Missing Lens Caps

Posted by Chris Klug – February 7, 2010

5D

Ok, so yesterday it was kinda comical around here. There was the snow, of course. But as I looked out the window at the photographic possibilities, what hit me was a chaotic combination of opportunity and equipment, to wit:

  • I had my Mamiya 645e in working order;
  • I had just been reminded what a lovely film Ektar is, but all I had was 35mm, so I couldn’t use it in the Mamiya;
  • I hadn’t really had much chance to use the F100 I bought last fall, but the roll of Ektar was shot with that camera, and that reminded me I wanted to use the F100 more often;
  • Of course, there is the relatively 5D and all of its possibility.

So, I started hauling everything out. The F100 had a roll of HP5 loaded and half-shot. Thank goodness I had the ‘AA’ batteries for that body charged. I took it outside, took a incident reading (I don’t know the F100’s meter well enough to adjust a reflected reading from it with all the snow and glare) and fired off the remaining frames of HP5 (thinking all the while ‘gads, what a nice film camera the F100 is. Man, how it handles. Hmm, I gotta get a modern auto-focus lens for this baby . . .’ and on and on). With the HP5 finished, I then loaded a roll of Ektar in the F100. Check.

Oh, wait, the Bessa has a roll of HP5 half-shot in it, too. I’ll fire off the rest of those frames (‘ooh, how nice the snow will look with that Zeiss lens, wow . . .’). So with those frames finished as well, I then loaded Ektar in the Bessa. Check.

I grabbed the Mamiya and loaded PanF into it. Just so that I’d have a different POV with that camera, I put the 150mm f/3.5 on it, and went looking for specific mini-images to pull out of the whole with the telephoto. Quickly burned through a roll of PanF, loaded another. Now I’m working three cameras, mind.

Came inside at that point. The sky was still overcast. The kitchen table was strewn with bodies and lenses. Peg says “it looks like you took out every camera we own, dear.” She’s about right.

A couple hours pass, and the sun comes out, with the sky a brilliant blue, and the sun peeking through clouds to the West.

5D & 17-40 Zoom

I go back out with the 5D, the Bessa, and the F100. I shoot a bunch of images, looking for color this time. I go back in, grab the Mamiya, capture a bunch of close-ups of branches in b&w, go back in, take out the exposed roll and load Velvia 50, go back out. Get more images. The contrast between the blue of the sky, the warm late-afternoon sun and the white snow is striking. Expose the roll of Velvia 50 and go back in for the F100 and the Bessa. Grab the FTb, loaded with Tri-X and with the 28mm FD f/2 mounted. Shoot a couple images with that camera, but grab the 5D again for the color. The sky darkens and I go in.

Today comes and I go back out, finish the roll of Ektar in the Bessa and the roll of Ektar in the F100. Shoot the remaining Tri-X of ice cycles near the front door and then get the 5D and Peg’s macro lens, with which I capture the image at the top of this post.

After all that frenzy I realize that I have mis-placed the lens cap from the Mamiya 150 lens and also from the 28mm lens on the FTb.

Peg is laughing all the time. I really enjoyed myself, though, and I wouldn’t trade the chaos for anything in the world. Below is an image of me with the snow blower working my way up the driveway, captured by Peg on her 40D yesterday.

That snow blower is worth its weight in gold, I tell ya

Snow

Posted by Chris Klug – February 6, 2010

5D, Photomatix

Today Pittsburgh received 18 inches of snow; I verified this by standing in my driveway with a measuring tape and seeing for myself.

It was astoundingly beautiful out there. I captured about 50 images on digital, 45 on medium format (Pan F b&w and Velvia) and 100 or so on 35mm film (Ektar, HP5, and so forth). I have so many images I want to share, I’ll just post some of the digital below.

Just in case anyone asks, 18 inches is a lot of snow to move, whether it be by shovel or by snow blower. Various other images below:

5D + FP4 Preset

5D

Ektar for the win

Posted by Chris Klug – February 6, 2010

Ektar as scanned

This week I got some film back from North Coast they had processed and scanned for me. I had sent them a roll of Ektar I had shot in Sept-Oct with the F100 I had purchased. I had exposed the roll as a test, more or less. A couple things struck me when I looked at the roll, and here on this snowy day in Pittsburgh, I’ll take a little time to go through them.

