Metropolis

One more image for my Metropolis portfolio. The series keeps growing -- slowly. Most of these images take a long time to create. This one I call Metropolis - Just off the grid, 2015. It required less time because it is composed of only two super-imposed images, one of them including an abstracted distortion of a reflection of the Chrysler Building.

A trip to the market with a Sony A7RII and Leica M lenses

At the Union Square farmers market in New York it sometimes seems there are more cameras than produce with everyone snapping away at the colorful, locally-grown fruit, vegetables, and flowers fresh from the farm. I often use the market as a subject for testing new equipment. This time it was to try out my new Sony A7RII with a couple of Leica lenses. Leica M lenses have a drawback in that they do not focus very close. They are made this way to avoid the close-up parallax problem inherent with rangefinder cameras. Of course, when used today with a digital finders instead, the whole problem of parallax is avoided, but this does not change their ability to focus any closer. To get around this, I usually carry a couple of close-up filters with me -- not necessarily the best solution in that it adds an inferior optical solution that may deteriorate the superb Leica glass.

Voigtlander makes a VM-E Close Focus Adapter for the A7 series cameras that acts as a built-in extension tube, but I had some problems with this device when I tested it on a couple of other A7 bodies previously, so I stay away from it. If anyone else has tried this adapter successfully, please let me know.

One problem for me of shooting at the market is that it is getting to be boring as a subject-- same produce, same flowers, same vendor setups. It's difficult to do something original anymore. To change things  up a bit, this time around I decided to concentrate on some of the grittier looking produce and post-process the images in a matching technique. With my Fuji X-T1 this would have been easier. Its Classic Chrome setting is a natural for this look. Deepen the shadows with a +1 or +2, mute the colors by dropping the color saturation a -1 and you have the perfect look right out of the camera.  One thing the A7RII taught me on this trip is how much I miss the built-in conveniences of my Fuji X-T1.

The images here are samples of the results. Once I had the images in Photoshop, I muted down the colors using a Vibrance adjustment layer, and then placed a new layer of pure black color on top. I changed this layer to "Overlay", added a layer mask to it, and painted out the important central areas leaving a deep gritty vignette over the rest of the image.

These images were taken with a Summicron 50mm lens used wide open at f/1.4 and a +2 close-up filter. I particularly liked the bokeh effect this combo gave the images. One nice side benefit of using the Sony A7RII is that even with the image cropped to a square -- something I do a lot -- the 42mp sensor left me with a very large, 80mb photo.

Shooting for the cloud

I've had so many companies try to sell me storage space in the cloud recently that I thought I'd turn the tables and create some images to sell them instead. So I put together the two images below in Photoshop this past week. When shooting with models I often pick up a few general images that can be used later to create various commercial concepts. I also collect images of clouds and miscellaneous scenics for the same purpose.

Another image added to my Metropolis portfolio series

One of the sunset shots from the aerials I did last week of the city inspired me to work up another image in my "Metropolis" series. This one is titled, Metropolis - Through a looking glass and is composed of four stacked images. The base image, one of the aerials of lower Manhattan and the bridges, was taken with the new Sony A7RII and Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 lens. At 42mp, the camera gave me a large base with which to work. The resulting image is 48x48".

It may be difficult to see this image in the small size shown here so I am including this link to a larger version.

Metropolis - Through a looking glass, NY, 2015

Aerial photography over New York

This past week I've been behind on my blog posts, as I spent most of my time preparing for some upcoming aerial shoots of New York. Last night was the first. I wanted to photograph at sunset and into the twilight, which lasted another half hour. The main purpose of these trips is to gather material for a large scale print project of images I am taking of the city.

Working in a helicopter close to nightfall means high ISO settings and fast aperture lenses. I had two outfits with me for the nighttime work, a Nikon D810 equipped with Sigma 24mm and 35mm f/1.4 lenses. The second camera was the new Sony A7RII with its 42mp sensor. It had just arrived earlier in the week.  I planned to use it with Leica M-lenses, but my good friend, Jeff Hirsch of  Fotocare in New York, had a Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 lens he let me try.

The photo below, taken about 25 minutes after sunset, was captured with the Sony A7RII and Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 lens wide open with an ISO of 1250. The shutter speed was only 1/50 second, which was a bit risky, but I just keep my finger on the shutter button and capture so many images that one of them is bound to be sharp. I'd rather do that than raise the ISO and pick up excess noise.  It's a technique I've used for years, and it usually works.

On my Nikon D810 I had an f/1.4 24mm lens, which gave me one extra stop resulting in an even lower ISO and higher shutter speed.

I'll be posting more on this aerial mission later in the week, plus a first-look review of the Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 lens.

Sometimes you just get lucky

Yesterday evening I did a sunset cruise around the city. It is one of those things I always recommend to people visiting New York. The boats sail around the island on the west, then up the East River, and finally out to the Statue of Liberty and back up the Hudson River. The whole trip takes either 1.5 or 2 hours depending upon the type boat you choose. I usually use the Classic Harbor Line where you can sail on either a schooner or 1920's yacht, which adds to the experience.

Last night I got lucky. The skies were overcast and threatening rain about an hour before sunset, but then cleared, leaving beautiful layers of clouds that picked up the color of the setting sun. As you sail down the western side of the city the sun is to your back and reflects off the shiny buildings and clouds. Sailing up the East River you are shooting into the sunset for a completely different view. The beautiful cloud shapes last night treated us to a spectacular view, better than any I had ever seen.

Because I photograph the city mostly to make large scale prints I use high resolution cameras with sharp lenses. Last night I shot with the Leica M 240.  Occasionally, I will take two or three shots in rapid succession to combine later into a larger panoramic image. This can be a little tricky for three reasons: not only is the camera hand-held, but the boat is moving forward at the same time. In addition, the Leica M is a slow camera and too much time elapses between frames.

Both images below were taken with the Leica 35mm f/1.4 Summilux ASPH lens at f/5.6.

Lower Manhattan with the World Trade Center photographed from the west looking east with the sunset  reflecting off the buildings. 

Photographing stars and the night time sky

My son, Daniel, is also a professional photographer. He has been photographing in Maine for the summer. To cap off his stay he wanted to combine some night time shooting of starry skies, lighthouses, and, as luck would have it, the Perseid meteor shower. I shipped him my newest 20mm f/1.8 Nikon lens for his D610 so he would have a fast aperture lens to keep  his ISO as low as possible. For the most part he was able to capture the stars with a wide open aperture, an ISO of 1600, and a shutter speed of 15 seconds. A shutter speed faster than that would have blurred the stars too much.

Below are a few of the images he captured over the past few days. The last shot of the Porsmouth Light House shows that there are great photo ops even on a cloudy night without the stars.

Marshall Point Light in St. George and stars

Curtis Island Light with stars and meteors. 

Cape Neddick Lighthouse in York