How to check if a lens is supported by DxO PhotoLab, and if so, how can I get DxO to recognize it?

[mikemyers]

@platypus

My take:

My first thought - so much of what I wanted to show, is now removed.
Next thought - but maybe it makes for a more powerful photo?
Next thought - but in your version it’s a photo of the building at the right, with a nice background.
Being darker makes it look more like a “night photo”, but when I went out on my balcony, everything was lit up by the sky.
Being darker, it hides a lot of the details, but maybe that’s a good thing? I like showing all the small boats, but maybe they detract from the overall image? I dunno.
I’m anxious to check out your .dop, because I think you did something very nice with the colors, but I’m not sure.

My version actually is more “realistic”, but nobody will believe it was really as light as what is showed, considering it was taken around midnight. But it really was that bright - that’s what prompted me to go outside and check out the view, instead of climbing back into bed.

[platypus (Canon & Mac (Intel and M1))]

@mikemyers

My version actually is more “realistic”

…sure, but if photography is reduced to show what was, then why bother at all?

We’ve seen quite a few shots from your balcony now. This does not make the view more interesting - unless we play with it to add mood/expression etc. Nevertheless, I can easily believe that your shot shows nighttime light pollution and if that is what you intend to show, your take is more convincing.

A photo can serve as a witness, specially to make accessible things or events that “the masses” will never (be able or dare to) see or believe. It can be used to replicate as closely as possible original works for preservation etc. My interest in relation to your proposed images is to get out of these carefully tended gardens…

[mikemyers]

@platypus

…sure, but if photography is reduced to show what was, then why bother at all? - - - - I can easily believe that your shot shows nighttime light pollution and if that is what you intend to show, your take is more convincing.

I don’t understand. I think a photograph can show “what was”, or it can show how people (I) perceive “what was”.

Since I am usually trying to show “what was” (mostly?), then is that a fault? I don’t consider myself to be an “artist”, “painting with light”. I’m usually trying to capture what I thought I saw. PhotoLab is a wonderful tool to accomplish this, better than Lightroom or anything I’ve used in the past.

@platypus

My interest in relation to your proposed images is to get out of these carefully tended gardens…

I think that is an ability that you have, which, sadly, I lack. I don’t have the vision to do as you suggest, and while I’m (slowly) catching up, I lack @Joanna’s ability to get my image so “sing”.

However, if you feel this is really important, I can try harder to follow your advice, and try to show what I “felt” more so than what I “saw”. I guess I would call them “photo illustrations”, not “photographs”, as that’s how I see the difference.

[mikemyers]

@platypus

My interest in relation to your proposed images is to get out of these carefully tended gardens…

This is an example of what I can playfully do, when I deliberately leave all those carefully tended gardens. Nobody standing there would have seen, or noticed, or imagined, this. I saw the colors and shapes and twisted around the settings on my M10 to exaggerate what I was imagining, and here’s the result. I can post the dng and the dop if anyone wishes.

I’ve been imagining this scene for months, and today I tried to make it happen. Who knows, maybe it’s garbage - and I didn’t plan to post it here until I read your post. Not sure if others will like it, or hate it - but I’m curious as to what you think?

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

@mikemyers

Since I am usually trying to show “what was” (mostly?), then is that a fault?

Factual is not necessarily attractive. And, in the case of the view from your balcony, doesn’t always make for interesting to others.

As I have said before, my dad introduced me to photography at the tender age of 11 and I progressed through a few different cameras until my last 35mm film camera (Pentax ME Super). Even then I was getting frustrated with the small format because I wanted to crop images far to much and ended up with soft, blurry pictures with plenty of film grain, due to being over-enlarged. I used to shoot anything and nothing in particular but, as they say, it kept me off the streets.

I got my first digital camera (Nikon D100) somewhere around the November 2001. Looking back of most of my photos from then I can truly say my photos were, shall we say, distinctly average. But then I was tending to shoot all sorts, because it didn’t cost me anything in film, etc.

It was only when I started doing LF photography over the weekend of the 20-22 May 2005, that I realised just how important choice of subject, composition and framing were and, due to the length of time it takes to make an LF image, together with not wanting to waste expensive sheets of film, my shooting rate went right down but my success rate went up enormously. See the Landscape pages on my website

By now, I had also progressed to a Nikon D200 for digital work and started to realise that I was using it as a “snapshot” camera and not really “making” images as I would with the Ebony.

Nonetheless, my LF work was still very much documentary in style, wishing to preserve the absolute integrity of what was in front of me but, at the same time, taking time and effort to perfect the image on the sheet of film rather than having to scan and then make all sorts of framing changes. After all, what is the point of taking a shot on 5" x 4" film only to crop it down to 1½" x 1" or 35mm equivalent?

