compilerbitch goes to Yosemite

[compilerbitch]

I'm in a motel room just south of Yosemite, after a long afternoon of photography.

Yosemite is truly spectacular -- I can really see what people see in the place now, having visited it. I am very lucky to live within half a day's drive of the park, and I seriously doubt that this will be my last visit!

We arrived quite late, it being a long way from Mountain View and all. I ended up setting up at two locations, spending about 2-3 hours at the first one and half an hour at the second one. I'm getting quicker with the large format camera, but I'm finding that the best results come from *not* rushing it. It takes about 20 minutes to set up from scratch, including setting up the tripod, opening the two flight cases, setting up the laptop and scanning back, attaching the view camera to the tripod, zeroing all the movements (both standards have four degrees of freedom, so you have to set them all parallel and in sensible positions before you start), and levelling everything with a spirit level. Then I decide on the shot I want, put one of the four different focal length lenses on it (these were all shot with a 150mm Nikkor-W), focus, adjust the camera movements so I get exactly what I want, check the focus again, lock everything down tightly, stop the lens down to somewhere between f11 and f32, put one or other of the infrared filters in the compendium shade and attach it in front of the lens, put the digital back in, do a quick test scan, check the focus yet again (the back has a facility for this which works extremely well), set the exposure, do another test scan just to be sure, then make the final scan -- so far, we're at about 35-40 minutes, not including however long the scan takes.

An afternoon of photography got me 15 exposures, a few of which were just duplicates I made as a second scan just in case something had gone wrong with the first one (if it takes so long to set up the shot, it would be stupid to lose it all by being careless at the end). I generally made two colour exposures (which I later often convert to black & white) and one or two infrared exposures at each setup, of which I think I did about four. Anyway, here are the 4 photos that I've sorted out for printing so far (I have about another 3 or maybe 4 from today's shooting that still need doing).

Bear in mind that these are 640x480 reductions -- the original images are all 8000x6000. Printed bigger than A4, this works out as so sharp that the resolution of the print exceeds the resolution of my eyes. I can't wait to get back home and print them. The visual impact of this kind of print is hard to explain, and impossible to demonstrate without actually viewing a physical print. I had hoped that the BetterLight system would make it possible for me to get to the level of image quality I'd always aspired to but never quite attained -- in practice, it has done that so well that it really is out of the other side.

Tomorrow, we're off to Mono Lake, via Yosemite again. I want to try to get a better vantage point to shoot Half Dome (you can see it in the far distance on the distant monochrome shot), and Caroline wants to go to the visitors centre and (both of us) want to visit the Ansel Adams gallery. We attempted that today, but the sheer number of visitors made it impossible to get anywhere near it -- parking was virtually impossible, so we decided to go and take photos instead. If I'm not too dead tomorrow night, I'll upload a few more from tomorrow's shooting.

Anyway, without further ado, here are the photos:


El Capitain in Colour



El Capitain in Monochrome


El Capitain in Infrared


El Capitain and Half Dome in Monochrome

Comments

[davefish.livejournal.com]

First up, the photographs are really great. Although they are quite a small resolution, you've done a good job in the reduction in keeping the feeling off sharpness. I know from what I do there's a huge loss of impact when reducing sizes, so I would love to see an original.

You do have a very long setup process, but I suppose that there is inherent with the method, you're using to take the images. Are you going to experiment with large prints? I recently did some images at 20 x 30 inches, I thought they came out quite well despite the low resolution off my sources. I'm sure they will be absolutely amazing, should you do them with some of these images

Good luck with the next set of photographs today.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

If you give me a postal address, I'll send you a print if you like. I just got an Epson 2400, and these are really stunning at a bit bigger than 10x8. I don't currently have any larger paper, but I suspect that they would still be pin sharp at about 24" by whatever. At 11.5" x 8", they are sharper than my eyes can resolve.

[davefish.livejournal.com]

Brilliant!

I've dropped you my address in an e-mail. I'm really looking forward to seeing the print.

I did recently printed one of my little light pictures are quite a high size. Well, 20 by 30 inches. Certainly for a concert shot taken mid-gig, and a close-up at that, it worked very nicely. In the large version there is a vast amount of detail in his stubble.

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidmck/photo/Infest05/Decoded%20Feedback/slides/IMG_8090.html

I am certain that the visual impact of your images will completely outstrip what I'm getting with this source material.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

From what I've read recently, it seems that the consensus is that images of people stand a lot of enlargement without losing perceived sharpness (for some not well explained reason -- maybe our visual systems correct for images of people automatically or something?), but something like a very detailed landscape really shows the differences very strongly. Have you tried making a large enlargement of something of yours with more detail in the original image?

One thing with the BetterLight images, at least when I've managed to focus properly (which should now be a bit easier since I just got a focusing loupe) is that the detail stands a lot of enlargement because there is just so much information there -- even a roughly A3 print from about 1/3rd of the original frame still seemed to be limited on the print resolution rather than the source image.

