tedlipien Posted November 7, 2014 Share #1 Posted November 7, 2014 Advertisement (gone after registration) I'm a new Leica 240 owner seeking input and comments on using Film Mode Vivid Color setting for doing landscape photography. What are the views on this setting? Any suggestions and advice on using it? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted November 7, 2014 Posted November 7, 2014 Hi tedlipien, Take a look here Film Mode Vivid Color. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
AlanJW Posted November 7, 2014 Share #2 Posted November 7, 2014 I'm a new Leica 240 owner seeking input and comments on using Film Mode Vivid Color setting for doing landscape photography. What are the views on this setting? Any suggestions and advice on using it? If I'm not mistaken this setting has no effect on DNG files, just the jpgs. I personally do not use any of the film effects, preferring a clean neutral file for post processing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted November 7, 2014 Share #3 Posted November 7, 2014 Suggestion:don't use it. Shoot DNG and adjust colours and contrast to your taste in post processing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herr Barnack Posted November 8, 2014 Share #4 Posted November 8, 2014 Suggestion:don't use it. Shoot DNG and adjust colours and contrast to your taste in post processing. What Jaapv said. I tried vivid the first day I had my M240. The images looked like Peter Max posters from the 1960s [VOMIT/]. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris_tribble Posted November 8, 2014 Share #5 Posted November 8, 2014 Having spent the money on the M, next step is to discover the joys of lightroom and (maybe) the Nik collection. The great thing about digital is how much control you have of the final print. Enjoy! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naper Posted November 8, 2014 Share #6 Posted November 8, 2014 It's subjective. Take a few shots with the Vivid mode on and the same with the Vivid mode off. YOU decide what YOU like. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bocaburger Posted November 8, 2014 Share #7 Posted November 8, 2014 Advertisement (gone after registration) +1. What does it matter what other peoples' opinions are of film mode or their implication that you're not a serious or good photographer if you shoot jpegs instead of dng? Try it out for yourself and see what you like. I shot DNGs exclusively with my M8 and M9 because their jpegs were crap, not because jpegs in general are crap. I've never needed to shoot RAW in my 5Ds, and haven't needed to shoot DNG in my M240. As for the film-mode settings however, those I don't use because the standard default setting gives me what I want, and enough leeway to tweak a little in CS if I feel like it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
klaush Posted November 8, 2014 Share #8 Posted November 8, 2014 Don´t use vivid mode, stay with default colours and adjust in PS or LR. Of course, it is a matter of taste, some like it vivid, some not (as me). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
01af Posted November 10, 2014 Share #9 Posted November 10, 2014 Any suggestions and advice on using it? Yes: don't. Even the default settings are way off. Turn down in-camera contrast and saturation to the lowest levels; then the JPEGS will come out acceptably well. For best results, however, shoot DNG. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Almulla Posted November 10, 2014 Share #10 Posted November 10, 2014 Consider what would you do years from now. You take an image now. Ten years later when you go back to an image with what we expect to be better image processing software by that time, wouldn't you rather have more data captured of that moment to work with? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bocaburger Posted November 10, 2014 Share #11 Posted November 10, 2014 Yes: don't. Even the default settings are way off. Turn down in-camera contrast and saturation to the lowest levels; then the JPEGS will come out acceptably well. For best results, however, shoot DNG. The default jpeg settings are damn near perfect in mine. Maybe I need to send it back to Solms for repair And shooting DNG for "best results" is only true if you are skilled in post processing, which fairly well requires a liking for it. I detest post processing as much as I detested darkroom processing. Thus I sucked at the latter and suck at the former Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bocaburger Posted November 10, 2014 Share #12 Posted November 10, 2014 Consider what would you do years from now. You take an image now. Ten years later when you go back to an image with what we expect to be better image processing software by that time, wouldn't you rather have more data captured of that moment to work with? Yes, every time I look at photos by Adams or HCB or Capa or the other Magnum guys I lament what a tragedy it was they didn't have DNG format so that today they could be made into so much better images Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted November 10, 2014 Share #13 Posted November 10, 2014 Err.... Didn't those guys use film ? and I don't think Magnum even existed in their day.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff S Posted November 10, 2014 Share #14 Posted November 10, 2014 ...and I don't think Magnum even existed in their day.... Capa (Robert) and HCB were among the founding members of Magnum in 1947. But contrary to his point, Ansel Adams (if that's the Adams he meant) was all about preparing shots in consideration of meticulous post processing. The last thing he would have done digitally would have been to rely on the camera (JPEG) for final output. In fact, Adams anticipated and looked forward to digital manipulation of images. Roll eyes, indeed. Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff S Posted November 10, 2014 Share #15 Posted November 10, 2014 Not only that, but Ansel did in fact reinterpret his negs and prints over the years, as this 34 year history of 'Moonrise' clearly shows. Bocaburger couldn't have picked a better photographer to disprove his point. Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
