Large (and maybe medium too) Format Photography

nathanm · « **on:** 20 Jan 2008, 10:44 pm »

As per SET Man's idea, here you go; a thread about large and medium format shots.

They told me it was too cold for outdoor photography yesterday, which I took as a personal challenge. Although uncomfortable, it wasn't totally unbearable. (-21°C) I could've easily gotten frostbite on my fingers if I wasn't careful, though. The shutter on the lens wasn't working at top performance either. Also the tripod just doesn't wanna stick too well in frozen ground.

This session's negs turned out really bad for some reason. I dunno if it was the slow shutter or what, but it might be my chemicals are exhausted. What you see here is resurrected from a nearly-monotone grey slab of negative to the naked eye. I also went "light" on this shoot with no backpack and took only my 180mm lens. I carried the camera over my shoulder attached to the tripod. I had my "new" Grafmatic back in my pocket with 6 shots in the magazine. Of course I forgot the darkcloth in the car, but shading the ground glass with my arms worked okay. The lake was really beautiful with great little circular chunks of ice by the shore and mists swirling about the water's surface beyond. I actually wished I had color film for a moment.

Thank goodness for good scanners and Photoshop, without which this shoot would've been a total loss.

SET Man · « **Reply #1 on:** 20 Jan 2008, 10:48 pm »

Hey!

Cool!

Well, now it would be easier to follow your adventure with LF photography and maybe MF for some here.

Take care,
Buddy

nathanm · « **Reply #2 on:** 20 Jan 2008, 10:56 pm »

Another one of those rear-shift stitch panoramas. Photoshop refused to stitch these two together unfortunately. If you look closely the right half of the frame has more motion blur than the left half. Probably an effect of the frozen shutter.

An 8x10 camera with an additional 4x10 back would be super sweet, but I should probably resist that temptation.

Robert57 · « **Reply #3 on:** 20 Jan 2008, 11:20 pm »

Nice images, Nathan. What a pleasure seeing someone taking the time and care to do the ole fashin LF set-ups, in arctic cold no less. Regardless how you recued the images in Photoshop, they look great on the monitor. The sharpness is superb.

Rob

brj · « **Reply #4 on:** 21 Jan 2008, 12:12 am »

Very nice, Nathan!

Was that first one taken from Lion's Den Gorge nature preserve? It looks like one of the bluff overlooks there, with a bit of zoom to pull in the Port Washington power plant...

nathanm · « **Reply #5 on:** 21 Jan 2008, 01:26 am »

I've taken a few at the Lion's Den before. Are you familiar with it? I had no idea this park was there, I was just driving around one day and said, "What's this?" I don't really have occasion to drive that way normally I guess.

This is from an earlier shoot, but essential the same vantage point:

The one really nice thing about the freezing cold was that I could walk on the snow much easier. On the foggy days it was like walking through wet cement.

brj · « **Reply #6 on:** 21 Jan 2008, 01:57 am »

Yep, I've visited it many times, and over many years now. I usually wander through there almost every time I come home to visit family. (I usually hit Kohler and Harrington Beach State Parks as well.) It is far more accessible now that they've added all of the boardwalks and laid down mulch and/or gravel on many of the trails, but it has always been an appealing little park. I don't know if you've found it yet, but there is a path down to the beach, besides the new set of massive timber stairs. Considering the amount of gear you are probably carrying, however, the stairs might be the better idea!

Actually, if you haven't been to Harrington Beach, you might want to visit it well. It is probably about as close to you as Lion's Den, but to the North instead of South. It used to be a limestone quarry 100 years ago, and has long since filled with water. (The quarry is just a couple hundred yards from Lake Michigan and is very deep with almost vertical sides.) There are a lot of old stone structures from the worker village and the remains of the wood dock in Lake Michigan used to ship out the limestone that would both probably provide you quite a bit of film fodder. Both sites have a lot of atmosphere, and the type of shots you're taking would really bring that out. A lot of diving birds tend to hang out just off the point where the old dock used to be.

I'm going to have to look over some of your shots again... I think I'd really enjoy having a couple of larger prints at some point (if I ever find a new house), both because I know the area and like the style.

nathanm · « **Reply #7 on:** 21 Jan 2008, 05:56 pm »

This one was deliberately about six stops underexposed, developed normally, barely visible on film and then scanned. Damn, I love film!

The big chore was removing all the electrical lines which kinda put a damper on the billowing action. Reality, who needs it?

The power plant kinda wrecked the old view here with all their new towers and giant mounds of earth and chainlink fences which block the view to the lake, but what the hey, I like electricity too.

I really would like to drive around in a bucket truck to shoot high vantage-point photos. That would be so cool.

SET Man · « **Reply #8 on:** 21 Jan 2008, 06:09 pm »

Quote from: nathanm on 21 Jan 2008, 05:56 pm

This one was deliberately about six stops underexposed, developed normally, barely visible on film and then scanned. Damn, I love film!

Hey!

Pretty interesting what digital scanning could do.

With 6 stops under I don't know if I could even getting anything on paper

If I remembered correctly I've read somewhere that there is a photographer who shot LF or MF on film, scan, make all the adjustment on Photoshop and than print those shot with real photo paper in traditional darkroom.

Anyway, very nice shot.

nathanm · « **Reply #9 on:** 21 Jan 2008, 07:16 pm »

Yeah, there's the digital negative thing; print inkjet on clear acetate and make silver contact print, but then I think there's also some kind of printer that images directly onto photo paper with lasers or LEDs or something. I am not familiar with that, though. I will probably try the inkjet neg thing just so my existing silver paper doesn't go to waste, but quite frankly if I use this "Harman Gloss FB AI" paper the inkjet prints are nearly indistinguishable from the silver prints. Very sharp, great tones and the surface has that kinda 'wet' look without being too reflective.

