Leica M Monochrom: best pics

airfrogusmc said:
Was able to get out for a couple of hours earlier today

L1007828_zpsdohivnqu.jpg
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Time well spent. Really nice Allen!
 
I'm not too sure about this one -- actually I'm not too sure how any of the shots i've posted recently are, as I've been working off my laptop for the past two weeks in hotel rooms and, every time I do, the pictures usually come out dark. As a result, when I get home I have to redo most of them.

Not too sure how to resolve the background here, as it was very cloudy and flat. But the pilings in the front were almost black, particularly as a result of the backlight. It's not really a thrilling image either, but it caught my eye as I drove by it today.


On the Way to Long Beach #1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr
 
Vince Lupo said:
I'm not too sure about this one -- ...

Not too sure how to resolve the background here, as it was very cloudy and flat. But the pilings in the front were almost black, particularly as a result of the backlight. It's not really a thrilling image either, but it caught my eye as I drove by it today.


On the Way to Long Beach #1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr
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Hi Vince,
I'm in the same boat. Maybe you just let it go and move on. Perhaps a viewpoint with just a few of the wooden pilings would have worked better. As for the background ... have you used a graduated filter function in post processing? It might not save the day but when you have such a strong back light effect it can work nicely.
 
Vince, I like your pilings photo, but agree on its flatness. I'd likely try raising the upper tones to have more contrast with the pilings. I don't work photos on a notebook at all, but I thought Macs were pretty good for that. For some photographers, I've read, that's their main computer. FWIW, your biker pic has a very high structure look to me, something I don't usually see from you.

I continue to be super impressed with the work in this thread.

Personally, I'm in the creative doldrums at the moment. But here's one I like from my ongoing abstractions series.

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johnwolf said:
Vince, I like your pilings photo, but agree on its flatness. I'd likely try raising the upper tones to have more contrast with the pilings. I don't work photos on a notebook at all, but I thought Macs were pretty good for that. For some photographers, I've read, that's their main computer. FWIW, your biker pic has a very high structure look to me, something I don't usually see from you.
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Thanks for your insights John - interesting I don't think I went structure-crazy with that one shot, but I'll have a look at it again and maybe I can adjust it better. I always feel torn about working on my images when I'm on the road - on the one hand I know I'll have to adjust them on my big computer when I get home, but I'm anxious to have a look at them and work on them at the end of each day to see what I got and if what I got turned out to be of any value - paricularly this time around as I'm on the road on my own for almost a month. I calibrated my laptop screen twice this morning and at least according to the screen I have in front of me, things look generally ok (as does everyone else's here). Having said that, I thought the 'Santa Fe Zoo' shot was too dark, so I reworked it and uploaded a brighter version (I'll probably have to still go through it again when I get home). I don't know if you guys have similar issues when you're trying to work on your photos when on the road, but I'd be interested to read about your experiences.
 
I don't process on the road at all, except a little family stuff for Facebook. For a monochrome camera, I would think the main monitor calibration parameters are brightness and contrast, and your recent photos look pretty good to me in both categories.

Post-processing on notebooks might make for an interesting standalone thread.

John


Vince Lupo said:
Thanks for your insights John - interesting I don't think I went structure-crazy with that one shot, but I'll have a look at it again and maybe I can adjust it better. I always feel torn about working on my images when I'm on the road - on the one hand I know I'll have to adjust them on my big computer when I get home, but I'm anxious to have a look at them and work on them at the end of each day to see what I got and if what I got turned out to be of any value - paricularly this time around as I'm on the road on my own for almost a month. I calibrated my laptop screen twice this morning and at least according to the screen I have in front of me, things look generally ok (as does everyone else's here). Having said that, I thought the 'Santa Fe Zoo' shot was too dark, so I reworked it and uploaded a brighter version (I'll probably have to still go through it again when I get home). I don't know if you guys have similar issues when you're trying to work on your photos when on the road, but I'd be interested to read about your experiences.
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Thanks guys.

Nice one John.

I do all my work on a Mac Pro. I always wait until I get back to the office to work on files. But different strokes and all.

L1007820_zps1lxwi0xs.jpg


Looks like you are having an very productive journey Vince. Post #5056 is a real gem...
 
Vince Lupo said:
I'm not too sure about this one -- actually I'm not too sure how any of the shots i've posted recently are, as I've been working off my laptop for the past two weeks in hotel rooms and, every time I do, the pictures usually come out dark. As a result, when I get home I have to redo most of them.

Not too sure how to resolve the background here, as it was very cloudy and flat. But the pilings in the front were almost black, particularly as a result of the backlight. It's not really a thrilling image either, but it caught my eye as I drove by it today.
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Vince,
Thanks for sharing. Rather than provide you with feedback on this specific image, I'm wondering if you've ever considered "self-calibrating" your laptop with your desktop machine and monitor rather than just relying on some calibration device.

Generally speaking, I wonder if you were to process a set of single images first on your laptop and then on your desktop if you might start to see some trends on various sliders you're using more or less on either machine. In combination with paying attention to those trends and the overall histogram levels and shape, I bet you could do pretty good if you'd like to continue on the road processing. Maybe you could even develop a preset as a baseline editing on the laptop and then limit yourself to a +/- variance from those starting applied settings, based on your judgement and the image.

I recently went through a similar exercise so as to remove silver efex from my workflow and think I did OK. Certainly I feel I could squeeze out a bit more with SEP2, but right now I'm very happy with saving the time and extra steps\files along the way. By no means am I claiming to have mastered anything here, but with my limited self-perceived success as a hobbyist, I'd be willing to bet you'll get excellent results with your keen eye.

Best of luck to you on this and thanks again for sharing.

Phil
 
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