glen_johnson

It has to be pushed. I would give it a full 40% more time in the first developer (corresponding to what would be considered a 1 1/3 stop push). Kodak recommends rating it at 320 for a one stop push. I rate mine at 400, but I've experimented with development times, and the 40% figure (in my set up that's a first developer time of 9 ' 15") gives me the best result. When I push film any number of stops, I give an extra 50% in the color developer (4 minutes for normal, 6 minutes for any number of stops pushed).

 

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If you rate E200 at 400 and then process it normally, you will get slides, but everything will be very dark, and you will have virtually no shadow detail.

One other thing to consider is the Horseman View Camera Adapter. They make these for both 35mm bodies and Medium Format bodies. Its a bit pricy ($1800), and you need view camera lenses for it, but it will give you some significant movements if that's what you're after. Of course, the cheapest way is to get a used view camera, or one of the low end jobs from Calumet. Or you could even buy the Bender kit and make your own.

23 degrees is a lot of tilt or swing. 8 degrees is not a lot, but enough for many circumstances.

 

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The basic problem with the lens coverage is that, if the lens has been designed with the expectation that it will be used on a camera without movements, then the image circle isn't going to be a whole lot bigger than the format in use. When you use the camera movements, you may end up not being able to get complete coverage of the film frame as the image is shifted, swung, tilted, etc. View camera lenses of the same focal length invariably have different image circles. A larger image circle will allow you to use camera movements to a greater extent than a smaller image circle.

 

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You may want to take a look at Stroebel's book on the View Camera. It will cover the Scheimpflug effect, rise and fall, shift, and the like.

Pete and Paul are giving good advice about going to a view camera that will handle roll film.

 

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Regarding the CF lenses and their limited coverage - it is a sad fact, and it is also the motivation for the Arcbody and the Rodenstocks. However, if Scott is considering the Rollei alternatives, the Flexbody and CF lenses will compare well.

 

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How much tilt and shift do you need? It depends on what you want to do. If you are shooting negative film, and can crop in the darkroom, then reduced coverage may be something you can live with, even with significant movements. If you are shooting transparancies for display, then reduced coverage will probably be unacceptable.

Tilt is the rotation that moves the lens up or down. Swing is the

rotation that moves the lens left or right.

 

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Tilt is useful when you want to bring the foreground into a high

degree of sharpness without stopping down a lot. Some of the really

beautiful Ansel Adams prints of tree roots, or rocks in the water,

were done with tilt.

 

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Swing is useful when you want to bring a plane that is perpendicular

to the ground into sharp focus, line a fence line, or a tree line, or

a line of telephone poles or other columns.

 

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If you want to have these movements at a modest cost, you may want to

consider a Calumet Cadet in 4x5. It is the cheapest way to get into

the game. If you insist on staying with medium format, Hasselblad

offers the most flexible gear, even though it is pretty pricy. The

Arc Body and the Flex Body both offer a wide range of movements

compared to other options, and the flex body is really nice because

it is compatible with the regular line of Zeiss lenses for the

Hasselblad. If you get the Arc Body, you're stuck with the three

Rodenstock offerings.... Not a bad place to be stuck, mind you, but

the Arc Body doesn't take the rest of the Hasselblad lenses, and so

it can't serve as a back up in a pinch beyond the ability of whatever

of the Rodenstocks that you own.

Bob, if you've got the list, maybe you could post whether or not there is anyone in Western PA who rents Canon. Western PA, like Pittsburgh, would be fairly convenient to someone in Akron, OH.

It depends on what you want. 70% white is probably really 70% reflectance? I asked an F5 user about exposing snow with the F5. He had just finished several weeks of shooting snow scenes with an F5, and he said that "the color meter is smart enough to know that it needs to compensate, but not smart enough to compensate enough to get the snow white." He was adding something like 1/2 stop more than the meter was calling for with Velvia. It may vary from body to body. Other Nikon models need to be calibrated for the particular film (according to John Shaw). It may also vary from film to film. If he rated his Velvia at 50, he would have to add more than if he had rated it at 40, for example.

 

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In anticipation of your trip, maybe you ought to shoot a test roll, using some frame filling bed sheets out in sunshine as your subject. See how much you have to add to get them to be white. When you get to the slopes, maybe on the first day you ought to find a local processor, shoot a test roll, and then see what compensation gives the results that are most pleasing to your eye. Note that you may feel that different compensation is better on overcast days, compared to sunny days.

 

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Then again, if this is too complex, you may want to just follow the conventional advice, and bracket the daylights out of everything.

 

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Good luck.

Finding a place that will rent Canon grear is really hard. I think Nikon is still #1 by this particular measure. Over and over again, when I'm travelling, its easy to find Nikon parts and rentals, but nearly impossible to find Canon. I know there are exceptions, but I'm not sure how many there are in the MidWest.

