others have addressed the focus problem in camera and scanner.