So, over the years that followed, I started to use my digital cameras as if they were LF cameras, taking time and effort to “create” an image rather than just “take” an image and then have to work on it in post-processing.

It is this that several of us have suggested that you try and do. In your continuing to “want what you saw”, in the final image, you are still clinging on to your journalistic tendencies and, in so doing, are tending to take shots that show too much of what is surrounding the subject, or that lack any sense of mood or emotion.

Take my LF shot of the lighthouse at Perch Rock…

What is the subject? Well, the main subject is obviously the lighthouse, but the algae covered rocks in the foreground serve to lead the eye towards the lighthouse, providing context to the placement of the lighthouse.

Then, there’s Helen’s LF shot of the same lighthouse…

… taken on the same day, on B&W film but, this time, from the other direction, with some extraordinarily beautiful clouds behind it. Once again, you see there is a leading line from near the bottom left corner, to lead the eye in, accompanied by the reflection of the lighthouse in the wet sand.

Yes, you can see the skyline of Liverpool in the background but, due to the perspective, it doesn’t intrude into the viewer’s vision as much as the skyline of Miami does in your images.

Moving on to digital, here are a couple of shots. The first one is slow and considered, taken on a tripod and totally uncropped…

Where was it taken? Well, in the forest of Huelgoat, but that is not important. What is important is the composition, which a series of curves and dappled light and shade. It is an image, designed to provoke thoughts of autumn, low light and warm colours, whilst showing off the beauty of mosses and lichens that cover almost everything.

Then an action shot…

This was taken at the annual horse races on the beach at St Efflam, but, again, that is not important. What is important here is the “grittiness” of the event, where jockeys fight hard to win a race despite the sand being thrown up in their faces by the hooves of their horses. It was a bright sunny day, with a hard light, which I accentuated in the treatment of the image, whilst retaining detail in both the horse’s body and jockey’s face, as well as an out of focus hint of the boats in the distance, which gave context but which would have intruded too much had I not treated the background to almost blow them out.

Even this action shot took time, as I took several laps to observe where and how the horses moved and the expression on the jockeys’ faces before finally taking this shot, which I put admit, was cropped to better frame one rider rather than the whole tight bunch.

---

Spur of the moment shots can turn out - sometimes, but often you end up taking far too much “context” - just in case - instead of working at creating an image rather than hoping you’ve got enough when you took the shot to extract an image in post processing.

---

@mikemyers

but I’m curious as to what you think?

Well, it looks like it was taken with a flash but I guess it could be just strong sunlight. I would have tried to place the tree trunk more diagonally, from corner to corner. Oh, and do check the background for distracting stuff like the pale blue cabin and the white buildings, which draws the eye from the main subject so easily.

[mikemyers]

@Joanna

Factual is not necessarily attractive.

I took a photo recently, and you gave me a lot of ideas on how to show it better. I’ve walked by the same scene several times a week, and today decided to see if I could do better. I’ll post the revised image down below. You suggested focusing closer, part way down the “bridge” at the left, so I did that. I waited until some people came by, to maybe give it a bit more interest, and I limited the background, again keeping it out of focus. You thought the water should be removed, but when I do that, the pattern in the photo seems to lose something.

I like it because of the shapes, and the angles, and the patterns, and the foliage that blocks it somewhat, and this time (with the Leica and a 50mm Voigtlander) most of the image is blurry. In retrospect, I think that was a mistake - I should have focused on the people, and if the background got sharper, so be it. I like it, for reasons I don’t know how to explain. I may try it again, this time focusing on people walking across the bridge. I guess this is sort of “painting with light”, as I had full control of where to shoot from, how much of anything (or how little) I wanted to include, and I thoroughly enjoy all the “triangles” that the image is built from.

I will re-try the tree trunk photo again, following your suggestions. As I read what you wrote, I could see them in the photo. I guess “less is more”, and I need to exclude stuff from my photo.

I feel the biggest thing is to be “doing”, and I learn from things that could have been done better. The more I use (either) camera, the more I learn about that camera, and how to get more out of it.

I love your lighthouse photo, and Helen’s. I need to find more scenes like that to photograph. I especially like your horse-racing photo, but I don’t think I’ll ever get to take photos like that again. I used to photograph races, but I haven’t done so for 20 years. Both of your lighthouse photos are stunning! Helen’s photo looks real to me, while yours looks almost like a painting. What camera gear did you use, and did Helen use a filter to capture the clouds so nicely?

