A couple portraits on 4x5 of Ed

Ed and I go photographing occasionally, and this time I asked for him to let me do a couple portraits of him. Both were shot on T-Max 100 with a 150mm Schneider APO lens. The first was at f/16, the second at f/11. I printed the first as an 8x10 for Ed and I'm pretty happy with the result.

Withlacoochee Project, Part 4

I've been a terrible blogger lately. I had an unscheduled trip though that took me out of town unexpectedly and then got sick, but finally I got to shoot some today. Here are two snaps of contact prints from 8x10 x-ray film - my scanner is currently disconnected so that's all I have. These were taken along what I believe is a tributary of the Withlacoochee, so I'm including it with the other project shots.

Both were taken with a 210mm Graphic Kowa at f/32. I added a little warm toning with my computer:

Square Format Fun

I've been a really bad blogger this past month. Only 3 posts the entire month! Well, I'm going to try to be better this month, though I am working so much lately on various projects I can't promise anything.

Well anyway for the first time last week I was able to shoot some 6x6 square images, both from an old Rolleiflex TLR and a Hasselblad 500c/m. The Rollei I was testing for a friend and the Hasselblad is a camera that I bought to resell. I had a lot of fun with the Rollei, and I'm hoping to get one. The Hasselblad, well I absolutely hated that camera. It just didn't gel with me. Too complicated to bother. I'd rather have a TLR.

Here are a selection of images, first from the Rollei. These were shot on Delta 3200 film. I scanned these with my Nikon D800E because my scanner is not currently hooked up and I didn't feel like messing with it. Also I left the film border mostly because I'm lazy:

And here is some shots from the Hasselblad. These I took with a roll of Shanghai GP3 film that I was given. I developed it in XTOL. They look pretty good considering. I also let the DSLR do an auto white-balance which gave them so color, which I liked. These were taken around the VSU campus at night:

The Hasselblad photos are obviously technically better (it helps I was using a 100-speed film and a tripod) but the Rollei was so much more fun to shoot. Hopefully I can find one at a decent price.

Providence Canyon, 8x10 style

Yes, I'm still alive, if anyone was wondering!

I've been swamped with "real life" lately, working on a great number of projects, both personal and professional, as well as starting up my summer job that I have done every summer for 8 years now (working at an instrument repair shop.

Anyway, as I mentioned last post, all last week I was out of town in various locations. My first stop was Providence Canyon. I decided to lug my 8x10 all over this canyon system because I wanted to try a new lens primarily, but also because I'm crazy. My load was somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 pounds or more.

Well all that and I only took two shots. But they came out really well. When I get a chance I'll be contact printing both of these. So I also took my nice shiny new D800E as well. I didn't really take a single outstanding shot on the D800E. As much as I try, I just can't quite gel with digital shooting landscapes. I think the tactile experience of shooting a large format camera, along with the act of composing the image on a huge piece of glass, just works for me better.

Here are the shots. The first is taken with a 210mm f/9 Graphic Kowa lens that I just picked up. I really like this lens as this is my favorite focal length on 4x5 (kind of like a 28mm on 35mm cameras). The second is also with a newer lens that I got at a great price, a Nikkor 120mm f/8. This is a super-wide (equivalent to 17mm) lens. Both were shot with some HP5+ film I was given. I have seen some photos from HP5 before and I've never liked them. I still don't like the film really after shooting these but it's not too objectionable, especially since they'll be contact printed. I simply don't like the clumpy grain structure. I must admit it scanned very well though:

More images from the rest of my trips will be incoming shortly, so stay tuned...

Withlacoochee Project Part 3

It's been too long since my last post. I've been exceedingly busy, too busy to shoot much, but Saturday I will be up in the north GA mountains for a week, so I hope to have many images to share afterward.

But before that, here are three more 8x10 images from the Withlacoochee River that were finished up recently. The first image was shot with the Nikon 300mm f/9 lens while the other two were with the Gundlach Radar 300mm f/4.5. As you can see I'm still occasionally having lots of problems with banding on my scans. One of these days I need to get that scanner open and clean it.