scott kirkpatrick Posted January 31, 2007 Share #1  Posted January 31, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) There was a new owner thread a few days back asking about recommended minimum shutter speeds for handholding with the M8. He got some good advice and encouragement to try it anyway. So howzabout a little thread comparing handheld bad light shots at 1250 and 2500?  For example (using the JFI Tri-X profile in C1):   at 1/15 sec with the 28/2.8 at 2.8, or   at 1/3 sec with same lens and settings. I think I got the plane of focus right on this one, but people don't often hold still for 1/3 sec, so her face is soft.  scott  I'm not a RealLeicaPhotographer (I have a day job and own a necktie), so surely some of you can top this in composition, sharpness, or with color. Any two will do. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 31, 2007 Posted January 31, 2007 Hi scott kirkpatrick, Take a look here How slow can you go handheld?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
mike prevette Posted January 31, 2007 Share #2  Posted January 31, 2007 ISO: 1250 1/6th sec  ISO: 1250 1/6th sec  ISO: 640 1/6th sec  ISO: 1250 1/6th sec  Seems as though 1/6th is probally my average shooting speed.  _mike Flickr: Photos from mike@freedomfromgravity Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
j. borger Posted January 31, 2007 Share #3 Â Posted January 31, 2007 What might be acceptable as a downsized jpeg already falls terrible apart on an A4 sized print. Shakey pictures normaly end up in my trash can ..... the shake might occasional work or be acceptable (like the streetshot in the samples above) .. but those are the just the lucky few. In my opiniomn most RF shooters overestimate their handholding skills. I prefer to stay within the 1/focallength rule of thumb to be sure. Why should i do otherwise with iso 2500 on board and 1.4 lenses in the bag? Â Just my 2 cents of course Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike prevette Posted January 31, 2007 Share #4 Â Posted January 31, 2007 Actually I have made 16x20's of all of those shots I posted. Personally i think the "shake" adds "emotion" and keeps it from being a soulless faximily of reality. I'll take a shakey photo of a breathing subject over a sharp shot of a static scene any day. I have plenty of sharp 1/8th shots hanging around, but I don't like them a much a my "shakey" ones. if your going to shoot in the dark, embrace it don't fight it and use it to make your images better. Â Take a look at some of the Leica masters from the 50's more often than not their famous shots are a little "shakey". Â Â _mike Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott kirkpatrick Posted January 31, 2007 Author Share #5 Â Posted January 31, 2007 Nice, Mike. Do blondes steady your hands a bit? Was there one elbow on the bar? Â What might be acceptable as a downsized jpeg already falls terrible apart on an A4 sized print. Shakey pictures normaly end up in my trash can ..... the shake might occasional work or be acceptable (like the streetshot in the samples above) .. but those are the just the lucky few.In my opiniomn most RF shooters overestimate their handholding skills. I prefer to stay within the 1/focallength rule of thumb to be sure. Why should i do otherwise with iso 2500 on board and 1.4 lenses in the bag? Â grumbles also cheerfully accepted. I notice that as my pictures get gritty i like them smaller. I don't have any 1.4's or a 1.0 in the bag. My wideangles are 2.8 and 3.5 (more useable at 5.6 and up), and my normals stop at 2.0. Â scott Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
j. borger Posted January 31, 2007 Share #6  Posted January 31, 2007 Actually I have made 16x20's of all of those shots I posted. Personally i think the "shake" adds "emotion" ................... Take a look at some of the Leica masters from the 50's more often than not their famous shots are a little "shakey".  _mike Well this is where we think different Mike ...... but that's alright. It annoys me personaly ..... i am not against intentional blurring or shake in pictures however. I agree .. there are situations/ moments where a shaked picture is preferable to no picture at all. And i also i agree there are masterpieces which are "shaked"  But like i said ... i avoid it because for me personaly it is more often annoying than adding a feeling to a picture ... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike prevette Posted January 31, 2007 Share #7 Â Posted January 31, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) Nice, Mike. Do blondes steady your hands a bit? Was there one elbow on the bar? Â Yes the first one I was sitting down, but I'm not sure if my elbow is on the table, the rest were standing. Â As far as the blondes go, [640 1/15th] Â Funny, as far as i can remember they had the opposite effect on me. Brunettes work as well. Â [1250 1/6th] Â Â [1250 1/4] Â j. borger -- I took a look at your portfolio on RFF, and it is very fine work. Even with a differing aesthetic I can appreciate the fine control you have going on. I'm trying very hard to UN-learn all the strictness about creating so much controlled work. I spend most of my working day shooting things that have to be planned to the nth degree. I have over the years felt a little bit of myself get lost in that. So all this slow speed blurry stuff is me trying to regain that sense of organics that I'm seeing so lost in todays perfect, plastic, surreality. Â _mike Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott kirkpatrick Posted January 31, 2007 Author Share #8  Posted January 31, 2007 Mike, I like the second set better than the first. Each one seems to have a story to tell. I think you are right that the looseness of the shots does convey some extra feeling or personality.  scott  PS, I forgot to say that my first two were at 2500 of necessity. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