250swb Posted November 10, 2014 Share #16 Posted November 10, 2014 Adams did have 'dng', it was called a negative (that's film), from which he made many variations over the years of his good pictures. Likewise Bresson, and while he didn't do much of his own printing there are also variations on the famous pictures made over the years using his 'dng' negatives. I mean, does anybody really think film photography was all about sending the negs off to a lab and getting the prints back? At the highest level it was all about post processing in the darkroom, even McCullin's Vietnam pictures are heavily post processed, yet most people think of them as dispassionate and neutral photojournalism. Photographers opinions and tastes change, they get better ideas how to represent an image, what's wrong with that? Steve Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bocaburger Posted November 11, 2014 Share #17 Posted November 11, 2014 Sorry, I was refering to Eddie Adams the photojournalist. Like most of them he prefered to be out shooting pictures not sequestered in a darkroom, and had someone else doing their printing for them. Most of the time they all used the fastest film available, despite it not "recording as much data" as slower emulsions. I did not mean to draw a parallel between jpgs, DNG's and negatives. My point was that they probably didn't make their equipment and film choices based on what future advances technology might be. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff S Posted November 11, 2014 Share #18 Posted November 11, 2014 Like most of them he prefered to be out shooting pictures not sequestered in a darkroom, and had someone else doing their printing for them. Printers, even at Magnum, work closely with photographers to achieve desired results. HCB famously collaborated with his long time printer. One needn't do his own printing, nor be concerned with future technology, to still have high print standards that require careful judgment about products/techniques and medium chosen….including many Magnum photographers (photojournalists or not). There's nothing wrong with choosing any approach, as long as one achieves desired results….and that means recognizing and understanding the potential and limitations of tools and processes. Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bocaburger Posted November 11, 2014 Share #19 Posted November 11, 2014 I agree completely. When I got into photography in the lagte 60s I made a darkroom in my parents' basement and learned to develop film and print. I hated it and it soured me on photography to the point I didn't want to shoot, knowing I would have to go into the darkroom afterward. But I could only afford drugstore processing and it was crap. When I got older and had money I worked closely with a local lab that many of the professionals used. They knew my preferences and standards. I enjoyed photography once again, and it showed in the results. Sadly that lab is no longer in business along with several others that couldn't make a living once digital allowed pros to process and print in-house. Between 2007 and 2014, I shot exclusively DNG with my M8 and then M9, as those cameras' jpg quality was unacceptable to me. I learned Capture 1 and then LR. I hated post processing as much as I hated wet darkroom. Knowing I would have to sit at the computer post processing made me not want to shoot, just as had happened back when I had to develop and print from film. My Canons always gave me decent jpgs which I could tweak in-camera so that an online lab could print them to my satisfaction, but traveling with a DSLR kit was not pleasant. Last year I was at an LHSA event at the Leica Store in Miami when the M240 first came out and was still on long back-order lists. David Farkas was showing some of his work to the group, and to make a point about the capability of the M240 he mentioned that the images weren't even from post processed DNG's, they were from jpgs straight out of the camera. I won't argue the point of whether my images are as technically good as they might be if I shot DNG and post processed. They probably aren't. But they are definitely creatively better than when dreading the tedium of post processing loomed over me. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted November 11, 2014 Share #20 Posted November 11, 2014 I think "the tedium of postprocessing raw images". Is a non existing bogeyman. I rarely spend more than one or two minutes in ACR. Then, in Photoshop, the rest is the same as processing a .jpg image, with the difference that it is normally considerably faster than processing an image that was shot in jpeg as it is far easier to work on a full set in data. Barring special or problematic images ( which would be for the rubbish bin in jpg) I rarely spend more than a few minutes on any shot. In other words: working in DNG turns out to be faster and easier than JPG in my hands and it produces far better results. So why would I shackle myself? At the very least one can shoot DNG and JPEG and have a full set of data for that killer shot. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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