Flowers Anyone?

[Christo.Stankulov]

Linhof MT2000.Symmar 150/5.6/Foma 200

[Christo.Stankulov]

Linhof MT2000.Symmar 150/5.6/Foma 200

[Eric James]

Taken a few minutes after midnight of the summer solstice - Twenty Mile Creek, Turnagain Arm (Southeast Alaska) - the most glorious display of alpine lupine I've ever seen or imagined (eight seconds through a 150mm Sironar S on Velvia 100 pushed a stop).


After Midnight by Neanderthal EAJ, on Flickr

[Jim Cole]

Wow, Eric. I'm familiar with that area, but I never had the fortune to see it like that! Very well done.

[Jody_S]

Taken a few minutes after midnight of the summer solstice - Twenty Mile Creek, Turnagain Arm (Southeast Alaska) - the most glorious display of alpine lupine I've ever seen or imagined (eight seconds through a 150mm Sironar S on Velvia 100 pushed a stop).


After Midnight by Neanderthal EAJ, on Flickr

Excellent!

[Corran]

Well I think you just got my vote for best color photo posted here in a while. Wow. I'm exceedingly jealous.

[pdmoylan]

Eric, simply great! It looks as if you used a grad filter.

pdm

[Eric James]

Thanks folks!

PDM, the sun had set behind me; when I was shooting sunward I know that I had used a grad but frankly I don't remember if I used one here - kinda looks like I did, but I don't think that I had. (I was using Cokin P-sized Singh-Ray filters back then and they would vignette with this lens, and there is no shading on the film.)

Jim, I went back the following year (traveling from Seattle) to shoot the field with a 135mm lens, but the field was virtually empty (maybe five percent of this display). I nearly cried. Much depends on the winter snows and spring temperatures. This past summer the field was on par with this awesome display, but the peak was delayed (perhaps a week or ten days after the solstice) and coincident with the mosquito peak.

For those interested, the location is marked on the Flickr page. There is parking on either side of the highway but the parking on the inlet side requires a narrow bridge crossing; you can drive across the bridge but then you have to cross the Seward Highway on foot, which can be quite dicey so care should be taken. Also, I recommend bear spray. This past spring there has been a Kodiak bear in the area - it had escaped from a nearby wildlife center and roamed the area for a few weeks before it was killed by a land owner


This was taken at sunset on the solstice using the same lens and a two-stop soft grad:


Solstice Lupine by Neanderthal EAJ, on Flickr

[Corran]

Eric, how did you meter with a grad for that (gorgeous) shot? Just curious as I don't have a consistent method myself.

[Eric James]

Corran,

For the sunset shot I used a Pentax Digital Spot meter to survey the scene and determine that the filtered range of values would fit within Velvia's 5-stop range. That is to say, I simply subtracted the GND filter's 2-stop effect from the approximately 7-stop range of light to assure myself that Velvia would capture the scene's tonality. I then ignored the filter's presence and metered off the alders in the mid-ground (the lighter shade of green) and used that value for my exposure.

I learned to use a spot meter for transparency film on this forum, and Eric Leppanen's contribution in the "How do YOU meter for transparencies?" thread was instrumental in helping me to get well-exposed Velvia slides; that, and bracketing like crazy.

http://www.largeformatphotography.in...l=1#post180851