M-Monochrom worth it? — A review and appreciation-

[malland]

Originally Posted by photomoof

Why do you feel that statement is inane -- seems like the purpose of your photos?

Certainly the purpose of all of mine.

To me, Winogrand's statement is inane because a photographer quite early on knows what something will look like when it's photographed. It's not the purpose of my photographs, whose purpose is either to express something or to depict something (depict as opposed to document).

—Mitch/Bangkok
Bangkok Hysteria (download link for book project)

[airfrogusmc]

Originally Posted by malland

In the original post I wrote about Moriyama's "no finder shot" (what is often called shooting from the hip). Much of my street photography is taken while the subject and I are walking toward each other, which usually makes it impossible to sight through the viewfinder without the subject changing his or her expression. Until 2006 I used an M6 but then got a GRD that transformed my photography by making it more fluid and looser, a style that I value. While this is not the only type of photography that I want to do with the M-Monochrom, the no finder shot with this camera has two issues: one is focus, which even at f/11 on a 28mm lens, can be somewhat off when shooting close up (1.0-1.5m): when the subject is, say, at distance of 1.2m rather then at the 1.5m to which one has preset the lens; and the other is framing in the absence of Live View on an LCD, which means that sometime one will have to crop to get the scene what one wanted. I don't mind framing for this type of photography, particularly with the M-Monochrom with its huge resolution.

The picture below is a 2/3rds crop. The slight softness of focus on the young woman works for me perhaps because the woman in the right is in sharper focus. This no finder shot was taken by holding the camera in my right hand at chest level and then swiveling it to the right just before pressing the shutter. Altogether, there something I like about the image.



M-Monochrom | Summicron-28 | ISO 1250

Bangkok



—Mitch/Bangkok
Bangkok Hysteria (download link for book project)

Heres one of mine shot exactly the same way. I am trying to train my vision to see what the lens is seeing from a point lower and not where the camera is when its at my eye. I want it to become natural, like a sharp shooter that can shoot a pistol very accurately from say the hip with out aiming. It takes a lot of practice. Only a slight crop on this.


Also wanted to say that I don't find the girl in the foreground in your shot less than tack sharp an issue at all. I thought Frank and Bresson had settled the sharpness issue over a hlf century ago. Didn't Bresson say something like "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept" and heres a couple of photos from Robert Frank that deal with the issue and in my opinion settled it.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...ywood_1955.jpg

http://media1.onsugar.com/files/ons1...ears-Later.jpg

A nice piece on the Americans that talk about about this if anyone is interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHtRZBDOgag

[photomoof]

Originally Posted by malland

To me, Winogrand's statement is inane because a photographer quite early on knows what something will look like when it's photographed. It's not the purpose of my photographs, whose purpose is either to express something or to depict something (depict as opposed to document).

—Mitch/Bangkok

I find personally, both from my own experience and watching my students, that one must do the work [take the photo] to know what "it" is truly going to look like when it's photographed. The mind is a not a good tool for this, the mind exaggerates and distorts -- it most of all underestimates chance -- or failure.

Expression has always been a elusive concept, I prefer Winogrand's more pragmatic approach, leave the expression to the image and the viewer. As for depict, or document, if we return to my friend Dega, there seems little difference in the terms. However document is about a record, often political or quasi-official in nature -- one could easily make the argument that all photographs by their very nature depict. But a body of work, can even accidentally take on the nature of a document. Dega depicted, but created in the whole, a document of life in Paris.

Still for most artists, Winogrand's statement works the best -- let the expressions and depictions fall where they may.

"I dripped the paint on the canvas to see what it would look like."
"I used green under the skin tones to see what it would look like."
And on...

[airfrogusmc]

photomoof...I agree...

[photomoof]

Originally Posted by airfrogusmc

photomoof...I agree...

Well good, but please note: I suffer from a kind of photographic OCD, I always feel uncomfortable converting the world of color into black and white, but still at times I am drawn to it.

