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Chris Klug

Photoshop World in Review

Posted by Chris Klug – September 7, 2010

I’m back from Photoshop World, and thought I’d give a little bit of my perspective into the event.

First, the overall conference was great, and worth every penny. If you haven’t gone, and can swing it some time in the future, I encourage you to go. Every session I attended was moderated by a very knowledgeable instructor, and I learned something new in every session. The sessions ran from 8:15 in the morning until 7:15 at night, with a three-hour break for lunch (and, of course, time to wander the aisles of the vendor area). Speaking of vendors, every software vendor and hardware vendor there were offering show specials, and if you came to PSW with the ready cash and a shopping list, you could easily make back your conference fee and more by taking advantage of the specials offered. Epson printers (more about them below) were offering a $250 special discount plus free shipping, for instance, so a new 2880 printer could be had for less than $500! It was very tempting.

Almost every session I attended gave away free software. A copy of Adobe Creative Suite here, a copy of the Nik tools there . . . there’s no question that the combination of savings plus the give-aways plus the knowledge to be gained left me with a big ‘thumb’s up’ for PSW as a whole.

Now, for some specific observations:

  • Best teacher of any session: Joe McNally, without a doubt. Every session instructor was knowledgeable, but there is a difference between having lots of knowledge and being able to communicate it effectively. Joe had both qualities in spades. He didn’t try to do too much in his one-hour sessions, and you left with a clear understanding of his main point. If I ever wanted to really learn a great deal about flash, I’d take Joe’s workshop before I would consider anyone else’s.
  • Other instructors tried to do too much in their hour, or weren’t very good public speakers, or peppered their valuable info with too many opinions or self-promotion for my taste. Almost all the speakers were very good photographers, some great photographers, but, honestly, I didn’t need them telling me off-topic info so much.
  • The best work I saw at the show was Jay Maisel’s, and  he didn’t say much about it, he just let it speak for itself. He didn’t, for instance, mention off the cuff that this image won an award or that image was his best seller or any such thing. And, as I said in a previous post, much of the work he showed in session #2 was displayed for the first time publicly.
  • The work of these other photographers was both stunning and inspirational, don’t misunderstand me, but the contrast between Jay’s approach and some of the others was revealing.
  • I understand it was a PHOTOSHOP show, not a PHOTOGRAPHY show, but I do wish there were more sessions about technique. They certainly had some, and they were good, I just wanted more.
  • From a scheduling perspective, an hour per session is a fine-sized slot, but some topics needed more time. Or, conversely, some instructors needed to cut back. One instructor in particular, who I listened to for three full sessions, brilliant and knowledgeable, never got through any topic and was always rushed at the end. I learned a lot, though.
  • In Jay’s sessions I struck up conversations with three photographers seated near me and all of them still shot film quite a bit. I didn’t take that as coincidence, bunch of film shooters sitting in Jay’s session.
  • I carried my Bessa around with me all the time, and I’ll be posting images as soon as I develop the rolls. A number of people recognized the camera, and those that did invariably gave me kudos, as in “good for you, carrying a film camera around a show like this!”
  • The Epson booth had a display of prints from people like Maisel, showing off Epson’s new lines of Hot Press and Cold Press papers and their new large format printers. I was gob-smacked at the quality of both the color and b&w. I could hardly pull myself away. Amazing prints. I almost bought a new 2880 on the spot.

If you go sometime in the future, try to do one of the pre-conference day-long sessions, as everyone I spoke to raved about them. McNally did a session using flash in the desert, another gent did a concert session, another did a wedding-style session. Lots of hands-on shooting. If I do the show again, I’ll certainly take part in one of those sessions.

Great time, high quality, well worth it.

