Posts tagged ‘EOS 3’
Nobody ever discovered ugliness through photography
EOS 3, Tri-X, N-1, 70-200 f/4 L
“Nobody ever discovered ugliness through photographs. But many, through photographs, have discovered beauty. . . . what moves people to take photographs is finding something beautiful. Nobody exclaims ‘Isn’t that ugly; I must take a photograph of it.’ Even if someone did say that, all it would mean is ‘I find that ugly thing . . . beautiful.”
– Susan Sontag On Photography
Happy Thanksgiving! New Images!
EOS 3, 70-200 f/4 L, Pulled Tri-X in D-76
First off, Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers, where-ever in the world you might be! I developed a few rolls of Tri-X pulled one stop to see the difference between that and Plus-X (as I search for an eventual replacement). There’s an overall softer quality to the Tri-X, which, while I like it, is not quite the same.
These images aren’t bad at all, just not the same look.
I had started off that day with a client’s portrait session, and while I did most of those images on my 5D, I captured about a half-roll of Tri-X in between setups. Many of my friends had sung the praises of pulled Tri-X for portraits, and a number of them came out quite lovely.
Vancouver Trip
EOS 3, C/Y Zeiss 50, Tri-X, DD-X
Contrary to Mike’s comment, testing with the adapter is not the only thing I am doing these days. I currently have 16 rolls of exposed b&w film sitting on the sink in the darkroom, and tonight I just mixed up some D-76 to soup some of those rolls in. In fact, I am shoe-horning in the testing around a lot of film shooting these days.
In a Blenz coffee shop
This roll is the first I developed where I used the C/Y 50mm on the EOS body, and I honestly don’t see a great deal of focus issues like the 5D.
But I wasn’t testing so much for those issues, so I can’t be sure. I just went out shooting a bit.
More to come . . .
Catching up on my scans
FP4, Xtol
With the cold being so oppressive of late, I’ve just been trying to catch up on my scanning. Today’s post are some further images catptured last summer at the Disney Concert Hall in LA.
All of these images play more with juxtaposition of light and shadow on the surface rather than the surface itself.
All these frames were very dusty, which is why I probably got frustrated scanning this roll last November when I first began.
Silver Efex Pro 2
Originall Ektar, 17-40L. Silver Efex Pro 2 Beta
As I mentioned yesterday, doing a great deal of work with the Beta of Silver Efex 2. This image was original captured on Ektar in February of 2009 in Sedona, AZ. The color image was processed first in Nik Color Efex Pro 3 using the Tonal Contrast preset to give it a little more punch. Then brought into Silver Efex, Underexposed a stop, a blue filter added, Ilford Pan F film type, some Fine Structure enhancement, the edges of the frame darkened, and a cutout-like frame edge applied (all those in Silver Efex). Control points were used to raise every pixel that was, at that point, in Zone 0 up to Zone 1 or two, then saved.
This is the original image scanned and imported:
Original TIFF
And below we have the image after it went into and out of Color Efex Pro:
With Color Efex
To my eye, the final image has a kind of medium format quality to it, which, honestly, I never thought I’d see in a digital image.
Black & White Change of Pace
EOS 3, 17-40L, FP4, Xtol
Last night I developed a couple rolls of FP4 I hadn’t gotten around to, and one of them was the last roll I captured when I walked around the Disney Concert Hall last July. Scanned them this morning, and thought I’d post a handful of those images tonight. This first image was a bit of a challenge owing to the highlight at the top of the wall; it’s reflecting the sun off camera left. I spot metered the reflection and that paid off, as the neg still has detail in that highlight (hard to tell in the JPEG but it does).
On all these images, FP4 continues it’s yeoman-like job of handling the dynamic range in the shot, and I once again am reminded of what a great versatile film it truly is.
All three of these negs had very little tweaking done; the greyscale is just so luscious I wanted to try and deliver everything the film had to offer.
I’m reading “Way Beyond Monochrome” and it is truly an amazing book. Very technical, but there is an explanation in there of how exposure range in full daylight gets mapped to a neg and then re-mapped onto a print that is just amazing to me. It shows where the s-curve serves the greater master of replicating the feeling of the original scene, and how the shoulder and toe of the film mates with the shoulder and toe of the paper in such a way as to support each other.
The book is highly recommended.
