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Hey guys, here's my video from backstage at Australian Fashion Week, using the Leica M. As my primary job there was to shoot runway for the designers, this is not a video story over the whole week, but a combination of 2 hours of random pictures when I had the chance so the pics aren't amazing but hopefully you'll enjoy the entertainment ;-)

 

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Kris - Just amazing. You are just amazing. Several years ago I didn't get you. I listened to you explain your completely manual way of shooting, thinking and approaching photography. It finally made so much sense to me. You changed the way I shoot and think about controlling exposure. Thank you. :)

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I think it started for me back in 2010 with this thread. http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m9-forum/131207-5-days-my-m9-wow-but.html

 

I don't think I have a post in this entire thread because, I just read Kris and thought, what a douche. He doesn't know what he is talking about. I never read anything he posted before this. Then, I went to his site and looked at his photographs. Wow. I was amazed. Next, I went back and reread this thread and every one of his posts I could find. What he was saying just resonated with the 16 year old photographer in me from my high school days. I went back to a completely manual way of taking pictures because of Kris. Completely manual. I don't let the camera make one damn decision for me. He knows what he is talking about and the proof is in his pictures. He is amazing.

 

Kristian Dowling Galleries

Kristian Dowling Photographer and Coach

Edited by RickLeica
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Pico,

 

his name is already corrected :o

 

You're so right about the quality of his work.

 

I absolutely agree about manual control and always have as I came straight from manual focus film Nikons (FM-2, FE-2, F3/T) to the M9. I was never interested in matrix metering & AF.

 

I do like and use aperture priority, but not so that the camera can control the outcome. It lets me direct the camera's light meter to where I want the correct exposure and more quickly adjust and lock-in the shutter speed than by adjusting the dial. I l also like seeing the shutter speed in the viewfinder. Other times though just shooting full manual is quite liberating.

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I think it started for me back in 2010 with this thread. http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m9-forum/131207-5-days-my-m9-wow-but.html

 

I don't think I have a post in this entire thread because, I just read Kris and thought, what a douche. He doesn't know what he is talking about. I never read anything he posted before this. Then, I went to his site and looked at his photographs. Wow. I was amazed. Next, I went back and reread this thread and every one of his posts I could find. What he was saying just resonated with the 16 year old photographer in me from my high school days. I went back to a completely manual way of taking pictures because of Kris. Completely manual. I don't let the camera make one damn decision for me. He knows what he is talking about and the proof is in his pictures. He is amazing.

 

Kristian Dowling Galleries

Kristian Dowling Photographer and Coach

 

I'm so happy to hear that Rick. I now dedicate a lot of time into training photographers and focus all my attention to manual exposure and lighting and very humbled to hear you have taken my advice on board. Sometimes I can appear to be very blunt and overly direct, and somewhat doucheeee, but in the end I always speak from experience and more importantly, my mistakes and lessons learnt.

 

You've made my day! Cheers

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Hi Mark, I am lucky enough to have the only M in Australia, thanks to a friend at Leica ;)

 

Well deserved for someone with as much talent as you. I especially like the shots of the two girls with orange hair in the fashion vid. My dealer told me today that there's a delay on the first shipment to Australia for another 2-3 weeks :(

Edited by rirakuma
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I agree - very nice work indeed. Not looking to start a debate with anyone but how do you personally deal with WB (specifically your M240) in situations like that? I have never shot an event like that and would assume it could be quite challenging to say the least. Great work and thanks for sharing!

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Nice work.

 

How do you find the Ice Light? Of course there's a lot of negative comments on the web, because of the price. But I've heard positive things from some good photographers.

 

I assume Kris knows Jerry Ghionis and it would be interesting to read comments from Kris about this. I like the effect.

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Nice work.

 

How do you find the Ice Light? Of course there's a lot of negative comments on the web, because of the price. But I've heard positive things from some good photographers.

 

The Ice Light is fantastic. Well built and very flexible as it's coverage is quite wide given it's dimensions. While the price may seem high, it's a bargain if you compare it to other LED lights from good manufacturers that are much smaller. It is designed to be used off-camera so you'll need wither a stand or assitant so it's applications differ slightly from the typical LED lights you're used to.

 

Also, the light quality feels more like a fluorescent light, which is a very good thing. I'm not a fan of using LEF for anything but low light close ups, but with the Ice Light, you can use it for half and full length shots too which is a real bonus.

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Thanks, much appreciated. Is it noticeably soft along it's a axis when compared to normal to axis? Much more so than a strip box? That interested me. Fall of quick and sharp on the cheek bones (when held vertically) yet soft fill in pseudo clam shell for the lines around the eyes?

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KD- Well done. Other than flash, did you use a WhiBal card or set WB to maybe 3200K when shooting under tungsten light?

 

Sometimes I set the white balance manually, other times I let the AWB setting do the work, which as we are all aware suffers from inconsistency. Tungsten in general may be 3200, but often it can vary from 2500-3500, and it's the photographer's responsibility to:

 

a. recognise this at the time of shooting and correct, or

b. recognise this at the time of editing and correct.

 

While this may seem stupidly obvious, for photographers shooting in situations with artificial light, there's a degree of experience that comes into play to recognise how to overcome such lighting challenges, especially when shooting in mixed lighting, which includes mixed tungsten sources that vary and cannot be corrected 100%.

 

There's no doubt Leica needs to address the AWB algorithims in a firmware update, but considering this is the first batch of camera, I think it's forgivable considering how darn good the camera is. IMHO, in terms of usability, this is the best performing M-camera Leica has ever made, and it's a joy to use.

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I assume Kris knows Jerry Ghionis and it would be interesting to read comments from Kris about this. I like the effect.

 

No, I've never met the guy, but I certainly respect his business sense, product design and photographic work.

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Thanks, much appreciated. Is it noticeably soft along it's a axis when compared to normal to axis? Much more so than a strip box? That interested me. Fall of quick and sharp on the cheek bones (when held vertically) yet soft fill in pseudo clam shell for the lines around the eyes?

 

It is a very soft light, but is different to a strip box in many ways. Lights like this are only good in low light situations, where you need to match your key subject light to the environment exposure, and this is where the dimming feature comes in handy. A strip box attached to a strobe would be too powerful in most situations, requiring a shorter exposure that would turn your background black.

 

Up close, the fall off can be sharp or medium-sharp depending if you feature the light away from your subject as well as adjust the distance to subject. I'm very interested in getting a couple more of these lights and seeing what I can do using 2-3 of them together. I think for the M user that prefers to use natural or ambient lighting, this is a great addition to their workflow, considering they have a stand or assistant to hold the light in position.

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