 

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Roberts Distributors in Indianapolis, and Calumet in Chicago will both rent Canon. B&H and Adorama will both rent Canon by mail. There are two dealers Northeast Ohio who will rent Hasselblad, so you might give them a call to see if they'll also rent Canon. I don't have them in front of me, but you could find out who they are by calling Hasselblad. These two dealers are the only two who are listed for the state of Ohio in the Hasselblad literature, so the person who helps you won't have too much trouble figureing which two they are.

I didn't read any criticism of Fitzharris into your question. I thought your question's purpose was just to raise awareness by citing a specific example.

 

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Let's face it. The world is moving very quickly. It is natural, I suppose, for some groups to cling to old ways. It is natural for some groups to define their field in a narrow way that that would exclude new ideas, or new approaches. This is just human nature. Its a legitimate activity, and I'm not criticising it, but just observing it.

 

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In my view, the act of observing the nature is very likely to modify the behavior that is being observed - and recorded on film. In the end, nature images have value for two reasons... First, they provide some documentation about how things were at some point in time, and in this application, post exposure manipulation would seem like a bad thing in the interest of documenting "truth," but maybe it would be ok if the post exposure manipulation were used to enhance the view or show a greater truth that was too elusive to capture on film. Second, they provide visual stimulation, which hopefully leads to emotion and thought on the part of the viewer. This is really the classical purpose for art, and in this context, there is no reason to dismiss post exposure manipulation.

 

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The truth is, post exposure manipulation has been with us ever since folks first went into the darkroom, including multiple exposures, montage techniques, and other non-digital manipulations that lead to stunning results. Consider all the "set up" and contrived shots that pass acceptably among nature purists. Everyone isn't sitting in a blind by their 600 f/4 waiting for just the right moment. There are a lot of folks out there moving stuff, baiting stuff, catching stuff, drugging stuff, and what have you.

 

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In any event, Fitzharris seems like a neat guy, and, as Bob points out in his question, Fitzharris certainly has nailed a few things when it comes to creation of beautiful images using natural subjects.

 

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This is one of those pointless, endless arguments. No one will ever convince a single person from the other side to defect and join the "good guys," whoever they are. I suppose I really shouldn't even ad my two cents in light of the fact that I don't consider myself to be a nature photographer, even though I have shot natural subjects for over 30 years.

 

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I thought the fishing analog was good. The magazines may not be telling you how to convert your small boat into a commercial fishing vessel, but there are plenty of articles and advertisements telling you how to use technology to enhance your catch. Its basically similar, even if not identical. The hobbiest brings different baggage to the activity than the guy who is trying to pursue the activity as a livelihood.

Tim certainly is a credible nature photographer. I think he must have more than 20 books, and more than 30 calendars to his credit. If you would like to see some of his work wiithout springing for a book, he has some contributions in the issue of Nature's Best that just arrived in my mail this week. Incidentally, this is another great issue. Hardly any advertisements. A lot of great photographs.

 

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Frankly, I admire the fact that Tim is continuing to grow by pushing beyond what he has clearly already mastered.

Since I do my own E-6 processing, I have had a chance to customize

development times for both of these films. The useful comment I can

make here is that different users might expect different results,

depending on their lab. For people who are not doing their own E-6,

I would recommend shooting a test roll, varying the exposure index

from -2/3 to +2/3 around the target EI and developing your own

personal rating for a 1 or 2 stop push at the lab you use.

 

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For example, with MS 100/1000, I've gotten my best EI 400 results

with the first development time that Fuji recommends for the 800

rating, for example. I am doing single shot processing in a rotary

processor. Someone who is using another method will get different

results.

 

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I do like both E200 and MS 100/1000 rated at 400 better than the ISO

400 slide films that I have used in the past. At 800, or at 1000, I

think both films require significant compromise in what you accept as

good, at least compared to their nominal ratings. For

photojournalist type shooting, they are remarkably good. You've got

to admit that there are situations where the extra depth of field

and/or extra speed that you can get at 800 more than offset the

attendant reduced grain performance and increased contrast.

There is a thread in the regular Q&A entitled "Arca Swiss Plates for $30. Maybe." The guy offered to machine custom plates for $30 a pop. He indicated in a later post that there were a sufficient number of positive inquiries that he had decided to forge ahead and go into the business of making them. Why don't you get in touch with him? I found the thread by just searching for "RRS machine."

Here are some other reasons for not using a polaroid back with a 35mm camera, either for nature, or for other subjects. These comments are related to the EOS 1N and NPC Pro Back II.

 

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1. NPC will tell you that you can mount and dismount the back in 10 seconds, but they won't tell you that you will fog film every time you do this, unless you've shot the whole pack.

 

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2. The NPC back blocks the on off switch, so you have to turn the camera on and leave it on until you open the back.

