GregRob: Large Format Photography

Day 6

Today’s picture was shot using a camera I made back in 2002.

The lens is a 90mm f8 Schneider.

The scene here is our spare bedroom in the basement, currently being used by me for a photo studio, and as an area to work on refurbishing my Deardorff, and as an workstation for playing around with Arduino micro-controllers. You can see remains of the setup for yesterday’s photo of the day in the bottom left of this image.

Self portrait 6/365

The camera I made:

Black Wide Angle

Day 5

I brought my Bender into the office today, and had hoped to corner somebody for a portrait at lunch time, but instead I ended up being suck on conference calls over lunch. So here we have a macro shot at the end of the day.

This is something I had tried previously with digital, and it didn’t really work very well. With the smaller depth of field, and being able to tilt the camera back I think this image turned out ok. Exposure was tricky to figure out so I shot one under exposed, and 2 over exposed. The best image was the 2 stops over exposed. Maybe a bit of pre-exposure for the film would have brought out some more detail in the almost black bits.

Light in the Dark 5/365

UPDATE: Just realised why my exposure was off. At first I thought it was reciprocity failure, but I checked the specs and for HP5+ I didn’t need to compensate at the times I was using. But like the idiot I am I forgot bellows extension. So yet another lesson (already known) learned again: Don’t forgot to calculate bellows factor when doing close-ups.

Day 4

Callum seems to enjoy watching me setup my camera and tripod, but he didn’t enjoy being on his belly. I had to spend some time on the floor with him until he was comfortable, then I jumped up and put 2 sheets through the camera before he started to get upset again. He is actually watching me in a mirror on the closet door to camera right.

I should have used flash, but I thought he would be more comfortable with continuous lighting.

Callum 4/365

I shot a similar photo of Gemma when she was 9 days old.

Day 3

Day 3 started with a pleasant hike around Loafers Lake at the North end of Brampton. I had the day off work for New Years, but the kids were back in school today. So after dropping them off I headed up to Loafers lake and went for a hike around the park, and ended up at this bridge near my in-laws house.

I spent a lot of time on the composition on this shot, and took exposures at some different apertures to try and get a nice depth of field without too much diffraction. I also swung the front standard to align the plane of focus with the bridge.

I again had some slight vignetting in one corner, but it was not large.

Ron’s Bridge

On Location

Day 2

I put the ballhead on my tripod to lighten the load, and headed out to Creditview road with Gemma tagging along. She brought along her pink Vtech toy camera so we would both be shooting today.

However things did not go very well. The thermometer claimed it was only slightly below freezing, but there was a strong wind, and lots of humidity still in the air from yesterday’s rains. So when we paused here and there to check out compositions we were rushed by the elements.

In the end I found a nice spot beside the Credit River, with a view of the massive new church that is going up on Steeles. I composed quickly, focused quickly, and spoiled a sheet quickly when I failed to close the shutter before pulling the first darkslide.

In the end I got a poorly focused mediocre image with vignetting in the upper corners, and Gemma got three brambles in her hair. On the hike back to the Jeep I carried her the whole way to avoid any additional run-ins with the local flora.

But then again I accomplished what I am supposed to be doing which is practising. These are bone head mistakes, which I shouldn’t be making, but I have not been shooting enough, and I am out of practise.

Always remember:
1) Close the shutter before pulling a darkslide
2) Check corners for vignetting
3) Don’t rush the focus
4) Avoid brambles

Ultimately all of these can be summarised as don’t rush!

2/365

Gemma’s shot

Day 1

So I have decided to work on my large format photography this year. I find I often enjoy the output from my digital cameras, and my Canon SD880 is certainly easy to carry, but I find I almost always enjoy the output from my Bender 4×5 large format mono-rail camera. I am also quite close to completing the work on refurbishing my Deardorff V8 8×10 View Camera, and I am really looking forward to using it regularly.

Thus I have decided that for the next year I will make an effort to use my large format cameras as much as reasonably possible. While I may do this in the context of a photo a day project, as I first did with digital in 2004, I do not expect to actually shoot large format every day. I’m not sure what that would do to my pocket book, nor would the time always be available. But I’ve found a photo a day project to be good framework for keeping my eyes open for photographic opportunities, and to motivate me to make sure I pick up my camera more often.

So here is the Day 1 photo. Since large format portraits of Gemma have often been my most popular images on flickr, I decided the first photo in this series would again be Gemma. In this photo she is wearing the dress we bought her for Marc & Cyndy’s wedding.

Large Format 1/365

And for your entertainment, here is a pseudo set-up shot for the portrait session. Lighting was a pair of QQ250s at ceiling height with 55 degree reflectors shooting 1/8th power from each side, and about 4 feet in front of Gemma.

Chaos set-up

Tomorrow is a new year

There was the first year I owned my own camera (Minolta 7000), and just shot everything in front of me.

There was a year of slide film when I was working on learning exposure.

There was a year of black & white film when I wanted to simplify, and work in my home darkroom.

There was my first year I owned a digital camera (Canon G1), and explored things in a new way.

Stay tuned, tomorrow is a new year…..

A Divergence

The fall was coming on fast. This was back in 20. You know the year I mean. It was a mean year for all. I headed my way down to New Hampshire crossing the big lake in a small boat in the dead of a moonless night. Things had been bad that summer, and I was planning to spend some time away from them in my old cabin near White Mountain.

Travelling by night and keeping to Indian trails made travel slow, but I wasn’t about to be found out now that I was away from the gang and the evil that lead them.

The rains came hard on the last three days but I kept on the move. I actually was able to make up some time as most folks with any thought in their head wouldn’t be out in such weather. But the rains hid the smell of the smoke, and the brothers almost got me, luckily they made the mistake of believing they could sleep.

I came upon the remains of my cabin, it was a pile of ash being washed away by the deluge. Luckily I came up from the little creek in the rear, and not walking down the trail up front. The harvest moon lit my way as I departed the bloody scene.

I was hurting and the cold was into my bones. I had always figured Bartlet as neutral territory, and figured I needed a real drink in my belly and a warm bed to recuperate.

As I approached the city limits I was surprised by the changes, the biggest being a new hotel on the corner where John had died. I took it for a sign and flipping my collar up, and pulling my hat down strode right in the front door.

It was all downhill from there, and you know the rest of the story.

They were so proud of what they had done! They had their picture taken and it was on the front page of the local paper the next day.