Velvia @ ISO 1600

Posted by Chris Klug – September 3, 2010

So the last two days I’ve been at Photoshop World in Vegas. A number of the classes have been wonderful, but none more so than Jay Maisel’s class this afternoon. Jay was, as you might expect, a bit of a rebel, in that he didn’t discuss process or software but just images. He showed a portfolio of images he’s shot over the last six months, images he says have never been seen by anyone before today. To say they were inspirational would be an understatement. In the portfolio of work he displayed he clearly demonstrated his early training as a painter studying at Yale under Josef Albers (if you don’t know who he is, look here). Over the two hours of the class, Jay paraded image after image, much akin to someone showing off their vacation pics (“the first hour is the same shit I showed in March; the second hour is new shit”). But these images were clearly art, not just snapshots. The composition, the color, the choice of image, all were wonderful. There were images captured in Paris and Rome and, of course, New York. Images of his daughter and of a project he’s putting together related to 9/11.

He would pepper the slide show with quips like ‘you gotta get out and off your ass’ and ‘always take the damn camera with you’ and ‘to hell with everything else but the gesture; if you can capture the gesture it doesn’t matter if the frame is technically imperfect.’

Then, at the very end, he took a couple questions. One of the questions had to do with his brand (‘Nikon, of course, Canon is junk’) and his walk-around lens (“70-300; with high ISO I can use slower lenses on the street and still get high enough shutter speeds.”) Then he talked a little about his workflow. That’s where the quote emerged that inspired the title of this post. He said that he always shoots in ‘Vivid’ mode and sets his sharpness to ‘Extreme.’ I realized what that implied, that he doesn’t shoot RAW! (This at a conference where at least two of the instructors I heard have stated that if you don’t shoot in RAW you’re a fool!) “Anyone who doesn’t set their sharpeness to extreme is wasting their time,” he continued. I then realized that all of the images he’d showed looked full-frame, that he might not crop.

Someone jumped up at that point: “Don’t you shoot RAW?’ they asked. “Well, yeah, I shoot RAW+JPEG but, honestly, I never look at the RAW file.” And then: “NONE OF THE IMAGES YOU’VE SEEN TODAY WENT THROUGH PHOTOSHOP” (upper case letters mine). “I don’t edit images in Photoshop, really.”

So, essentially, what Maisel is doing is shooting an old-school film-like digital-Velvia equivalent workflow (setting at “Vivid” color) at high ISO (800 or 1600). And that’s exactly what the 300+ images he showed today looked like: Vividly-colored street photography with many compressed-perspective telephoto images which isolated their subjects in dim or fading light. He’s still using a ‘light table and slide film’ aesthetic; if the image works out of the camera, it’s a keeper; otherwise, it’s “junk.”

I’m still kinda stunned at his process.

More from Akron

Posted by Chris Klug – August 28, 2010

Just enjoying the images I captured on my day with Paul.

One more roll to scan. I’m about to go on a business trip to Seattle, so I won’t be able to scan anything until I return.

Leica M6 TTL

Posted by Chris Klug – August 28, 2010

HP5, Xtol, and a 50mm Summicron . . .

Before you start reading, just take a look at this image for a sec.

Look some more.

Ok.

Now we can start the post.

This past Sunday I spent with Paul Lester in Akron, Ohio, and we swapped cameras; he shot with my Bessa R2a mounting my 35mm Zeiss Biogon and I used his Leica M6 TTL with the accompanying 50mm Summicron. As we were parting, Paul said “I can’t wait for your write-up on the Leica, you don’t miss details and I want to know what you think.” So as to not make him wait, I summarized my off-the-cuff thoughts, then drove home, thought a lot more and have ruminated every day since then. Some of those ruminations made their way into my last post, about Brand Loyalty. I finally developed the rolls of HP5 last night, looked at the negs, scanned some, and wanted to share the impressions I have gathered.

Rangefinders in General

I’ve wanted a Rangefinder camera for the longest time, even going back to my FTb days. I had my aim on a Canon Canonet back around 1975. I remember shopping for one in the 47th Street Photo catalog. I can’t remember when I first came across the description of a rangefinder and the sense of “seeing beyond the framelines” when shooting with one but I had always wanted to try that idea. I never got one back then.