Maybe tomorrow I’ll take the trolley again to South Pointe Park, and try to get a better photo of a cruise ship sailing out of the Port of Miami.

I keep meaning to go through the photos I took in South India between mid-July and mid-September. I wanted to capture “life in the city of Madurai”. Not that it matters, but all of that was done with my D750.

L1004610 | 2022-11-04.dng (26.1 MB)
L1004610 | 2022-11-04.dng.dop (14.7 KB)

By the way, I enjoy capturing photos like the above image much more than aiming my camera off my balcony and capturing a slice of life. From the balcony, it’s all “there”, and there’s no work for me to do. With the photo I just posted, it’s completely up to me to make something nice out of it, if I know enough to do so. I enjoy the above photo because “I made it out of nothing”. Shooting Biscayne Bay I also enjoy, but not nearly as much.

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

Warning - harsh critic mode on.

@mikemyers

I took the M10, and took a series of photos

Hmmm. Last thing I heard, you were going to concentrate on using your D780.

@mikemyers

This one came out the best

But it’s just another, same old, same old, panoramic shot of Biscayne Bay.

My eye doesn’t know where to rest and the only leading lines are the top and bottom of the building on the right. So, I assume, the main subject, at the end of those lines, is the skyscrapers on the skyline. But hen the only line to follow from there is the horizontal line of lights that leaves the image to the left. To western eyes, conditioned to read left to right, this is disquieting and causes me to prematurely leave the image.

There are all sorts of “bits” of the image, which draw the eye but are far too small to inspect in detail. And the left third of the image is fairly uninteresting. I much prefer @platypus version, which is a 5x4 crop and would even suggest that a square crop might be evermore interesting…

Notice how the leading lines now end on the docks jutting out into the water.

The only way I could see your image possibly “working” would be to print it at 6ft x 4ft and put it on a wall. But you have only used a 24Mpx camera, which stands no chance of being enlarged to that kind of size.

---

To compare, here is a small reproduction of a John Davies image, taken on a 5" x 4" LF camera, cropped to reduce the sky.…

It is entitled “New Street Station, Birmingham” and you can clearly see the station in the foreground. See the symmetrical leading lines of the roofs and bridges, all pointing towards the centre of the image, from where the eye is led to explore the buildings, which are large enough to see detail in.

We had the privilege of seeing this in real life at an exhibition in Birmingham. This was printed at around 6ft x 4ft and we were able to walk up to it and “look into” the image, to discover the people and vehicles and follow the lines, wandering from time to time to more closely inspect things we stumbled across on the way.

Having seen. “the real thing”, looking at John’s image on a computer screen is quite a disappointing experience but, it has to be said, less disappointing than yours. He uses a 65mm lens, which is the rough equivalent of an 18mm lens on a full frame digital camera. He was able to get close enough to place the corners on the roofs in the corners whilst the wide angle gives a strong perspective and dynamism to the image. Unless you can get close enough to fill the frame of a wide angle lens, you will never get the same dynamics by zooming a long lens or cropping a short lens.

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

@mikemyers

most of the image is blurry. In retrospect, I think that was a mistake - I should have focused on the people, and if the background got sharper, so be it

There is a truth that, if you put people in an image, that automatically becomes the subject, because people are primarily attracted to people. So this image really doesn’t work because the people are blurred and far too small in the frame.

Virtually everything is out of focus and was always destined to be so because you are using a short focal length, even at f/4. If I assume you focused on the near part of the bridge (I’m guessing 15ft), you are still getting around 7ft acceptably sharp but still leaving the majority of the image too obvious to be ignored. At 30ft, you end up with around 33ft acceptably sharp, which means even more of the background will intrude.

If I were to use my 85mm lens at f/1.4, focused at 15ft, then I would get less than 1ft acceptably sharp, thus ensuring that everything except the peoples heads would be soft (to very soft) for the background.

---

@mikemyers

What camera gear did you use, and did Helen use a filter to capture the clouds so nicely?

We both have Ebony cameras. Helen’s is a 45S and mine is the SV45Te. Helen used an orange filter and I used a hard ND 0.6 grad filter to bring the sky and lighthouse down in exposure to match the foreground.

[mikemyers]

@Joanna

Warning - harsh critic mode on.

I learn more from your “harsh critic mode” than from any other source.