Brand Loyalty
Disney Concert Hall. EOS-3, 17-40L, HP5, Xtol
“We all have, deep within us, a desire to be part of a Tribe. Not just any Tribe, but a successful Tribe. Because only successful Tribes continue on. This desire can be traced all the way back to those early campfires, where we would tell stories about how we succeeded at the hunt that day. We’d sit around, eat that day’s capture, and revel in the shared nature of the Tribe’s success, as personified by our tribe’s best hunter. If our tribe wasn’t so good at hunting, our tribe wouldn’t last very long. So much of our ‘modern’ social interactions are simply echoes of our desire to be part of a tribe that ate well, and survived.” — David Mamet, American playwright
Marketers use the term ‘brand identification’ when they talk about how consumers decide whether a product is one we wish to purchase. While it is sometimes true that we buy products for the product itself, we all-too-often buy the product in an attempt, on a subconscious emotional level, to acquire some of the attributes of the product in addition to the product itself. Attributes that the marketing team have ‘connected’ to the product through their ads. Ads for dish-washing liquid don’t just talk about how well the soap itself works, but imply (through the actors chosen as spokespersons, and the way those characters’ homes look, and what their kids look like) that happiness, well-behaved children, and financial success all come from choosing the correct dish-washing liquid (which their liquid personifies, of course).
The message deep beneath the ad is ‘people who buy our dish-washing liquid gain all these qualities,’ or, put another way, ‘members of OUR tribe all buy this dish-washing liquid, and see how happy we are?’
Tribal behavior includes outward displays of identification, such as wearing logo t-shirts or camera straps, using similar vocabulary and body language (“Acronyms for $20, Alex”), and unique shared activities. Families are the smallest tribal unit, and racial groups are the largest. Individuals identify with their tribe, and view people inside the tribe as ‘same’ and people outside the tribe as ‘other.’ This tends to happen to us without us being aware of it all the time, and influences a great deal of what we think and know and feel about ‘same’ and ‘other.’ It also infuses those discussions with a degree of emotion that often exceeds common sense. Example #1 that we are all familiar with is: Apple and Microsoft. All you need to do is bring up their names in a room of tech geeks and someone is bound to make a comment.
And think also about how Apple is a master at communicating to their customers that ‘our tribe is cool.’ I’ve always liked their products, mind, but I am also aware that they are selling the illusion of cool, and MS has struggled for a long time to find an answer to the Apple cult of cool. Vide the many different directions the MS marketing has tried in an effort to deflect the ‘cool’ tag Apple has adopted. Whether Apple deserves the tag or not is irrelevant, actually.
While I am aware of the desire we all share to be part of a successful ‘tribe’ (defining success in our current shared universe as ‘mastering photography’ in some form), and I am just as much a victim of this effect as the next blogger, My next post (currently in draft form, awaiting a scan of an image) is about my experiences recently using a Leica M6, and perhaps no other camera brand is as driven by the cult of ‘Tribe’ as Leica. In that post I will talk about my struggle to separate what I truly experienced in the moment with the camera in my hand while shooting as distinct from what I had bouncing around in my head about what I ‘should’ feel, as had been described to me by card-carrying members of the Leica tribe.
The point of all this? When you react or choose in an arena where there are Tribal forces at work, keep your head! Pick up the camera or shoot with the lens, try it for yourself. And then when you have the object in your hands, be CONSCIOUS. Try to be neutral. Observe your breathing. Be here now. It is just too easy to be fooled into this tribal thinking, too easy to convince yourself you see things that aren’t actually there because you want them to be there so that you can belong.
One example from recent events for me personally
However, as I said, I am just as vulnerable as the rest of us. I just went through a very similar thing, and I almost succumbed. As you know, I was weaned on Canon FD gear. The tribal influence at that time was very pro-Nikon, as my teacher was a Nikon geek. I didn’t have the cash to buy Nikon, but I could buy Canon, so I did. I resisted the tribal pull, and found that Canon gear worked just fine for me. Even today, the feel of a Canon FTb just feels right in my hand. I have never regretted it back then or now.
I read the forums of APUG to learn more about film and film processing, and I follow a particular poster and his discussions, because I have found him to be knowledgeable. He happens to shoot Canon FD gear (amongst many other film cameras). He recently made a statement in a post that the one of his favorite lenses was a Canon 50mm 1.4 FD S.S.C. lens. I own the later version of the lens, the 50mm 1.4 FD (not S.S.C.). This poster mentioned he liked the way the lens ‘drew.’ Now, with all the Canon old FD gear increasing in value these days (you can buy adapters for Micro 4/3 cameras that take the FD lenses) I looked at prices for the S.S.C. version on eBay. I came very close to buying a copy. I came close on multiple listings to buying a copy. But WHY was I doing this? Had I ever actually shot with the S.S.C. version of the lens? No. Did I know whether it was actually different than the non-S.S.C. version? No. Even if there WAS a difference, did I know whether I LIKED that difference? No. But I WANTED THE LENS ANYWAY. Now, the lens isn’t really all that expensive (they used to go for around $40, and with the recent inflation, they are now going for $60-$70, with the occasional poster looking to make a killing at $100+. When I sat back and carefully examined my longing for the lens, I realized that it was in part to be part of the Tribe that APUG poster belonged to, ’cause, after all, given what he knows, how could he be wrong about the lens? Yikes!
