Tina Kino wrote:
..saw these at the end of a day, on which I had driven out to the countryside to visit a friend.
Took a bunch of cameras, bag surely was heavy enough.
We spent hours walking - mostly through really beautiful woods in her area.
I did only take one photo that whole day, as I told myself "I just can't ever make the woods look interesting in my pics anyway".
I kinda feel you'd have to shoot it on many many megapixels, and then print it really good, and really large, to do it justice..
..like Ming Thein did, basically - and I kinda stopped to even bother with 35mm.
Long story short these pictures of yours made me re-think this attitude 🙂
They're really good, love the vibe!...Show more →
Thanks, Tina!
I know that feeling well - to look at something/some place and realize how hard it is to get a picture (or pictures) that convey the feeling you want. I think you're right too that format can play a factor - there is a large print at a local art museum taken from an 8x10 photo of trees in a forest. It definitely has that effect your talking about - incredible depth and detail.
I'm lucky that some person dragged that broken, old car into the woods (probably before the trees were planted...the area around is all timber land) and now it sits there rotting away, being a patient model with more debris and moss as the seasons change.
Tina Kino wrote:
..saw these at the end of a day, on which I had driven out to the countryside to visit a friend.
Took a bunch of cameras, bag surely was heavy enough.
We spent hours walking - mostly through really beautiful woods in her area.
I did only take one photo that whole day, as I told myself "I just can't ever make the woods look interesting in my pics anyway".
I kinda feel you'd have to shoot it on many many megapixels, and then print it really good, and really large, to do it justice..
..like Ming Thein did, basically - and I kinda stopped to even bother with 35mm.
Long story short these pictures of yours made me re-think this attitude 🙂
They're really good, love the vibe!...Show more →
IMO the thing that makes capturing the feeling of an environment is dynamic range. Film and digital inherently compresses DR even though they capture more colors than the eye can perceive. Super fine grain films with effort can come closer and medium or large format make it easier to achieve. The eye is an amazing "camera".
James Markus wrote:
Love all the colors Sorry to hear about the kidney stone. Those are horrible experiences. Hopefully not repeated in the future.
Thanks. Doc tells me another stone is still up there, but it is much smaller. And since the big stone only gave me 6 hours of pain I am not overly concerned about the smaller stone. The pain during those 6 hours was more than manageable, and it only took me to the ER because I had been ordered to go, so they could rule out an infection (which they did). This was my first serious interaction with the US healthcare system, and I have to admit, I was impressed (though I realize this is partly because I am privileged to have insurance). Overall I am just glad that this situation did not develop earlier in the year when I was at 18000 ft on Denali or later in the year when I was scuba diving in 110 ft deep water. I dodged so many bullets it's crazy.
_jim_ wrote:
It's been a second (six months) since my last post, but well, I had a love affair with Nikon Zf which coincided with my very-busy-season, which rolled into the holidays, which was then followed up by a trip to NZ (where the local airports refuse to hand-check film). But...I am back. Please pretend that I never left you.
Thanks to @madNbad@ for the XT-3...my xtol was likely expired (didn't want to risk it).
James Markus wrote:
_jim_, Love the moss covered branch in the first one - it leads the eye. What happened to your film from NZ? Did you mail it to yourself?
Decided it wasn't worth the risk/hassle...took my Nikon Zf and three lenses.
I bought a very used copy of the humble Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 AF-D many years ago (for like $50). It strikes me that the Leica 50 lux (pre-asph) gets a lot of love and yet there are so many Japanese 7-element double gauss lenses that basically produce the same look (spherical aberration up close, busy bokeh, medium-ish contrast), but with the AF-D you also get crazy fast autofocus (suck it, Leica!). Yeah, sure, it's made out of plastic and it has more geometric distortion...but for $50!?
_jim_. The Nikkor AF-D 50mm f1.4 is a poly-carbonate lens - very stable compared to plastic, brass and aluminum. You are getting great results with it, Formapan, and yet another vitamin C based developer. (how many are there?). Is that your 240Z? What a fun car.
James Markus wrote:
_jim_. The Nikkor AF-D 50mm f1.4 is a poly-carbonate lens - very stable compared to plastic, brass and aluminum. You are getting great results with it, Formapan, and yet another vitamin C based developer. (how many are there?). Is that your 240Z? What a fun car.