The printer has been a real treat to use with just its stock profiles. I was expecting to have to spend a load of dough on one of those spectrophotometer packages, but with just a few tweaks of the overall density the color balance matches my monitor very well. A RIP would probably print faster, but I'm not in a rush. Epson's Automatic B&W mode is very good, the neutral setting really is neutral!

lazydays · « **Reply #10 on:** 22 Jan 2008, 08:55 pm »

kind of a dumb question, but do you process your own film? I've lost my connection to get medium format film processed, and now I'm back in the hunt for a new source.
gary

gsm18439 · « **Reply #11 on:** 22 Jan 2008, 10:15 pm »

I do not know where you live, but there is an outfit in Arlington, VA called Black and White (703-525-1922 or www.blackwhitelab.com) that definitely can process medium format film and probably large format film as well.

nathanm · « **Reply #12 on:** 22 Jan 2008, 11:05 pm »

I process my own black and white film. E-6 seems a little bit too intimidating for DIY; more steps, more chemicals, precise temperature controls...but I haven't tried it so who knows? So far I have not completely screwed up any B&W which says a lot for how forgiving the process is. Of course, if I was doing 100% silver prints I would have to be lord of the retoucher brush.

lazydays · « **Reply #13 on:** 24 Jan 2008, 09:02 pm »

Quote from: nathanm on 22 Jan 2008, 11:05 pm

I process my own black and white film. E-6 seems a little bit too intimidating for DIY; more steps, more chemicals, precise temperature controls...but I haven't tried it so who knows? So far I have not completely screwed up any B&W which says a lot for how forgiving the process is. Of course, if I was doing 100% silver prints I would have to be lord of the retoucher brush.

That's kinda where I'm at right now. I could do B&W if I had to, and guess I could get all the stuff needed for color. I have a couple analizers, and two dicro enlargers (Omegas). Just thought if I could find somebody to process the film into negatives, that I'd be way ahead.
gary

SET Man · « **Reply #14 on:** 24 Jan 2008, 10:00 pm »

Quote from: lazydays on 24 Jan 2008, 09:02 pm

That's kinda where I'm at right now. I could do B&W if I had to, and guess I could get all the stuff needed for color. I have a couple analizers, and two dicro enlargers (Omegas). Just thought if I could find somebody to process the film into negatives, that I'd be way ahead.
gary

Hey!

I think you will be way ahead if you develop your own B&W films rather than hand it off to the lab.

To me the easy part is developing film and the hard part is printing it.

The first might not look good but you could fine tune your developing to fit your shooting style and for particular shot

Some LF shooters even develop one sheet film at a time to get a specific result for that particular shot.

For roll film is easier. You could do it on kitchen sink.. well that's what I do. All you'll need is a developing can and etc. The most important thing you need is time to do it.

Take care,
Buddy

Photon46 · « **Reply #15 on:** 24 Jan 2008, 11:53 pm »

I agree with SET Man, you are way better off doing the developing yourself. I'm really old school. My advice would be to get a book from Ansel Adams, Fred Picker, or someone else that teaches the zone system and take the time to learn how to calibrate your film/development to your equipment and printing materials. Digital is a wonderful tool, but there is no way any curves or levels adjustment is ever going to replace missing information. Learning the zone system lets you maximize the amount of information you can capture on the emulsion. It takes a little time, buts it's not hard to do. The payoff is much better looking prints no matter how they are printed.

nathanm · « **Reply #16 on:** 25 Jan 2008, 05:16 am »

This one was a disappointment at first, (shot somewhat quickly at the end of the day with fading light) but I cropped it square and it turned out much better. The print is a cream dream, I'll definitely have to put this one on some baryta paper too.

Carlman · « **Reply #17 on:** 26 Jan 2008, 02:12 pm »

Quote from: gsm18439 on 22 Jan 2008, 10:15 pm

I do not know where you live, but there is an outfit in Arlington, VA called Black and White (703-525-1922 or www.blackwhitelab.com) that definitely can process medium format film and probably large format film as well.

Are you kidding me!?!? OH man... I lived right around the corner from them a few years ago and never knew they were there.... They offer everything I wanted (and still want)... including rental time for the darkroom... I could've worked there part time... Now I'm hundreds of miles away... sigh.

I do go back from time to time, though... so thanks for that link. Places like that are really hard to find nowadays.

-Carl

P.S. Great shots, Nathan... wish I could see them printed. They're the kind of images you need to see on paper to really evaluate/appreciate.

nathanm · « **Reply #18 on:** 2 Feb 2008, 04:44 am »

Here's one more from the ruined tenement shoot which I just finished up. I really wish there were more reaching-in branches at either side, that would be the topper, but mother nature wasn't cooperating. The one on the right does add enough spice to count, though.

His big brother weighs in at 650MB with layers, but the new RAID scratch disk (AND closing all other apps besides Photoshop) does seem to help a lot.

Does anyone know why moving the frame around in the Navigator palette is more reponsive than holding the space bar and panning around? I never understood that bit. Hmmm.

ooheadsoo · « **Reply #19 on:** 2 Feb 2008, 04:52 am »

Now this is a totally stupid question since I know you're shooting a different kind of camera, but what lens do you use to get all the verticals standing pretty much straight up and down? Perhaps a better question would be "how can i do that with 35mm digital?" Or perhaps more generically, how do you get the vertical lines to all line up perpendicular to the ground?