@Joanna

There are all sorts of “bits” of the image, which draw the eye but are far too small to inspect in detail. And the left third of the image is fairly uninteresting. I much prefer @platypus version, which is a 5x4 crop and would even suggest that a square crop might be evermore interesting…

As a standalone photo, the image by @platypus is preferable, and any doubts I may have had make your square crop even more so. I wanted the whole scene, and accomplished that, but as an image to post or print, “less” gave it “more”. I wanted, and got, a photo of Biscayne Bay at midnight. But seeing the image here, as a “standalone photograph”, I can’t argue that cropping the image makes for a better photograph. With my photojournalist hat on, I still prefer my image, but if I was going to submit the image for any kind of competition, my full version was and is boring. I need to try to remember this for the future.

@platypus

I can easily believe that your shot shows nighttime light pollution and if that is what you intend to show, your take is more convincing.

I wouldn’t use the word “pollution”, but that was my intention. I saw what I felt was a fascinating view, grabbed my camera and tripod, and took about ten exposures at different settings, then went back to sleep. I did capture exactly what I wanted.

@platypus

We’ve seen quite a few shots from your balcony now. This does not make the view more interesting - unless we play with it to add mood/expression etc.

The key to what you wrote (as I see it) is “more interesting”. It may have been very unique, as normally at night the view is very different, but that doesn’t mean it will be “very interesting” to anyone else. Obviously, it isn’t.

@platypus

…sure, but if photography is reduced to show what was, then why bother at all?

Maybe that’s my problem - part of me very much wants to capture “what was”, but another part of me wants to turn the image into “art”. For most of my life, I thought photography was to record “what was”. The definition is sort of “writing with light”, which I’ve been doing since I was a kid. I guess I see “reality”, when maybe I should be trying to show what it means, not is.

Regardless, for the future posts in this forum, I will try hard to capture what my imagination (hopefully) sees, as it’s viewing the world. More like photos intended for “Life Magazine” rather than “The New York Times”. PhotoLab is loaded with tools to help me create “art”, but before I can do that, I need to visualize what I want to create. (That’s difficult for me.)

@Joanna

It was only when I started doing LF photography over the weekend of the 20-22 May 2005, that I realised just how important choice of subject, composition and framing were and, due to the length of time it takes to make an LF image, together with not wanting to waste expensive sheets of film, my shooting rate went right down but my success rate went up enormously.

I am trying to use my cameras like an LF camera, but I would learn more quickly if I actually were to buy and use a LF camera - which for me, isn’t a realistic choice. My Leica (for me) is closest to being a LF camera - my Nikon (for me) has so much control and a powerful computer to help me capture technically excellent images.

@Joanna

So, over the years that followed, I started to use my digital cameras as if they were LF cameras, taking time and effort to “create” an image rather than just “take” an image and then have to work on it in post-processing.

Yes!!!

@Joanna

It is this that several of us have suggested that you try and do. In your continuing to “want what you saw”, in the final image, you are still clinging on to your journalistic tendencies and, in so doing, are tending to take shots that show too much of what is surrounding the subject, or that lack any sense of mood or emotion.

Guilty, as charged.

@Joanna

What is important is the composition, which a series of curves and dappled light and shade. It is an image, designed to provoke thoughts of autumn, low light and warm colours, whilst showing off the beauty

I will try harder to concentrate on this, rather than “recording a scene”.

@Joanna

Hmmm. Last thing I heard, you were going to concentrate on using your D780.

No, using the D780 is effortless, all I need to do is press the focus button and deal with the composition. It is too smart. It just works. There isn’t much to concentrate on. On the other hand, with the Leica, I have to concentrate on everything if I want an acceptable photo. The Leica takes far more concentration - just focusing takes some effort. Since everything appears sharp in the viewfinder I need to do all this manually (or use Live View, which I prefer not to). If I wanted to take a once-in-a-lifetime-photo, I would use the Nikon, and “guide it”. Zoom for cropping, focus instantly, precisely, and the computer will guarantee a good image. If I want to walk around and CREATE an image, the Leica seems to be a more powerful tool, but the photos will be crap unless I do my part.

Your photo by John Davies is awesome. He found the perfect spot, aligned everything perfectly, and the composition draws me right into the image.

@Joanna

Having seen. “the real thing”, looking at John’s image on a computer screen is quite a disappointing experience but, it has to be said, less disappointing than yours.

I agree, completely. His image, and the ones by you and Helen earlier, were carefully arranged and photographed, and the results are EXcellent. Maybe I should capitalize all the letters. They all could be shown in a gallery, and crowds of people could admire them. My photo was, and is, a snapshot by comparison.

@Joanna

There is a truth that, if you put people in an image, that automatically becomes the subject, because people are primarily attracted to people. So this image really doesn’t work because the people are blurred and far too small in the frame.

I hadn’t thought of that when I took the image - to me, the people were just “props”. Should this happen again, I will remember to make the people in focus and sharp. I will make another trip to the same place, and try to improve.

