family – Page 14 – Wolfgang Lonien

March 6, 2016

More shades of grey, and three portraits in one

I’m currently re-reading EGOR’s blog, which I can only recommend to each and every photographer out there. And doing so chronologically, I’m at the moment reading his three-part post about the Leica Monochrom, starting here.

Like Mike Johnston, he suggested something like a monochrome digital camera even before it was invented. And like both of them, I support the idea of it, but I’m with Mike in that the resulting real camera is about 20 times too expensive for me, regardless of what its current happy owners might say.

And because at the moment even a shiny new Olympus Pen-F or a surely very nice Fuji X-100T (which aren’t monochrome but which have nice emulations) are also way out of my budget (hey, we just bought some tickets to Malaysia a couple of days ago, and it was about time!), I’ll have to do with what I have. And sometimes, I really like the results, like in this collague:

Perceptions (or: how we mostly see each other)

The two pictures on the left were taken with the camera you see in the other one, so it’s both my E-M10 and my E-PL5 which share the same sensors anyway. If you want to see how these cameras translate colours into shades of grey, here’s a photo of my ColorChecker which I took yesterday:

And I took that one short before noon under a very overcast sky:

As always, minimal to none post processing on these, tho I always use Olympus Viewer 3 and RawTherapee to make jpgs out of the raw orf files – OV3 does pretty much the same what you can do in-camera as well. And RT sometimes adds only some Exif data like a title, and some tags…

It’s the photographer, not the camera(s), so get out and take some photos.

Thanks for reading.

March 4, 2016

Portraiture, a bit more environmental

Two days ago, my fourth photo since mid January was ‘favorited’ on Flickr. And by the way, three of them were in black & white, like this one as well:

Zuleikha

It’s one of my favourite photos since this year as well. I took it with the 25mm lens on my E-M10 camera, but I’m about to explore wide angle a bit more. It’s more contextual, shows the person of interest *and* the surrounding, which might be a bit more interesting than the usual blow-away-all-background stuff when using so-called ‘portrait lenses’ wide open. It’s also much more difficult.

Here are two I took today, using the 14mm lens on my E-PL5 camera instead:

“Where is the country on a Cent coin?”

Low key piano practice

This is fun – I think I’ll keep at it for a while. And used like this, all of a sudden my 14mm lens (with a viewing angle like 28mm on film cameras) doesn’t seem that wide anymore. Let’s see if I can “frame” this focal length in my mind, without camera if I just practise it a bit.

Thanks for reading.

February 27, 2016

Zuleikha, with old and new lenses

When I got up this morning, Zuleikha and Mitchie were making an apple cake. And I started documenting the procedure with the 14mm lens on my E-PL5 and the 25mm lens on my E-M10 cameras.

Later I told them that I could have taken most of the photos with the Olympus 12-40mm zoom lens (for about 1k€), and some even with the “kit” lenses we have, because I used apertures like f/5.6 with that 14mm lens. But this one wouldn’t have been possible with any other lens, since I’ve used my 25mm wide open at f/1.4:

Waiting for the cake

Later I read about old lenses on new cameras, and thought about what I have, like the OM G.Zuiko 50mm/1.4 manual focus lens from my OM-2N film camera. And since I was trying to get some kind of film look lately, I decided to try it again on my digital camera (we still have some film, but that’s not fast enough for low light):

Zuleikha

I cropped that image to a square format, which in my opinion added to some kind of film impression (medium format was also very popular during that time, and many of these produced square negatives).

That image is certainly softer than the one from the modern lens, which was to be expected. But soft isn’t too bad for portraits; I remember one of Yousuf Karsh‘s (famous) clients asking him to have mercy on her. So for portraitists, a lens like this wouldn’t be a bad choice at all – you save lots of (artificial) brush strokes in post processing if you’re more merciful from the get-go. Not that our 11-year-old girl would need it, but for adults this could be an advantage… 😉

Technical info about the last one: this was with the lens on aperture f/4, and with 1/8th of a second at ISO 1600. The main light was a halogen flood light against the ceiling but across the room, full power at 250W. And to Zuleikha’s right (picture left), you have our 5 Watt LED reading light. Camera on tripod, of course manually focused. Added a bit contrast with the Olympus Viewer 3 using an S-curve (Highlights +2, Shadows -3), and blacks, Exif and ITPC data with RawTherapee.

