Skills lost, dormant, or no longer needed?

 Photography  5 Responses »
Apr 132010
 

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There’s no way I could’ve gotten it on film, both the exposure and the focus. Chris Klug – April Golden Light

On a couple of back-to-back posts, Chris mentioned that the photo that he took could not have been done with film. I disagree. I think that the could have pulled off either of the shots using film, perhaps not as easily, but it could have been done, I believe.

Now, this post is not to say that Chris doesn’t know what he is talking about; he certainly does. I just don’t think that he gave himself enough credit for the skills that he’s acquired.

This post is just another one of those pool ball shots that bank off of the walls of my brain. I wonder if, with the rise of digital technology, we are losing skills or, perhaps we are giving up skills that are no longer needed. Which is it?

One thing I can say: this shoot was one I could never have done with a film camera and prime lens. This shoot used digital and modern lenses all the way. Chris Klug – Last Rays Of Sun

I think back to my film days. Of course, as a young man of very limited budget, I always, if I could, purchased the equivalent of day-old bread, that is, I bought film that had expired or was about to. You could always count on a pretty good discount, 50% or more. Rarely was I without several rolls, or perhaps several dozen rolls of film. And, as I recall, I didn’t hesitate to experiment and bracket, bracket, bracket. It just didn’t ocurr to me to not bracket. It’s just the way that I did in tough lighting situations. Most times I got the shot, but there were those few that got away.

With digital cameras, we still need to experiment, so to speak, but there is no cost/frame to experiment, save for a few thousand pixels, which can easily be dumped and reused. As a dual shooter, this fact is not lost on me. I am a bit more cautious when shooting my film cameras, much less so than back in the day, or so my memory tells me, but I try not to be; however, the simple fact is film is a finite material. I carry only so many rolls with me AND, I am only willing to purchase/develop so many. :-)

In the end, I guess that if one is willing to experiment and take chances, the shots can be pulled off either way. That said, I know that there are lots of points of failure for film: Reciprocity failure, color balance, film speed, etc, not to mention the inherent continuing cost.

Thanks for that food for thought, Chris!

 Posted by Paul at 12:00 pm  Tagged with: ,

Sunday Sunrise

 Photography  1 Response »
Apr 042010
 

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Just a shot from this morning’s sunrise. I spent the morning in the Susie Harwood garden at UNCC. All along my route from home to the garden the various church parking lots were filled to capacity and beyond with the once-a-year crowd swelling the ranks of the church on Easter Sunday.

I spent a most pleasant 90 minutes photographing, listening, and enjoying the garden. Heck, there was even some excessively loud Christian music playing far away as someone wanted to share their beliefs with everyone within earshot. :-)

At any rate, it was a great time to be in the garden, Sunday, Easter Sunday, or … any day.

 Posted by Paul at 11:44 am  Tagged with: ,

Post Processing a little bit more

 Photography  8 Responses »
Mar 302010
 

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Having downloaded the latest Beta release of Lightroom and having played with it for a month or so, I find that I am starting to experiment more and more with the various sliders and controls, in particular, the brush control. It allows me to put a lot of expressiveness into the photo, darkening shadows, increasing highlights, guiding the eye to where I want it to go.

Take this photo, for instance. When it came out of the camera, it was pretty ho-hum, in my opinion. The camera captured everything faithfully, but seemed to ‘average’ everything out. Technically, it was exposed well but lacked any real spark. Spending some time with the brush, adjusting highlights, shadows, clarity, and saturation in different stages made it into what you see here. Unfortunately, exporting it to web size and JPG seems to have sapped a bit of the color fidelity out of it, but I still like it. Before working on it, you could barely see the sunlight shining on the grass and the rock, which was what really attracted me to this shot in the first place. Now, after PP, this is what I remembered. :-)

I find that it is very rare that I use Photoshop anymore, unless there is something that I cannot do in Lightroom, which is very rare.

I’m enjoying the post processing a bit more, other than just the contrast and exposure adjustments that I used to use. This stuff is pretty cool.

 Posted by Paul at 6:23 pm  Tagged with: , ,

It seemed wide enough at the time

 Photography  11 Responses »
Mar 282010
 

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For about 10 months, I’ve been using a variety of film cameras, all with so called ‘normal’ lenses mounted on them. Normal, meaning having about the equivalent angle of view that we see while looking straight ahead. For a 35 mm camera, that would be a 50 mm lens. On the Mamiya 645e, that is an 80 mm lens. On my D300, considering the crop factor, that comes out to about 32 mm, give or take. The nearest focal length being a 35 mm lens. I don’t own one of those, but I do have a 50 mm that I’ve been using, or a focal equivalent and field of view of a 75 mm lens.

For this shot, which is a different view of yesterday’s shot, I had in mind what it would look like through a 50 mm, backed up, looked, and it was nowhere near what I thought it would look like. I was really feeling the red and white stripes of the railroad crossing arm against the color of the sky as well has the blossoms in the background.

