New lens testing

 I asked ChatGPT4o this question:

How do I test the new lens against manufacturing faults? Suggest practical methods I can try. 

ChatGPT4o answered:

Testing your new lens for manufacturing faults involves a series of practical steps to ensure its optical and mechanical performance is up to standard. Here are some methods you can try:

1. Visual Inspection

- Inspect the Glass: Look for any scratches, dust, or defects on the lens elements. Check both the front and rear elements.

- Aperture Blades: Ensure the aperture blades move smoothly and are free from oil or irregularities.

- Mount: Check the lens mount for any signs of damage or wear.

2. Mechanical Functionality

- Focus Ring: Rotate the focus ring through its entire range. It should move smoothly without any sticking or unusual resistance.

- Aperture Ring: Check that the aperture ring clicks at each stop and moves smoothly.

3. Optical Tests

- Sharpness and Resolution:

  - Infinity Focus: Take a series of test shots of distant objects at different apertures, including wide open (f/1.5) and stopped down. The images should be sharp, especially in the center, and stopping down should improve edge sharpness.

  - Close Focus: Test the minimum focusing distance and ensure the images are sharp at various apertures.

- Distortion and Vignetting: 

  - Distortion: Photograph a brick wall or a grid pattern to check for any barrel or pincushion distortion.

  - Vignetting: Take images of a blank wall or sky at different apertures to see if there is any noticeable light falloff towards the edges.

- Chromatic Aberrations: 

  - Take high-contrast images, such as tree branches against a bright sky, and check for any color fringing (purple or green edges) along the boundaries.

- Bokeh Quality: 

  - Shoot images with out-of-focus backgrounds (e.g., portraits) to evaluate the quality of the bokeh. The out-of-focus areas should be smooth and pleasing to the eye.

- Flare and Ghosting:

  - Point the lens towards a bright light source, like the sun or a strong artificial light, to see how well the lens handles flare and ghosting. Check for any significant artifacts or loss of contrast.

4. Real-World Shooting

- Daily Usage: Use the lens in various real-world scenarios (e.g., landscapes, portraits, low-light conditions) to ensure it performs well across different situations.

- Check Consistency: Review your images for consistent sharpness and exposure across different settings and lighting conditions.

5. Comparative Analysis

- Comparison: If possible, compare the new lens with another similar lens that you know is defect-free. Look for differences in image quality, sharpness, and performance.

6. Software Tools

- Focus Charts and Test Patterns: Use printed focus charts and test patterns to evaluate sharpness and focus accuracy.

- Image Analysis Software: Programs like Adobe Lightroom, DxO Optics, or even free tools like RawTherapee can help analyze sharpness, chromatic aberrations, and distortion.

Focusing Summicron-M 35mm f/2 on Leica CL (part 1)

Leica CL is a compact, and lightweight camera with APC-S sensor that you can mount interchangeable lenses. The camera produces 24 MP images. 

In this post I will share the result of focusing experiments I have recently run using a Summicron-M 35mm f/2 ASPH lens mounted on Leica CL. 

Camera configuration:

• Leica CL, 24MP with APS-C sensor 
• LEICA Summicron-M 35mm F/2 ASPH lens 
• Film Style: Monochrome or Monochrome HC
• Photo File Format: DNG
• Focus method: manual assisted by focus peaking
• Shooting:
• Light: overcast
• Distance: 15-20m 
• Shutter speed: 1/1000s
• ISO: 100
• Aperture: f/2
• Focus: Number plate of the white car
• Post-processing: 
• Color (no processing or no presets applied)
• Color (Adobe Lightroom Auto preset applied) 
• BW (no processing, or presets applied)
• Exported using Adobe Lightroom Export as:
• 24MP JPEG loss-less output, 300dpi, sharpened for matte print paper

Because the CL has a crop sensor the effective focal length becomes 50 mm. This was the focal length used by legendary Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Shooting notes:

• I chose Monochrome HC film style that comes with the CL. Note, the term Film Style is just a name referring to Leica CL emulating film photography. The CL is a digital camera.
• 💡Using one of Monochrome film styles I can easily see focus peaking red dots while manually zooming. 
• The HC film style works really well under mid-day overcast lighting conditions. I could choose Natural Monochrome style (without HC) in the case of darker overcast lighting, such as late-evening.
• Thanks to M-ADAPTER L, when the lens is mounted on the CL camera, it automatically reads lens metadata and configures the right wheel to zoom on the image for focus assist. The zoom is crucial for precision focusing using focus peaking.
• While I zoomed in the number plate of the white car, I maximised number of red dots on that plate by adjusting the focus ring back and forth. This way the resultant focus was spot on the white car.

Download the following images to inspect. 

Simply click the image. That will enlarge it in on your browser. Then right-click and select Save Image As from the context menu to download the high resolution image on your device or computer.