@Joanna

If I were to use my 85mm lens at f/1.4, focused at 15ft, then I would get less than 1ft acceptably sharp, thus ensuring that everything except the peoples heads would be soft (to very soft) for the background.

I can try with my 90mm f/2 lens, but I think it will crop out so much of the picture that what’s left will look rather boring. I think my 50mm f/2 might be a better choice.

@Joanna

We both have Ebony cameras. Helen’s is a 45S and mine is the SV45Te.

I just looked them up:

Wow. Do you both go walking around with that heavy gear looking for things to photograph, or have you already found the scenes, and you go back there in good weather with your cameras? Do you think you could capture the same scene with a “35mm” type camera?

[Prem (Win11, Sony a99, PL, FP, VP.)]

@mikemyers

@Joanna

Hmmm. Last thing I heard, you were going to concentrate on using your D780.

No, using the D780 is effortless, all I need to do is press the focus button and deal with the composition. It is too smart. It just works. There isn’t much to concentrate on. On the other hand, with the Leica, I have to concentrate on everything if I want an acceptable photo. The Leica takes far more concentration - just focusing takes some effort. Since everything appears sharp in the viewfinder I need to do all this manually (or use Live View, which I prefer not to). If I wanted to take a once-in-a-lifetime-photo, I would use the Nikon, and “guide it”. Zoom for cropping, focus instantly, precisely, and the computer will guarantee a good image. If I want to walk around and CREATE an image, the Leica seems to be a more powerful tool, but the photos will be crap unless I do my part.

This is why I suggested that you took the D780 out for the next three months. Hopefully this gives you the opportunity to get to know the camera as ‘well’ as your Leica. I still suspect that you have not got it set correctly to the way you work. I do not know if your lenses for the Nikon can be set to manual. If they can then the camera will be no different to the Leica except that you will be viewing through the lens rather than through an offset viewfinder.

I Would have thought your Nikon was the more powerful tool and you would still need to do your part. The Leica is still your journalism coming out. Sorry to be so blunt.

[mikemyers]

@Prem

This is why I suggested that you took the D780 out for the next three months. Hopefully this gives you the opportunity to get to know the camera as ‘well’ as your Leica. I still suspect that you have not got it set correctly to the way you work. I do not know if your lenses for the Nikon can be set to manual. If they can then the camera will be no different to the Leica except that you will be viewing through the lens rather than through an offset viewfinder.

I Would have thought your Nikon was the more powerful tool and you would still need to do your part. The Leica is still your journalism coming out. Sorry to be so blunt.

Actually, you are very much “right”. The Nikon is by far the more powerful tool. The Leica isn’t all that different from the 1936 Contax II Rangefinder camera that I grew up with.

…or, the Nikon SP that I eventually bought to replace it (still have it!), or from my Leica M2 that I bought to replace the Nikon (preferring to focus by turning the lens, not a wheel on top of the camera. I still have a Leica M2 (needs work) and a Leica M3 (fully restored). I want to start shooting film again, and it will be with one of those cameras, or my Nikon F4.

Over three years, my Nikon D750 got changed more and more like @Joanna’s D850, except she shot in Manual mode, and I shot in Aperture priority (most of the time). You wrote “I still suspect that you have not got it set correctly to the way you work”, and I think you are almost certainly correct - I want to watch that full 2 1/2 hour training video, and for one of the modes on my D780, turn off anything it is doing for me automatically. I rarely capture an image with the Nikon that isn’t technically good. I can’t say that about the Leica.

Lenses - I can put the D780 in manual focus mode, but why? The camera focuses more precisely than I can, and it focuses on one tiny spot, where my single red dot is located, when I press the rear “focus button”. It is much more precise than I am.

@Prem

This is why I suggested that you took the D780 out for the next three months.

I will gladly do that, for the next three months and beyond, but I will also be using my M10.

My Canon G7X Pro Mk II has been sitting in a drawer for going on two years, along with some other tiny cameras I don’t use. My Fuji X100F has also been sitting in a drawer, but I did take it with me, along with my D750, to India.

Asking me to stop using my Leica would be like asking me to stop eating my favorite foods, or watching my favorite videos and movies. I thoroughly enjoy it, and the things that I find frustrating are eventually getting to the point where I learn how to do them properly. (I just discovered a new one three weeks ago, the nobody seems aware of…)

@Prem

I do not know if your lenses for the Nikon can be set to manual. If they can then the camera will be no different to the Leica except that you will be viewing through the lens rather than through an offset viewfinder.

