Hi Kristian & All,
I've throughly have enjoyed carefully looking over the many splended MM images Kristian has posted along with previous MM files from others I've kindly been supplied with and no doubt, there is much to both admire and comment on. Seperating the abilities of the talented photographer (such as Kristian) and their images from simply the capabilities and attributes of a new camera like the MM, is sometimes difficult. It also depends where each one of us come from...a background of using film? Medium format film, MF digital, both?, Maybe 35mm film or possibly acombiantion of some of these mediums and/or more? This I feel even more so than with color images, impact our feeling about this new camera.
Lastly web based images also don't reveal the whole story and making judgements solely on them is only part of the story, in my opinion/
Unlike other MM images I've worked with, Kristian's, especially his penchant for using a high(er) contrast look in his B&W work (at least in the images recently posted), yeilds a look that reminds me not of 35mm B&W film but of Medium format (MF) film, processed and printed to yild a high contrast look. Why? generally this look is/was very common with many MF film based photographers and often the resulting images would be extremely clean with almost a grain fee look....not unlike what we see here with some of Kritian's images. That's why some feeel the need to add a bit of "noise" to the images. It depends on what they are most used to and comfortable with. No right or wrong, simply preference.
I selected the accompanied Kritian image as one of the few I find disconcerning. When I look at the yong ladies fingers of her right (lower) hand and also a bit in the surround of her headpiece accross her forehead and cheeks, I almost see a "cookie "cut-out appearance...almost like "cut & paste". Yes, I know some can describe this as a 3D effect. Also with her hand covering her neck and her head surrounded by a completely black background...it almost looks like it's *her head) flaoting in space. The extreme sharpness and detail of course lends to this phnominon (against a detail-less background). This all has nothing to do with Kristian's technique or "eye" nor the splended detail displayed in this image. It's just something I've noticed with this and a few other MM images I've been supplied. How some of the other mediums (film or digital) that I mentioned above, would reproduce this picture and the anomoly I described, I can't say for sure.
On the other hand, Kristian's other image of the girl in the hat with concentric circles of light and dark just below her, is simply sublime and one of my favorites posted of any MM image so far by anyone.
The MM camera I believe has tremendous potential. Even if an accompanied M9 could sometimes reproduce similar images on a percentage of occasions where both are shot simultaniously, my belief is that this camera due to it's versitilty in being able to shoot cleaner higher ISO images and demonstrate better DR, (especially in the shadows) along with offering a file with greater lattitude to start with during post processing, will consistantly achieve certain B&W "image goals" of the photographer whereby the M9 might have a somewhat harder time doing so. This camera I believe will do very well in fine art and reportage type images where tonality (and it's imact) play a substatial role to the success and impact that an image makes (aside from the photographers "eye" in framing and the subject matter chosen). This to me points to a digital camera (the MM), where many of these goals appeared to be the specific objective of its design and from what I have seen and worked with so far, has succeeded on many levels. Has it reached a level of perfection? Of course not. Iit will improve with time (like protection, recovering and reproduction of highlights)...but so has most every generation of color digital camera improved over time.
Thanks Kristian for posting these very fine examples. Looking forward to seeing more.
Dave (D&A)
L1000441 by
Kristian Dowling, on Flickr[/quote]