[airfrogusmc]

Originally Posted by photomoof

Well good, but please note: I suffer from a kind of photographic OCD, I always feel uncomfortable converting the world of color into black and white, but still at times I am drawn to it.

LoL, Some people see the world better in color some in B&W. Some do both. If the photographs work in the method chosen is the import issue in my opinion.

[nightfly]

Personally I like the grd photos more than the Leica ones so can't really see why I'd get one for these sort of street shots even though I recognize the technical superiority of the Leica.

But then I prefer film to either and can choose between my leica or gr1 and get similar results with either.

It's a bummer with digital that the camera which is to say the sensor has such an outsize influence on the results. Whereas with film the same roll of tri-x would look very similar whether shot through a point and shoot or a Leica.

[photomoof]

Originally Posted by airfrogusmc

LoL, Some people see the world better in color some in B&W. Some do both. If the photographs work in the method chosen is the import issue in my opinion.

It is interesting how our eyes work. Very few people are totally color blind, but many of us suffer from either red–green or blue-yellow. I personally suffer from blue-yellow and find it hard to see blue as I age, blue looks green.

And then there is decreased color at night, we basically see in B&W.

B&W does create an interesting way of seeing an image, which we have become used to, I think mostly due to the limitations of early photography. There is almost no history of classic realistic paintings in black and white.

[airfrogusmc]

Originally Posted by photomoof

It is interesting how our eyes work. Very few people are totally color blind, but many of us suffer from either red–green or blue-yellow. I personally suffer from blue-yellow and find it hard to see blue as I age, blue looks green.

And then there is decreased color at night, we basically see in B&W.

B&W does create an interesting way of seeing an image, which we have become used to, I think mostly due to the limitations of early photography. There is almost no history of classic realistic paintings in black and white.

Absolutely which in my opinion makes B&W photography an art form of its own. Its abstract, which really all photography is but B&W is more so. All photography is truly outside real human experience. Photography is two dimensional. It captures a moment in time so we can concentrated on the one moment for as long as we desire to. We experience life in a flow of motion. its has a selected view by what the photographer decides ot show us.

I shoot mostly color to eat and pay the mortgage but I have been seeing and shooting mostly B&W images which are more about tone and tonal relationships and of course repeating shapes, line, leading lines and I tend to see in triangular compositions but all the latter would also apply to me color work.

Theres a reason why Adams and many other photographers shot their personal work primarily in B&W. For Adams control was a big issue. The zone system requires, in some cases, drastic changes in negative development times to control the contrast and thus give Adams what he saw the scene to look like in his minds eye which usually was much different than the actual scene in front of him. When you start drastically changing color development times you get uncorrectable color shifts. With digital we now have the ability to really control color contrast in ways we only could control in B&W film.

Some see in B&W better than they see in color and vise versa. Both are very valid and both are beautiful to me when dome well.

Sorry for the long post. I love discussing these thing....

Back to topic: A full frame, B&W only camera, with more DR and sharper images that use manual focus lenses that have useful DoF scales is huge for me and the MM was worth it to me.

[gdi]

Originally Posted by nightfly

Personally I like the grd photos more than the Leica ones so can't really see why I'd get one for these sort of street shots even though I recognize the technical superiority of the Leica.

But then I prefer film to either and can choose between my leica or gr1 and get similar results with either.

It's a bummer with digital that the camera which is to say the sensor has such an outsize influence on the results. Whereas with film the same roll of tri-x would look very similar whether shot through a point and shoot or a Leica.

I, too, have trouble seeing the benefit of the Monochrom's technical capabilities for shots like those posted here. I don't see how they are any better than they would have been with any other camera taken into a busy street and exercised.

I am waiting to see some powerful street shots taken with the Monochrom; Overgaard's is able to connect with his subjects nicely, IMO, but still a bit underwhelming. Of course it is still fairly early to see this expensive camera in widespread use, but I expect to find some really quality street work soon.

[malland]

Originally Posted by nightfly

Personally I like the grd photos more than the Leica ones so can't really see why I'd get one for these sort of street shots even though I recognize the technical superiority of the Leica.

