From a recent trip to Yosemite:
610mm Apo-Nikkor. Beautiful lighting but the white cloud directly above the fall I find unappealing. Note the crevices in the rock on both sides of the wall.
Thomas
From a recent trip to Yosemite:
610mm Apo-Nikkor. Beautiful lighting but the white cloud directly above the fall I find unappealing. Note the crevices in the rock on both sides of the wall.
Thomas
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
http://www.searing.photography
It's a low resolution scan on which I spent as little time as possible. On the print the sky is smooth and not pebbly appearing as in the scan as is the cloud which appears as a soft white cloud - not the kind that you would want to burn-in. Likewise on the print the wall has plenty of texture - almost palpable, especially when wet - and I am thinking of waxing to bring back that wet look. Finally I may have overexposed (I use the sun) by a few seconds. I had made up fresh sensitizer the night before printing (I had enough remaining to do the 4 or 4 prints that I had in mind but that sensitizer was mixed on 10/28/17 and I didn't want to risk wasting time with bad sensitizer even though the color looked good. I believe printing speed increases slightly with fresh sensitizer although this exposure was pretty close as you can read the film rebate. Finally, I toned to completion with gold which darkened somewhat the top 1/2 of the waterfall and removed a lot of the brown coloration from the wall which I find appealing. Next chance I get I'm going to reprint this negative incorporating an exposure and toning adjustment and see what I get.
Thomas
Here's Carleton Watkins 1865/66 albumin print from a glass negative that appears in The Stanford Albums taken from a location close to mine but with a wider lens:
Looks pretty good for a 150+ year old print doesn't it?
Thomas
Half Dome, Study 1. From the same trip
I arrived early with a different composition in mind but the cloud over the dome remained parked for at least a half hour which motivated me the expose a sheet. 360mm Schneider Symmar-S.
Thomas
Water vapor or relative humidity. As I type this the RH at the above location is 98%. As a general rule the RH of a particular location reaches its nadir in the mid afternoon which is great for this particular location because the subject is front lighted at that time.What about being on the Coast makes this "tricky"?
Thomas
Alameda County Court House - Oakland, Ca 2018.
Not a good scan but the best I could do at the moment: Depending on the lighting, the solid blue sky in the print is slightly uneven from a solid middle grey but greatly exaggerated in the scan. IIRC the sky behind the court house registered middle grey on the meter with the court house one stop up. Maybe I should have placed the sky 1 stop above putting the court house 2 stops over? Suggestions are welcome.
760 Apo Nikkor on Toyo 810 MII.
Looking at it straight on with good light, the grey of the sky is smooth and even and from several feet away the court house stands out nicely - I think it registered 1-1/3 stops over the middle grey of the sky. I think that the scanner (Epson 3200) is picking up some of the white fibers of the paper in those areas. I'm going to try rescanning in Grey instead of 24 bit RGB and see if that makes a difference. In any event, it gets dry mounted, (waxed?), and filed in the new large Blick print rack being delivered today. The other rack is overflowing to the extent that prints can be damaged.
Thomas
Last edited by tgtaylor; 1-Jun-2018 at 08:30. Reason: Update
Alameda County Court House - Oakland, California 2018.
This is an early morning shot and the first chance to re-shoot it without the stratus came last Friday morning and I jumped to it. Saturday and Sunday were also stratus free but I had other things on the schedule. I got there just a tad earlier than before when the lake was calmer but noticed that the wind picked up when I was tearing down so I came away with a better reflection in the water than before. IIRC the in-camera exposure was the same as before - f64 @ 1/10 second but this time I had the Schneider Haze-1 filter on the lens and it did tame down the sky as I expected and the trees are greener. The construction sky crane had moved so I tweaked the composition to place the flagpole at the center top. The trade off was to eliminate the trees at the far left and include more of the office building in the background on the right but having the building centered seemed worth it. But now I see that I should have shifted a tad further to the left to eliminate the partial building in the background at the far right. The unevenness in the white color visible in certain areas is almost unnoticeable in the print and due to the sun's position. A littler later in the morning the sun would be more frontal leaving the right side of the courthouse in shadow.
I wish that the new electronic light meters like the Sekonic L758-DR which I have would allow you to choose the older setting that the old lens have: f64 @ 1/8 sec results in a slightly wider aperture than at 1/10 second and every time you go through the iteration "1/10 second is faster than 1/7 second so I have to let more light in."
Thomas
Last edited by tgtaylor; 25-Jun-2018 at 21:25.
Kallitype on Strathmore 300gsm paper; X-ray Negative made from 5x7 Silver Positive Contact Print
Bookmarks