When I got back into photography, and realized that, in addition to shooting with my new Canon digital cameras, I would also continue to shoot film, I started to research rangefinders and finally realized what “Leica” meant. In 2004 or so I didn’t even know Leica had an SLR line, and when I read about the idea that one could buy a Leica lens and mount it on their Canon body with an adapter, I thought that *any* Leica lens could do that. When I found out  the author was talking about an ‘R’ version of a Leica lens, not the “M” version, I was crestfallen. But I knew I still wanted to audition some of that Leica magic.

But, oh the cost. So, I bought a combo I could afford: a Bessa body and a Zeiss lens. The rangefinder experience is as great as I thought, and there is no doubt in my mind that I’ve captured some very nice images with that combo. But I had always wanted to try the real deal. Especially after I discovered Steve Huff’s web site. His write-ups of Leica gear got my blood boiling again, his passion for the gear comes leaping off the page. So, when Paul let me know we would get together in Akron, I couldn’t resist asking him if I could use his M6 that day. He agreed. I shot two rolls of HP5. So, what did I think?

The M6 TTL body

Solid is as solid does. There is absolutely no doubt that as a piece of camera hardware, the Leica M6 TTL is in a class by itself. The construction and the feel is better than anything I have ever handled. The only camera that even comes close is a Canon F1n, a lone copy of which I owned for a couple weeks a year-and-a-half ago. I had bought a used copy from Adorama, there was a problem with the AE finder, so I returned it for repair. But they took forever to fix it, and I eventually canceled the order. The F1n was as close as anything has ever been to the Leica, but not really. The Leica’s fit and finish is wonderful. It handled great, and it was invisible in my hands. Interestingly, however, the Bessa has one advantage. On the back of the body, where you would rest your thumb, the Bessa has a hump of sorts which allows you to grip the back of the body with your thumb and this does give you a sense of security when you hold the camera. The Leica does not have this hump, and I immediately missed it. So did Paul after he shot with the Bessa for a while and then returned to the Leica. One could buy a grip, of course, to make up for this slight difficiency.

The Leica’s shutter is indeed quieter than the Bessa’s, and noticeably so.

Bottom Plate/film loading

The Leica famously has a bottom plate which must come off to load film. Much has been written about how clunky and weird this is. There is also a back door which opens so you can position the sprocket holes after you’ve dropped the film canister in the body. As soon as Paul showed me how to set this up, I could see how it would be easy to load film time after time after time. Paul mentioned a story about Annie Leibowitz where she can apparently load film in a Leica M while running full-out, and with the set up of the back and lower plate I can absolutely believe it. Why anyone would complain about this admittedly quirky way to load film I cannot imagine, because it is absolutely easier than opening the door, threading the take up reel, etc. The only weird thing I can think of is that there have to have been cases where people dropped the bottom plate and lost it. That was my big fear. But the process was extremely easy.

Exposure guides

The Bessa has more exposure info in the frame window than the Leica, but I liked the Leica’s simple right and left arrow much better. The Bessa shows you the proper shutter speed it wants by flashing the speed if the proper one is not currently selected, and it’s kind of annoying, actually. The Bessa has Aperture priority exposure if you want it, which is nice when you DO want it. But I wish they had chosen a more elegant way to display the exposure info.

Overall, while I did truly enjoy the picture taking experience with the M6 TTL, on a pure cost point of view, the price difference between the Bessa and the M6 is large enough that I would stay with the Bessa. You could buy three Bessas for the cost of one used M6 TTL, and while the M6 is a better-made camera, it’s not THAT much better. Do I want to own an M6 TTL some day? Yes I do. But that purchase is not at the top of my list.

The Summicron

Well, here is the deal, eh? I LOVED LOVED LOVED the lens. The lens is as special as I have heard. One reader of the blog confided in me that the 50mm Summicron was his favorite lens ever, and my-oh-my do I see what he means. While the low-res JPEGS in this post are nice enough, they don’t compare to the look of the full-res images on my screen. While I truly love the look of HP5 and Xtol,  I have never seen that combo look as beautiful as it does when combined with the Summicron.

Remember, I just developed rolls of HP5 in Xtol from my Disney Hall shoot, shot with the Canon 17-40L, and I can say without any doubt in my mind that I had to tweak those scans much, much more to get the images to look the way I like as compared to the images captured with the Summicron. When I tried the default settings for contrast and clarity I had just used with the Canon images, the Summicron images were too harsh by quite a bit.