But then I prefer film to either and can choose between my leica or gr1 and get similar results with either.

It's a bummer with digital that the camera which is to say the sensor has such an outsize influence on the results. Whereas with film the same roll of tri-x would look very similar whether shot through a point and shoot or a Leica.

That was my starting point, that the first 3-4 pages of the GRD thread had a lot better photography than the M-Monochrom threads. And the Moriyama video linked in the OP shows that the more compact and lighter GR1 is easier for "no finder shots" than an SLR and, by extension, an M6. But, then, the GRD trumps the GR1 for this type of photography because you can frame the image roughly in the LCD and then look directly at the subject when pressing the shutter — which is what I do with the GRD — and have a much higher success rate. You state that you prefer film, which I take as a prejudice in this context, because for this type of photography the results can be indistinguishable, which is my experience with the book project linked below my signature, some of which is shot with the M6 and Tri-X but mostly with GRD cameras. I'm going only by the images, not by the difference in the process or enjoyment of shooting film vs digital.

Now, the issue I've raised in this thread is whether (for this type of street photography) the intrinsics of the image quality and difference in the look from the M-Monochrome can add anything to the aesthetic results of the images over what one can get with the (easier to use for this purpose) GRD. For me, it's still too early to tell but I am certainly very interested in the high contrast combined with higher acuity and longer and smoother midtone range that I can get, as exemplified in my photo quoted in post #52 above. Also, considering that the light was so difficult that I could not have produced the following photo which, as I've stated I like a lot, with the GRD and probably not with film either, my feeling that the M-Monochrom may be of value for this type of street photography for some people:





Bangkok



—Mitch/Bangkok
Bangkok Hysteria (download link for book project)

[nightfly]

I guess the question of how you define value is in the eye of the beholder.

To me the above picture wouldn't suffer if everything but the central woman wasn't as well exposed. The tonal range and smoothness of the Leica doesn't add much to this photo for me. If it were grittier or more poorly exposed with less tonal range I feel like it would work just as well.

Whereas the landscape shot you posted with the gx m works because of the tonality.

I guess you could process this shot as if taken with the grd and see how it works.

I do understand that the Leica gives you the flexibility to present this either way which some might consider an advantage. I tend to feel that limitation often produces better art an admittedly very personal and idiosyncratic notion.

[airfrogusmc]

Looks like most of the low tones zone III and low mid tones zone IV have been processed out of the above image. See the large black areas in the foliage where I'm sure theres information. I think Mitch likes the contrast. The look of pushed film. I have found that DNG files from the MM have more DR that and other small format digital camera.

[buzzardkid]

Malland, airfrogusmc,

interesting thread this is.

Seems I might find the purchase of a Voigtlander Heliar 4.5/15 for my Ricoh GXR-M necessary after all, so I can shoot that awesome little camera with a wide angle 23mm lens.

I'm getting close to making the shots from it look like the original GRD shots, although I am still far away from making them look like the Monochrom shots...

More comparison shots from the Monochrom and the GRD are welcome, I'll do my best to add some GXR-M shots, if that is desirable at all...?

[malland]

Originally Posted by nightfly

I guess the question of how you define value is in the eye of the beholder.

To me the above picture wouldn't suffer if everything but the central woman wasn't as well exposed. The tonal range and smoothness of the Leica doesn't add much to this photo for me. If it were grittier or more poorly exposed with less tonal range I feel like it would work just as well...I guess you could process this shot as if taken with the grd and see how it works.

I do understand that the Leica gives you the flexibility to present this either way which some might consider an advantage. I tend to feel that limitation often produces better art an admittedly very personal and idiosyncratic notion.

Originally Posted by airfrogusmc

Looks like most of the low tones zone III and low mid tones zone IV have been processed out of the above image. See the large black areas in the foliage where I'm sure theres information. I think Mitch likes the contrast. The look of pushed film. I have found that DNG files from the MM have more DR that and other small format digital camera.

