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Thread: What's your windy day technique?

  1. #1

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    What's your windy day technique?

    Hola! I've just finished a week on Hwy 1 from Hearst to SF. Mostly camping but I did take my 8x10, pelican cases, a wagon, and a tripod that is heavy enough to do bench presses with.

    I'm not really a landscape kinda guy, but I had an opportunity to shoot something by the ocean south of Half Moon Bay. And it was windier than Chicago politics. I didn't think much of it, since I rarely do this kinda of stuff, but only when I saw my meter give me something like 8 seconds f/45 on my "box of chocolate, never know what shutter speeds work on my Wolly 159mm that's older than anything I got. I was looking at my ancient Kodak MasterView 8x10 on the heavy tripod and I can see it vibrate a little.

    What worked for me, was I have an old bike inner tube, tied it to the rear standard, and tied it to a railing. Then removed the dark slide, hugged the camera like an old GF that I haven't seen in 2 years and probably will never again, and hit the shutter release for I think somewhere between 2 sec and 8 sec.

    Wondering what you all do?
    --

  2. #2

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    Re: What's your windy day technique?

    Using a short lens on a camera helps on Windy Days. I tried to use a long lens on my 4x5 Gowland at Mount Rainier once on a day when wind was whipping across the bare snowfields. I gave up because the entire bellows getting pushed left and right to the extend I could see the bellows blocking the image light in the ground glass.

  3. #3

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    Re: What's your windy day technique?

    Add “and Wind” to the title.

  4. #4

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    Re: What's your windy day technique?

    Quote Originally Posted by domaz View Post
    Using a short lens on a camera helps on Windy Days. I tried to use a long lens on my 4x5 Gowland at Mount Rainier once on a day when wind was whipping across the bare snowfields. I gave up because the entire bellows getting pushed left and right to the extend I could see the bellows blocking the image light in the ground glass.
    Dang that's really windy!!!
    --

  5. #5

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    Re: What's your windy day technique?

    You could take a Beano, but when out in the woods I just let 'em rip.

  6. #6
    Foamer
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    Oct 2010
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    Re: What's your windy day technique?

    I live in the Dakotas and know wind
    It's blown trains off the tracks here. First strategy is shoot behind a wind block such as my car, shrubs, boulders. Second is to not extend my tripod and spread the legs photo"ing close to the ground
    I once set up a tent and shot from inside it.


    Kent in SD
    In contento ed allegria
    Notte e di vogliam passar!

  7. #7
    http://www.spiritsofsilver.com tgtaylor's Avatar
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    Re: What's your windy day technique?

    If the wind direction is at an angle to the camera/bellows, a big "golf" umbrella will block it. I always carry one in car truck for just such occasions. I once shot a negative of the Golden Gate Bridge with Marshall's Beach for a foreground with a 610mm apo-Nikkor from the top of a bluff in a driving gale force wind using the umbrella. It worked: not the slightest vibration appeared in the bridge cables which were over a mile away.

    Thomas

  8. #8

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    Re: What's your windy day technique?

    Quote Originally Posted by Two23 View Post
    I once set up a tent and shot from inside it.


    Kent in SD
    Interesting, was thinking today about those "changing tents". NOt a film changing tent but a camping changing tent.
    --

  9. #9

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    Re: What's your windy day technique?

    Quote Originally Posted by tgtaylor View Post
    If the wind direction is at an angle to the camera/bellows, a big "golf" umbrella will block it. I always carry one in car truck for just such occasions. I once shot a negative of the Golden Gate Bridge with Marshall's Beach for a foreground with a 610mm apo-Nikkor from the top of a bluff in a driving gale force wind using the umbrella. It worked: not the slightest vibration appeared in the bridge cables which were over a mile away.

    Thomas
    Sometimes the easiest answer is the best answer!
    --

  10. #10
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: What's your windy day technique?

    Very windy today. Strategy? I simply gave up. Instead of driving over to the ocean, I just drove uphill a few minutes to the lake, then spent the afternoon walking around it and taking fun otter shots with a Nikon instead. It's been so windy this whole summer, that I've had to use MF far more often than LF. Last night the TV meteorologist explained that because the average temp inland this year, especially in the Central Valley, has been a fully 5 degrees higher on average than the norm for this time of year, heavy coastal fog and wind has been active considerably later in the season than typically.

    I have done a number of very precise shots in high wind using both 8X10 and 4x5 gear, but it's risky in terms of equipment damage. More than once I've had the entire 8x10 including big wooden Ries tripod suddenly tossed over twenty feet by a sudden wind gust. Amazingly, each time the landing was on soft herbage. But I'm tired of gambling with that scenario. Can't win every time, so I simply avoid bad wind now, and shoot MF instead under risky conditions. I did break a Sinar front standard riser once when the camera landed on a granite boulder during a severe thunderstorm. It was an easy component to replace; but if that had happened to one of my wooden folders, they would have been broken into splinters.

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