The black & white film I shot with the Summicron looked just wonderful to my eye, not too contrasty but plenty sharp enough. I wish I had shot some color chrome or negative film while I had the lens, because the color rendering with the lens is supposed to be stunning, and the lens’ reputation with black&white film was certainly borne out by my experience. I just wished I had some Delta 100 with me that day, because the HP5 is just amazing. Why, Tri-X might even look good! (grin)

I have been looking for a 50mm lens to use on my Bessa for a while, and the search is officially over. I have now  begun saving for a 50mm Summicron in an M mount, and I am thinking of somehow auditioning a 50mm Summicron R lens with an adapter on my 5D.

For me, this is a case where the ‘cult’ of the hardware has been borne out by experience. At least in my case.

Thanks so much to Paul for lending me the camera for the day.

Brand Loyalty

Posted by Chris Klug – August 26, 2010

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.

#300: Prints & Printing

Posted by Chris Klug – August 23, 2010

Canon 5D Processed in Nik Silver Efex

“If you want to be a better photographer, then you must become a better printer.” — Vincent Versace

I mentioned late the week of August 13th that I had ordered proof prints from Aspen Creek to begin the process of realizing one of my goals for the year, to begin seriously printing my images. Over the past year-and-a-half I have succeeded in getting out of my own way in terms of publishing my images to the web, mainly through this blog. This is my 300th post, a number I never thought I’d reach, so I think I can celebrate that a little bit. Yea!

As part of that celebration, I wanted to create an entry with some deep thought behind it, and I considered meshing my desire to generate and mount and display some prints with the opportunity to share some thoughts about that process, not just as it relates to me personally, but the concept of ‘hard copies’ of our images. So, that led me to really thinking about the creation of prints, the act of making an image ‘real.’ And the week began, and lo and behold the 2000-pound gorilla in the photo blog world, The Online Photographer, begins a two-part essay written by Peter Turnley, no less, about printing traditional silver gelatin black and white prints and stories about a particular well-known master of that craft. You should all go and read those articles.

That two-part essay, along with Mr. Johnson’s follow-up, kind of eclipsed any efforts I might make to editorialize on the process of creating prints (artifacts) of the photographic process. In that way, my timing vis-a-vis this subject could not be worse. I pretty much have to assume that any reader of this blog already knows of The Online Photographer and has read those brilliant, wonderful, humbling articles. If you haven’t, do so mow. Articles like that made me want to get my darkroom setup pronto (which I am almost done with now).

To the Point

But, on to the print (point)! First of all, circling back, I received my prints from Aspen Creek and was appalled and depressed. Not because they didn’t do their job, on the contrary, they did a great job but rather that the creator (me) didn’t do his so much. There were so many issues with the prints, and all the issues brought with them thoughts of my days in the darkroom. I’ll list the issues in bullet form and then explain:

