With this image, I’m more willing to entertain the idea that this DP1 could replace my Leica with C41 process black and white film. ISO 800 seems to be as clean and sharp as the film scans which I tend to shoot at ISO 320 to control grain. I’m giving up two stops of aperture- f/2.0 for the Summicron and f/4.0 for the DP1, so it’s overall a wash.
I’m sold on the sensor now as it’s rendering of detail can be exquisite as it is here on these wet bricks. The lack of decent light continued today, so I decided to try this in black and white.
I still struggle with Vincent Versace’s channel based conversion method, so I decided to try something different. I used the monochrome conversion in Nik Color Efex filters to produce two versions that rendered selected areas with the best light and contrast. One was red, for the bricks, and one was greenish, for the plants to the left of the walk. I stacked the images, played with their opacity and selectively masked the layers to emphasize the two areas.
Adding some gaussian blur to the asphalt of the drive was another key to making the image work for me. The texture of the asphalt was competing with the bricks and I wanted the eye to stop at the end of the walk where the pot sits. I tried to create the pot and bright leaves at left as second and third areas of visual interest in this image which is, admittedly, devoid of any content of note.