Candids from Christmas

I wanted to post a couple pics from Christmas to get some outside opinions. If you can't trust people on the net who can you trust, right?

This was my first full day really using a rangefinder and manually focusing. I just decided to try rangefinders late last year and these are from my Leica M8.2 and 50mm/f2. Indoors with low light is not the Leica's strong suit, but I liked the outcome. Couldn't do much about background and foreground considering my vantage point (random gifts and boxes, haha), but looking for comments on the "look". Sharpness, color, contrast...

Thanks.

So you're looking for comments only on " Sharpness, color, contrast..."? There's more to a compelling photograph than just these three. And there are weak points in those other unmentioned areas. But I'll stick to what you asked. Color looks good. With respect to contrast, is the Nautica shirt black? If so, it's a tiny bit overexposed. Sharpness depends greatly on focus. The parts that are in focus are reasonably sharp. This would be the girls PJs in 41 and the Razor box in 42. Choice of aperture and focal point should concern you more than sharpness I should think. Once you've got the three features that concern you down, you might start working on composition and capturing the moment.

I'm wondering why you considered it key to point out that you used manual focus. You might have gotten better focus on the subject if you let the camera's center point take control. Effective photographers choose manual or autofocus as the setting suggests. "I only shoot manual" is one of the several popular phrases uttered by either posers or naifs.

Hey Joe,

I appreciate your comments thus far and would like to hear the other deficient areas.

I'm sure you didn't pour over the details of of my text, but "I only shoot manual" wasn't in there. I didn't choose manual over auto focus for these shots. I was only giving a bit of background to the story. This was my first time shooting in a candid situation with my rangefinder which is manual focus only.

Agreed on the focal point. I was attempting to zone focus as I was trying to stay present in the moment and not be behind the camera the whole time, monitoring focus, waiting for a shot. Was trying to enjoy Christmas and test out the new rangefinder at the same time, haha!

Well, these look exactly what it is - snaps, where you didn't try to influence nor background, nor foreground to create a compelling image.

As for tech side of things - surely mighty Leica can go higher than ISO 320, so you can bump the shutter up to 1/100/125/250. Manual focus on... f3.4 ain't the easiest thing and in this case unnecessary, imo.

I like the light - looks natural and fits the style of the pictures. I especially like the first one - having a good energy.

tifosi wrote in post #17876637
[...] Couldn't do much about background and foreground considering my vantage point (random gifts and boxes, haha), but looking for comments on the "look". Sharpness, color, contrast...

You still can crop the pictures - and these pictures could profit strongly from cropping. Get in tight on the core story. In the first pictures it would be the fun of 'Nautica guy' with the kid. However, as his face is not in focus you need to concentrate on the kid riding the box. This will also get rid of many of the distractions (the head on the right, the large black blob and the green pants on the left). Additionally, I would suggest to tone down the glowing pink castle in the background to take the highlight competition off the girl. Additionally, I would see if a vignette couldn't help to take the distraction off the main focus.

osh_sekta wrote in post #17880048
Well, these look exactly what it is - snaps, where you didn't try to influence nor background, nor foreground to create a compelling image.

Right on the money. Some great memory captures with your family. Why would you want to use manual focus in a situation like this? I'm not familiar with this Leica...does it not have AF?