It's difficult to reconstruct the dodging and burning of this image without a diagram. However, the point is the the main subject, the woman in the foreground, was sitting in very deep shade and the exposure was for the top half of the picture. There is about 3 stops of dodging on the woman and heavy burning in of the middle of the picture and somewhat less heavy of the top 1/3rd. With a GRD, I would have had to expose for the woman in the foreground and would have lost the rest. Keep in mind also that this is a scene which appears to the eye — the mind's eye, really — as you're walking along the street: to stop and change the exposure because you had a sudden and fleeting feeling of the photo that was in front of you would mean that the woman would look up at you and the picture would be lost

With Tri-X, I could get closer to the results I wanted, but my guess is that in dodging the woman in front I would either lose so much contrast or go for such huge contrast that the picture would have been lost as an effective image.

It seems to me, then, that this picture is essentially made possible by the huge dynamic range of the M-Monochrom, i.e. the extent to which you can lift from the deepest shadows, especially by selective exposure increase in LR4. That's not enough for justifying this camera unless you live to make this type of shot but, taken together with other properties of this camera, there is, in my view, value there.

A footnote: I wrote about suddenly seeing a photograph in "your mind's eye". The best inspiration and understanding for this can be found in Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery, once recommended by Cartier-Bresson as a guide for his type of decisive moment.

A related point: I wrote earlier that I don't mind cropping sometimes. Yes, I don't mind it, but generally prefer to avoid it if I can because, for the type of fluid street photography being discussed here, the dynamic element is easy to lose by cropping — one achieves it more easily and effectively in the Zen moment of pressing the shutter, not usually in the considered and loboured selection of a crop. Read about letting loose the arrow that Herrigel describes in his book, and how you achieve the correct aim at the bulls eye when you're not consciously aiming.

—Mitch/Bangkok
Bangkok Hysteria (download link for book project)

[malland]

Originally Posted by buzzardkid

Malland, airfrogusmc,

interesting thread this is.

Seems I might find the purchase of a Voigtlander Heliar 4.5/15 for my Ricoh GXR-M necessary after all, so I can shoot that awesome little camera with a wide angle 23mm lens.

I'm getting close to making the shots from it look like the original GRD shots, although I am still far away from making them look like the Monochrom shots...

More comparison shots from the Monochrom and the GRD are welcome, I'll do my best to add some GXR-M shots, if that is desirable at all...?

The VC15 is great lens and works well on the GXR, and of course no need to use the EVF with this lens.

Look forward to see the GXR-M shots.

—Mitch/Bangkok
Bangkok Hysteria (download link for book project)

[nightfly]

On a side note, I really enjoyed the thread you started awhile back about looking for expressive color with some of these digital cameras, the GRD and GXR M, at the time. Wondering if you kept perusing that or went back to shooting mostly black and white.

In the part of the world you work in, I found the expressive color added a very interesting element to your work.

[icebear]

Interesting enough to follow your footnote :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_in_the_Art_of_Archery

Herrigel describes Zen in archery as follows:

"(...) The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which confronts him.
This state of unconscious is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill,
though there is in it something of a quite different order which cannot be attained by any progressive study of the art (...)"

[airfrogusmc]

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Photog.../dp/0960037403

Minor White and Wynn Bullock come to mind.

[malland]

Originally Posted by airfrogusmc

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Photog.../dp/0960037403

Minor White and Wynn Bullock come to mind.

No sure what you mean in the context of the discussion, in that I wasn't thinking of Zen art in the sense of Mu Ch'i's Six Persimmons — and even in that case, for me, to see Wynn Bullock as a Zen artist seems a stretch, despite the fact I've seen refernces to this; and even Minor White does not strike me that way, although he has, I gather, influenced people who consider themselves Zen photographers. The latter strikes me as a somewhat dubious concept, but I am infuenced by having lived in Japan where Zen does not quite hold — shall I say the New Age status? — that it seems to in the West; the same thing with Japanese prints.

