leping

From the photographer: The sunrise of November 4, 2001

in Huangshan Mountains looked exactly this

colorful, with a lot of reds and yellows and magentas on the top, and cool lights down the

valley. I did not use filters to add color, and

there was no color added in Photoshop in which I

did a global color correction to remove the

blueness in the shadows by making the clouds puring into the valley neutral (plus some moderate burnings and doggings on a Softlight layer).

The color correction did fuether warm up the top to render it look maybe "artificial", but all the colors and the whole composition were natural and is on the original film - Velvia is famed to pick these warm tones. Perhaps I should have kept some of the shadow blueless to reduce such effects. It was a very special and spectacular sunrise. I shoot 16 rolls in a two hours window, including several all similar to this. The other images from the same session include the #8 and the #12 (the last one) of this portfolio; and the #4 of the portfolio "Huangshan Mountains II". Together they document the development of colors that very morning, from red-magenta before and at sunrise to yellows, whites, and blues after.

I am very touched that this picture has been

viewed more than 64,000 times since it was

selected as the POW, and the number of members

who take time to leave comments. When I first

put my portfolios on photo.net I only thought

it a quick way to share the images with my

teachers and friends. Never dreamed it to

reach 60k+ viewers, although I understand there

are many counts from repeated visitors.

I really love fall colors. The first school for

my graduate work in the States was UM-Duluth (in

the mid-80s), where the autumn is simply

fantastic. I finally finished my schools in

Pittsburgh and came to work in the San Francisco

Bay area in 1995, picked up the old photography

hobby two years later, when I was barely afford

to, the first time in my life. I did some B+W

works back when I was young. I went to New

England and Adirondacks of New York three times,

came back almost empty handed after endless

fights with traffic jams, tourists, babwires and

fences, phone and power lines and poles, and

private land and no trespassing signs. The

fences do make nice foreground and the white

churches are gorgeous against the color, but for

some reason I found it is not to my idea since

I want something more than the travel shots

and try to avoid man made objects in general.

Then I signed up a week long fall color

workshop with John and Barbara Gerlaches near

the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in early

October last year, which turned out to be my

most productive week. John and Barbara are

the finest instructors and the nicest people

one can ever meet in this world, with

complete knowledge of the region after living

there for many many (15+?) years. The

workshop that they offer every Fall is very

sensibly priced as well, which is a factor to

me at least. It even had a totally

unexpected guest to join the group, whose

name is John Show. We met many other pros in

the area, most of them share the same

experiences I had had in New England, and

believed the mid-north locations are better

for photographers. Here in upper peninsula

of Michigan almost all the lands and lakes

are part of the National Forest, and the

peak color of the year knocked every one's

sock off to say the very least, which lasted

for more than a week. A real photographer's

heaven where for the first time I run out my

film, about 70 120 rolls plus some 35mm.

Usually I carry twice as much as I thought I

may need. It may be true that the scene

like this is everywhere all over Canada at

the season, but I do not live in Canada

so that naturally I was over excited by the

nature's giving in Michigan.

Technically, it was a easy straight shot,

since the overcast weather condition. My

better shots of the trip were mostly from

my return visits to the places the group went

to in the week AFTER the workshop, since by

then I know where to return to. Also the

weather cooperated: it was mostly sunny

during the week, but turned to cloudy and

eventually snowed later that wiped out most

of the remaining leaves. The shot was taken

in the same birch and maple forest up on a

small hill where I also shot the D67-272,

"Fern and Maple in a Birch Forest", at

around 4:30pm, in the lucky late Saturday

afternoon when there was basically no

wind! With 6x7 medium format I loose two

stops of DOF in comparison to 35mm, so I

had to stop down the 135mm macro lens all

way to f/32, which is merely equivalent to

f/16 in 35mm. To me I need to keep

everything sharp for this kind of close ups.

The 81B warming filter was necessary in

such overcast days, and actually not quite

enough. The chrome still look too blue on

my light table, which is corrected with a

curve adjustment layer in Photoshop. A

81EF might be just right. The exposure

came naturally and easily from the

diffused lighting, metered with the Pentax

67II's AE prism in the matrix mode, with

the Velvia rated at ASA 40. I bracketed at

0.7, 1 and 1.5 seconds (Pentax can modify

the 67II to do half-stop speeds) since

Velvia is such a "nonlinear" film for

which a third exposure change makes a

lot differences that is not predictable,

even in such low contrast situations.

If I see something good through the view

finder I do not want to take the chance

of a single shot. Films is cheap but

time and travel are not as they often say.

