Sony A7r’s In-Camera B&W Function
A few weeks ago while staying in Raleigh, I decided to visit a Japanese Botanical Garden and took my Sony A7r along with a Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f1.5. I spent about 20 minutes trying to get an extreme angle on this Japanese Sculpture and had to lay on the sidewalk to achieve this perspective. Overall I’m and pretty happy with this shot.
I had recently discovered how powerful some of the filters were in the camera. When taking black and white photographs with the A7r, the camera must be set to take jpeg photos instead of raw, however the quality is still there since the camera takes 3 consecutive exposures and layers them together as if it was an HDR. I love this ability with the A7r because it has really opened my I eyes when photographing because I can see the world in black and white. I see so many more opportunities for photos that I otherwise would not have seen. What’s also great about the in-camera b&w function is that the tones are very smooth and the performance of dynamic range is fantastic. In Lightroom I find myself that with some photos I hardly have to touch them. With this photo, the only outside adjustments was sharpening and some added vignetting in Lightroom.
A Foggy Morning in Paris
In the Spring of 2009, my family went on a Europe vacation. I was eleven a the time and took my Nikon D40. This was the first time I had used a camera. While driving into Paris in a taxi cab early in one morning, I looked out the window and we on a bridge over a canal. What I saw was a beautiful sight with a man crossing a bridge and the architectural beauty of Paris behind him.
Last year in the fall I came across this photo while going through my old Europe pictures. I saw potential in the image and pulled it over into Lightroom to post-process it. I used a preset that gave the image some purple and orange hues and then brought it over to DXO FilmPack where I added some vintage grain and color to it. This is probably one of my most favorite photos from Europe because I love how it captures the early morning essence of Paris.
Tree of Life
While staying in Florida I visited several gardens. I took this in a really nice one that I had actually been to before. A few years back, I actually had taken a shot just like this of the same exact tree with my iPhone. I got down on the ground on my stomach and pulled back my phone pointing the lens up at the sky to get the most dynamic perspective. When I went back to Florida with my new Leica X1, I couldn’t wait to retake this shot because it was one of my favorite shots from the garden and I wanted to get a better quality photo. This time it was a little more difficult to get the shot since my camera was flat this time around. I still laid down on my stomach on the ground but wasn’t able to put my camera down completely on the ground because I didn’t want to scratch the bottom of it.
Even with my limitation of not being able to get my camera completely on the ground, I am very pleased with my shot and know it is very close to my original capture. My goal was to basically get the the perspective of an ant on the ground and have a really dramatic effect by making the tree look extremely big and towering over the viewer. In my post-processing, I applied warm preset that gave the photograph a little pop and magic to the moment. I didn’t like the really white light coming through the leaves and branches so the preset I applied made the light more golden looking which I really like.
Miami Lifeguard Station
I’ve always admired those lifeguard stations on South Beach. Last summer, my family went to Florida and I got to take my Leica X1 there for the first time. I have many photos from there that I looked forward to writing about. Here are two shots that I took late at night while still walking on the beach. The moon was out and almost full that night helping get that extra light I needed. I was looking for one really cool lifeguard station to photograph before heading back up to Ocean Blvd. Then this came in my view. I looked up in the sky and saw that the clouds were moving quickly so I had to hurry and run to the lifeguard station, set up my tripod, and compose my shot. I was barely able to get those clouds at the top before the blew away. This was a 30 second exposure and the only one I could get since the clouds were gone at the top when my camera finished.
In my post processing, I had a lot of fun. I did my basic edits in Lightroom but the real magic happened in DXO FilmPack. I applied a retro color scheme to the image since the lifeguard station had an old sci-fi look to it. The pinks and yellows were intensified while the sky got a nice deep space blue hue to it. I really like color version of this photo because of the retro color scheme and it makes me think of those old sci-fi shows back in the 70s. The black and white version however is probably my personal favorite. The dark tones complement the highlights while not adding a dark distracting elements to the photo. The light tones draw your focus to the lifeguard station and then pull you in even more to see the details of the wispy clouds, the shining stars in the sky and the glistening waves in the ocean.