First off, what a great film. It had been a while since I shot a roll, and seeing these images just reminded me. This image above couldn’t be a better example. Pros who shoot film do so quite often because it saves them time in the long run. They don’t have to do much to the images once they get them back from the lab. This image above is a classic example. The image couldn’t have been shot simpler: F100, Nikkor 50mm lens, manually focussed, AE exposed by the F100, no filters. It’s around noon in September on Carson Street. Look at the colors! Look at the sharpness of the image! The sky! The contrast! My word. If you want a closer look at the grain/sharpness, I did a 2:1 enlargement in Lightroom and grabbed the screen. Take a look at the menu board in the middle of the image on the sidewalk:

Showing grain and sharpness

I think this image speaks for itself. Again, we’re talking about a Nikon lens, Series E, 50mm, 1.8, probably was a standard lens on a Nikon F4 or something.

And the color rendition of the Ektar. Here’s a shot of the hood of a car parked on the street just to my left when I captured the image above:

Ektar again

The rest of the roll I shot with the eye of doing black & white transfers. Later today, I’ll post some of those images. Now that I have my Mamiya 645 back, I’ll be ordering some Ektar 120, you can be sure of that.

Winter flag

Posted by Chris Klug – February 2, 2010

FP4, Rodinal

This image is from that roll (boy I was all around Allegheny County with that roll, eh?) The angle of the sun and the angle of the flag  and the starkness of the image are what makes this work for me.

Oakmont Bakery Window

Posted by Chris Klug – February 2, 2010

FTb, Rodinal, Toning in PS3

This is image #2 from that roll is discussed in yesterday’s post. I shot about six different frames of this window, looking for the right balance of exposure between the wall and the light coming through the window. I really didn’t do anything fancy to this in Lightroom in terms of exposure balance, just cleaned it up and toned it in PS.

New developments

Posted by Chris Klug – February 1, 2010

FP4, Rodinal

Yesterday I scanned in a roll of FP4 I had shot back in February when I came home to Pittsburgh for a visit. One of the really enjoyable things about developing film months after exposing it is that the images have the potential to surprise me. I’m one of those photographers who needs some distance and time from the act of capture to get a sense of what the images could mean and what they could be separated from the expectation of the moment. It always seems to me that when I’m patient about taking a look at the images, a higher percentage of the roll catches my eye than it does when I look at the images right after I shoot them. This roll was no exception; if anything, it proved that rule. Of 35 images, there were four (at least) that surprised me as I looked at them carefully; surprised me in the sense of a kind of out-of-body experience. As in ‘did I take that photo? Really?’

The image above fascinated me. It could have been an accidental exposure; may not have been, since it was right in the middle of the roll, so I wasn’t just casually firing off some frames at the top just to make sure I was past the exposed leader nor was it at the end when I might have been grabbing the last few before I re-wound the roll. But lord knows I have been known to accidentally trip the shutter without meaning to. But there are qualities in the image above that really caught my eye; the abstract nature, the lovely grain; the geometry, and the possibilities inherent in both the out-of-focus horizon as well as the reflection.

There’s also something about this image that screams to me ‘would not feel this way if captured on digital.’

As the days go by this week, I’ll blog the other images from that roll I particularly like. This roll reminded me why I always liked FP4. I don’t think FP4 scans as well as it prints in a traditional darkroom, and so I’ll look forward to printing these images on good old silver gelatin before the end of the year, hopefully.

Also, good news: my replacement 645e arrived, and I shot a test roll of Delta 400, developed it tonight and all seems perfect. I also bought a 45mm lens for it from a local photographer so I now have a 28mm equivalent for it when I take it out for more landscape work.

Lastly, Apple announced their iPad this week, and I fall into the camp of people who are truly excited about the potential for this device as a destination for high-quality digital photo books. I’ll probably get an iPad through work, and I’m thinking of trying to develop for it, if anyone is interested in giving me a hand with such an effort.

Live Bait

Posted by Chris Klug – January 24, 2010

HP5, Rodinal

Taken while Kevin Allen and I walked down West 23rd street in September, just before I captured the image of the two women on their cell phones.