Oh, and the apple cake is delicious. We’ll have the rest of it tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

February 20, 2016February 20, 2016

“Photographers are evil”

“First they shoot you, then they crop you, then they frame you, and then they hang you”

(us, while eating cake in the afternoon)

Framed

Thanks for viewing.

February 2, 2016February 2, 2016

A simulated film look

Yes, I sometimes use film in my Olympus OM-2N camera. And so does Zuleikha in her Olympus OM-1. But how do you get close to the look of film when using digital cameras? Easy, you say: buy Silver Effects, bind it into Photoshop or Lightroom, done.

Not so fast, young lad…

Last week, Olympus came out with their digital reincarnation of the Pen-F camera they once had (and which used film, but made two exposures on each 24x36mm frame in portrait mode). This new Pen-F has both colour and black & white film emulation modes, like some other cameras (Fuji for instance) had it before. And then there’s the Leica Monochrom of course, and people love all these. Film look out of the camera; perfect.

So does that mean that you have to spend money on a new Pen-F, any of the Fujis or even that Leica? Or spend money for Photoshop, Lightroom plus 3rd party plugin software?

Not really. Since a while we have that in open source land as well – Pat David and some others created a very nice “film pack” for both Gimp and also RawTherapee – see his website for all the possible emulations.

I have that in RawTherapee since a while as well, so let’s have some Kodak Tri-X look on two of yesterday’s photos:

Both taken with my Olympus OM-D E-M10 camera and the Zuiko Digital 50mm/2 macro lens at f/2.8. “In-camera” black and white conversion simulating an orange filter, which you can also apply afterwards in Olympus Viewer 3 (I’ve got the brand new 2.0 version today, for free). Film simulation with RawTherapee, and the “film pack” described above.

No, it’s not film. But it comes close.

Oh, and Zuleikha took my photo – danke Schätzchen!

P.S.: here’s another one which I took some minutes ago. Same processing, same Tri-X emulation:

Thanks for viewing.

February 1, 2016February 1, 2016

January: 2 “explored” images

I took lots of photos in January, well relatively speaking, for an amateur who still has a day job and not really as much time for photography as one would like to have. All in all, there are over 500 photos left in my January folder (and some didn’t even make it there from the cameras), resulting in 9.5GB of occupied space on our hard drives.

Of course I uploaded some I considered good enough or some I wanted to write about to Flickr, and of these, two were “explored” and as such they also got lots of views and “favorites”. These two were:

Cat in a box (1,259 views, 59 faves, and 4 comments as I write this), and

Zuleikha, January 2016 (5,831 views, 98 faves, and 11 comments as I write this).

None of these were lit on purpose; the first one was taken with our normal room lights turned on in the evening, the second one was mainly daylight from a window behind me (and the veranda door / big window on Zuleikha’s left side). Both with the lenses used wide open, the first with the PanaLeica at f/1.4, the second with my older Four Thirds 40-150mm kit zoom at 76mm, where wide open means f/4.7. First with ISO 3200, second with 1600 – so in both cases there wasn’t too much light.

Anyway – if you were amongst the ones who “liked”, or in Flickr parlance, “favorited” one of these, then thank you. Sometimes it just feels good to have a little feedback just like this. Oh, and Zuleikha loved those faves as well. I bet Tuna is a bit jealous now that Zuleikha has some more… 😉

And as always, thanks for reading.

January 31, 2016

Getting close with my 50mm macro

Two portraits from today:

Thanks for viewing.

January 30, 2016February 17, 2016

Trying different focal length lenses

Olympus Germany has some special offer which runs out tomorrow. You can get some of their single focal length lenses (primes) for Micro Four Thirds discounted, between 50€ and 150€ cheaper than usual.

I thought about the 17mm for a while, but we have 14mm (me) and 20mm (Mitchie). I also thought about the 60mm macro, but we have two 50mm macro lenses, one OM which is still a manual one, and the ZD 50mm/2 macro from my Four Thirds camera which has autofocus and a one stop advantage over the newer 60mm one.

And then there is the 75mm/1.8 on offer, and it’s about 30% cheaper than usual. Surely an incredible lens, and a very good offer, tho it still costs some serious money – more expensive than any of our camera bodies for instance.

So like I usually do, I take some of my kit zooms and try them on the focal lengths on offer. Did (and showed) a 17mm portrait of my colleague Arno lately, and today I was testing my longer zoom at 76mm inside of our flat.

