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Kt Baldassaro smokes a Kuba Kuba. Shot with a Leica M9-P, 50mm Noctilux .95.
Amsterdam, Holland: July, 2011. Splat. It’s not real. It made people look, though. Leica M9. 35 ‘lux. Aperture » Silver Efex Pro 2.
This made my day.
flower girl
Saul Leiter’s 1950s New York in colour
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Category Archives: Views
First Batch of Honeymoon Photos
The previous photos from our Honeymoon were edited on the Honeymoon with Adobe Lightroom. I had never really used Lightroom previous to this trip… but it was all I had. I honestly felt pretty naked – despite the fact that I really only edit in Adobe Camera Raw. But the ability to use some of my presets for raw processing was bugging me. So now I am back in my digital darkroom… and I was able to get through some that I wanted to share.
The Leica Lady and I went to Praiano, Italy for our Honeymoon. We had been in Italy a few years earlier but only saw Rome, which honestly, our experience there paled in comparison to our experience in Paris just days earlier. So this was something completely different. For those of you who don’t know where Praiano is – it’s part of the amalfi coast (or basically the Shin – of the boot of Italy).
We spent about 5 days there… and had an amazing trip.
Also posted in Events, Models, Shoots
Tagged Amalfi Coast, Bar del Sole, Cappuccino, Composed images, Honeymoon, Italy, La Perla, Love, M9-P, Noctilux, Praiano, Snapshots, The Best lemons in the world, The Biggest Lemons you have ever seen, The Leica Guy, The Leica Lady, Vacation, Wedding, Wow it's beautiful and I am never coming back.
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An update – thoughts and news
Did some shooting this weekend. Also did some grilling. Long summer weekends are the best for both.
I shot with GONE BY DAYLIGHT on Friday night. They needed promo photos and I shot them in an empty studio space in the building that houses my law office. I had four Profoto D1 500′s… one profoto Acute 2400 generator with a D4 head. Sid Vintage did the styling. Karrie Welch from Fortunate Face Minerals did the makeup.
GONE BY DAYLIGHT led up to their reputation. Fun, Good Times, and Great Shots filled our evening into the wee morning. I shot them using my Leica S2-P. Most of the shots featured the 70mm lens – as wide open as possible (2.5-5.6) using filters. I also used the 35mm for a few group shots as it was impossible to get them within the frame at such a narrow depth of field.
I love the Leica glass…. it’s sharp wide open. It’s calibrated to be so. No other glass I know is meant for that. So while shooting at 2.5 is crisp – it may not be enough depth to get everyone in focus. It was a problem that I solved by going wider.
Thanks go to Tricia Slate and Emily Therese for their amazing assisting of me during the shoot – including the pizza / drinks run. Thanks ladies!
Saturday, Karrie Welch came back and Emily Therese put her model hat on. Or off – in this case – as Karrie also did hair.
I used both the 70mm lens and the 180mm lens for full body and facial portraits respectively. I usually use the 70mm for everything – as I like that working distance between the model and my subject (especially if we are on location and others are around and I wanna keep my actions to a minimum.) However, in a studio setting when room is not an option – the 180 is an amazingly flattering lens. The compression on a subject’s face is probably the most flattering I have seen in a long time.
I added a second head to the 2400 generator and an Acute 1200 generator with a ringflash.
While I started shooting with my “patented” 7 light fashion setup… I didn’t do it exclusively for both looks. The second look only used 2 or 3 lights (depending upon the particular shot) and frankly, I liked that one a lot better. Sample photos will be up soon – as soon as I finish editing more than just a handful.
I guess I need to go back to school for studio lighting. Not literally… but I guess it’s time to invest in some books, some more modifiers, and some time. But it’s certainly nice to be re-inspired.
Also posted in News
Tagged Air, D1, D1 500, Emily Therese, Filters, Fun Times, Gone by Daylight, Karrie Welch, Leica, Leica Guy, Leica S2-P, Matthew B. Harrison, Profoto Lights, The Leica Guy
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Finding an optic similarity between the lens and the human eye
In researching human vision for my thesis, I decided that the Leica Noctilux f/.95 lens was the best choice for the creation of my images.
Starting with focal length:
A lens with a focal length approximately equal to the diagonal size of the film or sensor format is known as a normal lens; its angle of view is similar to the angle subtended by a large-enough print viewed at a typical viewing distance of the print diagonal, which therefore yields a normal perspective when viewing the print. If the frame size is 24mm x 36mm, the diagonal is 43.267mm.
Most manufacturers market the 50mm lens as the normal lens (despite being a few mm larger) as it is the optimum focal length that has zero distortion. The problem is that a 50mm lens only affords a 46-degree field of view that is significantly less than the human field of vision – which would be closer to a 24mm lens. However, if we were to use such a wide-angle lens our images would suffer significant distortion that does not appear when using a normal lens. Our brains have the ability to compensate for this distortion – however the camera does not. Therefore the 50mm lens is considered to be optimal, due to lack of distortion.
Tagged .95, 50mm, Canon, f/1, Focal Length, Leica, Leica Guy, Noctilux, normal
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