  • Sharpness: So, when I export images to the web, I use a Lightroom plug-in which allows me to just ‘sharpen for web content’ upon export. I don’t have to think about it much. This plug-in also has a setting for export for a print, and both settings are just general in their methodology. I experimented a bit when I exported, using Nik Sharpener Pro for one file, and when I looked at the images upon their return, I realized that I really need to understand this whole sharpening thing. I kinda got my first clue about that when I attended an online ‘webinar’ workshop with Vincent Versace where he described how you resurrect an image that is a bit soft through multiple layers of sharpening using multiple Nik tools (heh, he calls it the Lazarus Effect). This very educational session really opened my eyes to some of these issues (I remember him talking in the webinar about how, since the screen is only 72 or 90 DPI, you have to ‘over sharpen’ on the screen — “make it look a little crunchy” — so as to get the right sharpening in the print). Oy, this is a topic I know nothing about. I have never learned really anything about sharpening digital images, but it is obvious to get really great prints, you need to become an expert here. The screen as a delivery medium lets you be sloppy.
  • Focus: As I remember all too well from my darkroom days, as you enlarge an image, any defect in the focus becomes magnified. When I printed traditionally, I rarely made prints larger than 8×10. And I didn’t make 8x10s very often. I shot mainly FP4, and so to get 5×7 prints shot on FP4 to look out-of-focus in a 5×7 print, you REALLY had to screw up the focus on the day. But my proofs from Aspen were 8x10s from which I was going to choose images to print 16×20. Well, lordy, a number of those images were not going to make that cut, even though they had looked great when I exported them and showed them on the web at 92 DPI. Of course, there is an interrelationship between the Sharpness issue above and the Focus issue here, but man, I was a bit shocked. The size of images on the web makes you sloppy.
  • Color: Most of us know about color profiling your monitor and such. In fact, Aspen gives you an ICC profile for soft-proofing your color. But, of course, the feedback loop, even if you HAVE the ICC profile, is problematic, because I can use the ICC profile on my ‘profiled’ monitor, but if I am off, I won’t know until the proof comes back. In this particular area, I feel a bit at sea without using my own printer in house to close the feedback loop.
  • Crop: This, of course is a small issue compared with the others, but it is an issue nonetheless. I pre-cropped all the files and then sent them off the printer, but looking at the print in a real size at 360 ppi made me re-think the crop a bit.

Putting all of these issues together reminded me of the days when I would look at a contact sheet of images, circle a few, and then head off to the darkroom, only to emerge hours later and wonder why I would have chosen those images and how I could somehow capture the look of the small contact image when I blew it up. I was always disappointed, and this experience with Aspen made me taste that bitter pill yet again. And so thus I arrived at the tag line for this post:

Images on the Web are all Illusions, shadowy representations of the REAL image

Yes, they are. Tomorrow I’ll talk about the nature of prints and what they represent, and why I believe they are even more important as we go forward with digital photography than they ever were.

Hope Again

Posted by Chris Klug – August 14, 2010

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

Posted by Chris Klug – August 13, 2010

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

Posted by Chris Klug – August 12, 2010

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.

Ilford’s Pan F

Posted by Chris Klug – August 11, 2010

EOS 3, 17-40 L, Pan F, Xtol 1:1

I continue to scan in the roll of Pan F I captured at the Disney Concert Hall. Every frame is a surprise as the qualities of the film and developer combo deliver beyond my expectations. It’s an odd combo is that it seems both soft and crisp at the same time; soft in the way it captured the subtleties of the tones and reflections of the wall; crisp in its grain structure and sharpness. The way the curves on the curved wall in the center of the frame above are very pleasing to me, as are the range of tones in the details frame left.

And the dynamic range really shocks me. In the frame below, understand that the late-afternoon sun is coming from off-frame left; you can see the shadow from an off-camera part of the building on the vertical wall. The overhang at the bottom of the frame is in the shadow on the shadow side of the building. I didn’t really calculate the stops of range on site (I should have, I know) but there is clearly detail on the vertical wall as well as detail in the shadow overhang. One of the real technical challenges of the building is the dynamic range of the reflections. While you can certainly use the explosive highlights artistically, you always have to be aware of them as you shoot.

I kept copious notes when I shot the 120 rolls of Pan F (developed last night and looking good on the light table), but I didn’t take notes when I wielded the 35mm cameras the day before (this is from that first walk-around). I still have a roll of HP5 to develop and then I think I’ll have access to all the images I captured while on site at the Disney. I’m thinking of doing a Blurb book or something of the best ones.

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The school year approaches and I’ve made arrangements to use the medium-format scanners in the university’s darkroom/photo lab. There they have a Nikon 9000, an Epson 750, and a Imacon high-res scanner. Along with gaining the ability to scan my medium format negs, I plan to do some testing where I take a 35mm neg, such as the one above and scan it on the Imacon and compare with the Nikon 4000 scan above. Just to see what I’m missing, as it were.

Lastly, I recently received some prints back from Aspen Creek. One of my New Year’s resolutions this year was to begin making prints of my work, and so I sent out a dozen images to get back 8×10 ‘proofs.’ That was a very enlightening experience, but it deserves a post of its own.