Mondo Verde: Trevi (GXR-M + CV 15mm/4.5)

[Katsunami]

Trevi Fountain replica in Mondo Verde garden park, South of the Netherlands (click for larger size):

1.

2.

These pictures are almost completely straight out of Lightroom; I don't feel the need to edit them. If I try (and this is true for most of the pictures I shoot using the GXR-M and M-lenses), they just get worse. Even if I pull the sliders blindly and only look at the picture, the slider is often on, or around 0, when I think "This looks best".

The camera is set up to use Auto-ISO and Auto-shutter speed, and I fine tune the exposure using the plus-minus EV setting with the histogram as reference. This works so well that I often don't even dare to touch the exposure slider in Lightroom....

Both pictures are not cropped.

 

[Spode]

I really like the first shot.

 

[streetshooter]

I'm with Spode. The 1st is a Hollywood set. Just a great looking image.
Don't fret, don't fret.... #2 is nice also...

Interesting way to use the camera. I use M mode with Auto ISO. That way I can make my exposure and always be right. The issue there would be flat EV as in M, you can't adjust EV.

Post more photos.....

 

[Katsunami]

Thanks for your comments I'm glad you like the pictures. I've got many more from this park, with this lens; got 21 keepers out of 85 shots, which I think is quite good for a first outing with this lens. (You may get sick of them shortly...) I intend to return, with at least the Biogon 35mm f/2, and maybe also with the other lenses, just to get to know them. I haven't used this camera nearly enough.

In M-mode, you don't need to adjust EV, because you set the exposure yourself. That's very handy when you want to shoot several compositions and keep the exposure exactly the same for each one. I very seldomly use that.

I have adopted a very simple way of shooting using the GXR-M.

- I set a minimum shutter speed for each lens profile; for the CV 15/4.5, that's 1/30sec.
- I set a maximum ISO: this is Auto-1600 for all lenses.
- My metering is set to Evaluative, so that the entire frame is taken into account.
- Shooting mode is set to A in the profile.

Each of the lenses has it's own profile with regard to shutter speed (and lens name), and the lenses I take are loaded into MY1, MY2 and MY3.

When using this setup, the camera will start raising the ISO only after it hits the minimum shutter speed. It will lower the shutter speed further only if it hits maximum ISO. This causes the ISO-value to be as low as possible, with the shutter speed as high as possible, which is exactly what I want most of the time. The light meter averages the entire scene and creates the histogram.

So, the only thing I do is set aperture, correct the histogram were neccesary using the +/- EV button, focus, and shoot. Exposure is almost always perfect, and I seldomly have to edit anything, except some contrast here, some pulling of highlights there, or a bit of saturation.

Not all camera's can shoot like this; with an SLR it's almost impossible because it (most of them) doesn't have a histogram. EV-correction is therefore much more difficult on an SLR and you should not use evaluative metering; you should meter specific points and adjust from there. It's more work, actually. This manual camera is the most automatic one I've ever owned because of the maximum auto-iso / minimum auto-shutter, and the EVF...

 

[thelps]

Even if I pull the sliders blindly and only look at the picture, the slider is often on, or around 0, when I think "This looks best".

I've done this a quite a few times too. I think the PC RAW processors still yield a better image this way than using the camera jpg processor. There is mainly more detail IMO.
Occasionally I do a slight tweak but often the apps "guess" is good.

 

[Katsunami]

Yes, I've noticed. What I often do is first crop, then adjust exposure/contrast so the histogram is "full", assuming there are blacks and whites in the image; just take care not to clip anything. Very often, this is correct already directly out of the camera. Then I set shadows/blacks and highlights/whites to get the most detail out of the picture. Lastly, I add a bit of clarity (in older days, I'd use Unsharp Mask in PS with settings such as Radius 0.1, Strength 200), some saturation/vibrance, and it's done; often I don't spend more than 5 minutes on an edit. In the past, that was also the case when I shot Canon and used C1 version 4.x... still don't know if it's a good or bad thing

 

[Katsunami]

Another one from this fountain, this time from high up with only one statue (image cropped to ~28mm to put the statue straight):