Looking through the 50 mm/75 mm equivalent, it was very much cropped. I had to back up quite a bit to get what I wanted … though I wish that the fence wasn’t there, but what can you do other than go with it? To get this shot, I had to almost walk into the street. It’s a pretty busy street in both directions, so better to stay on the sidewalk.

I had been using my film cameras for B & W exclusively, mainly for convenience and to keep costs down. Now, maybe I’ll have to borrow a move from the Chris Klug handbook and shoot Fujichrome or something. It has been dozens of years since I’ve done that. It could be quite satisfying!

I think that to keep things on level playing ground, it’s time to get a 35 mm lens, which is much, much less expensive than getting a D700 unless someone wants to sell me one the same price as the lens. If so, contact me via e-mail and I’ll send the check right away! :-)

 Posted by Paul at 7:00 pm  Tagged with: , ,

No Swamp Monsters

 Photography  5 Responses »
Feb 282010
 

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No Swamp Monsters!

Swamps get an undeserving reputation. As this sign says:

Many imagine that swamps are horrible and hostile, but by now you have seen otherwise!! Beidler Forest is a clean, healthy, and very pleasant place to visit, largely because it remains unaltered by human activities – it’s natural.

This morning I went to visit Francis Beidler Forest. An 11,000 acre, old growth forest and swamp land. I spent a couple of hours exploring the 1.75 mile boardwalk that is suspended above the swamp. I had only visited one swamp before, that was Congaree National Park near Columbia, SC, some 100 miles to the north.
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This particular swamp is located in what could be termed the middle of nowhere. After leaving the learning center and walking out onto the boardwalk, all that you can hear are your own footsteps, and if you listen closely enough, probably your heartbeat. No highway sounds. No automobiles. It is very quiet. Almost immediately you can hear the sounds of different birds, the rustle of leaves as squirrels scamper two and fro, the soft plunk of water as some turtle decides that sunning is finished for the day and plops back into the water. One could also plainly hear woodpeckers hammering away in search of a tasty morsel.

Although it is a blackwater swamp, the water is remarkably clear, allowing you to see several feet below the surface. Everywhere, Cypress Knees stick above the water. We still don’t know what they are for. They defy our efforts to find out! Some suspect that they store starch, others speculate that they are for exchanging carbon dioxide and oxygen, still others think that they are for extra holding power in soft soil, yet no one really knows. Mysteries are good.

There are all sorts of birds around. I saw cardinals, robins, Carolina Chickadees, and, pictured to the right a Downy Woodpecker. I stumbled onto this one on my way out. He flew across the boardwalk and landed on a tree right next to it. After some careful creeping, I was able to get close enough for a decent photograph. The weather is still too cold for the reptiles, so no alligators or snakes were around to be seen.

It was a pretty cool outing. I started to take my film cameras with me, but in the end, just opted for convenience and maximum flexibility. I had the Tamron 18-270 mm mounted and it provided all of the flexibility that I needed. I did meet another photographer out there. He was shooting with a Canon 5D. It was his first trip there as well. He was stopping by on his way back home, somewhere in upstate South Carolina.

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This was a nice way to spend a few hours, get a little bit of exercise, indulge in quite a bit of silence and peace, and get a few photos to boot. Sure, I would have loved to get in here about 6:30 or 7:00 AM, but they don’t open until 9:00 AM and by that time, the light was kind of harsh, but so what!

 Posted by Paul at 5:18 pm  Tagged with: ,

Film and Digital – Side By Side

 Photography  17 Responses »
Feb 122010
 

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I’ve been using these Lightroom presets for a while. I’ve mentioned them before and they bear mentioning again. They are Micky G’s Black & White Presets for Lightroom.

I’ve often wondered how good/accurate they are. I’ve been pleased with them, to say the least. While I was out shooting last week, I came upon the scene pictured here and took a number of photos with my 645e. At that time, I just happened to remember that I wanted to make a comparison of a real film shot with one of the B&W presets. Well, I was shooting with some 10 year Tech Pan and that, unfortunately, is not in the preset list. However, a close cousin, Agfa Pan 25 is. Since I was shooting on the tripod, I decided to go for it.

I took the shot, first, with the 645e at f/5.6, removed the camera, put on the D300 with the 18-270 mm Tamron, moved the zoom to 35 mm, approximating a normal lens, adjusted the aperture to f/5.6, and took the same shot.

As many of you will notice this is not exactly a controlled experiment. First, f/5.6 on a 35 mm camera does not give the same depth of field as f/5.6 on a medium format camera. I’m not quite sure what the relationship is, but i probably should have gone a stop higher on the 645e. You can see the difference in DOF between the two but, in truth, I really like the DOF fall off of the 645e. I remember shooting with my view camera and f/5.6 was like shooting at f/1.4 on a 35 mm. There was hardly any DOF at all.

In looking at the two photos, I’m quite impressed with the job that the filter did. It looks pretty realistic. I tried not to tweak much at all with either of the photos and I like the whites of the film better; however, that could easily, very easily be tweaked to make them look the same, but out of the box, that’s a pretty good starting point!

What do you think?

 Posted by Paul at 12:00 am  Tagged with: , , ,
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