 

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3. The NPC back won't close unless you remove the rubber eye cup.

 

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4. You can't get your eye close to the finder once the NPC back is in place.

 

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5. Polaroid film is temperature dependent. Changes in temperature and development time have an impact on the image. On a hot summer day you might need to rate the ISO 100 Polacolor at 200, while in cooler seasons you may need to rate it as low as 50 AND increase development time by 50%. If you're trying to nail something within a third of a stop, Polacolor isn't the way to go.

 

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6. Here is a real show stopper. The fiber optic bundle for the NPC back that matches the EOS 1 doesn't really produce a very sharp image. Even under examination with a 5.5x NPC loupe, the images are really fuzzy... even with sharp lenses and tripod mounting. If you want to check out depth of field with one of these, good luck. Of course, I suppose there is the possibility that the one I tried out is a dog... but it was enough to sour me on the idea.

 

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7. Another minor aggravation is that you lose the quick control dial. Of course, as those with 1N's know, you can transfer the function of the quick control dial to the main dial by hitting the compensation button before moving the main dial, so this isn't too big a deal.

 

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As others have suggested, it looks like a back would be good to avoid gross exposure errors, or gross mistakes in things like shadow placement. You don't even need the loupe to see this stuff.

 

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As for cost, the film is really cheap compared to what was suggested above. You can get a 10 pack of Polacolor Pro 100 type 679 from B&H for $10, and you can put two 35mm images on each sheet, so you can do 20 "proofs."

 

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I've decided not to keep this little toy. Its sort of neat to be able to look at lighting, but that's what light meters and experience have helped me with for 30 years, so the back isn't really necessary.

 

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If it weren't for the fiber optic bundle, i.e., if the film plane for the polaroid pack were at the same point as the film plane for the real film, then I think the images would be sharp, and I would probably be more supportive of the backs. As it is, there is too much tolerance, or else the fiber optic bundle has significant losses, or else my sample was defective.

 

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Incidentally, B&H basically forewarned of the problems, but NPC insisted that there wouldn't be any. I think NPC is a little overly optimistic about the function of this product.

Yeah, I agree. Chasing them around is a pain, and you can never get close enough. Even a 200 macro isn't good enough if the butterfly is "active." That's what's so great about going early in the morning to a known location where they spend the night. In this area, one of the more popular locations is near the Ceasar Creek Day Lodge, on the fork to the right, just before you approach the lodge from Middletown road. At this time of year there are a lot of nature subjects that aren't really stirring yet, and they will hold still for you. I think this fact is probably even more important than the quality of the light. The light is good, the subjects are willing to hold still because they are still more or less dormant from the lowered temperature and lack of light during the night, and the breeze can be more cooperative at this time of day as well.

 

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Anyone who is interested in butterfly shots needs to ask the local nature photography buffs (the ones who actually win the prizes in local competitions) where to shoot. They may tell you - they may not.

 

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Incidentally, this subject is discussed to some extent over in the Maria Zorn Workshop review. Maria, and others, actually capture the eggs, hatch them, raise them to cacoon, and finally to butterfly stage. This is the way to get the very best shots. According to Maria, it isn't worth catching the caterpillers, since many of them tend to already be infested with parasites and won't develop into butterflies or moths. If you find the eggs, the probability of parasite infestation is virtually nill, at least at this point in time.

 

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Don't spend a lot of time worrying about your equipment. Get something reliable, and then put your emphasis on finding a willing subject, and milking that subject for all its worth.

It becomes ever clearer to me that color arguments with slide film are just as bankrupt as they are with print film, especially if the argument is in defense of the idea that one lens is better than another lens.

 

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What emulsion? What batch number? What light source? What angle? If outdoors, what time of day? What developing process? Dip & dunk? Tube? Small tank? What pH for the color developer? etc. etc. etc.

 

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If you're not going to control it at this level, at least you owe it to yourself to not fool yourself into thinking that a difference that you see is completely due to the lens in use.

 

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You can switch the lenses back and forth, and depending on the above factors, one might come out on top in one set of tests, and the other might come out on top in another set of tests.

 

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The 180 is a nice lens, and someone who can afford it, and who also doesn't mind carrying its weight, is likely to enjoy it very much. For someone on a tighter budget, the 100, or maybe even just a screw on closeup lens, can produce some great macro shots, and you can also get the Novaflex reversing adapter for the EOS lenses from Calumet, so that you can take your wide angle or normal lens and use them for closeups at a relatively modest cost.

 

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Bob, I suppose you killed the other posts, but it really is fair game to point out that a reader might want to click on the e-mail address of the person posting the response to get some idea of what they really know about a subject based on their full history of posting. There is a heck of a lot of posturing and puffing on photo.net, and many readers assume that anyone with the chutzpa to post something must be an "expert."

