6 posts tagged “photography”

Over the past three or four years of shooting, I'd like to think that I've come to understand the effect that things like lens length (perspective angle), aperture selection (depth of field), exposure time (freezing the state of motion), film selection, etc... all have on the images I shoot and create.  In fact, I'd like to think that I can take an image that I want to make and selectively choose and alter the various variables involved to ensure the outcome I desire.

What if i were to shake up the variables a bit.  Say I added a completely new environmental element - sound.  Would that affect what I see and how I see and shoot it?  What if i removed a different variable.  Say I constrained myself to a single angle of view.  How would that change the images I see in an environment?  

This is mostly an exercise in curiosity.  I want to see how the choices I have available to me when walking around with a camera affect what images I see around me and what I take away.  Frequently I have enough camera gear on me that with a quick change up of lenses, films and tossing in a tripod (or not!) I can get the images I see in front of me.  I wonder, though, if there aren't other images that I could be seeing - that I'm not seeing simply because other options are coming to my awareness first.  Options that, if I were to lock myself down, would quickly come into focus.

Sound on film:
I want to go to the same location, at roughly the same times of day on four different days.  On the first day, I want to wander around and shoot that area as I might do anyway.  On the  remaining days, I want to be shooting while listening to various soundtracks - a different one for each day - and see how what I shoot is affected by what i'm listening to while shooting.  

Perspectives on film:
Like the above, but this time focusing on perspective.  Four shoots at the same general area/location with 4 different lenses.  If i'm going to use the hasselblad, it'd be the 40mm, the 80mm, the 150mm, and 300mm (150mm on a 2x extender).  I won't cheat and add macro in to the mix.  Though, looking at the world through a macro lens can be a very different/engaging experience.

Time on film:
Again - four rounds of shooting, but this time focusing on exposure times.   One set of shots taken at 1/1000s for maximum freezing (or possibly 1/500th of a second - I can get 1/1000s with the mamiya, but the hasselblad caps me at 1/500th).  One set taken at ~1/50s, pushing the limits of handholdability.  Another set at 1/2s to 2s to play with motion blur.  Finally, a last set of long exposures at 20s+ (which will necessarily be much longer courtesy of Reciprocity failure).

Depth on film:
Yup, you guessed it.  Four more rounds of shooting, this time playing with depth of field - from the razor thin (at least on MF) f/2.8 out to the insanely deep f/32 (alas, nothing that I have would, at the moment, allow me to approach f/64 :).

For more extreme variations I could constrain myself even more.  Tell myself that I have an 80mm lens, shooting at 1/100s, at f/8 on 320 film.  Worried about over exposure?  Focus on something that is in more shade, or wait for the clouds.  Worried about under exposure?  Tough - find better light - or maybe use that frame to play with multiple exposures, all shot at 1/100s at f/8.  If I really wanted to be a rat fuck bastard to myself in that situation I could even limit my focus distance to, say, 8 feet.  Don't worry, though, I don't think i'm in danger of coming anywhere near to the restraints provided in something like the Drawing Restraint series.

Anyway, it's a thought and visualization exercise.  One that I think will exist outside of the photo-a-day thing I'm running through (and need to catch up on from vacation!  Working on that one, though).

Yesterday, I nearly blew a roll of film in developing.  I was quite upset when, after developing, i got this:

Pretty much every shot on the roll had something similar going on with it.   I did a bunch of digging around online to try and figure out what had gone wrong with my developing, what I had messed up, and how i could prevent it from happening in the future.

Luckily, i found something.  It turns out what I was seeing was a result of either a) not using fixer long enough or b) bad fixer - but more importantly, it could be, no pun intended, fixed by re-immersing the film in fixer for another 5-10 minutes.  

I mixed up a new batch of fixer, and re-fixed the film, which now gives me this:

A much, much better result.  

Some of the film from this batch still has problems,   There's some bizarre white spots on some of the scans, that I think might be an issue with  the scanner, or possibly dirt on the film.  I also had a lot of problems getting the film loaded up - and wouldn't be surprised if some of my remaining issues with the film are the result of that.

For another comparison, here's what the banana shot looked like on first develop/scan last night:

Today over lunch, I think i should run/bike up to looking glass and buy a new set of developer chemicals and also see about getting myself a changing bag - reduce the risk of fogging, and also, hopefully, reduce the risk of problems while loading film reels that lead to me destroying the film in other ways.

one of my cameras appears to have sprung a light leak - i'm not entirely sure where it is, or under what circumstances it occurs, since not all shots on the film have it - but the ones that do, it doesn't leave a lot to the imagination about what it might be.

More disturbingly/annoyingly, i have other film that is showing bizarre marks along the film itself.  I -think- this may be a by-product of attempting to develop two rolls of film in containers at the same time - chaining chemicals from one to the other.  That this is happening is leaving me wondering whether or not I should be using a filtering funnel when swapping out chemicals.

I'm also thinking it might be time to see about re-freshing my diafine.  I should also probably replace my fixer, and after a couple of rounds of dealing with annoying water spots.  Yet, in spite of all of this, I don't seem to quite be able to stop shooting with film.  At least, as long as i'm not running out of film.

