Tag: Leica 21mm Elmarit-M

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The Abandoned School

Re-post from July 2011

A few days ago I decided to travel the local country side to look for interesting structures to take pictures of.  It was in the middle of the afternoon and is typically the worst time to take pictures because the sun light causes very harsh shadows and typically the camera cannot compensate for the amount of exposure.  Besides HDR photography there are other ways to fix this problem.  One way is to use a neutral density filter.

Neutral density filters are either colorless or grey and reduce and/or modify the intensity of light without harming color rendition.  This allows photographers to shoot in situations that typically wouldn’t allow them.  These filters come in different intensities, which allow for different shooting techniques.

I recently purchased B+W ND 3.0 at B & H Photo for my Leica 21mm Elmarit lens.  It allows me to shoot in very bright light, thus allowing proper exposure.  It can also be used to create a time lapse picture which shows the motion of clouds or objects in front of it.  As I was driving around I came across this old school (built in 1896) that appeared to be on its last leg.  You can see in the pic, the motion of the clouds in this 4 second exposure.

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Old Grey Barn

Re-post August 2011

Keeping it short today.  Couple weeks ago when I was driving around Bluffton, Indiana I came across this old grey barn.  Again, it was in the middle of the day which does not make for good shooting but I put my 3.0 ND filter on my 21mm lens and shot 7 exposures to create an HDR pic.  I think it turned out well?   I really like the movement of the clouds.

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Barn by the Road

February of this year my wife and I went to Wisconsin to visit my sister and family.  We’ve never traveled to Wisconsin and never realized how hilly the landscape is.  I didn’t have time to take too many pictures but we were driving around and found this barn only feet from the road.  The sun was setting and thought it would be a great picture opportunity.  I love the sun rays coming through the branches.  Enjoy.

Repost June 2011

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The Crossing

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?

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Old Xavier Church

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.

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Indiana Sunset

Living in Cleveland, OH for 5 years I got accustomed to grey skies. It seemed as if we would have one blue sky in the winter maybe 1 or 2 times a month. When I moved to Fort Wayne, I was hoping to see more blue skies and fortunately I do but still not as often as I would like (I’m sure others agree in Northeast Indiana). One evening in January, while driving home from work we had one of those rare events. I was driving on the interstate staring at the sun and noticed 2 trees in a field with nothing around them. I immediately took the next exit and drove into the field where they were located. Fortunately, I was able to catch one of these rare Indiana sunsets.

P.S. This is a good reason why you should always carry your camera equipment, you never know when you will find a good picture opportunity.

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