compilerbitch (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
compilerbitch) wrote2006-08-13 02:04 am
compilerbitch) wrote2006-08-13 02:04 am
compilerbitch goes to Yosemite
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
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
no subject
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!