[davefish.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sense. Human skin is very textured and mottled, so noise in there won't be noticed as much by the brain, and digital artifacts and lack of resolution will have to become much more obvious before they start to look unnatural. Unlike if you have a lovely blue sky, where small deviations from its loveliness would be obviously not right.

I once went to a studio group shoot where I was suprised to find one guy advocating shooting in Jpeg mode, and with quite a wide lens, so that he could crop down to whatever he wanted afterwards. Perhaps taking advantage of that fact, but it did still seem extremely wrong.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

One person's artefact is another person's art.

I recently spent quite a while studying Ansel Adams' work, and it's quite easy to get sucked in to thinking that a photograph is only any good if it is microscopically pin-sharp edge to edge. In truth, that's true for *some* photographs, and there is a particular style of presentation that naturally follows that I personally rather like. But then, go to the other extreme, to (actually fairly literally) his nemesis, Edward Steichen, and OMG, blur, more grain than a bumper harvest, and some of the best photography I've ever seen. If you're not familiar with his work, check it out -- he was doing stuff a HUNDRED YEARS AGO (!!) that puts most modern fine art photographers very much in the shadows. Somewhere in between you have Cartier Bresson, less 'arty' by far than either Adams or Steichen, but with a bizarre talent for taking photos of people that still seem alive in his grainy rules of composition ignoring black and white.

I think I always did my best music when I was working to some restriction -- not having a sequencer, so playing real-time, or doing online competitions where I was restricted to using just a single sample as the basis for a whole track. I think this has worked with my photography in the past very well, actually. My best photographs were actually taken with the most restricted equipment -- a fully manual Chinon CM4s 35mm SLR (my later stuff with a Pentax ME Super lacked the same edge, despite being nearly identical other than supporting primitive aperture priority AE), a fully manual (not even any metering!) Bronica SQ, and a rather blurry and grainy Fuji digicam with dodgy AF that would occasionally do very strange things. This is the main reason when on recently deciding to take photography a lot more seriously I chose deliberately *not* to go the 35mm form factor DSLR route. It just felt wrong as an option, even though common sense would obviously suggest it! I'd get some good results, for sure, but it would make me lazy. I need to do my own focussing. I need to set my own exposure. I need to be forced to slow down, I think. Also, I was aware of a tendency I also have in music to not want to do things in standard ways because it bores me to just be constantly trying to redo other people's stuff. I wanted a camera or cameras that forced me to work in nonstandard ways and to have to overcome weirdness. It's pretty clear that this works for large format pretty well -- I think, like a lot of other people who take the plunge into 4x5 and larger, that it's a real culture shock... You have to work *so* much harder to take a photo -- any photo -- that you tend to really think about the shot. With a DSLR, I know, I'd spend a few tens of seconds at most, then click, done. Next shot. With the 4x5, as it takes a miniumum of 15-20 minutes and a lot of humping of heavy equipment to even set up the shot, you quickly start to realise that taking 5, 10 or even 20 minutes looking for the best shot doesn't really impact your overall productivity significantly. But when it works, OMG, it works. And yes, the Better Light/Cambo, despite its extreme resolution, is a cantankerous git of a camera. It doesn't like really wide apertures, because you get bloom (4x5 lenses are only designed to be used for focussing wide open). It doesn't like narrow apertures either, due to diffraction losses and a tendency for IR leaking into the camera through the bellows when it is in direct sunlight. It doesn't really like low light. And it scans, so you get motion artefacts. This is enough to get most DSLR people running for the hills, but I love it -- it's just this kind of thing that really gets me going. I can't wait to do more with it, to be honest.

[davefish.livejournal.com]

I've not seen any Steichen before. I'll investigate it later on tonight if I've got a bit of spare time. There is certainly a difference between the technical ability to get stuff supersharp, and the ability to imagine an effective scene. Some people work more at one than the other. Eventually I hope to at least have some idea of how to achieve one of them.

I guess when it comes to equipment, I had some really nice chots on my old manual stuff (Minolta X500), and when I went to the Canon AF I probably didn't have quite such good shots due to the lack of glass I got with it. I ran them alongside one another for a while, essentially since I realised I wanted to think about going digital eventually, but figured I could move to a system that would support it, and start picking up lenses. Which meant that when I finally did shift, I had the lenses to support some decent picture taking, rather than being there with just a kit lens. Especially good as my housmate at the time decided to get a 300D, I got a pile of lenses, and we shared :) Brill :)

I like the fact I can, when needed, shoot like a nutter. Which I do occasionally do. Infest was a bugger to shoot at, and I got 2000 shots over the course of the weekend. Almost all of which are shite (Which I beleive is your point)

It would be great to have a play with your kit, perhaps its just as well there is an ocean between us, otherwise you'd likely get very annoyed with me!