Shows how ignorant I am - mistaking polycarbonate as a plastic. One of my colleagues in the wine industry has a day job as a materials engineer focusing on aerospace carbon fiber (which also tells you how lucrative the wine industry is that so many of us have day jobs in addition to our 'profession'). I'll have to ask them for the full explanation.
Vitamin C developers are great. When Kodak created Xtol, I think it's fair to say that they were employing some of the best chemical engineers in the world (or, at least in upstate NY). It's beautiful in efficiency, efficacy and environmentality (that's a made-up word, but you get what I mean). Adox XT-3 is a further refinement - it works the same, but it comes in smaller packages (makes one liter vs 5) and the powder is less prone to making dust clouds (that end up going up my nose).
I wish that 240Z were mine. I love that era of Japanese design...not just cars and cameras, but guitars too - like the Yamaha SG2000. I bought one years ago for a song. It was absolutely the equal to my '74 Les Paul Custom. Sadly, I sold it.
_jim_ wrote:
I bought a very used copy of the humble Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 AF-D many years ago (for like $50). It strikes me that the Leica 50 lux (pre-asph) gets a lot of love and yet there are so many Japanese 7-element double gauss lenses that basically produce the same look (spherical aberration up close, busy bokeh, medium-ish contrast), but with the AF-D you also get crazy fast autofocus (suck it, Leica!). Yeah, sure, it's made out of plastic and it has more geometric distortion...but for $50!?
_jim_ wrote:
Shows how ignorant I am - mistaking polycarbonate as a plastic. One of my colleagues in the wine industry has a day job as a materials engineer focusing on aerospace carbon fiber (which also tells you how lucrative the wine industry is that so many of us have day jobs in addition to our 'profession'). I'll have to ask them for the full explanation.
Vitamin C developers are great. When Kodak created Xtol, I think it's fair to say that they were employing some of the best chemical engineers in the world (or, at least in upstate NY). It's beautiful in efficiency, efficacy and environmentality (that's a made-up word, but you get what I mean). Adox XT-3 is a further refinement - it works the same, but it comes in smaller packages (makes one liter vs 5) and the powder is less prone to making dust clouds (that end up going up my nose).
I wish that 240Z were mine. I love that era of Japanese design...not just cars and cameras, but guitars too - like the Yamaha SG2000. I bought one years ago for a song. It was absolutely the equal to my '74 Les Paul Custom. Sadly, I sold it....Show more →
Didn't mean to offend. I was just thinking calling it plastic is like calling wine grape juice. Technically it is, but not really
Shot a very low speed film last year, Wolfen PF2, at/around Mono Lake. Rating at iso 3 so exposures were quite long even in daytime. I devleoped in D76 for 3 minutes based on an initial test strip, but the resulting negatives came out severely underdeveloped! I was able to recover a lot in the digital inversion resulting in strong contrast. Pls ignore all the dust and stuff...
Desmolicious wrote:
You need to shoot more kolor! These are great.
Thanks.
I am actively working on improving my workflow for color. Credit to @fjablo for setting me straight on Ektar's dynamic range. Given that Velvia 50 is practically discontinued, I will be focusing on Ektar, Portra 160, and Portra 400. Some of my past struggles are likely due to bad metering and a lack of understanding of Negafix, both of which I think I now understand better. Another issue has been "muddy colors" in some cases, and some quick googling has lead me to an interesting discussion on fixing color "in camera" using appropriate warming/cooling filters. It's a polarizing topic, and in typical internet fashion neither faction shows fair A-B comparisons, so I will be collecting my own data. Will post results.
I am actively working on improving my workflow for color. Credit to @fjablo@ for setting me straight on Ektar's dynamic range. Given that Velvia 50 is practically discontinued, I will be focusing on Ektar, Portra 160, and Portra 400. Some of my past struggles are likely due to bad metering and a lack of understanding of Negafix, both of which I think I now understand better. Another issue has been "muddy colors" in some cases, and some quick googling has lead me to an interesting discussion on fixing color "in camera" using appropriate warming/cooling filters. It's a polarizing topic, and in typical internet fashion neither faction shows fair A-B comparisons, so I will be collecting my own data. Will post results....Show more →
With C41 films, muddy colours are often a result of underexposure. But we will definitely be looking forward to your results!