Inspect them using your favourite editing/preview tool. 

Zoom to enlarge the number plate of the white car which I focused on during shooting.

24MP Images (free to download): 

• Color (no processing)

• Color (auto processing)

• BW (no processing)

A mood of joy

 A photon is a quanta of light. Light is absorbed and emitted one photon at a time - Michigan State University.

In this photograph we see a tunnel made by jets of water coming out of regularly placed nozzles along the long edge of a shallow pool. A child is running through the tunnel, enjoying the thrill of his play. I captured him in the last 1600th of a second before the shutter was closed.

During evolution of my photographic style I have increasingly become attracted to taking moody photographs.

For me what matters is the emotive content of a photograph. Everything else is an accessory. What I mean by that is the mood, a general sense of what is going on. I like it when I leave blanks in a puzzle and the viewer participates the discovery process. Facing sun is one way of creating such opportunities, allowing me to use darkness eliminating what is not essential for the mood. 

When we face the sun during sunrise or sunset or other times during winter when the light rays have stronger horizontal vectors, longer shadows and occasionally glitters expose a different world. Maybe this is so primordial for humans. We seem to feel differently at those times. 

You might ask why using a dark silhouette? Wouldn't it be better if the subject (child) was exposed even slightly so? Wouldn’t knowing his facial features or his outfit enhance the mood?

I have technical and philosophical arguments against using higher exposure.

Technically I had to reduce the exposure compensation before taking the picture. Facing the sun, that is the only way to eliminate burn outs. Drastic negative exposure compensation kept the child in dark, apart from leaving a lovely outline. That is exactly what I saw in the viewfinder.

Philosophically what interested me was depicting the water tunnel and the running child, the only necessary elements to reflect a mood of joy. I wanted to hide everything else, including clutters on the upper right side where people with prams, another child and a seagull are. Those were distractions for my story.

I tried exposing the running child using a subject mask in Adobe Lightroom. It worked, but the resulting image looked a bit fake, and worse, it ruined the mood.

The moral of the story is you need to know your place, your philosophy, your artistic stance before taking a picture. 

For me slowing down, having a strong sense of intent and being picky works. Often I return from my photo walks empty handed. That is ok. That is part of the process. But once in a while you will capture something beautiful, then you will realise why it was worth all the trouble.

AI has come

My computer has just had its 10th birthday, a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014.) Its operating system was stuck at MacOS Big Sur.

A few months ago my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription refused to upgrade Lightroom, as the new version required new hardware and new OS. 

Adobe has recently added generative AI into Photoshop. You can now use prompts and talk to it. 

AI tools demand ample horsepower. My computer has Intel i7 processor and Intel Iris graphics card, relics from not so distant past. 

Despite the hype, I approach using AI cautiously. There is a danger of losing our creativity if we offload too much of our skillset to AI. Being creative is what keeps me going, it is the fuel of my spirit, it is what makes me human. 

Realising the distinction between fixing photographs and making photographs is important. Soon AI will be able to do both.

Getting help from AI to do tedious tasks, for example, culling hundreds of similar images is interesting. Currently editing is the most boring and time-consuming aspect of digital photography. I would welcome AI if it could be trained to keep what I think as the best, an agent that understands my taste.

I am not even remotely interested in getting AI to create fake images. For me photography is about capturing reality. There is camera and there is photographer. The photographer is the sole agent who makes the decision to frame and shoot the picture. If AI makes that decision, an entirely plausible prospect, then AI becomes the photographer, not me. Where is the fun in that?

Moody pictures

What is so special about moody pictures? 

As a photographer I’ve always been attracted to gentle light. It is the feeble presence of light that works its magic, offering us an alternative reality.

Copyright © 2015-2024 Ergun Coruh. All rights reserved. 

In this picture we see a bunch of youngsters, sitting on an old stone platform at the Sydney Harbour. Their gaze wanders around sails on the water and the skyline far ahead while golden lights of a dying day are casting intricate shades from behind the Harbour Bridge. They might be reflecting on life, perhaps big questions that they don’t think about during the hustles of a day. 

When I photograph sunsets I photograph everything else but the sunset. For me it is pointless to target a beautiful sunset alone if there is no meaningful story attached to it. Without people this would have been just another Sydney Harbour picture.

How do I shoot a picture at sunset

My camera is a Leica Q-P. It has 24MP full frame sensor with a fix 28mm Summilux f/1.7 ASPH lens. 

I always use Aperture priority mode, AE (auto-focus) set to spot metering, and AF (auto-focus) set to single point. I use the thumb lock button as the AE lock, and half-pressed shutter release button as the AF lock.