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

And next up is the Bronica/Megavision system. I may well be the first person to actually use one of the monochrome backs for the kind of photography I'm interested in (other than that FLAAR bunch who always seem to want me to give them money in order to read anything on their site). It's likely to be way more convenient to use than the 4x5, it's nowhere near as big or heavy, of course, and can be set up in not much more time than a 35mm DSLR. But still, monochrome only, and characteristics that are likely to be quite close to an extremely fine grain slow B&W film in terms of response, but with somewhat better resolution and ISO capability. I've had to invest in a set of B&W contrast filters! Just like my B&W film days! I did soften a bit and get an AE finder, so my ETRS now actually has aperture priority AE, but I'll most likely not use it generally and use the back instead. I was a bit concerned that AE would make me a bit slack, but I'll still have to focus at the very least so I shouldn't fall asleep.

The other thing I've done is not buy any zooms, just primes. You can't get zooms for 4x5 (actually I think there may be a very rare example historically, but that was probably 60 years ago or something), and the Bronica zooms are sufficiently rare and collectable that I've never seen one for sale anyway. I have taken nearly all of my best photos with primes, and I don't think it's got anything to do with image quality. I tend to move around and find the best shot rather than zoom and make the best of what I have available. I suppose, what I'm trying to do is exploit my own psychology in order to hopefully get some decent photos out of it. Either way, it's being fun trying!

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

PS: Are there any particular images you'd like, or shall I just pick a representative selection? I was just thinking -- if you wait a week or so, I can probably include something from the Megavision/Bronica system too?

[davefish.livejournal.com]

I've just had a quick look, and the two that stood out for me are
Meadow and Half Dome, Yosemite and El Capitain in Infrared. Something from the Megavision system would be nifty as well though, so I am quite happy waiting.

If there are ones you think that I definitely should see large, then I will bow to your access to the originals.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

OK, I can send you those, and maybe one or two others.

The meadow & half dome image will demonstrate quite clearly what can go wrong -- you will clearly see how the back of the meadow is below the plane of focus and quite unsharp, but the top of half dome is pin sharp.

[keithlard.livejournal.com]

Nice work! :D

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

This was basically my second outing with the large format rig, and after the not very impressive attempt the previous week, it was nice this time to get a few good images out of it. It's still a learning process, though -- some things are relatively easy, but others can be quite difficult, particularly focussing, especially if you're using a back tilt. I don't have the image files to hand (I'll probably post them tonight), but I tried some back tilts on Sunday to get a flat meadow with mountains in the background all in focus. I found that the ground wasn't flat enough! On one, the grass near my feet, and the mountain peak, was pin sharp (I mean, *really* pin sharp, to the extent of having a bit of aliasing! That 90mm Super Angulon is a staggeringly good piece of glass), but the far side of the meadow and the foot of the mountain looked a bit soft. In another attempt, I had the whole meadow incredibly sharp, but the mountain was a bit too soft. I think for scenes like that I need to take two shots -- one with no tilt with the mountain all perfect, and another with tilt to get the foreground right, then stitch the two together in Photoshop. With film, I could stop down to f64 and forget about the problem, but the digital back likes more light than that.

Still, it's all a learning experience, and loads of fun. Handling a view camera is definitely nontrivial, very easy to get wrong, but the results are stunning when it all works (in those rare occasions when I don't screw up!) :-)

[keithlard.livejournal.com]

It's an awesome rig all right.

I wanted to ask you what you think about Olivo Barbieri, the guy who takes the amazing 'model world' photos, and his tilt-shift lens. Do you know what it is and can you do that with your kit?

http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=1760

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

With a lens or camera that support tilts, getting things *out of focus* is kind-of the default! I think his trick is that he places parts of the image past the infinity focus point of the lens -- this looks exactly like a depth of field blur, but of course, if you focus past infinity, everything is out of focus regardless of distance. Any view camera can do this, and I'd suspect that most tilt lenses will be able to manage it too.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Great stuff; these are some of the classic subjects and you're doing well by them.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Thanks -- with the weight of Ansel Adams' work bearing down upon me, I was more than a little nervous to take on Yosemite! Almost good enough was never good enough for him, but he managed to push the definition of perfection quite some way. I had a few moments where it felt weird to see a scene on the ground glass of the view camera whilst realising that I was probably standing exactly where Ansel Adams stood when he made some of his most famous images.

[talsha.livejournal.com]

Cool pics!

Yosemite is awesome, you are lucky to live so close to it. Enjoy the visit to Mono Lake.

Have you been to Monterey and Big Sur yet?

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I've not been to that part of the coast yet -- I'm vaguely considering going this weekend, since it's only about an hour or two each way from here.

[mostlyacat.livejournal.com]

Hail the photos.
And yay for extreme effort photography vs point and click.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

'Extreme effort photography'

That could stick, you know -- it describes the large format experience pretty well!

[kylecassidy.livejournal.com]

you make me wish that i wasn't too lazy to use my 4x5.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

I am currently feeling a bit embarassed that I don't go out with it more myself, actually -- I'm using my medium format gear much more, because it's so much less hassle and very nearly as good in terms of image quality. But still, the 4x5 is just awesome when everything works, but it's just so much hard work! Two huge and heavy cases to lug to wherever I want to set up, and a set up time of about 20 to 30 minutes minimum does kind of slow things down a fair bit!

Welcome to my LJ, by the way -- you probably guessed that I friended you because of your photography and graphic art. The more the merrier. :-)