And that is the keyword: indoors. I knew from my days with a film camera that a 135mm lens was always a bit too long for me, at least when using it indoors – so during that time I always wished for a 100mm or even a 85mm. And today? Let’s see:

Tuna with 76mm

Tuna with the 50mm macro lens

Zuleikha with 76mm (across the dining table)

Zuleikha with the 50mm macro lens (same distance)

I’ve tried some more, but what I found is the same as some 30+ years ago: indoors, a lens of 135mm or even more (the 75mm Olympus one would have an angle of view like a 150mm lens on film) is good for only one purpose: really tight “head shots”. If you don’t keep some distance you have to use it in portrait orientation to even get the shoulders.

Which means that my 50mm macro or the 45mm/1.8 M.Zuiko lenses we have already are much more useful when space is restricted.

That 75mm lens would be wonderful to have for things like half portraits (belly-up) outdoors – when used wide open at f/1.8 that would blur your backgrounds quite nicely, almost like that 135mm/2 from Canon which can really separate things from the backgrounds. Or rather like a 85mm/1.8 on film (most of which aren’t as sharp as this Olympus when used wide open).

But indoors? I think we can be glad with what he have already.

Technical: the first three photos were taken with a mix of daylight and some lights which were switched on during the day. The last one was taken using two studio strobes, one from above through a gridded beauty dish, and one reflected from a wall on the other side of the table.

P.S.: here’s another one I took using my 50mm macro today, a still life:

Oh, and before I forget it: since late last year, an Irish photographer sold a photo of a potato for 750.000 Pounds (approximately a million Euro or Dollar), I’m offering this one on Alu Dibond under Acryl in 30x40cm for the sum of 2.000.000,-€, no negotiations possible. And all those who don’t have that much can still download it in full resolution on Flickr – see side bar or click on the picture to get there. If you have it printed yourself, you’ll save some spare change, which you can send to us. SCNR… 😉

Thanks for viewing.

January 24, 2016

Piano practice

I wanted to show you that according to my last howto about mixed light, you can apply this to real photos (instead of taking photos of empty chairs only):

Piano practice. Zuleikha, January 2016

Like described in my previous howto, I did the following:

1. I set my camera to manual exposure. It will default to ISO 200, and to 1/160th of a second.
2. Since this isn’t enough exposure for the ambient light in the evenings and in our flat, I opened the lens fully to f/1.4, and set the time to 1/13th of a second. The camera showed -2EV underexposure with this setting.
3. White balance on Custom White Balance 2, like applied and described in my last post.
4. Now I mounted my Yongnuo compact flash (YN-460-II) directly onto my camera, Roscosun 85 gel in front of it, and pointed it upwards against the ceiling.
5. Lowest power setting on the flash – I only wanted a small “kiss” of light from this one, to get Zuleikha’s face lightened up a bit against the surrounding.
6. Take your shot(s).

In “post production” (you *do* shoot raw, n’est-ce pas?), I corrected that CWB2 to about 200 Kelvin less, with tint setting +1 in the direction of amber (instead of green). In my eyes and on my calibrated monitor that looked more natural than the warmer setting I had before. I also corrected the tonal curve to brighten up the lower midtones a bit.

Like usual, I put in some title and tags using RawTherapee. Done. Upload to Flickr and insert it here to write this article about it.

To learn this and much more, consider reading David Hobby’s Strobist site. Go at least through his 101 course which costs absolutely nothing (not even a subscription or login). Then get some cheap lights (like my 40$/€ Yongnuo), and get going. It’s fun – and like someone once said, if you take a picture, you might as well try to take a good one.

Thanks for reading.

January 13, 2016

Trying my 25mm lens for product shots, and for portraits

I’m still thinking about Michael Johnston’s OC/OL/OY project. And my last images like Tuna through the sewing machine, or my self portrait were taken with my 25mm lens which would fit his recommendation of a “fast fifty (equivalent)”. Here are some from yesterday and from today, all using a studio strobe as the main light:

Finder scope

Zuleikha

I was also reading about the life of Vivian Maier, whose real name probably should have been Vivian von Maier. She used a Rolleiflex medium format 6x6cm camera as soon as she could afford one, so two of my three images above are square as well. Found her story via the New York Times Lens Blog, which is required reading, or at least always interesting.

Thanks for reading my blog, as always.