Hamburg Harbor in Winter

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

Hello everyone,

I've been browsing this website and forum for a while now and now decided to register.
I greatly appreciate the wealth of information and overall style of discussion here and finally decided to participate.
I'm an amateur and had a break from photography for about 20 years due to lack of a proper wet darkroom and time issues.

Now, that digital cameras became affordable and resonably good, though the really good ones are still insanely expensive,
I decided to pick up my old love photography (actually in my young days I was flirting with the idea of becoming a pro)
and go digital.

Up to 20 years ago I was doing film images with a Nikon FE, 28 mm, 80 mm, 135 mm and a 300 mm lens but sold all the analogue equipment in the end.
I developed everything b/w and in the end did color prints using a Wallner color measurment system and a selfmade temperature box with a Drum.
I still own an old Mamiya Press with a 50 mm lens, but I hardly used it.

For my re-entering the world of photography I bought a Canon Powershot G11 as a learning tool and decision finder.
maybe in 1 or 2 years I want to buy something better, either a high-end 35 mm like the Leica M system or a Digital Midformat System - not sure yet what to buy - I'll take my time for this decision which is connected to the redeveloping of my photographic identity.

For introducting myself into this forum I thought I'd just start with these images I made with the G11 in December 2009
in the harbor of Hamburg, Germany about a week or two after I bought the camera.

The images were developed with Capture One.

Don't have mercy because I'm an amateur - I have an interest in improving - technically and artistically and want to
work towards an exhibition on the long run.

Thank you
~Chris


"Couple At Overseas Bridge"
[attachment=19590:IMG_0136...ownsized.jpg]

"Iron Structures"
[attachment=19591:IMG_0155...ownsized.jpg]

"Yet Another Harbor Composition"
[attachment=19592:IMG_0166...ownsized.jpg]

"Red Ship Docking"
[attachment=19593:IMG_0183...ownsized.jpg]

"Cranes'n Docks"
[attachment=19594:IMG_0193...ownsized.jpg]

"Dark Waters"
[attachment=19595:IMG_0194...ownsized.jpg]

[John R]

It is hard to critique them all. Too many. On the whole I find the images excessively dark and contrasty. You shot in very harsh, direct light, a difficult light to shoot in. I guess you were trying out the camera. The compositions are a mixed bag, none are that strong. The silhouette, though it has appeal, the figures do not stand out like they should. Not to worry though, just keep at it and try to simplify your compositions. there is lots of good subject matter at the docks, like those anchors.

JMR

[RobReuthal]

Hello and welcome from Germany ;-),
I agree with John and think you test out your new camera , I can´t find any focus in the pictures and the sharpness is also not so fine . But  your eye for compositions are good and with few practise I´m sure you make graet Photos.

cu robert

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

Thanks for the feedback so far. I need this kind of stuff.

In the moment I'm fighting with a couple of things at the same time:

1.) Getting back my photographic eye
2.) Color - I did do very much color so far
3.) Get that Camera working as I wish it to work, especially the focusing.
To me it appears, that the downsizing also took some detail, especially from the cranes. Of course I did a bit of cropping as well. I still have to find out what I can get from this little compact camera.

4.) Dark and contrasty Images: I like dark colors and I like extreme contrast,
though maybe the excessive contrasts are a sort of illness of mine.
I want extreme contrast and still preserve tonal differentiation.
Definitely a learning curve for me. Maybe I'm pushing these extremes it too much and I still have problems managing them. Seems I need to look better and be more cautious. Be it at shooting or RAW-developing.
 
I also believe one problem is my monitor - Its a simple office monitor (Samsung SyncMaster 245B). I calibrated it with a DTP94 and the Quato software,
but its still everything but optimal and I believe I'll need to buy an Eizo ASAP to
better judge my results and adjust them.

Especially in prints the shadows are much darker as intended and the viewing
angle at the screen has way too much influence on the brightness of the picture.
After the feedback I checked the shadows and looked to have a real orthogonal angle when viewing at the shadowy parts of the images and they became darker with that - so I have to adapt the way how to look at the screen due to the inappropriate monitor and move in front of it and check everything from a
straight orthogonal view.

I had it calibrated to 120 nits, 2.2 Gamma and 5000K. I went down to 90 nits now,
which looks better but I still have to experiment a lot.

5.) Its true - I was trying out the camera - maybe I was a bit too enthusiastic after seeing what is possible with digital. But I'm sure I'll become much more exact over time. The compositions I hope to improve over time. I trust practise here.


As a next iteration I changed the processing of some of the images as posted below to adress some of the critics.


In the case of the second image I decided to use another shot of the motive
whith different exposure and make it all lighter to pop out the iron structure better
and allow some detail in the background.
[attachment=19618:IMG_0152...ownsized.jpg]


The last image I am not really sure if this variation is better.
I changed the crop and the tones. As I said - I like dark tones.
At least there is more detail in it.
[attachment=19622:IMG_0194...nsized_1.jpg]



What I really didn't understand is, why the images in firefox still look clearly darker than in Capture One.
I set the rendering intent to perceptual, relative colorimetric and absolute and still I see with every
setting a clear difference. Is Firefox not colormanaging properly ? The process receipe shouldn't
change the image at all apart from setting the profile (sRGB) and size. I was previewing with the receipes
color profile.

I also had aciddentally set the receipe to omit sharpening at all - The images should be sharper now.


Thank you
~Chris


[edit] I removed some of the "corrected" images, because they still are too dark and in Firefox I saw artifacts I overlooked before. It appears I need to solve some colormanagement problem.