foraker

I think this question gets asked often enough to where we ought to have a review section for it, as we do for cameras.

(1) Rock climbing/mountaineering.

(2) Computational models of geophysical fluid dynamics processes (melting,mantle convection,climate, sediment transport).

(3) Learning French.

My first thought was that you might be talking about one of his workshops. ;-)

Been reading that Big Island Revealed guide. Wow, am I psyched! Any info on where one can find the best gas prices (relatively speaking of course since gas is expensive in HI by mainland standards).

Thanks Sandy. I'm going for two weeks with my wife. We have a 4WD and are basically camping so we can go where we want. I'm not looking for tripod holes, but certainly suggestions, cautions, etc are welcome. :-)

Just curious to know if anyone found a 55mm lens useful when in Hawaii? I have an 80mm and have seen decent deal on a used 55mm.

Trying to decide whether to spend even MORE money I guess (he says, fighting the old grad student mentality of never spending any). In a month, I go there for two weeks.

After dealing with this for a few years in the Sierra Nevada, my solutions are:

1) More foreground, less sky (i.e. find something else to shoot)

2) Go climbing

3) Go backpacking

Tim,

I worked, briefly, for one of the national labs (gratefully, in my past). Whilst there, I discovered that their wet lab was going completely digital. I tried to get my hands on some of the darkroom equipment that they were going to sell as surplus. Guess who they ended up giving it to? A local school.....and this was only a couple of years ago.

I would think that the multiple short exposures would just cause the dripping water to appear as spots, rather than as lines. Have you tried using a strong neutral density filter and increasing the exposure time? That's the old trick for photographing in cathedrals where there are people milling about

Eric,

I thought about this myself, but had doubts as to whether or not it would work. I did find some place up here in WA that supposedly makes a motorized sliding darkroom door for $700. I'm kind of curious even though that would be almost enough for a nice new lens...

My wife and I are in the process of deciding on floorplans for a

house. Of course, I am looking at adding that long-desired home

darkroom. I'm looking at being able to claim maybe a space of about

11'x7'. Just out of curiosity, I'm wondering if anyone makes sliding

lightproof doors.....

 

Beyond that, if anyone has any recent experience doing this, are

there any innovative ideas I might want to think about?

Thanks!

Do you rate it at 160 as well?

Help! I'm fairly good at the old b&w landscape routine and even have

a long history of using slow color 35mm slide film but my wife would

like me to make some color portraits of her using my 4x5. Now, I

have no idea what would be a good film for natural light portraiture.

As I live in Seattle, I'll probably be dealing with overcast skies

as well so I may need to balance for that. Sigh. Talk about getting

kicked in the deep end of the pool.

Don't forget: scan the sky for jets/contrails,scan the foreground for cars.

The only thing that I've found that cures "gear envy" is having to carry everything on your back for miles and miles, up steep rocky trails and down, etc. This effectively cures "gear envy", be it camera gear or climbing gear.

I used to have a BH-1 on which I mounted a 4x5 Wisner Technical Field camera. After using the BH-1 for a couple of years and lugging it around on my bag (it is a heavy bugger after all), I now have an Acratech. It is *VERY* sweet. Very light. Incredibly well made.

(Of course, it helps that I have a camera that is also half the weight of my Wisner... but it's still quite noticeable without the camera)

If it's a WA lens, why not just tilt the camera forward a bit and then use front tilt to get a plane of sharp focus? The convergence caused by this tends to be negligible.

Long ago and not so far away now, I learned what is referred to as the "Oreo Cookie" theory of criticism (not just of photographs). <p>

1) Tell the person something positive about X <p>

2) Offer critique of X <p>

3) Reaffirm positive qualities of X. <p>

 

Two chocolately layers with a creamy center. Yum. Always works for me.

Also remember: anything with batteries equals potential bad news in cold weather. Never had a problem with mechanical shutters when the weather turns icy cold.

Well, I'm an idiot for not reading his post completely. I'd recommend the RSW45 highly but I'd say if you do still life work at all you might be better off getting the SW45. You'd need to run a test and see how you feel about not having front standard swing and absolutely no rear movements.

Fred,

To answer that question you need to give some information regarding the type of LF work you are going to do. Landscape photography often, but not always, requires many fewer movements than architectural or product photography (can you do without front standard swing and shift, say?). Can you do without a lot of bellows draw? (I find I do mostly wide angle to normal work and don't really miss having long lenses). Is weight a concern (will you be backpacking or just driving your camera around)? I thought long and hard about it and, in the end, got the RSW45 rather than the SW45. I couldn't justify the price difference for what you were getting. I'm very happy with it, esp with the Acratech ballhead. Much much ligther than my previous Wisner/Kirk ballhead combination. Very quick to set up. I just leave a 150mm lens on. I absolutely DO NOT miss having to unfold my camera and screw things down when I'm in a hurry.

As we don't really celebrate the materialistic side of Christmas in my family either, I bought myself and Acratech Ultimate Ballhead. In truth, though, I'm already thankful for living here, in the Pacific NW, and am gainfully employed again (after a few months lapse)

Heck, it took me at least five years to decide to make the leap from 35mm to 4x5....I'd think about it about twice a year and convince myself that "I wasn't good enough yet..." I made the move once I got dissatisfied with the limitations of small negatives and the lack of movements. I bought a used Wisner Technical and took to it immediately. Oddly enough, I sold the Wisner for an Ebony with fewer movements....

Bob,

one more thing. Don't be shy about asking your local pack dealer to bring in your camera gear to see if it will fit in one of their packs. That's what I did. They were all very obliging.