I remember distinctly glancing across the street as we walked along the north side of the block and thinking ‘Live Bait, what an odd name,’ framing the shot, clicking the shutter and moving on. After I developed the roll, I kept staring at the image, wondering why it called out to me, if anything, louder after the image had been developed than on the day I grabbed it. Today, as I was working on the image, it hit me.

My first job in the game business in 1980 was at a company called SPI (Simulations Publications, Incorporated), whose original offices were located at 20 East 23rd Street. If you look at the image above, that building is not actually in the frame, but it is just to the left of the frame — you can see 16 East 23rd street right there, however.

I never worked in the 20 E. 23rd Street building, I did work at the next address they inhabited, which was Park Avenue South, about three blocks South of this building. The one year that I worked for them, they held their Christmas party at a bar near their old haunts which was, you guessed it, at a bar called ‘Live Bait.’ That’s why I knew that building so well, we used to hang out at this bar and drink quite a bit of Jameson’s.

New York, for me, is like that. Having worked there for eight years in the game business, and having done off-broadway theater there for years prior to that, there probably aren’t many restaurants or bars south of 23rd street I haven’t been in at least once, whether I remember them or not

Somehow, to me, having a company Christmas party as a bar called Live Bait is something that could only happen in NYC. Not quite the same as Mesa or Gilbert Arizona, where the last company I worked for wouldn’t have considered dumping their garbage in a place that looked or felt like this place did (does). But for those of us who worked at SPI, there couldn’t have been a better place to celebrate that holiday.

Glad I snapped this one, for sure.

Pathways

Posted by Chris Klug – January 23, 2010

5D and Silver Efex yet again

Earl on his blog talked about how he captures images of pathways. That comment really resonated with me as I tend to do the same; I know for me it’s because I am fascinated with the road we walk. How I got here, which direction I am walking; where I am going. It’s not a strength so much, as I think that distracts me from being ‘here now.’ But, especially after Earl made his comment, I understood how much that fascinates me as well.

This is important insofar as I endeavor over time to find my ’style’ or ‘voice’ as a photographer. Maybe (laugh) it’s capturing images of breakfast condiments, and maybe it’s roads/pathways. I don’t know, but I am aware that discovering that is one of my goals.

I have desired to do a blurb book, and it seems like I ought to gather together my pathways images into one volume and see how that feels.

Regarding the image above, I continue to be very happy with the 5D + Nik Silver Efex combo. This image was in a place near Seattle called Carkeek Park. There was a sign near this stream that the Salmon had returned here, and visitors were warned to take care not to disturb them (by doing things like throwing stones in the water as that might dislodge the eggs, etc.). This really caught my attention because I had no idea that Salmon would spawn in creeks this small and shallow, but there you go.

One last quick note: the replacement 645e arrived today from KEH, and so I’ll be heading out later today to see what’s up. I hope it works, I really do.

Tonality in Bothell

Posted by Chris Klug – January 22, 2010

5D & Silver Efex

This week I’ve been on a business trip in Ray Country visiting Microsoft. Looks like I might be coming back here again a couple times later this year. Got out today to do some capturing of images and liked the tones in this little still-life. Post more after I return tomorrow. I really like the Pacific Northwest.

This image above deserves some explanation. I have about a dozen of these images in my collection, from restaurants all over the UA. Every time I see this setup (table, sugars, creams, condiments) I want to shoot it. Don’t know, but I do. Today, as I was doing the b&w conversion in Silver Efex, I may have stumbled on some of the why. There is a nice little operetta of tones in the image. Partially, at least, I think it’s the balance of tones that attracts me.

Maybe I should just embrace this little quirk and do a book with these images. Then, perhaps, I could move on.

Like this . . .

Posted by Chris Klug – January 18, 2010

Canon FTb, HP5

For a change of pace, an image on film shot from a trip to NYC in September, 2009.

Also, came across this gent on APUG, went to look at his work. Wow.

http://www.jonshiu.com/

Now, that’s a target to aim at (for me, anyway).

Going to Seattle on a business trip tomorrow, we’ll see what I get there. Maybe I’ll see Ray.