A Bosnian Accordion player sits at the Duomo almost every day playing for tips. He is very good and I enjoy the ambiance he adds to the place. He and I have become casual friends.
I am currently working on some detail shots for the project.
Out for lunch and chores with my Wife today so I only took my little connivence camera (my Wife has no patience for my serious photography) the wonderful D-Lux 8. The Steve McCurry exhibition ended this week and new photography exhibition has taken its place. I stopped in to have a look. While there I noticed the lovely light from this shuttered window. The young woman who was standing security agreed to pose for me so I made her this portrait. Even if very low light the D-Lux 8 holds up well.
It is the Agave's moment, these plants its grow for a decade or more, then put up a 12-15 foot stalk in a few weeks that drains all the resources from the plant, the plant flowers, sets seed and dies. The new day appears as the Agave prepares for its moment, the dusty Tucson sky catching the first light coming up on the horizon behind the Catalina mountains. Tucson's dust makes the image, catches the light and gives it definition and color. The moment of balance between light and dark with color is brief, but is something to behold.
Here are two more images from my testing of the Leica IIIf and 5CM Summaron f/3.5 I did before sending it off for CLA and new shutter fabric.
These are still from cheap low resolution jpeg scans for the lab. I will re-scan once the Valoi-35 kit gets here. I expect to make 60mpx DNG files from now on. My Leica IIIf is supposed to be ready by end of this week, but this is Italy and time has a different meaning here.
I will be traveling to Milano on Friday then on to the Lake District up North for the weekend. I was given a couple of rolls of Farrania 33 160 (the same film used by Federico Fellini in his famous movies, Italians love this film), so I hope to shoot at least one roll of of that on this trip.
Both shot on Leica IIIF and Ilford HP5+ 400 film and hand converted from negatives in Lightroom using the Tone Curve method.
1bwana1 wrote:
Here are two more images from my testing of the Leica IIIf and 5CM Summaron f/3.5 I did before sending it off for CLA and new shutter fabric.
These are still from cheap low resolution jpeg scans for the lab. I will re-scan once the Valoi-35 kit gets here. I expect to make 60mpx DNG files from now on. My Leica IIIf is supposed to be ready by end of this week, but this is Italy and time has a different meaning here.
I will be traveling to Milano on Friday then on to the Lake District up North for the weekend. I was given a couple of rolls of Farrania 33 160 (the same film used by Federico Fellini in his famous movies, Italians love this film), so I hope to shoot at least one roll of of that on this trip.
Both shot on Leica IIIF and Ilford HP5+ 400 film and hand converted from negatives in Lightroom using the Tone Curve method....Show more →
I like the softness of these scans. Very nice images. Very Italian somehow. Fellini's ghost in the film?
1bwana1 wrote:
Here are two more images from my testing of the Leica IIIf and 5CM Summaron f/3.5 I did before sending it off for CLA and new shutter fabric.
These are still from cheap low resolution jpeg scans for the lab. I will re-scan once the Valoi-35 kit gets here. I expect to make 60mpx DNG files from now on. My Leica IIIf is supposed to be ready by end of this week, but this is Italy and time has a different meaning here.
I will be traveling to Milano on Friday then on to the Lake District up North for the weekend. I was given a couple of rolls of Farrania 33 160 (the same film used by Federico Fellini in his famous movies, Italians love this film), so I hope to shoot at least one roll of of that on this trip.
Both shot on Leica IIIF and Ilford HP5+ 400 film and hand converted from negatives in Lightroom using the Tone Curve method....Show more →
chiron wrote:
I like the softness of these scans. Very nice images. Very Italian somehow. Fellini's ghost in the film?
Thanks for taking the time to comment I always appreciate that. I am happy you enjoyed the images.
My current long term project here in Parma will have a B&W component. I am shooting in an environment, a way of dressing, and a culture that survives today as it did back in the B&W film photography era. I have decided to actually use a 75 year old camera and lenses to capture that esthetic and emotion. I want to capture that historical connection that the Italians have worked so hard to preserve so well here in my story. It has proven fun, and is being well received.
KLaban wrote:
Personally I wouldn't worry about low resolution.
Vivi la differenza.
I understand what you are saying and appreciate the comment. In so many ways you are absolutely correct.
For me, in this case, wanting to work from my own scans and DNG files is about more things than just resolution, although that will be important as the galleries that will display the work often want large images.
When the lab here does the scans they return low resolution jpegs. I find that jpeg processing the way they are doing it changes the grain in the image in a way that I find too rough and angular. Their modern esthetic for sharpness damages the natural glow of the vintage Leica lenses I am using. It also often has similar negative effects on contrast. In my experiments with this, I find that if I scan myself into a Leica DNG file I seem to preserve a visibly more natural film esthetic, and much better processing capability to achieve the feelings I am after in the images.
There is my goal in this project to do as much as I can with my own hands. This includes processing the film and scanning. I also want to use an entirely Leica workflow. I know this is mostly irrelevant to the images, but I want to do it that way for personal reasons. I scan using a Leica SL3 body, and a Leica APO-SL lens using an extension tube to get 1:1 scanning. It produces superb quality images.
1bwana1 wrote:
Here are two more images from my testing of the Leica IIIf and 5CM Summaron f/3.5 I did before sending it off for CLA and new shutter fabric.
These are still from cheap low resolution jpeg scans for the lab. I will re-scan once the Valoi-35 kit gets here. I expect to make 60mpx DNG files from now on. My Leica IIIf is supposed to be ready by end of this week, but this is Italy and time has a different meaning here.
I will be traveling to Milano on Friday then on to the Lake District up North for the weekend. I was given a couple of rolls of Farrania 33 160 (the same film used by Federico Fellini in his famous movies, Italians love this film), so I hope to shoot at least one roll of of that on this trip.
Both shot on Leica IIIF and Ilford HP5+ 400 film and hand converted from negatives in Lightroom using the Tone Curve method....Show more →
I like these images Steve, they truly look like they could have been taken when the IIIf was brand new. Timeless!
Here's one I took with my IIIb that I quite like for the same reason. Maybe not 1930's but definitely hard to pinpoint a date.
