Welcome, new (and old) readers

Brief note to say hi to the folks that have recently signed up for the email version of the blog and those that hit the site directly or read in an RSS reader.

I've noticed a big jump in subscriptions and readership over the last couple months -- I must be providing *something* of value. Drop me a note if there is anything in particular you want me poke into or write about. Thanks for reading! -- Brad

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Black and White Development Times

I'm no expert, but seems like the The Massive Dev Chart (MDC) is a great resource for figuring out development times for the basic combination of film type, developer type, and development temperature. For example, I shot Ilford HP5+ film, and developed with Kodak D-76 developer. The MDC instantly told me that I should develop my ISO 400 film for 7.5 minutes at 20-degree C. Others on the www suggest using the MDC as a really good starting point, and then adjust based on experience.

Better yet, I downloaded the MDC iPhone app, which has built in look-up of the MDC charts, plus phase timers, adjustments for development temperatures, and C/F conversions all built into the interface. I was able to put in info like 74.4 F room temp and the MDC iPhone app adjusted the 7.5 min dev time to 5 min 21 seconds, and then adjusted all the timers accordingly. Really handy app.

Results? Here is example from the 2nd roll I just developed.



By the way, here's the "Holga-Look" from the same roll -- light leaks, some weird plastic object rolling around, double exposure, softness all over.... I was actually sort of amazed that the above ph0to came from same camera...

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Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Holga

A tremor in the Force. I have successfully developed and processed my first roll of film. It's also the first roll of medium format film I have ever taken, and my first foray into the world of the Holga camera.

Digital is much easier, but this film stuff is sooo much fun: the second guessing of the light and exposure, the crappy controls of the Holga, the smell of photo chemicals, and the waiting, waiting, waiting.... All of these factors make this photo of Lord Vader very special to me.

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HDR in the wild

I've talked a little bit about HDR -- High Dynamic Range -- imaging before. HDR allows one to combine the different levels of light that are beyond the ability of the typical camera to capture in single exposure -- you do so by taking multiple exposures of an image at different exposure levels (e.g., underexposed, correct exposure, overexposed) and then use special software to take these various images and combine into a single image that can show more details at all levels -- from the shadows to the highlights.

In Blue Ridge, I tried some various HDR shots during the weekend. The first photo below is a 7-exposure shot -- completely planned for and taken with the intent of making an HDR image. I shot at -3 EV, -2EV, -1EV, 0EV, +1EV, +2EV, and +3EV. I simply imported the 7 photos into Photomatix and combined and tone mapped them to a single image. Lots of detail in the shadows (you can see in the port and window if you zoom in enough), and the railings in the sunrise are not blown out. Great example of how HDR can help create an image.



The next shot is a haphazard HDR, I was shooting various exposures without considering HDR. In post-processing this week, I found 3 shots of various exposures, roughly -2/3 EV, 0 and +1EV and combined them into single shot. HDR helped me pick up a lot more detail in the trees and shadows.



This next shot is a pseudo-HDR -- made from a single exposure. We were in woods, I had no reflector or flash and Ansley's face turned out to be completely dark in the original shot. I tried to salvage the photo by taking the single shot and "underexposing" and "overexposing" it in Lightroom so I wound up with 3 shots. I then combined those in Photomatix the best I could. I was able to tease out some details in the shadows, but it was at the expense of making this look really artificial and has some of the cartoony HDR look that I absolutely hate. Also, these pseudo HDRs look really over-sharpened to me, not sure why, but probably because the overexposure version really blew out the details.


Sort of obvious, but better HDR shots come from those you seriously plan for, and those that have more exposure range in the base photos. I'm going to try printing some of these HDR shots and see how much more detail on can really see in the prints. Will report on that later...

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Momentum

Amazed at how much photography momentum I have at the moment. I stopped looking at Flickr, photo.net, and trying to blog -- forced myself to shoot a bunch instead. Shooting stuff outside the studio setting and getting outdoors too. The PhotoChallenge.org folks helped me get my butt away from the computer. Their little exercise sort of kick-started my photo metabolism...

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Lake Blue Ridge

A rather strange looking intake tower at the Lake Blue Ridge Dam. Right before sunrise, the last minutes of twilight. The mist saying goodbye...

Here's what it looks like from the sky...



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Walking / Foyer

Couple of opportunistic shots in last 18 hours: Kids and dog on the river trail at sunset last night, and the foyer this AM as I was getting ready for work.

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Dedicated to the Brave Men who go Down to the Chips in C (camera, that is)

Sorry for the really bad pun in the title.

How close can I get? Well, with a 100mm prime lens and a full set of Kenko extension tubes, I can get this close. I guess if I somehow did tubes and my 400mm it would be (4x?) closer, but not sure if I would be able to throw a whole bunch of light in there to support that shot.


This was challenging to light -- the camera was so close to the subject that it kept getting in way. I used an overhead softbox, and then had a raking light and handheld reflectors off to the side. I guess I see why people use ringflash on macro shots -- can illuminate everything pretty well that way.

By the way, the photo above is full, un-cropped 21M pixels. If I make a simple 1:1 (800x533) crop, this is how it comes out. How's that for focus! The DOF is about as narrow as that dime is...



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Film Developing

Well, now I have one roll of 120 B&W and one roll of 120 Color film that need to be developed. There are probably not too many shots, because every time someone saw the Holga, they grabbed it and started fiddling with knobs or pressing shutter. Who knows what I'll get out of them.

I decided to develop the B&W myself, and then scan the film with a scanner (I don't want to make prints myself just yet). Chemicals and equipment are cheap, and darkroom is really not needed just to develop.

Learned that on a Sunday, there is pretty much nowhere in Atlanta that you can buy film developing chemicals. The usual suspects, Showcase and Photo Barn, are closed on Sunday. Did learn of a couple of new darkroom supply places in Atlanta, QualityCamera.com and WingsCamera.com, but they are closed on Sundays too. So much for impulse buying.

So, I went ahead and ordered stuff from B&H in NYC for delivery. Too busy this week to drive around downtown looking for supplies. Will probably be a week before I get the package.

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The Holga 120N

I bought a Holga camera - a $25 plastic camera from china with a plastic lens. It is a film-based medium format camera. It has only one aperture setting (probably somewhere around f/11 or f/13). It has only one shutter speed (probably around 1/60th second). The "focusing ring" has 4 settings: an icon of one dude, an icon of 3 dudes, an icon of a group of dudes, and and icon of a mountain.

I've loaded it with B&W ISO 400 film, which given all the constants above, is probably going to be best for early morning and late evening -- golden hour and twilight shots outside. Probably won't be good for indoor shots, unless it is a sunroom or a well lit museum or atrium or something like that.

I took one shot this morning. Amazing how film made me much more deliberate in thinking about composition and light and "worthiness" of the photo before I snapped the shutter release. Digital is cheap and immediate. Film is costly and timely. I wonder if it'll make me a better photographer?

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Wedding Picnic in a Barn

I went to a wedding picnic held in a barn. This is how I remember it.

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Lighting Abstracts

Couple more abstracts, again focusing on lighting with these. 1) Raking Light and Refraction, 2) Backlit.


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Shadow Abstracts

Studio Strobe, with 10-degree grid, *and* a snoot, 8 feet away from the table. Was trying to make the light as hard and parallel as I could. The sun does a much better job!

Anyway, this is potato masher and a couple of pieces of foam core. Also the blue bottle from earlier post below.






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boids

On the eve of my day off. Hanging out on the back deck at sunset and twilight watching the birds. This is the same 100-400 lens as used at PDK Airport photos below. It doesn't do as well in low light situations.



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