If you wish, I will post a list of reasons for why I disagree, but maybe the next time you’re in a camera store, ask them to show you a Leica M, and you will find out for yourself. The Leica is more like the LF camera that Joanna and Helen use, and it is up to them to configure any and every setting. Nikon on the other hand has gone out of their way to ensure that anyone taking a photo with a Nikon is likely to get a good result.

@Prem

The Leica is still your journalism coming out. Sorry to be so blunt.

I agree - everything is up to ME to do, just like with my old film cameras I posted photos of earlier. But I think that once I fully understand it, and am able to properly use the camera the way some famous photographers did long ago, if I have the talent to do so, I may be capturing the kind of photos you’d like to see me posting. It all comes down to ME, and I guess it’s difficult for me to break old habits.

I hope eventually I can do both - capture “photojournalist” images, and capture “beautiful” images.

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

@mikemyers

My Leica (for me) is closest to being a LF camera - my Nikon (for me) has so much control and a powerful computer to help me capture technically excellent images.

Excuse me for being blunt but - hogwash!

Your Leica might have less technology built in to it but, without tilt/shift/swing movements, it is far from being a view camera.

Your Nikon only “has so much control and a powerful computer to help me capture technically excellent images” if you let it have that control and allow it to take over the process. Turn off all the automation and you have an (expensive but small) black box with a hole at the front and a sheet of film (sensor) at the back.

You are not obliged to use anything that is automatic like focus, exposure or even zoom. I am happiest when I set everything up manually, even though I might use the internal spot meter to tell me the correct exposure, but I could equally well use the same Konica Flash Meter VI that I use for LF work.

Now, say this out loud - “I am in control of my D780, it is just a black box”

@mikemyers

No, using the D780 is effortless, all I need to do is press the focus button and deal with the composition.

In that case, you are using it wrong. Switch it to manual mode and glue the dial there.

@mikemyers

There isn’t much to concentrate on

Once again - rubbish!!!

Are you saying you don’t have to concentrate on measuring the exposure, finding the focus, setting the ISO, setting the shutter speed, calculating the depth of field, setting the aperture, framing the subject, etc, etc?

If so, once again, you are using it wrong.

@mikemyers

The Leica takes far more concentration - just focusing takes some effort. Since everything appears sharp in the viewfinder I need to do all this manually

So, what is stopping you from turning off auto-focus on the Nikon and focusing by turning the aperture ring?

@mikemyers

Zoom for cropping, focus instantly, precisely, and the computer will guarantee a good image

You have got to be kidding!!! What about, not just measuring, but placing the exposure to avoid blown highlights? What about focusing on something that is not on one of the focus indicators? What about setting up hyperfocal distance, which cannot be done automatically?

And, as for the computer “guaranteeing” a good image - in your dreams. Don’t forget that you are recording RAW files and most of the “computer” never gets used.

@mikemyers

I can try with my 90mm f/2 lens

Nikon don’t make a 90mm f/2 lens.

@mikemyers

I think my 50mm f/2 might be a better choice

Nope. it will not limit the DoF as much as the longer lens.

@mikemyers

I just looked them up:

That doesn’t look like an Ebony to me. Here’s an archived link to their catalog

@mikemyers

Do you both go walking around with that heavy gear looking for things to photograph

Don’t be silly We tend to either use a plastic viewing frame or our D850s in 5x4 crop mode for reconnaissance and then get the Ebonys out when we’ve found something.

The LF bags weigh about 33lbs so, nowadays, we tend to only photograph stuff on LF if it is with sight of the car

@mikemyers

Do you think you could capture the same scene with a “35mm” type camera?

Absolutely not. The whole geometry of LF gives a very different perspective and “feel”.

@Prem

I do not know if your lenses for the Nikon can be set to manual. If they can then the camera will be no different to the Leica except that you will be viewing through the lens rather than through an offset viewfinder

Thanks for confirming that.

@mikemyers

Lenses - I can put the D780 in manual focus mode, but why? The camera focuses more precisely than I can, and it focuses on one tiny spot, where my single red dot is located, when I press the rear “focus button”. It is much more precise than I am

Because you are bemoaning that the Nikon is too easy to use and you seem to be longing for the effort it takes to focus the Leica.

@mikemyers

Asking me to stop using my Leica would be like asking me to stop eating my favorite foods, or watching my favorite videos and movies

In that case, you will never develop the skills you need to work in the same manner as your Leica. It takes time. I still love shooting LF but, the truth is, it requires a lot of effort, not just when shooting but, also, having to develop the sheets of film, scan them and de-spot them. Most of the time, I only scan to print at 36" x 24" and I can get the same resolution with the D850. The only thing I really need the LF for is when I need movements.

