We drove up to Chicago this weekend for a short 3 day vacation and for me to participate in the Leica Akademie M9 Shooting Experience. I’ll post my thoughts and some pictures from the event in a few days.
We’re staying at the Allerton Hotel. So far it’s been good. It’s an old hotel but the rooms are very nice. Here is a pic of Lyla and mommy resting on the bed after a long day of traveling and shopping.
Recently a friend of Serenity’s (my wife) inquired if I would be willing to take a few family pictures. As much as I enjoy taking pictures, this is still out of my comfort zone. I don’t envy portrait photographers, there are many things that go into making a great family picture. For one, you need great lighting and no shadows. Second, you have to have your subjects position just right so that a proper exposure can be obtained. Last, trying to coordinate all subjects to look and smile at the camera all at the same time can be especially difficult when dealing with small kids.
The picture below was shot through the opening in the back of a chair. I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out but I think it’s what made the shot. It allowed for me to frame my subjects and also allowed for some candidness. As you can see, there was no issue in getting their attention.
The Leica M9 is not only known for its great color pics, it’s probably better known for its black and white images. I have to admit, the M9 does a phenomenal job of creating black and white pics. It’s hard to describe what it is but the M9 just has that extra touch when creating these type of images. I don’t routinely shoot in black and white while using the camera. I shoot in raw (uncompressed picture format) and then edit it with Niks Software Silver Efex Pro 2. If you like monochrome images, this is the software to purchase. I have owned just the aperture plugin and now own the Photoshop CS5 plugin and prefer having the Photoshop plugin because it just makes a new layer instead of altering the original pic like it does in Aperture.
Soon after purchasing my black M9 (I have not moved on to the M9-P) I traveled to Cleveland for a conference and on my way home I stopped and shot a few pics. This pic, originally in color was edited in Silver Efex Pro 2. Let me know what you think?
Last winter I visited the Auburn Cord Duesenburg Automobile Museum in Auburn, IN. It’s located at the original headquarters of the Auburn Automobile Company. From the outside it looked like a good size building but I never imagined the amount of cars they had. I’m not a motor head but enjoyed my time looking at their collection. It’s definitely a place to visit if you enjoy looking at old cars. I snapped many pics and thought this one in black & white with a little noise worked well.
High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography has gained a lot of interest in photography. HDR Photography is where you take multiple exposures of a image and then stack them on top of one another to create one picture. By doing this you create an image that often times is very similar to what our eyes see. Most digital cameras can do this by using the auto bracketing function. For best results you need to use at least 3 exposures. If you are shooting in very bright or low light then you often times need to use 5, 7, or 9 exposures. Unfortunately, you typically need a semi-pro or pro dSLR to do this.
After you take the pictures, you then need software to stack the pictures on one another. The best way I’ve found is using Photomatix or you can use Photoshop CS 5. If you want to see some great HDR pictures you need to check out Trey Ratcliff at Stuck in Customs. He does phenomenal work and has many tutorials.
My wife grew up outside a very small town in Southern Illinois called St. Francisville (well known for the scariest bridge to cross in Southern Illinois/Indiana). In March, we were there for my wife’s baby shower. There is a very old Catholic church that sits down town. I decided to take a 7 exposure HDR pic using my Leica M9. Most of the time when shooting in HDR you want to create a color image, I think in this case monochrome works very well.
If you haven’t noticed I have an interest in railroad tracks. Probably, most photographers do. I think a lot of it has to do with the rust, age, and symmetry of these structures. They often, can make a boring landscape interesting. I also like taking pics of railroad signs. This one was taken on a small dirt road. As you can probably tell, it was not often used therefore there was no need to change the sign.
A couple years ago, we were visiting with my sister-in-law and family and I was randomly snapping pics. This was one of those random shots. It’s funny how sometimes at the most unexpected times, a great shot will appear.
If you’re not familiar with Leica, you probably are not aware that they are well known for shooting at low apertures and creating bokeh. Bokeh is the blur seen in photography or more specifically the quality of the blur. Each Leica lens is known for there unique bokeh. Yes, you will find this with almost all other cameras and lenses but many don’t have the quality seen in Leica lenses. I’ve shot with many Canon dSLR’s and low aperture lenses and have never been impressed as much as I am with the Leica m-mount lenses.
If you would like to read more about “bokeh” I’ll forward you to Steve Huff’s website for an article written by Ashwin Rao’s titled “What is Bokeh?”
Below are a few examples of shots taken with my Leica 50mm Summilux and 35mm Summicron.
Last week when I traveled through South Whitley, looking for picture opportunities I came across this old beat up car at a local service store. The car was a dark ugly color and definitely wouldn’t make for a good “color” pic.
Using my 35mm summicron, I was able to easily blur the background and focus in on the car (that’s why I love Leica lenses). Converting the image to black and white using Nik Software Silver Efex Pro 2 allowed me to bring more detail out in the car and made for a better pic.
