Stairmaze To Heaven
Or: When the half is the whole. This is what the escalator from my previous image (in the first comment) really looks like when seen from the KaDeWe's ground floor and looking up to the (amazingly dirty) glass roof of the 7th floor which houses the more buffet-style restaurant Wintergarten. My suggestion: If you happen to be at the KaDeWe and are hungry for a snack, go to the 6th floor.
I've been back to the moving staircase this Friday, this time with the Laowa C-Dreamer 7.5mm/F2 prime lens and the GRIII mounted with the wide-angle adapter GW-4 which expands the GRIII's native 28mm to 21mm. Initially, I'd wanted to take the 7-14 wide-angle zoom lens, but it doesn't handle very bright light sources all too well, and there are plenty of such lights at the KaDeWe, while the Laowa creates nice light stars. So the latter was the "safe" choice (regarding the photo output), plus it's super tiny, so it was also the safer choice regarding noticeability. Once again, it was no problem at all to take photos there, but I got noticed by an employee, and for a very short moment I was afraid that his charming remark "You've got a nice camera!" would be followed by "But you aren't allowed to take photos here." But that didn't happen. He smiled and quickly moved up the escalator. Phew.
And why am I telling you all of this when the image you see is one taken at my previous photo walk and with the LX100? Well, you will see photos taken with the Laowa and the GRIII sometime in the future, and – once again – I realised that it is almost impossible to replicate a photo even when you are in the exact same spot as the last time, and especially so when different focal lengths are involved. I also wanted to show you what I started with to create the kaleidoscoped image and how simple and straightforward it was to achieve the kaleidoscope effect – at least this time: Take the single image, copy it to a second layer in PS, flip one layer horizontally, and combine both layers to a single image. Done.
The SOOC RAW file was in landscape mode, and at first, I wanted to upload this single image in its original orientation but then decided to rotate it to the left so it's easier for you to see how the kaleidoscoped image came to be. In addition to this, this image looks much lighter and airier in portrait mode, while in landscape format the scene looks a lot denser and sort of heavy, oppressed even – which is a little what it feels like to ride this moving staircase up and down because the opposed single escalators on each floor are built in a rather compact way, and sometimes, you can even touch the underside of the escalator going to the next floor – someone did, most likely a child or a teenager, because on my Friday visit I noticed a cat sticker on the underside of one of the escalators ;)
I've taken all the LX100 photos of the escalator in 16:9 (it's the only camera where I ever change the image ratio for shooting, because it has a convenient toggle on top of its fixed lens which allows you to quickly choose between 1:1, 3:2, the native 4:3, or 16:9), and since 16:9 images look very "slim", especially in portrait mode, I've added the white frame to make it look a little "beefier". I've also added a little more colour punch to this version so it won't simply look like the previous image "cut in half".
Happy Sliders Sunday, Everyone!
Stairmaze To Heaven
Or: When the half is the whole. This is what the escalator from my previous image (in the first comment) really looks like when seen from the KaDeWe's ground floor and looking up to the (amazingly dirty) glass roof of the 7th floor which houses the more buffet-style restaurant Wintergarten. My suggestion: If you happen to be at the KaDeWe and are hungry for a snack, go to the 6th floor.
I've been back to the moving staircase this Friday, this time with the Laowa C-Dreamer 7.5mm/F2 prime lens and the GRIII mounted with the wide-angle adapter GW-4 which expands the GRIII's native 28mm to 21mm. Initially, I'd wanted to take the 7-14 wide-angle zoom lens, but it doesn't handle very bright light sources all too well, and there are plenty of such lights at the KaDeWe, while the Laowa creates nice light stars. So the latter was the "safe" choice (regarding the photo output), plus it's super tiny, so it was also the safer choice regarding noticeability. Once again, it was no problem at all to take photos there, but I got noticed by an employee, and for a very short moment I was afraid that his charming remark "You've got a nice camera!" would be followed by "But you aren't allowed to take photos here." But that didn't happen. He smiled and quickly moved up the escalator. Phew.
And why am I telling you all of this when the image you see is one taken at my previous photo walk and with the LX100? Well, you will see photos taken with the Laowa and the GRIII sometime in the future, and – once again – I realised that it is almost impossible to replicate a photo even when you are in the exact same spot as the last time, and especially so when different focal lengths are involved. I also wanted to show you what I started with to create the kaleidoscoped image and how simple and straightforward it was to achieve the kaleidoscope effect – at least this time: Take the single image, copy it to a second layer in PS, flip one layer horizontally, and combine both layers to a single image. Done.
The SOOC RAW file was in landscape mode, and at first, I wanted to upload this single image in its original orientation but then decided to rotate it to the left so it's easier for you to see how the kaleidoscoped image came to be. In addition to this, this image looks much lighter and airier in portrait mode, while in landscape format the scene looks a lot denser and sort of heavy, oppressed even – which is a little what it feels like to ride this moving staircase up and down because the opposed single escalators on each floor are built in a rather compact way, and sometimes, you can even touch the underside of the escalator going to the next floor – someone did, most likely a child or a teenager, because on my Friday visit I noticed a cat sticker on the underside of one of the escalators ;)
I've taken all the LX100 photos of the escalator in 16:9 (it's the only camera where I ever change the image ratio for shooting, because it has a convenient toggle on top of its fixed lens which allows you to quickly choose between 1:1, 3:2, the native 4:3, or 16:9), and since 16:9 images look very "slim", especially in portrait mode, I've added the white frame to make it look a little "beefier". I've also added a little more colour punch to this version so it won't simply look like the previous image "cut in half".
Happy Sliders Sunday, Everyone!