j. borger Posted January 31, 2007 Share #9 Â Posted January 31, 2007 MIke the first picture of the blond sure shows you are capable using 1/15 ... this one looks perfect to me. I agree with you it is good to try to loosen up shooting ... finding a style that suits you best. I know i am a formalist/ post modernist perhaps most of the times .. but i can't deny what i am ..... i tried a less formal way of shooting but it does not work for me personally ..... but it might work for others ..... Harry Callahan and Andre Kertesz are my favourite photographers ... but i can also appreciate Winogrands totaly different style! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattsy Posted January 31, 2007 Share #10 Â Posted January 31, 2007 Personally i think the "shake" adds "emotion" and keeps it from being a soulless faximily of reality. Â I tend to agree. For some reason, I also find that subject motion and/or cameraq shake work better (or are more forgiveable) in black and white photography than with colour. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest flatfour Posted January 31, 2007 Share #11 Â Posted January 31, 2007 The trouble is there is a slowest guranteed speed and a slowest accidental speed. Your hand and camera shake in a sine curve so that at two points it's stationary or almost and if you fire then you get lucky. We carried out a test at school which I think I have recounted on here before. The whole camera club photographed a lens chart at about 15 feet at 1/100th sec and 1/200th sec handheld. The same shots were repeated on a tripod, an old wooden thing, with a cable release. The images were all blown up very large and the centre section printed. Not a single handheld image at 1/00th was sharp. All the shots on the tripod were sharp and almost all the handheld shots at 1/200th were sharp. Ever since then ,1954, I have tried never to use less than 1/200th. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidada Posted January 31, 2007 Share #12 Â Posted January 31, 2007 Actually I have made 16x20's of all of those shots I posted. Personally i think the "shake" adds "emotion" and keeps it from being a soulless faximily of reality. I'll take a shakey photo of a breathing subject over a sharp shot of a static scene any day. I have plenty of sharp 1/8th shots hanging around, but I don't like them a much a my "shakey" ones. if your going to shoot in the dark, embrace it don't fight it and use it to make your images better. Â Take a look at some of the Leica masters from the 50's more often than not their famous shots are a little "shakey". Â Â _mike Great shots Mike! perfect use of the capabilities of the M8 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
B&W Posted January 31, 2007 Share #13  Posted January 31, 2007 I’m impressed, Mike Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
barjohn Posted January 31, 2007 Share #14  Posted January 31, 2007 I shot this one at 1/6th You can see the motion blur but still produces a usable image for the conditions. Rokkor 40/2 at f2 on M8. Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/14920-how-slow-can-you-go-handheld/?do=findComment&comment=158124'>More sharing options...
grober Posted January 31, 2007 Share #15 Â Posted January 31, 2007 I have very usable stuff from the M8 taken as low as 1/8th of a second. Of course, your chances of a good "frozen" image increase when you use wider lenses. Â The delight of diigital is the capability of immediately reviewing of the image. Experiment with intentionally going slower: stop way down and take some 1 & 2 second exposures just for fun. Motion ain't all bad if the light paints the image with just the right sweep of motion. Â Digital provides a pallet that is more usable for experimentation than film, I'm finding. Â -g Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wparsonsgisnet Posted January 31, 2007 Share #16 Â Posted January 31, 2007 I have found several shots on the M8 at 1/10th that were ok. Many more than that, taken at the same time were not. Â But, if you have to take that shot, it's clearly possible to do a great job, as Mike P has shown. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ioriw Posted January 31, 2007 Share #17 Â Posted January 31, 2007 Mike.. I'd appreciate some words on how you are processing your B&W files, and of course what lenses you used for your street shots.. Â iw Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike prevette Posted January 31, 2007 Share #18  Posted January 31, 2007 Iw,  I believe all these shots were with the CV 40mm Nokton f1.4.  As far as processing goes, I'm sure I'll ruffle a few feathers with this one. First off some of these shots started life as *gasp* JPG *gasp* Secondly I used *gasp* Lightroom *gasp* to process them.  Explanation: Post processing images is about throwing away information. In the analog world the style of developer / temperature/ etc throws away information. It's all there on the film until you dunk it. You have the choice in how much contrast / shadow-highlight detail etc. Then you go to print the image and your again faced with throwing away information. Paper stock, chemistry, developer contrast, all this stuff does is throw away more information.  The Digital version: Most digital BW really sucks. People just pluck it out of the camera tweak it a bit and call it a day. Most of the time they end up actually flatting the image out. I think in peoples minds they feel inferior to film so they try to keep as much as they can. The reasoning behind this is that in order to throw away information you have to knowingly do it. As opposed to in the darkroom it was all happening in the dark with magic potions It's 'Black and White photography' for a reason not 'Gray photography'  So In Lightroom I start by setting my white point with exposure slider, then I crank the black slider to an appealing density, then on to the curves where I tweak my remaining information. If I shot DNG I also play with the color temperature, and tint sliders. In BW you'd be amazed at how different the images come out both in grain and tone when you play with those sliders. I find it way more efficient than the Grayscale mixer sliders.  I ask myself a lot if I REALLY need to see some details. For example do I REALLY need to see texture in this guys hair, or a shadow detail in a background element? Will I miss It? Will it make the image better? I just keep doing that till I'm happy with what I have. That's a freedom I never obtained in the wet darkroom, and honestly it's changing my life in the digital one  _mike Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sean_reid Posted January 31, 2007 Share #19 Â Posted January 31, 2007 Mike, you are one steady fella.... Â Cheers, Â Sean Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted January 31, 2007 Share #20 Â Posted January 31, 2007 I posted a DMR shot here which is sharp at 1/12 Â It was down to the red wine consumed in the bar, I reckon. Â Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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