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Digilux 2 page updated - and secrets revealed!


Overgaard

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Just wanted to thank Mr. Thorsten Overgaard for the great job on that site... After months and months of thinking, I've decided to get a used Digilux 2 as first "serious" digital camera. I had dozen of different options from different brands, but I wanted a camera to learn how to take pictures with. I'm a young and unexperienced user but I guess the D2 will be a great teacher. Thanks for the inspiration!

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  • 2 months later...

Thorsten, thank you so much for you high-quality and comprehensive work on the D2! Buying my D2 in 2004 helped me find your work, and I've been a silent fan of your photography ever since. BTW I still use the D2 as my main camera, and it is probably the camera that helped me improve my technique and composition the most (I find that because of its controls and EVF it provides a very direct and unique feedback loop to the photographer).

 

Regarding post-processing, I was very interested in your nugget about dodge & burn, and have shamelessly adopted it since you published it. I've also always wanted to ask you about your sharpening of D2 images for the web. There's one B&W picture in particular, maybe of your daughter, that has stuck in my memory since 2004/205 for it's great detail. Unfortunately, I cannot find it anymore, and it is not included in your 4 current pages about the D2. I've spent quite some time applying USM, High-Pass Filter or Smart Sharpen to my D2 files, but still feel I am still missing something - especially when I open your pages :-)

 

All I could find so far from you about sharpening is the reference to a Getty action, mostly for high-res or print I believe. Would you mind sharing some of your technique for sharpening D2 pics for the web? (sorry if this has already been discussed elsewhere and I've missed it)

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Wow,

that is a real great compendium.

 

The Digilux2 was my very first digital camera, after years of digital refusal. After buying a M8 and a Canon 5D I sold it , but you know what ? Some weeks later I started missing the camera for its light weight and its great lens and its special characteristic at all.

 

But now, after visiting your site, I am encouraged to get another used one and i am looking forward to see what I can get out of it after several years of "digital" experience. Your site is very stimulating.....please continue.

 

Brgds

Christof

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Thorsten, thank you so much for you high-quality and comprehensive work on the D2! Buying my D2 in 2004 helped me find your work, and I've been a silent fan of your photography ever since. BTW I still use the D2 as my main camera, and it is probably the camera that helped me improve my technique and composition the most (I find that because of its controls and EVF it provides a very direct and unique feedback loop to the photographer).

 

Regarding post-processing, I was very interested in your nugget about dodge & burn, and have shamelessly adopted it since you published it. I've also always wanted to ask you about your sharpening of D2 images for the web. There's one B&W picture in particular, maybe of your daughter, that has stuck in my memory since 2004/205 for it's great detail. Unfortunately, I cannot find it anymore, and it is not included in your 4 current pages about the D2. I've spent quite some time applying USM, High-Pass Filter or Smart Sharpen to my D2 files, but still feel I am still missing something - especially when I open your pages :-)

 

All I could find so far from you about sharpening is the reference to a Getty action, mostly for high-res or print I believe. Would you mind sharing some of your technique for sharpening D2 pics for the web? (sorry if this has already been discussed elsewhere and I've missed it)

 

Thanks. Dodge and burn is part of sharpening because it defines the 3D feeling of the image and thus is moch more in alignment with the Leica tradition for sharp images than "the japanese" tradition of sharpening edges (if you examine a Canon 1ds Mark III image you will see it's razor-sharp but 2D - it's flat with sharp edges). If you blow up a Leica image or a Imacon scanned image, you'll discover the edge sharpness is actually not that high. But the definition of colors and light is precise - and that is what creates the sharpness when viewed from normal viewing distance. PIctures aren't mad for 100% blow-up views at 30 cm distance. If you're viewing Picasso that way you're looking at paint and not a picture.

 

Those intersted can read about it in the article:

leica.overgaard.dk - Thorsten Overgaard's Leica Pages - 100,000 exposures later ... [PART III] - dodge and burn

 

As for sharpening for web, it's the Smart Sharpening you need to apply. Find a level that works for you: It has to be shapening up, but without tipping over. I often have people saying "I don't see the difference" and that is about the right level ;-)

 

I will update the page later with the workflow from final edited file to print editions and web editions, and will make that action available for download as well :)

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Thorsten,

 

I really like the article. As mentioned the Dodge & Burn tip is a real nugget!

Besides correcting the exposure and cropping, that is often the only thing I do in PP.

 

This is part III of a series, but the old articles are not available.

Do you still have them online somewhere?

 

Thanks again.

 

PS: Love shooting with my D2 more and more...

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All parts were avalable on the Uber forum which closed when the financial crisis started and dot-com companies couldn't raise money anymore.

 

I have them offline and will be reformatting and posting them when I get a minute. There's

 

100,000 Exposures Later [PART I] - "100,000 Exposures Later"

100,000 Exposures Later [PART II] - "Shooting With My Wife"

100,000 Exposures Later [PART III] - "Dodge and Burn"

100,000 Exposures Later [PART IV] - "All You Need is Love"

 

By the way, also make sure to visit John Thawleys blog with advice on workflow and the D2:

The Leica Digilux2 - Journal - Motorsports Photographer ~ John Thawley :: Photography of American Le Mans, Grand Am, SPEED World Challenge

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after this here has now become a thorste-fansite, i can't stay aside. so here also my "thank you" for showing me the way to a camera, which gives me the feeling, it has waited there a long time for me. (of course and for you and all the other digilux2-lovers). i printed your pages and made out of this my little leica-book.

now i am waiting for the information when you will do the workshop in berlin in this year.

mathias

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Thanks Thorsten.

 

Looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

 

In fact, I had someone commenting an old blog post the other day, and I wondered why. So I followed the comment and found out that some of it was gotten by my Facebook profile and is available almost complete (some pictures might be missing). So feel free to check it out. It might require we become friends to read it, then I'm at Thorsten Overgaard - Denmark | Facebook

 

The articles are here:

 

100,000 exposures later... [Part 1] | Facebook

100,000 exposures later… [part II] - Shooting with my wife | Facebook

100,000 exposures later [PART IV] – All you need is love | Facebook

 

Also this one on colors and calibration is key:

I see colors ... and I see luminance 145 cd/m2 | Facebook

 

I will get them online on my site later - but till then.

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after this here has now become a thorste-fansite, i can't stay aside. so here also my "thank you" for showing me the way to a camera, which gives me the feeling, it has waited there a long time for me. (of course and for you and all the other digilux2-lovers). i printed your pages and made out of this my little leica-book.

now i am waiting for the information when you will do the workshop in berlin in this year.

mathias

 

Thanks. Though I like to think of it as a Digilux 2 fansite.

 

The Berlin seminar ... I'm looking at dates and someone said Feb/March 2010 would be good because of the weather. Hadn't thought of snowstorms and such. But it will probably be a two-day thing with seminar one day, lecture, city-trip and visit to Leica Berlin the other day. But shoot me an e-mail at thorsten@overgaard.dk and I'll keep you updated.

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