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Pushing micro four thirds to the limit

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
Normally I would just put my camera away in such dark areas as I was walking on this night. But I had nothing to lose, so set my cheap consumer Olympus E-M10 to Monochrome (black and white) mode - cranked the ISO to the max of 12,800 - set aperture to the largest possible of f3.5 at the wide end of my 14-42mm kit lens —— and fired away at anything interesting while I walked the street. Quality isn’t the greatest obviously, but with such poor lighting it would be unlikely to get great shots with any camera. Artistic - now that is a different story.


Processing was done by sending the selected images wirelessly to my iPad Air and processing them in the Snapseed app, then uploaded to gifyu.com for linking to on the web.

All 12,800ISO



19071722-5D61-4274-958B-592F2760E861.jpg




FCD60AD8-96D3-493E-8E36-AB1FF1978EE7.jpg




8A35A063-0F3D-4C2C-ABF5-B9B3313055AA.jpg




179027D4-0D9C-4042-909B-BF4DF1C7F3EE.jpg




5F8AB49E-CB23-417E-B0CA-2F9F9ADB5999.jpg


 

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
On the previous night, I stood at a busy intersection with slightly more street light, and used one of my favourite settings on my Olympus cameras - the Grainy Film black and white filter with the frame edge. I set my ISO to 8,000 and the format to 6x6.

All 8,000ISO




3A42B074-2A82-4E37-8267-6CCC73B36939.jpg




72345E9D-9A3A-40AF-A8BA-0ED3ADBA71AB.jpg




D3FB9ACE-C5B4-40D4-BA8D-5A9DC31217CF.jpg




5979571D-3FAE-44B5-AB23-98BDEEEF6C9D.jpg




D1FC5C86-DE24-4DED-A662-8547CF629C2E.jpg




79F000D4-4EEA-4109-BF0E-ECF24555A355.jpg


 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Robert, the first set of image is fabulous, in the order of importance, subjectand the way it is caught is far above the IQ!
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
In a movie, the composition doesn’t matter but bad sound ruins it.

With B&W stills, there are two approaches. Technically perfect lighting and everything important in focus with a balanced distribution of tonalities from the brightest whites to the darkest blacksxand everything in between.

The other approach is the capturing of subject matter that is so interesting, intriguing and compelling that standards of craftsmanship in texture and tone are irrelevant. This is what you have proven in worth here, Robert. You celebrate human beings and to me, that trounces technical prowess in workmanship of classic scholarly prints any time.

Your work has vibrance and pulsing life. We are able to make up the intervening missing frames and construct a pretty fabulous movie from this collection.

Bravo for the real humanity here!

Asher
 

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
In a movie, the composition doesn’t matter but bad sound ruins it.

With B&W stills, there are two approaches. Technically perfect lighting and everything important in focus with a balanced distribution of tonalities from the brightest whites to the darkest blacksxand everything in between.

The other approach is the capturing of subject matter that is so interesting, intriguing and compelling that standards of craftsmanship in texture and tone are irrelevant. This is what you have proven in worth here, Robert. You celebrate human beings and to me, that trounces technical prowess in workmanship of classic scholarly prints any time.

Your work has vibrance and pulsing life. We are able to make up the intervening missing frames and construct a pretty fabulous movie from this collection.

Bravo for the real humanity here!

Asher

Thanks Asher
 

Antonio Correia

Well-known member
I once made some shots the way you did these Robert, but I was in India under nice weather in a sunny day. With the 5D and the 16-35 lens. They have been published in Lenswork Extended.
This is a completely different approach to street photography as the conditions are pretty different.
My option goes always by shooting raw all the time and process later on, even when I want black and white which in fact, I am going to do less and less...
Thank you for posting your work Robert ! :)
 

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
I once made some shots the way you did these Robert, but I was in India under nice weather in a sunny day. With the 5D and the 16-35 lens. They have been published in Lenswork Extended.
This is a completely different approach to street photography as the conditions are pretty different.
My option goes always by shooting raw all the time and process later on, even when I want black and white which in fact, I am going to do less and less...
Thank you for posting your work Robert ! :)

Thank you Antonio
 
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