Never fear, though - i'm not neglecting the digital side of my eye, either.  I've even got proof!

red roses

I just recently got the canon 24-105mm f/4L IS lens.  I've only had it for a few days, and I already love it.  It's not that much heavier than my 28-70mm f/2.8 lens was - but it's L glass and has IS.  I love the IS.  I want to continue to do more shooting with it, but I think my camera has a new 'permanent attachment'.  To be honest, there never really was much doubt for me as to what was going to become my next normal lens - having rented the 24-105mm f/4L IS in the past, as well as the 24-70mm f/2.8L, and owning a 28-70mm f/2.8 (tokina) and playing a little bit with the 28-135mm consumer IS lens.

There's two more lenses that I want to get to complete my troika of 'primary lenses'.  The first is the 16-35mm f/2.8L.  I love its low light handling and the very wide angle and fairly short minimum focus distance (11 inches) makes it great for things like club photography, which I really want to get back into.  I don't think i'll be buying this lens till the summer - but I can readily get it to rent when I need/want it, so that's good.

The third lens that I want to complete my set is a good 'long' lens.  I've written multiple times about my lens thoughts and now things are coming down to the wire.  I've narrowed down the field to two lenses.  The first is canon's 70-200mm f/4L IS lens.  I've rented and borrowed the 70-200mm f/4L before in the past - and there's a lot that I love about that lens.  It's a light lens - not much heavier than the 24-105mm f/4L IS - in fact with the handstrap on my camera, i can easily aim/shoot single handed with that lens - and can definitely comfortably carry it around for hours off the handstrap.  

The only downside to it is that 200mm is actually not very long, especially on a full frame sensor like i've got on the 5d.  To counter that I could always get an extender.  The 1.4x extender would turn it into a 98-280mm f/5.6L lens.  The 2x extender would turn it into a 140-400mm f/8L lens.  Of course, you'll note that the extenders drop the maximum aperture of the lens (and I believe with the 5d, an f/8 maximum aperture means the auto focus mechanism will no longer function).  Then there's the fact that I would need to regularly swap the extender in and out.  On the flip side - how frequently will I want the longer range?

The other lens that is a strong contender is the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS lens.  Yes, it's a slower lens than the 70-200mm out of the gate - but at 400mm it's faster than the 70-200mm with a 2x extender.  It's a bit of a beast though, at nearly twice the weight/volume than the 70-200mm.  Also, while the 70-200mm has intenral zooming (length doesn't change as you zoom) the 100-400mm extends as it zooms, and at 400mm it extends nearly 40% further off the front of the camera.

So, to help making the final decision I am actually currently renting both lenses - they showed up this morning.  There is a slim chance I may extend my rental to take one (or possibly both, even?) of these lenses with me to costa rica in march.  The cost of the rental is worth it to me to make sure that I buy the Right Lens[tm] when I do.

First impressions?  My reactions to the lenses based on sizes/past experiences is pretty right on.  The 70-200mm I can have on 5d and still comfortably handle the camera one handed.  While i'm sure a full day of it would lend to some level of fatigue, i'm sure combining it with a next strap and/or time in the camera bag when not actively shooting would counter that.

The 100-400mm, however, is even more of a monster than i thought.  At 100mm it still feels longer than the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens and it is heavy.  While I can pick up the 5d one handed with this lens I almost immediately feel the tension on my wrist.  This is definitely a double handed lens/camera combination.  Ths IS makes it possible to handhold for sharp shots though - with some stupid test shots around the apartment (sometimes 20 minute full rebuild times aren't a bad thing) I'm impressed that I can shoot at 400mm with 1/200s or even 1/100s handheld and still get sharp results.  Thank you Canon Engineering!

That said - I love the range of the lens.  And with the push/pull design of the zoom - I can very quickly go from 100-400mm.  Combined with using a separate focus lock button, and the fact that it maintains focus on a selected distance no matter how I adjust the zoom, and the mode 2 panning support for IS I think this could be a great lens to shoot things like, say, surfers.  

But damn, is it a beast.  I'm even dreading the thought of having this sitting in my camera bag while i'm using the 24-105mm on the 5d - and I'm not sure I would want to just let the camera/lens hang around my neck with a neck strap, i'd want to always be actively supporting it at least.  And there's no such thing as inconspicuous with it.  

I hope to get a lot of time/shooting in with both of these lenses over the next few weeks, alternating regularly between the two of them.  At the end of the day, I think my decision is going to come down to whether or not I can comfortably use the 100-400mm as a walking around lens.  Time will tell on that one.  

Right now, I have a feeling that I'm going to end up opting for the 70-200mm with a 1.4x extender kept in the camera bag.  Then, if I find myself regularly wanting to have the 400mm reach (say, if i start regularly shooting sports/surfers) then possibly consider either renting the 100-400mm as needed, or maybe snag the 400mm f/5.6L, which by some accounts is a shaper lens - though, if I do that, then it might be worth it to get the 100-400mm as a second long lens, as for $300 more than the 400mm f/5.6L i would get a 100-399mm zoom range -and- IS.  Not sure I want to deal with two long lenses, though.  On the flip side, one thing I like is having my camera bag always on me and ready for things I might want to shoot - and if the 100-400mm lens is too big to comfortably keep in there, then it may not be worth having.  

Yay for lots of rambling, eh?