Now, maybe I will eventually get myself a copy of the lens to audition. And, if I don’t like it, I’ll sell it off. But I’ll be conscious about what I am doing (hopefully). When you read my soon-to-be-posted Leica thoughts, use this post as a filter for that post.
Be Here Now.
Hope Again
We broadcast Hope 24/7
While I was in LA, I visited Freestyle, a brick-and-mortar store dedicated to the film photographer. This building was across the street. Just love the look of Delta 100 in Xtol. I’m gonna run the digital – film test again soon, this time with Delta 100 and the 5D. That will be interesting, I’d bet.
* * *
I was cleaning the office today and I organized the un-scanned frames of b&w film. Normally, see, what I do is wait until I can develop two or three rolls of 35mm at once in the same soup. This makes the most of my darkroom time, mixing the chemicals, washing, etc. My tank can handle up to three rolls at once, so, unless there’s a specific need for only one roll, I’ll let things slide until I have three of the same film (or at least, same developing time).
However, scanning takes much longer than developing. So, what I often do is scan only one roll or a few frames from one roll, note what I learned from the experience (such as above: holy smoke I like Delta 100 even more than Pan F) and make a note what to do (order more Delta 100, for instance). But then I usually have more rolls to develop, so the extra roll or frames go un-scanned. Well, I keep them folder between pages of a large heavy collection of Ansel Adams’ work in order to help flatten them.
But, until today, I had no idea how many rolls I had un-scanned stuffed into the pages of the book.
24.
Yup, that’s right, I counted 24 rolls of 35mm black and white film un-scanned in the book. That’s roughly 24 x 36 frames, or 864 images waiting to be scanned.
Yikes. Some of those rolls are from December of ’09. Wow. I had no idea. I need to come up with some system where I can scan only the promising or ‘keeper’ images. When I get my traditional darkroom running, I’ll just make a proof sheet and scan only the ones that look good. But until then, wow.
* * *
One of the best things about the blog-o-sphere is the information and inspiration that I learn from other bloggers. Some of my newer friends have really got me thinking. For instance, from Sabrina Henry I came across Steve Huff, who is now one of my daily reads. He has single-handedly re-lit my desire to own a Leica and made me even more passionate about using film (as if that were possible). And his writing style has really made me consider what I write about and why.
Then there is Mark Olwick, whose incredible Holga work has made me think through what I am trying to achieve with the look of my work, and how I need to leverage what film can do different from digital.
* * *
The next post is gonna be my 300th. See ya then.
Delta 100: Dawn at the Disney
Delta 100, EOS 3, 75-300 EOS Zoom, Xtol
Along with the Pan F, I had loaded a roll of Delta 100 into the EOS 3. The last time I used Delta 100, I developed it in FG-7, and I didn’t like it much. This time, wow! The image above was just as dawn was coming over Bunker Hill (that’s what that part of downtown LA is called, btw, Bunker Hill). Hence the lower parts are in shadow while the upper ‘sail’ is just getting the light.
But the images on this roll are really impressing me. I guess that FG-7 just didn’t do the film justice. There are a number of very pleasing images on this roll, and here is another sample:
It’s hard to see in this small JPEG, but there is a wealth of detail in the extreme shadow side of the facing wall.
A note on process for these images: on all the Pan F and Delta 100 images, I spot metered everything and placed the highlights and shadows. It was part of a process I’ve instituted for myself, where I’ve changed the metering on both my 5D and my film cameras. I pick a tone, meter for it, and then consciously place where I want that to fall. I decided I needed to take more control of my exposure, and all these images show that process (for better or worse, I suppose).
Found Image
Pan F, EOS 3, 17-40 Zoom, Xtol
One of the things I enjoy about shooting film are the surprises. Since I can’t chimp, all I can do is see an image, try and capture the image, hope I got something interesting, and then move on. It’s only when I look at the negs (or, sometimes, after I scan an image in) that I get a sense of what I came away with. And since there is usually a delay of hours, days or weeks until I see it, there is always possibilities of surprise.
That’s what happened above. I was walking back from my first session at the Disney, both the 5D and EOS 3 hanging off my neck, and I saw this pattern on the street. I raised the EOS 3 up, captured a couple frames, and moved on.
As I was scanning the remainder of the roll last night, I came across this image. Just quite liked the mood and the play of shadows and reflections on the right-hand wall, is all. But until I scanned it, I had quite forgotten all about the frame. I’m glad this was Pan F, as I might think about blowing this up a bit.
