macgregor_anderson

A snapshot, really.

Thanks. The lens is the 24-85 3.5-4.5 G ED. It's been a good all around lens, but I've never found it to be terribly sharp. Lately I've been shooting when I can without any protective filter on the lens. And also trying to focus carefully in the scene (about 1/3 of the way between near and far). Also not using the very small aperatures because of diffraction. In the past, I'd just stop down as far as I could to maximize depth of field, and found that at the smallest aperatures I could really tell the loss of overall sharpness.

 

I think something else might be going on here with the sharpness. Besides having a heavy hand with the unsharp mask, I think the frost on the scene (it's been below freezing and foggy for days here) may have produced a natural version of unsharp masking. A ridge of white around all the foliage.

 

Anyhow, I've always felt an old 28-105 (macro) lens I have is a bit sharper. And my 12-24 dx and 80-200 2.8 are both noticeably sharper. Despite that, the 24-85 gets used the most.

 

Hope that didn't put you to sleep. Thanks for the comments. I edited this on an uncalibrated laptop and look forward to getting home where I can revisit it on a bit better screen.

 

Mac

Driving over the pass on the way to Thanksgiving celebrations, had

to stop for a snap of this

Thanks for the comments! Very rude of me not to respond sooner. Just started a new job so I'm distracted.

 

I agree that the composition isn't ideal here. I tried cropping some sky but it really detracted from the rainbow.

 

I have a shot that used a bit more lens, with just the barn and not the side building. It looked a little tight to me.

 

This one is really just a snapshot, a rush job on the way to work. No time for a tripod. The rainbow faded out before I was done shooting.

 

It is a very nice commute to work, I might add :)

 

Mac

This rainbow was really strong just as I was pulling off the road.

By the time I got the 80-200 on and got across traffic, the light

shifted and it faded some.

 

I'd like more foreground, but it was a nasty drainage ditch and some

painted metal fencing. Sometimes you just take what you can get.

After a hot summer, it's nice to wake up to a fresh blanket of snow

on Faith, Hope, and Charity (The Three Sisters mountains). I thought

the clouds were pretty cool.

Awoke to the first fresh snow of the season this morning.

Thanks for the comments! Appreciate them and agree that the composition is off balance. If you hung it on a wall, it would look like it was going to twist clockwise all the time.

 

I was interested in keeping the dead trees on the left, lit by the sun, in the composition. I could have included more area on the right, but it was a pretty distracting mass of clouds and covered mountain. There is a second mountain right there that ideally would be included, but conditions didn't permit it last night.

 

I'm pretty excited to get back up here with some good foot gear (the hill is a mass of sharp lava rocks) and a little more time to frame the shot.

 

I took some black and white with my 4x5 camera last night that may be better. There is a lot of detail in this for a digital to handle. I'll be developing this evening unless the clouds look good, in which case I'll make the 20 minute trip up here to get a better shot.

 

Thanks again.

Scouting out a new location this evening. It's going to be hard to

decide where to put the tripod next time. Comments welcome.

Chris, I just realised I was talking out my you know what regarding the zone IV exposure for shadows on this shot. That was true of the normal exposures from this series. And it was my target here. But I don't have good data on reciprocity, just ballpark figures. Haven't tested it. I think my metered exposure was for eight seconds to put those shadows in zone IV, and I went with 45, because that's roughly what I thought FP4 in D76 1:1 would call for (reduced development by maybe 20% as well). And also, a big gust of wind came up at 45 sec and moved the camera :)

 

As luck would have it, the shadows did fully expose to what I'd guess would print normally at zone IV. But it was luck, slightly informed judgement, and not the work of a zone master by any means.

Thanks for the comments.

 

Chris, thanks very much for the suggestions on improving this. I agree with your comments.

 

I'm not great with my flatbed scanner (often clipping when I shouldn't, etc) or with photoshop. I scanned this and adjusted it for only about 10 minutes today, wanting to post it for feedback. Feedback that can help me in the darkroom printing.

 

When I get this into the wet darkroom in a couple days I'll give it some real effort. I'll play around with those midtones and cloud highlights quite a bit. For some reason a few hours in the darkroom is fun, and a few minutes on the computer is frustrating.

 

The negative looks good, not too dense in the highlights (which were blown in the scan, and then toned down poorly in photoshop) and plenty of detail in all of the trees (which appear nearly black here). I exposed those trees in the shadows for zone IV to be certain I had good tonal range there. I'm really looking forward to printing this thing!

used a ND filter to get a 45 second exposure here. I was trying to

blur the clouds in the foreground some. Also got better light on the

trees in this shot. Hope you can see just the slightest detail in

the trees under shadow, that was my goal.

apologies for the rough photoshop job here. I do better in the wet

darkroom.

first scan from this batch.

Thanks Leigh. I haven't printed this one yet but it's near the top of my list. This is just a fast flatbed scan. If I remember, the fisherman needed some dodging in photoshop. Hope I can pull it off in the wet darkroom.

Thanks for the color correcting job there. I think your's looks more accurate. There is some red to these lava rocks, but just a touch. I need to go back over my little lesson on color correction because I've done so little of it.

 

Can't remember why I didn't pan a little further left. It would make sense. I may have been more focused on positioning the icicles. In composing, I was able to see the background rocks that fall to black here, and so perhaps the composition looked less lopsided to the naked eye. A case of not visualising the final image properly.

 

I wonder if the icicles are back. We have had lots of snow and then warm daytime temps the past three days. This is in my yard about five minutes walk from where I sit now. When the light gets good later maybe I'll check it out again.

 

Thanks as always for your very helpful guidance.

That color cast had me a little stumped. I corrected using the color sampler tool and levels on the individual RGB channels to get the snow white and the shadows black, but I think I needed to fiddle with the middle tones too. I'm pretty lame at photoshop still, since most of my focus this year has been in the traditional darkroom. Where I'm also pretty lame, but improving faster.

 

Glad you enjoyed the composition here. I thought the straight trunks at different angles made for an interesting pattern.

 

I'll do some research before making my next round of color shots. I don't have anything in the way of warming filters, nor am I really up on reciprocity (this was a pretty long exposure) for this stuff. I know some slide film shifts colors as well as needing more time, though I'd read somewhere that Velvia 100F needed no compensation for exposures up to a minute. My shots from this first batch, especially some that are heavy with shadows, look like they were shot through a blue filter, so I definitely have something to learn.

comments welcome

More from my first batch of color stuff in large format.

From my first batch of color 4x5 stuff.

I've been carrying some Velvia 100F with me the past few months to

try a little color photography with the 4x5. Got back my first

slides today, and here is one of them.

Thanks Richard. I am coming up on one year with large format, so I'm still very much a newbie at it. I've got a D100 that I enjoy but the large format is just way more fun for me. I've shot around 300 sheets of 4x5 in the past year. Scanned this negative, but I've got a wet darkroom for printing and that is proving to be a fun challenge as well. Nothing like a 16x20 from a 4x5 to put on the wall! Appreciate the comments.

Tried working one interesting area this morning. Only moved the

tripod about three feet for this and the last two posted images.

This one is a little frustrating as the top little "waterfall" had

icicles in front of it, barely visible in the scan. There is plenty

of detail in the negative, but the scanner or it's operator (me)

wasn't up to getting it all. Wonder if the wet darkroom will work

better here. Comments welcome.

comments welcome

comments welcome