If I were returning to the scene today I

would have packed more Provia than Velvia,

since I learned that the Velvia saturates

on red too early. David Muench shoots only

Velvia but many of his red rock country

pictures can be better if he were with

the E100VS, which shows considerably more

shades of details of reds and oranges

typical in his pictures. However, as

many pros found overall the Kodak has a

hot or unsettle tendency while Fuji tend

to put peace to the viewer's mind, even

under the loupe the details are almost

identical. The E100VS just can't convey

the tranquil and subtle refined feeling

the Fuji and the Japanese arts are good

at for these kind of forest shots, unless

we want to build tension of some sort.

On the transparency of this shot the

colors are really saturated and I think

I lose some details of subtle variations

of the red on the maple leaves. I

partially corrected that in Photoshop

with a level adjustment layer for the

selected reds. And the reason that for

many the image's color look muted is

from the fact that I further reduced

the color saturation before I converted

the image to the sRGB color space for

the web use. The S/H slider was at

-45 as I can remember. If I do not do

so all the reds would be pure and solid

on the web. I believe with a properly

calibrated monitor the color saturation

of the posted version is about right to

my eyes, beyond which I start to loose

details in saturated region. On a 20x24

enlargement of the shot I can see veins

of the leaves from 4 inches away.

As many found I am a perfectionist in

nature on the technical side, maybe also

partially from my training in science

(Physics). Many people tried the Pentax

67, and give up, saying that the images

are not sharp. I found it were true if

I used a lesser tripod, say, a Bogen

3021 which I did try. The shutter shock

problem of the P67 demands heavier

support, even with the mirror locked up.

The P67 is by some means a handicapped

system on which I can't fire at shutter

speed at 1/8 and 15/1, and for which I

found the Grizo 1548 absolutely

necessary even it costs a fortune that

offset the cost of the very cheap MF

system otherwise. However counting in

the $1k for the 1548 the system is

still inexpensive, and cheaper than

many of my friends 35mm outfits.

I also use a short aluminum center

column with the setup, on which I

drilled three holes across so that I

can stick through a philips screw

driver which I always carry, to hung

my 25lb (at least) backpack to further

weight down the tripod, as I found

nothing substitutes the physical weight

in damping out the P67 shutter vibration,

although the carbon fiber (or wood) legs

do absorb the vibrations much better

than the metal ones. I am a really a

sucker for image sharpness, since why

take the troubles to shot the MF

otherwise? I pick my keepers, both

the frames and the lenses, with a 22x

loupe, so that I can enlarge my 6x7cm

chromes to 24x30 digitally still with

details to be unveiled from inches away!

Many viewers thought the prints are from

4x5 originals, but after rented 4x5s

several times I found they conflict with

my available time since I have to keep

my full time job, as well as with my

limited budget. I think so far I have

found the right balance for my kinds of

photography with the Pentax 67 system.

I would also like to talk a bit on the

P67 lenses. I found considerate degrees

of variations of sharpness versus aperture

settings on different samples of the same

lens, with a tendency that the old ones

manufactured 10-20 years ago better than

the newly made, no matter how beat up

looking of the exteriors. This certainly

makes the eBay my heaven. I test each of

my acquisitions carefully with resolution

chart, and pick keepers, some of them

seems to perform against the known physics

laws of diffraction. This 135mm for this

shot is an example, as for some reason it

keeps almost all of its sharpness of f/11

at f/22, and degrades very little at f/32.

This is not the case with the other two

samples I have tested.

I almost always stop down all the way, or

to at least a stop more than the DOF scales

tell, since the DOF is the primary problem

of my MF efforts. I found that the

softness from diffractions can be very

effectively corrected by the unsharpen mask

filter in Photoshop, while the out of focus

elements will be always out of focus. In

my collection of P67 lenses, the 55mm f/4

is the other that keeps to be razor

sharpness all way down to its minimum f/22,

with both of the two samples I have had.

They are the sharpest lens I have ever seen

at all apertures from f/8 down. The same

is not true for my 45mm, 75mm, 90mm, and

105mm, all of them lose definition when

stopped down to the minimums. Recently I

added a 55-100mm zoom to my bag, after

inspected my friend's chromes shot with the

zoom, which closes down to f/32 at all the

focus lengths. Surprisingly I found the

zoom performs on the same level or even

better than my primes center to edge, with

minimal distortions and flares, and is

very sharp at f/32. This give me room to

modify my 55mm/f4: I took the rear sections

apart, and inserted spacers to make it to

have a built in (fixed) down tilt of about

one degree. This have been my lens for

near-far shot, since without the help from

the little tilt I could never really get

enough DOF even from the wide angle for

the 6x7 format at it minimum f/22, which

converts to a 28mm at f/11 in 35mm format.