New article on overgard.dk about Leica M9 user Chris Tribble of London

[Overgaard]

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Foxie,

 

I actually don't agree. The style if different than mine, so is the choice of white balance.

 

But it's a fact that if you compare Scandinavian, European and American colors, you'll see that american images are much warmer (and too warm) compared to European and Scandinavian images - generally speaking. It's a cultural thing. You can check stock photographs and brochures, as well as television, and you will see it rather clearly. The americans are colorblind!

 

The general way to judge white balance is by looking at skin tones. And in most of the images the skin tones are right to my eye. Americans would probably do them a bit warmer, I would do them a tiny bit cooler.

 

And if we are talking specific images, the one with Gordon Brown: Yes, the light happens to come from above (bad luck, it mostly does in cities with tall buildings and indoor in offices and other buildings. Unfortunately you don't always have a panorama window throwing in nice soft light from the side, and a reflector that big is out of the question in Downing Street 10 and most other places). And the wall behind them is awful yellow. But the skin tones are ok, and that is the ones I would adjust that image for.

 

If it was an image of great importance you might open it in Photoshop and use dodge highlights to throw some more light onto their faces and into their eyes.

 

A professional photographer seldom can choose the light conditions, and if you happen to do events you will meet quite a lot of mixed light sources and ugly indoor light on your way. I just today did a mix of daylight blasting in through the windows - and strong 4000K cold spots on tables and wall lamps with 2200 K strong orange-red light. I haven't figured out what to do with them yet. But I could't turn out all the light and use the daylight only, so I'll have to desaturate blue and yellow and a few other tricks to get at a reasonable result.

 

Anyways, the series of Leica M9 photographers is meant to show how different photographers use the Leica M9 to do their job. Some shoot artsy black and white, some shoot stuff (like Chris and myself) that you would normally use a dSLR for.

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[elgenper]

And part II...The Online Photographer: Great Photographers on the Internet, Part II

 

Jeff

 

Great! That instalment is even more to the point here, I think....

 

Thanx!

[dcoombs]

...But it's a fact that if you compare Scandinavian, European and American colors, you'll see that american images are much warmer (and too warm) compared to European and Scandinavian images - generally speaking. It's a cultural thing. You can check stock photographs and brochures, as well as television, and you will see it rather clearly. The americans are colorblind! ...

 

Actually, it's because it's always rainy and dark in northern Europe. Sun and colour would be blinding!

 

Doug

[chris_tribble]

Back to the original article: with metering this far off, whitebalance that's all over the place and severe colourcasts... Calling this a matter of preferences is just as far off as his WB...

 

Foxie - sorry if my work doesn't meet your approval - though I have to say I would hesitate to make such damning judgments on the basis of a screen resolution jpeg. One thought though is have you checked your browser settings? I was having a major problem with Firefox for a period until the the 3.6 update, and another horribly confusing period when IE was making images look impossibly dark until I'd cleared a Dell Monitor profile from my system settings.

 

Of course if everything's hunky dory with your setup and you're sitting in front of a calibrated monitor and have carefully matched this to the neutrally lit room you work in then you have a right to your opinion. My (very discriminating clients) would seem NOT to agree with you.

 

Best wishes in your own professional practice.

 

Oh - and thanks to Thorsten to putting so much effort into the work of promoting the M9 and the work of his fellow professionals. I'm sorry if the fact that this may bring him new business opportunities. I always thought that was why people had websites.

[pgk]

Well Chris, you imagery looks more than competent to me! Foxies' posts are somewhat naive I'm afraid. Both exposure and colour balance ARE a judgment in areas of high contrast and mixed (and often less than ideal) light, some potential reflected from contaminating coloured surfaces, so defining either is inevitably very subjective. Then there are monitors, settings, and so on.....

 

Keep up the articles Thorsten, I enjoyed reading this one .