@mikemyers

But I think that once I fully understand it, and am able to properly use the camera the way some famous photographers did long ago, if I have the talent to do so, I may be capturing the kind of photos you’d like to see me posting. It all comes down to ME, and I guess it’s difficult for me to break old habits

As long as you limit yourself like that, you are never going to progress and might just as well throw out every other camera. The familiarity that those famous photographers had was down to using their cameras all day, every day, for the kind of subjects Leicas seem best suited to.

@Prem and I have suggested that you lock away the Leica for three months and concentrate on learning the Nikon, without constantly comparing it to your security blanket.

[mikemyers]

Focusing - when I first got my Nikon SLR cameras, they had interchangeable focusing screens, which allows me to focus very precisely either on a “ground glass” area, or a “split image” area. There wasn’t any auto-focus as I recall. I just switched my D780 to manual focus, and tried focusing by turning the focus ring on the lens. I could find a range of areas which were probably close to being in focus, and try to set the focus in the middle of that, but Nikon no longer provides the screens that were made for manual focusing so long ago. Here is a much better explanation:

https://photographylife.com/using-manual-focus-lenses-on-nikon-dslr-cameras

“When camera manufacturers made the switch from manual focus SLRs to autofocus models, changes were made in the cameras’ viewfinders which optimized them for autofocus, often at the expense of the ease and accuracy of manual focus. The old film cameras had excellent viewfinders with manual focusing aids, such as split-image rangefinders and microprisms, that enabled very accurate focus. These aids were dropped with the advent of autofocus and are absent in digital SLRs, making manual focus more difficult and less accurate.”

I’m surprised neither of you seems to be aware of this.

[platypus (Canon & Mac (Intel and M1))]

@Joanna

suggest that a square crop might be evermore interesting

I had tried square and decided against it to balance the the image a little bit more.

As for Mike’s original image: The “burnt” cruise ship made me want to crop off the left part.

As for gear: @mikemyers, use whatever you have and like and don’t bother about what is “better”. Every piece of tech has its limits - as do we - and therefore a matter of cause and effect.

[mikemyers]

@Joanna

Now, say this out loud - “I am in control of my D780, it is just a black box”

I can say it, but I don’t feel that way. When/if I can get all the automation switched off, only then could I say that and believe it. Even in Manual mode, I don’t yet know what settings are turned on or off, and the only way I will satisfy myself about that is to check every one of them, and I can’t do that until I learn what all those settings are - which is why I will eventually watch that 2 1/2 hour video.

[mikemyers]

@platypus

use whatever you have and like and don’t bother about what is “better”. Every piece of tech has its limits - as do we - and therefore a matter of cause and effect.

I will fully accept that the weak point in all of this is me, not the gear. If I do my part right, I don’t need a fancy camera at all.

I went out for a walk this morning to buy some bagels, and. came across this scene. I figured out where to stand, and waited until the people in the image did something - I this case, get a drink of water. I don’t know if anyone will like it or not, and it doesn’t really matter which camera took it. PhotoLab allowed me to make it look the way I wanted, and it’s “focused” enough on what’s going on, that there should be no confusion. It’s certainly not a “photojournalist” image, but it does show all the “stuff” that I wanted in the image. Title - 'Having a cool drink of water on the job".

Be as critical as you can - hopefully it’s at least an improvement over my previous posts.

L1004619 | 2022-11-05.dng (27.3 MB)
L1004619 | 2022-11-05.dng.dop (14.8 KB)

[mikemyers]

@Joanna

Because you are bemoaning that the Nikon is too easy to use and you seem to be longing for the effort it takes to focus the Leica.

I probably did not explain that properly. I suspect my D780 is doing things “behind my back” that I’m not aware of. You pointed out a lot of these things years ago on my D750, and one by one, they all got turned off.

I did a quick search to find what Nikon might be doing, and found this video on the D500:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-scUimFZgk
I’ve already found things that Nikon has configured in a way that I need to adjust. Maybe tomorrow I will go through most of my settings, and try to adjust anything obvious. I’ll save all this is U2 mode, leaving U1 unchanged. You told me about “Active D Lighting” years ago - I want to turn any extra stuff OFF so those controls are inactive.

Feel free to tell me I “don’t know what I’m talking about”, as I don’t. The video on the D500 showed things that I’m sure Nikon thought were proper settings for most people, but I want to do all of these things in PhotoLab, so I will be in control.

Thanks for “pushing me” to search for things like this. I will document everything I find that needs to be changed.

[Prem (Win11, Sony a99, PL, FP, VP.)]

