Years ago my wife and I went on a fabulous walking tour of this Swiss Alps. I carried one of the first micro 4/3 cameras, the Olympus E M5, which I still use. I took many hand held photos. Since there were no golden hour opportunities, and the sky was usually clear, I converted most of the photos to black and white. Fortunately there was lots of snow , fog, and mist which is very photogenic in black and white. I learned that unlike in the Sierra Nevada, the Swiss rarely back pack and sleep overnight. The have an extensive transportation system of trains, cog wheel trains, gondolas, and chair lifts that criss cross the Alps. Typically they leave home at dark, hop on a train, then get on a smaller cog wheel train, or gondola, or chair lift, and get taken to where they begin their hike. They hike all day, often stopping at huts or lodges for hot liquids and food at places like this lodge below and to the left of the moon. There is nothing like a hot cappuccino at 11,000 feet!
Feedback Requests
Like most black and white conversions, I never know how far to set the black point. So I would love feedback on this: is the sky too black? Not black enough? Is the whole image too contrasty, or not contrasty enough? And finally, don’t you want to be sitting in the lodge drinking hot coffee?
Pertinent Technical Details
Olympus E-M5 camera, Olympus M 40-15- f 4.0-5.6 lens, focal legnth 150 mm, f 8.0, 1/125 sec, ISO 200, shot at 11 am, August 15
Tony, I don’t think you want a black sky here. It’s dark enough now to set off the moon and the mountains nicely. The scattered, wispy clouds are a fine addition. I would suggest dodging the moon a bit to give it a stronger presence.
Tony, I agree with @Mark_Seaver here. The contrast looks fine to me, so I would not change it. The image has a nice range of tones. A slight dodge of the Moon would work, as well.
I’ve never been to the Alps but have read many alpine climbing books and stories. It’s amazing how they can build the infrastructure they have in the most difficult to access areas and under such harsh conditions.
A very nice image. I don’t think the sky should be any darker. I could imagine making the blacks a little darker in the rest of the image, but given the mist , I’m not sure that would work. Depending on what you’re going for, you could locally increase the contrast of the lodge to call attention to it, but I sort of like the fact that you have to look for it a bit.
Tony: Yeah, I would not pull that black point slider any more. As it is, there is a nice sky to set off the moon (which can be difficult). A very nice alpine image, esp with lodge sitting in what seems an unlikely spot!
I am a bit worried, however, about the situation of the lodge: it appears to be listing a bit to the downhill side (left). Since we hope that building is actually level, I suspect the image/camera may have been a bit tipped left (?). Rotate some clockwise…