I begin by setting the exposure compensation in the middle. I set aperture using the aperture ring, trying to stay between f/4.0 and f/5.6, with ISO not exceeding 100. My goal is to get my subjects definitely into focus and most of the stuff beyond them too. 

I point middle of the lens to a darker mid-tone spot to increase exposure lightly, exposing sufficient details on and around the subject(s), eliminating underexposed areas as much as possible without blowing highlights too much. I press the thumb lock button with my thumb and keep it pressed to lock the exposure. 

I compose the frame my moving my lens around, cutting out distractions at the same time. If there are too much exposure in white areas, I unlock by releasing my thumb, halve the exposure compensation using the thumb wheel, and re-sample the exposure and re-lock it. 

I check the shutter speed to stay at 1/250s or faster. I half-press the shutter release button with my index finger to focus somewhere on the subject(s) or somewhere near, I check the histogram, if necessary I repeat everything from scratch. 

I check the subject(s) one last time to see if there is any awkwardness I wouldn’t want in the frame. Finally when the decisive moment comes I press the shutter.  

Composition lesson

Composition lesson

This is a lesson in photographic composition, derived from my experience in Photography.

There may be better and more comprehensive references you may find on the Internet. This is just a summary of what works for me and I hope for you as well. 

In a nutshell composition is the way you frame the subject and objects around it. The light and tones are important too, but they are accesories. 

What does make you say "I should take this picture"?

Most often than not we are attracted to a scenery of some sort without fully knowing what made us to have that urge at the first place. 

I ask you to step back and think.

What makes this picture special starts with stark whiteness of the subject. The opera house is the whitest object in the frame (the sky has white openings but not entirely), everything else is an accessory and they should stay as such. The beauty of the sails opens up like a swan or a magnolia. 

The urge is to capture that white beauty in its essence. 

Knowing your subject and objects

This is not a picture of just the Sydney Opera House, but other elements surrounding it. As soon as you realise that a subject can rarely exist on its own, possibilities of crafting a meaningful story emerge.

Every picture must have a subject or a group of them. A subject is an object we think is the most significant one. Your photograph stands out depending on how you frame your subject and other objects around it.

In this picture the Sydney Opera House is the subject. The Harbour Bridge is an object. The sky is an object. The sea is an object. The flags are a group of objects. The pair of pylons is an object. The pier is an object. The skyline is an object.

The Light

In this image the entire sky acts like a giant shade. The overcast day eliminates harsh shades. Gray clouds at the background make whiteness of the sails pop up, emphasising their gentle contours. This picture would be dead under a clear sky, or if the background was whiter. Remember "Light Gods". They can either make your picture or kill it.

Leading lines

Leading lines help gently navigating our gaze into the subject. In this frame curvatures of the Coat Hanger (The Harbour Bridge) make leading lines that lead our gaze from the top left corner to the bottom right. 

Using the bridge as an instrument that draws leading lines has another advantage; it makes the harbour bridge a secondary object blending with the rest of grayness. Afterall we should eliminate all other objects stealing the show from the subject.

Note the harmony of curvatures, as if someone used the same template to draw the coat hanger's and sails' curves. Such harmony is essential for pulling the attention to the subject.

Rule of thirds 

The rule of thirds is a well known composition tip to maintain a well balanced look. 

The idea is to divide the picture into rectangles in multiples of 3, and place your subject in one of them, but not in between.  Usually dividing the frame to 9, 6 or 3 quadrants will do the job.

The idea is to maintain an eye-pleasing area alignment between objects trapped in each segment.

Take a look at the top left quadrant. We see a section of the bridge close to its center, and flags at the top. Everything in that quadrant is in harmony. The vertical steel strings have equal distances next to each other, the curveture starts gently, the flags nicely fit; they are not too close nor too distant from the edges.

Declutter

I left the most important tip to last. Do not press the shutter unless you are certain there is no clutter left anywhere around the frame. No boats cutting the frame, no colorful foreground objects, no signposts or tree branches nearby that get in to our view. 

You must avoid clutter to make your comopositions stand out.

Winter dusk

 

A winter late-afternoon in downtown Sydney. 

Light is puring from the new Cartier building, and the Louis Vuitton behind it. Beams of a dying sun mixing with warm light paint a familiar perspective. 

When you walk down on that street you my feel the warmth of your home. Snuggling into your cossie corner in your  home, smells of baking biscuits and the whisle of your kettle. Soon you will be home.

A good photograph should make you feel emotions, this is what I seek. The depth, the light, the texture and the frame. When I see it, I know it.

Sydney Modern Project

The Art Gallery of NSW North Building is extraordinary. From the outside you see a one storey glass building. But inside it opens up to a vast space tingling your creative mojo. 

In the book Universal Principles of Design by W. Lindwell, K. Holden, and J. Butler, Cathedral Effect is described as “concpicious ceiling height” that promotes abstract thinking and creativity. This building is a great example of that.

