Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/11/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On 11/14/04 5:06 AM, "Dan Post" <dpost@triad.rr.com> typed: > Eric wrote: > >> Do these work for you? >> >> http://canid.com/current/river_bank2.html >> http://canid.com/current/park4.html >> >> Xtol 1:3. Acros 100. >> >> -- >> Eric My problems with these otherwise fine shots are the overall high key high contrast look of them which I think is a loss of perspective which occurs to in the "printing" process even when it doesn't take place in the darkroom. Sometimes it works to show your ongoing work to a less involved observer. In other words.. Someone else. Like your 5 year old kid. Any other pair of eyes. "daddy why are those pictures so bright and hard!!!?!" There's no reason why these film developer dilution combination should not make smooth rich images scanned or darkroom printed. Especially scanned where some severe over development could have been countered. Or under even. Anther big thing which distracts me from really thinking that this is top top work is the out of focus foregrounds. Big out of focus rocks and feet. Out of focus backgrounds sure. But ones eye will certainly travel to the bottom of the print to where the caption or signature is. And next to it is mush I say. This is a thing with what I define to myself as "overkill" technique. I use this term for myself and not so much to others when I think of work done on way slower film than is really required as the shooter does not make 20x24's and calls them "proofs". And also hand held. Of the people there is the wide open ethic which justifies in many minds Leica glass. But this is not all the way there. I first see rather straight looking landscapes. Out of focus backgrounds fine. That can even ADD to a look just like the wide open shooting thing. But there's not a lot of wide open shooting thing with landscapes. And what we end up with shots which, if the foregrounds were sharp we'd have a real solid shot which should be blown up the size of the wall. I guess I wrote that twice. But they'd have to be shot with a tripod and the foreground made to be in focus. The slightly usually option would also then be to have the background soft instead of sharp. But soft foregrounds like the rocks on the bottoms of these shots I really don't think work. People think of tripods as being cumbersome life style ruiners. Destroyers of spontaneity. Not Leica like. The truth is a tripod will set you free. Pick the f stop and shudder speed of your dreams. Slice out what you do and don't want in focus to a tee. Give me a big slice today I'm not on my diet. It kind of gets me when I see people out with a medium format with slow or medium speed film. That's overkill in my book. The shooter is hobbling themselves. Just put the thing on a nice not overly heavy tripod and really get some usable shots. To me when you use Xtol 400 is medium to high rez film. 100 is ultra high rez. Neopan 1600 will give you better than early 1980's tri x in d76 1:1 results. The 400 stuff and other 400 speed brands in Xtol is virtually grainless even at 11x14. The 100 might as well be tech pan. Use it for texture screens and tripod work. Stuff which you know will be mural size. Electron microscope headshots of fly's. Or in the studio where with your studio strobes anything more than ASA 200 is just inconvenient and unnecessary. This is the case with my setup where I can shoot at f11 with dispatch at asa 100. Mark Rabiner Photography Portland Oregon http://rabinergroup.com/