Like @Joanna. I started photography at the age of 11 with my mother’s 6 x 7 box camera with its single speed and single aperture and doing contact prints. Quickly learning to expose the paper to sometimes overexposed and underexposed negatives. That taught me a lot.

At the age of 18 whilst still doing my apprenticeship as an engineers patternmaker. I knew I had to buy my own camera which was an Agfa Supper-Silette. A range finder camera with a fixed 50 mm lens. I then very quickly bought a Western five light metre so that I could get the exposures right in camera.
I also quickly learnt that if I took a reading off of the back of my hand, as long as it was in the same lighting as my subject, I would get 99% perfectly exposed negatives.

After finishing my national service at the age of 23 I decided I needed a reflex camera with interchangeable lenses. It was a tossup between a Nikon F1 (as you say with interchangeable screens of which I believe the default was a split image screen) and a Pentax S1a and 90mm Schatz lens. My big mistake was to choose the Pentax. I could have added lenses later.
I then added a Mamiya 1000dtl which had a spot metre which was useful for those ones that a reading off the back of the hand wasn’t suitable.

My next big mistake was to go to 2.1/4 square. The problem was my brain was stuck in 35mm (3 x 2) mode. I could see the picture when I took it but when I got back to the darkroom and the 2.1/4 square negative. I just could not see the picture. For some reason my 3 x 2 brain had gone somewhere. That almost killed my photography.

Luckily a friend of mine who wanted to upgrade his Minolta 7001i and its kit lens to a Nikon. The problem was, nobody wanted his camera, He couldn’t even give it to them. So, he gave it to me, and I was back in my 3 x 2 element.

[mikemyers]

@Prem

The problem was my brain was stuck in 35mm (3 x 2) mode. I could see the picture when I took it but when I got back to the darkroom and the 2.1/4 square negative. I just could not see the picture.

Somewhere along the line, I got my brain twisted the wrong way. I never learned to visualize any size format (except when I was shooting color slides). I always felt “my” picture was somewhere within the frame, and I had to eliminate all the wasted stuff, leaving only the “good” stuff. My short experiences with 4 x 5 were to keep any important stuff away from the edges - and that stuck with me.

@Joanna reminded me of all the possible convolutions of positioning the film and the lens, but all I remember doing was to raise the lens to eliminate perspective issues. I even have a Nikon lens right now with this built-in - “perspective control”. I sort of wish I still had my darkroom, and my old cameras, and all the rest, but I have no room to set them up even if I did still have them. Joanna reminds me of the good (having all that control) and the bad (lugging all that gear with the huge tripod with me).

[mwsilvers (Mark - New Jersey, USA)]

@mikemyers

Focusing - when I first got my Nikon SLR cameras, they had interchangeable focusing screens, which allows me to focus very precisely either on a “ground glass” area, or a “split image” area. There wasn’t any auto-focus as I recall. I just switched my D780 to manual focus, and tried focusing by turning the focus ring on the lens. I could find a range of areas which were probably close to being in focus, and try to set the focus in the middle of that, but Nikon no longer provides the screens that were made for manual focusing so long ago. Here is a much better explanation:

https://photographylife.com/using-manual-focus-lenses-on-nikon-dslr-cameras

“When camera manufacturers made the switch from manual focus SLRs to autofocus models, changes were made in the cameras’ viewfinders which optimized them for autofocus, often at the expense of the ease and accuracy of manual focus. The old film cameras had excellent viewfinders with manual focusing aids, such as split-image rangefinders and microprisms, that enabled very accurate focus. These aids were dropped with the advent of autofocus and are absent in digital SLRs, making manual focus more difficult and less accurate.”

I’m surprised neither of you seems to be aware of this.

Manual focusing on a modern DSLR, especially with a lens designed for autofocus can be very tedious and will often result in a number of focus misses. However, while not everyone’s cup of tea, manual focus is quick, easy and very accurate on a mirrorless camera. Mirrorless offers a few tools to do this. First is the adjustable focus peaking which highlights edges of objects in your choice of color and sensitively. When the highlights are maximized you are in focus. It is very easy in use. You can also using focus peaking in conjunction with viewfinder of rear LCD screen magnification. When using manual focus lenses with longer focus rings throws, nailing focus can be quite easy and precise with often better results than can be achieved with many AF lens.

My Nikon Z fc also has a third feature that aids manual focusing with both AF lenses and my two Voigtlander manual focus lenses designed specifically for Nikon Z mounts. The Voigtlanders have electrical contacts much like an AF lens which communicate with the camera. When manually focusing them, or an AF lens, the red focus area square turns to green as it would in autofocus mode when focus is achieved.

Mark