This painting by Jude Rae reminds me Edward Hopper’s work. The clean overlay of layers and reflections brings a gentle interplay between realism and abstraction. The painting sits in that boundary without imposing.

One of the three studies from the Temeraire by Cy Twombly.

These two ceramic artworks by Lubna Chowdhary were my favourites of five in the series exhibited.

A detail from Yayoma Kusama’s playful sculpture Flowers that Bloom in the Cosmos. 

Here are some random pictures I took after I left the exhibition.

When the light shines

The simple stained glass panel is filtering the late afternoon light in a McMahons Point house. 

I have been walking in the area for several years. Old houses slowly give way to new ones. Most often developers build small apartments if the land permits, otherwise owners renovate old houses.

It is interesting to witness dying houses, long past their heydays. In this case the light coming through the stained glass, briefly makes the old house sigh, reminding us what would be like sitting in that veranda in the past.

Reference:

McMahons Point

The Light, Layers and Mystery

The ordinary can be mysterious.

When fleeting sunlight is mixed with artificial lights, while silhouettes disappearing into dark, magic can happen.

A glorious day is dying, a desolate highway with local shops, a lonesome car passing by, a fence, garbage bins, and a slice of leafy ground.

Where is this place? Is it in the USA, Canada or Australia? Why is the highway so empty, where is everybody? Why the fence? Why are so many bins neatly stacked on this side of the road?

What do shops tell me, a dry cleaner, a vet clinic, a gym, a pool care shop and a real estate? 

The basketball player

The unexamined life is not worth living - Socrates 479-399 BC

A good photograph is often made of several layers, unfolding as you process the image.

When I mention "layers", I don't mean them in photographic terms, like mountain ranges one behind each other; the farther they are, the softer light becomes, making the picture pleasant to look at with a sense of good depth. We have many fine examples of landscape photography, but what I mean here is layers that invoke deeper philosophical connotations.

A good photograph, in my case can emerge 1 in every 100 or so photographs, and only if I was exceptionally lucky. Luck is an undeniable factor, especially in documentary photography. But it is not the only element that makes a good image. 

In this case I analysed the factors other than luck that made this image a good one.

Attraction - the fly effect -

I was withdrawn to this basketball court where youngsters were practicing. The reason of attraction was deeply personal. I casually played basketball in my youth years until my thirties. I could immediately relate to young basketball players. 

The fly effect is not something you need to overthink about. Like a fly attracted to strong smells, attraction is intuitive, varies from person to person and depends on their background. The fly effect stimulates your senses. You will stop walking, approach your target and start thinking about your next move.

The wall

I discovered there was a wall with beautiful indigenous art in red, orange yellow tones with fleeting late afternoon light rays touching on it. 

Glebe is an inner-western suburb of Sydney with a good chunk of interesting history. It seems authorities and people who live there encourage murals on walls susceptible to graffitti. 

The wall also helped me to hide myself from the player, this way I could shoot his image without being seen.

💡Tip of the day: Public monuments, sculptures, and art installations are commonly classified as "low hanging fruit", meaning they speak for themselves on behalf of their creators. Taking photographs of artwork does not require much effort on the photographer's part other than pressing the shutter button. Tourists tend to shoot art installation pictures as a means for self-gratification or as a means to mark their travel milestones. Whereas there is nothing wrong with this approach, if you pursue serious street photography, you need a lot more to go into your pictures than just low hanging fruits. You need to construct a good story by using other elements in your picture.

 

The fence

The basketball court was surrounded by a metal fence which interplayed with the story by confining its central elements. 

On the one hand the fence created a focusing challenge as I wanted to razor sharp focus on the player's face. On the other hand it formed a "veil" effect; especially at the far side, it broke the harsh background light with thin diagonal lines. Hence the veil pushed the player's image to foreground, making him more noticeable.

The city

The cityscape shows the ultimate cold end gradually emerged from the inner-suburbia warmness. This is simply materialisation of capitalism, in glass, steel and concrete.

The story

This is the story of origins and what we have become. 

The wall with indigenous art represents origins, true custodians of this land. The wall is a metaphor of separation between indigenous population and white man who occupied their land and killed them. Sadly indigenous custodians are gone now -today only 2% of Glebe population is indigenous- but their stories outlive them on the wall.

The white boy playing basketball in the court represents optimism and reconciliation. What is going on his mind? Who does he want to become? What difference does he want to make on this land? 

The cityscape at far end represents cold capitalism, the machinery that indiscriminately chews up humans, consumes them, turns them into a pulp, and spit out. It is cold, as it neither understands, nor cares about original custodians, nor living humans like the young basketball player, who will as well be consumed and spit out by the system watching over us from the far end.