Road Trip, Part 6 (revisiting part 5 also)

[compilerbitch]

Large Format Images

Split Rock, Joshua Tree National Monument

Super Angulon 90mm, f/16, Cambo Legend 4x5, Better Light Super-6K with infrared low pass filter. The monorail was set level, no tilts, with some horizontal and vertical shifts for framing and perspective control.

I had originally intended to shoot with the medium format system at Joshua Tree National Monument again, but I failed to get the back to work properly. I managed to fire a couple of frames, then had a series of shutter errors. I eventually gave up and got the large format gear out. As is not untypical when shooting large format, I found a nice place and didn't really move more than 20 or 30 feet from that position all afternoon -- with medium format, I can set up, shoot a few frames, change lenses, shoot a few more, then knock everything down ready for the next location all within about 15 minutes or so. Large format is a wholly different undertaking -- it's necessary to be really quite careful about everything, and it takes quite a while just to set up the camera, level everything and to zero all the movements. Typically, it's about 30 minutes from arriving to being able to shoot the first frame. As an example, in roughly three hours I shot 20 frames -- this is actually quite productive, and the result of (subjectively) working relatively quickly.

Large format shooting is a different experience than smaller formats. You have to take a longer-term view of things (no pun intended, but I'll roll with it anyway!). I tend to find myself spending a lot longer over finding the right shot -- if you're going to spend so much time on it, you might as well make sure you get the results. I'm also more likely to set up and 'wait for the light' -- the above image is an example of exactly that, where I actually waited for quite a long time for the sun to start setting directly behind the boulder. The raw image had a huge contrast range that would have been impossible to deal with if I'd been using film, or even a more conventional digital camera with 8 bits of resolution. I captured the image at 14-bit depth, making sure I didn't under- or over-expose anything in the frame. Back home, I loaded it into Photoshop, then created quite a complicated rig that processed the different contrast ranges of various parts of the image separately. I rather like the result -- it's not actually real in the strictest sense of the word, but it's actually that unreality in the lighting that makes the image work strongly, I think.

Mount Improbable, Joshua Tree National Monument

Super Angulon 90mm, f/16, Cambo Legend 4x5, Better Light Super-6K with infrared low pass filter. In this case, the monorail was tilted back slightly to help emphasise scale, small shifts for framing only, no tilts were needed.

With apologies to Professor Dawkins. This isn't a mountain, it's actually a house-sized boulder, but the thing that attracted me to it was its rather alpine double-peak, coupled with the shape that the late evening setting sun made across the front face.

Nose Rock, Joshua Tree National Monument

Nikkor-W 150mm, f/16, Cambo Legend 4x5, Better Light Super-6K with infrared low pass filter. Camera set parallel, framing achieved by tilting rail slightly.

Yes, I made up the name for this one, too. I think it looks like it's got a nose. Hence the name.

Rocks, Joshua Tree National Monument

Caltar 210mm, f/16, Cambo Legend 4x5, Better Light Super-6K with infrared low pass filter. Camera set horizontal, no tilts, framing achieved by slight shifts.

The sky was doing just the right kind of thing at the right kind of time here -- it's entirely real, I've not faked it in any way. As with the other images, the black sky is a consequence of very low reflectance at near-infrared wavelengths, creating a stark contrast to the brilliant white (brilliant near-IR?) clouds. The effect is very similar to that of a deep red filter, perhaps unsurprisingly, though unusual effects on vegetation appear in the infrared that are not present in visible red.

I should probably add one more thing -- since focussing is always manual, it can be a bit of a challenge to focus correctly for infrared shooting. My approach is to focus visually first using my usual combination of sticking my head under a dark cloth and peering through a x10 loupe, then put the back in and use the Better Light's focus meter facility. This basically moves the linear CCD to your position of choice, then displays a continuous (numeric and bargraph) representation of the amount of sharpness at the relevant point. It can be quite tricky to use -- the Cambo's gearing is a little fast for my taste, so it's necessary to have an extremely light touch on the focus knobs, but when you get it right, it's really right -- dead-on, pin-sharp.

Comments

[nalsa.livejournal.com]

These are incredible images. Really, really incredible.

Have you tried getting prints from the Cambo yet?

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Yes. At the biggest size I can manage with my inkjet, 19"x13", the very best images have resolution down to the limit of the printer, so you need a loupe to see the finest detail. Complete and utter overkill. I need a bigger printer to be able to do the images justice really.

Subjectively, the prints look incredibly sharp, with very smooth gradation of tones.

And, thanks, by the way!