If you can afford it, get the 180. If you can't, the 100 is very nice, and you can extend its working distance just fine with a Tele-extender. If you use the Canon Tele-extender, you'll also need a 12mm extension tube. The 100 is lighter, and I think its more versatile. If someone thinks that the optical quality of the 180 is significantly better in any practical way as far as final images are concerned, I would say that they are either not using their 100 right, or their 100 is a bad sample.

You might want to take a look at the Canon Macro Book. B&H sells it for $17.95.

 

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If you want to take pictures of butterflies, go in the morning when it is still so cool that they haven't started moving around yet. They will hold very still at this time of day, and you can stop the lens down for a sharp picture. The idea to just get a closeup lens for the lens you already own is a good one. Certainly it is an economical way to get decent shots of small subjects.

 

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Good luck.

Most of the big name shooters in nature photography talk about making "in camera dupes." To do this successfully, you really have to be very confident about your exposure, but, as we've seen in a lot of questions, both here, and in the regular Q&A forum, a lot of folks aren't that comfortable with their exposure selection. Even some of the guys who most might consider "hot shots" talk about extensive bracketting.

 

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My question is, "Do 35mm nature photographers use NPC Polaroid backs for static nature subjects or landscapes?" If no, why not? It seems like the guy trying to nail a static subject and make in camera dupes would be a natural candidate for polaroids.

Rod Planck made the comment once that the short telephotos were possibly the easiest lenses to use to get great landscape photos, and he recommended them as the first landscape lens for people starting out. There is a review of his workshop over in the "workshops" section of photo.net.

Bob, I have a hard time believing that a chipmunk is running back in his hole between the time you press the button on an Elan II and the time the shutter actually fires, unless you are using the mirror prefire feature. But if this is what is actually happening, then one of the cameras that has a minimal delay, like an F5, or a 1NRS, would be the way to go. I don't shoot with an Elan II, so I don't have any feel for the delay, but if it is long enough for a chipmunk to go back in his hole, then that is another reason not to buy an Elan II. I think a chipmunk would have enough time to gack in the hole with the delay on many point & shoot cameras, but I don't think that any decent interchangeable lens SLR's would have a delay long enough for this to occur.

 

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As for real mirror lockup, the mechanical mirror lockup on the F series Nikon's is better than the electronic lockup on the EOS 1N. On the 1N, the mirror locks up for 30 seconds and then flops back down if you haven't shot. This can occasionally be a pain in the neck. The other way to get a decent mirror lockup is to buy an older model mechanical camera, like a Minolta SR-T 101, but then you end up with a whole bunch of other problems.

If you are shooting at 1/1000 of a second, you do not need mirror lock up. Turn it off. You might want to do a search on the mirror lock up issue to see what others have already said about this. If you pick a film that is fast enough to shoot at or above 1/100th of a second, chances are you will not need mirror lock up with any but the longest lenses.

 

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One other point. If you were using a slow enough shutter speed so that mirror lockup was appropriate, then you've uncovered the disadvantage of the cameras that use mirror prefire instead of real lock up, i.e., the time between the lock and the fire is fixed, instead of flexible. It is much better to have mirror lock up set up so that you can lock, and then pick the firing point to best exploit whatever happens in the scene. If the mirror is locked up in advance, and then the chipmunk comes out and holds still, you might be able to get a decent shot as slow as 1/30th of a second. If you have one of the cameras that uses mirror prefire, you are just going to spook the animal unless you figure out how to muffle the sound.

These two lenses are built to different price points. Both were originally designed for use on the APS camera. All reports on the 24-85 indicate that it is a decent zoom. There isn't much out there on the 22-55 yet. If cost is a serious issue, you might like to try the 22-55, and return it if it doesn't perform at a level that is satisfactory for your purposes.

Lloyd, everyone knows what the pellical mirror does for continuous viewing. But a lot of folks don't realize that you lose focus tracking in the rapid shooting mode in the 1NRS model. A 1NRS is no better than a 1N with booster for tracking moving subjects. This question was between Nikon and Canon. Someone threw in the RS as a possible Canon alternative for faster autofocus, and it just ain't so.

This gets to be an argument along the lines of whether you like Ferraris better than Porsches. They are both fast. They are both sharp. At least now, with the F5 and the silent wave lenses, there is a choice. I think that most objective tests would show that the F5 is able to track more frames per second, especially for subjects that are coming head on at a very high speed (like 150mph race cars). The 1N with EOS EF 600 f/4L will probably accurately do about 4 frames per second. The F5 with Nikon Silent Wave 600 f/4 will probably do 8 frames per second. If this is your most important issue, pick the Nikon.

I developed the roll that passed through 3 x-ray inspections at airport checkpoints and I pushed it two stops. I did not see any artifacts of the inspection that would cause me to consider the film to have been compromised in some way. Accordingly, I vow to be less anal retentive about airport security checkpoints in the future. :-)