Longer lenses & mountain-top details?

[QT Luong]

The best example of long-lens mountain photography I know is the work of Shiro Shirahata. He has produced 4x5 monographs of the Alps, Himalayas, Rockies, and Japanese mountains which are simply magnificent. The books are all out of print, but they are not too expensive considering the size and production values. "Nepal Himalaya" lists the focal lengths used, up to 600mm. You will not find washed out horizons in the photographs, made in general with very dramatic light.

[lostcoyote]

i don't use them all that often but on occasion, i find something worthwhile...

[al olson]

Wonderful image, Lostcoyote.

I like the geometry and the use of shadow to balance the dark sky. I would bet that the print is even more stunning than the digital image.

What lens and film were you using?

[lostcoyote]

thanks, and i don't quite remember. it was Tmax 100 tho and it may heve been either a 300 or 360mm lens.

mt. clarence king, sierras, shot from the western flank in gardiner basin.

[lostcoyote]

here's that shot as seen in google earth

[jvuokko]

I use longer lenses quite much. However I don't have scanned sample from 4x5 (MF examples can be seen at my web site).

I am bit suprised that 240mm is considered as a long lens at 4x5, for me it is almost normal lens. I am used to think 370mm and longer lenses as 'long lens'.

When photographing mountains, forests and almost any kind of landscapes, I use a lot of either end's of my lenses: The couple of widests and couple of longest.

With MF I have used 200mm, 300mm and 400mm lenses a lot. The 150mm I have used when I have had need for large depth of field.
When comparing those lenses to 4x5 LF, focal lenghts would be aprox. 460mm, 690mm and 900mm. The 150mm of MF would be 350mm.

Now my longest LF lens is 450mm nikkor which I consider a bit short in many cases.

[Rakesh Malik]

I am bit suprised that 240mm is considered as a long lens at 4x5, for me it is almost normal lens. I am used to think 370mm and longer lenses as 'long lens'.

Same for me. I almost treat my 300mm as a normal lens, since it's my most used lens on 4x5

Now my longest LF lens is 450mm nikkor which I consider a bit short in many cases.

I get quite a bit of use from my Nikkor T*ED lens, in 500 and 720mm configurations. This weekend I photographed Mount Baker from Mount Constitution at 720 and 500mm. I haven't gotten the film developed yet, but I'm definitely looking forward to seeing it... but for an approximation, there's an image shot with my dSLR at http://tamerlin.blogspot.com. I used about a 210mm (105mm macro + 2x teleconverter) to get close to the field of view that I had with the 4x5 with the 500mm, and shot this so that I'd have something to share until I get the film developed and scanned and all that.

[Heroique]

The lessons here are helping me along in a new hiking season – especially tips about “time of day and angle of the sun.”

These granite spires rise near Hwy 20 in N. Washington (which recently re-opened), and it was worth a few falls in deep snow to arrive in time for this splash of early-morning light.

I knew the sun would be on my right shoulder, so I brought a linear polarizer to dramatize the sky. But I wish I’d remembered my .6 GND filter too.

Tachi 4x5
Fuji A 240mm/9
1/4 sec. @ f/16
Velvia-50 (refrigerated old version)
Neutral camera & front rise (w/ linear polarizer)
Epson 4990

[Jim Galli]

The problem with the longer lenses is of course heat waves rising from the earth and creating atmospheric turbulence. Our eyes don't see it (sometimes out here in the desert our eyes DO see it) but our lenses do. Just for fun, take some bright binoculars and sit in a spot where you can look out over a long flat distance from 1/2 hour before sunset until sunset. If you watch continuously on a good day you will see a 5 to 10 minute period where the "range worms" subside. We all talk about prime time, but to our lenses this is the true prime time. That 5 minute period is the only time the lens can achieve it's true resolution of a distant subject. What happens is during that short period the differential between the earths temperature and the atmospheric temperature merge and the waves stop. 5 - 10 minutes is usually all you get. This is the reason Bradford Washburn's photos were so successful. Not that he only shot in that 5 minute period, but he was up and out of the wormy atmosphere looking down on the mountains he photographed from the air.

[Blueberrydesk]

This is the reason Bradford Washburn's photos were so successful.

That's quite a point and shoot he's holding there...