Rather, I was thinking of the act of taking the photo itself as a Zen moment, under which we can subsume Moriyama and, for that matter, Cartier-Bresson.

—Mitch/Bangkok
Bangkok Hysteria (download link for book project)

[malland]

Originally Posted by nightfly

On a side note, I really enjoyed the thread you started awhile back about looking for expressive color with some of these digital cameras, the GRD and GXR M, at the time. Wondering if you kept perusing that or went back to shooting mostly black and white.

In the part of the world you work in, I found the expressive color added a very interesting element to your work.

Now you tell me! Seriously though, I've been doing both color and B&W, although the first ten months of 2012 I did very little photography. Now that I have the M-Monochrom I'll concentrate on B&W for a while. But I am putting together a dummy book of some 200 photographs called, Paris au rythme de Basquiat and Other Poems, which has series in color and in B&W. I'll post a link for downloading the PDF file when I've finish the project.

—Mitch/Bangkok
Bangkok Hysteria (download link for book project)

[airfrogusmc]

Originally Posted by malland

No sure what you mean in the context of the discussion, in that I wasn't thinking of Zen art in the sense of Mu Ch'i's Six Persimmons — and even in that case, for me, to see Wynn Bullock as a Zen artist seems a stretch, despite the fact I've seen refernces to this; and even Minor White does not strike me that way, although he has, I gather, influenced people who consider themselves Zen photographers. The latter strikes me as a somewhat dubious concept, but I am infuenced by having lived in Japan where Zen does not quite hold — shall I say the New Age status? — that it seems in the West; the same thing with Japanese prints.

Rather, I was thinking of the act of taking the photo itself as a Zen moment, under which we can subsume Moriyama and, for that matter, Cartier-Bresson.

—Mitch/Bangkok
Bangkok Hysteria (download link for book project)

You might not see it or think it mate but that doesn't make it not so.
Last paragraph here, click on the link at the end of that paragraph.
http://www.annedarlingphotography.co...otography.html

Last sentence n the 4th paragraph here
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...60/Minor-White

Wynn Bullock
http://tao-of-digital-photography.bl...tractions.html

[malland]

Originally Posted by airfrogusmc

...Also wanted to say that I don't find the girl in the foreground in your shot less than tack sharp an issue at all...and heres a couple of photos from Robert Frank that deal with the issue and in my opinion settled it.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...ywood_1955.jpg

http://media1.onsugar.com/files/ons1...ears-Later.jpg

A nice piece on the Americans that talk about about this if anyone is interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHtRZBDOgag

I just looked at the five-minute video by the curator of the National Gallery exhibition of The Americans, which is most interesting and which I hadn't seen before. It is worth looking at for its discussion of some of Frank's iconic photographs. I did, however, see the exhibition itself when it was at the National Gallery in Washington a few years ago. I was surprised in reading in one of the panels that Frank began each of his four chapters with a picture containing the American flag, which is also mentioned in the video, because I had started each of the four chapters of my Bangkok Hystaria book project with pictures of fish but had never noticed what Frank had done using the American flag. My idea for the fish came from a concept that I thought about when I formulated the Bangkok Hysteria project: that, since a single photograph is often "read" like a poem, a long series of photographs can be read like a long poem — and beginning each chapter with fish could create a rhythm, the way a rhyming scheme could. Originally each of my chapters ended in a nude preceded by a picture of plants, but I dropped the repetition of plants and ended one chapter without a nude, because the structure was becoming forced.

—Mitch/Bangkok
Bangkok Hysteria (download link for book project)

[airfrogusmc]

I think you are definitely on to something. I tend to think similarly only I think of single images in a body of work as being a sentence or statement and if you string several together it can be a paragraph which can grow into a chapter and finally a book. As you know flow is so very important. Good luck and I'm looking forward to seeing it.

[malland]

You can see it by clicking on the link under my signature, which will download the PDF file of the book, of which I've printed four dummy copies by digital offset. The page size is 10.4 x 6.9 inches.

—Mitch/Bangkok
Bangkok Hysteria (download link for book project)