WINTER TIME

West Boylston, MA 19 Jan 2010

These two image are the same except that one is a color version. You figure it out. The scene is outside my bedroom door -- I merely opened the door, zoomed the lens to frame it, and click. Sometimes it's just that "easy" -- well it was cold standing there since I didn't have a coat on. The snowfall had been one of heavy wet snow, the kind that's hard to shovel, and the weight of it bent the limbs of the hemlocks to the ground. I have always thought there is something very lovely about a fresh snowfall.

STILL LOVING IT....THE 5D2, that is

Back in August, I attented a wedding party that was held the evening before the actual wedding. Sitting around the table with the light fading fast, and with mostly just the glow of some candles, I made this image of the woman sitting across from me. In the color version, you can easily see the cast of reddish light from the candles. I shot this with my Canon 5D Mark II using my 24-105mm Canon EF IS L lens at 105mm, 1/10 sec at f/4, ISO 3200. Image stabilization is a marvel because no way I could hand-hold a 105 mm lens at 1/10 and have any hope for a sharp image -- maybe in my younger days, but certainly not now. The quality is remarkable -- remember, it's shot with the camera set to ISO 3200!! No b&w film I know of could come anywhere close. Be sure to click on either image to imbigger them for better viewing of the detail and quality.

RUNNIN' ON FULL

Berkley Street, Worcester, Massachusetts 20 May 2009

Just more exploring what my 5D2 can do. I was out on the 3rd floor balcony of my friends 3-decker enjoying the company of a few good people. Several of us were talking and playing with the camera when I saw this scene across the street. It was right at sunset in these parts, and the light is from street lights. ISO 6400, f/4 at 1/15th (hand-held) with the 24-105 L IS at 105mm. Yeah, there is some noise, but easily controlled with noise suppression in ACR. The only other corrections were white balance on the fascia board above the woman and a little pincushion correction with the distort filter in CS4. Click the crop -- it is a 100% crop and let's you see the quality of the image. 'Nuf said.

RUNNING ON EMPTY #21

Red Rock, Texas 3 March 2009

I first photographed this old gas station in the mid-70's, and I must admit it was "deja vous all over again" when we passed through Red Rock during our trip this past March. Still standing after nearly 40 years. But the real miracle is that so am I still standing with a camera in my hand. I find that truly amazing because 40 years ago I had no idea where my life (and wife) would take me; but that I'm still photographing with some gusto and loving it more. Loving the new technologies that are allowing me to move forward with a continued vision. While I may be shooting the same stuff, I feel that with the current state of the technologies I use, I'm able to look a little deeper. And that's a freeing experience. As to these two images of the old Liberty Garage at Red Rock, one is not better than the other, but they are different. The older image is more nostalgic and melancholy, but not because it's an older image, but rather how it represents another, older time -- the letters on the building, the flowers around the old pumps, the pealing paint on the pumps, etc. The newer color image is about endurance and character. These images are a lot like me, I think.

THEN AND NOW

Walker Evans, Austin, Texas March 1974

Karen and Murph, Dripping Springs, Texas April 2009

Late last night and this morning I was scanning and printing a couple of images of Walker Evans I shot when he was visiting UTAustin in the spring of '74. At the time, he was talking with a group of advanced photojournalism students, and I was there photographing him for the News Service of the university (for whom I then worked). The room was lit by overhead florescent lighting and I seem to remember that something like 1/30 at f/2.8 was somewhat common in those days. Normally we rated our Tri-X at ISO 200 and processed it in HC-110, dil. B. mixed directly from the concentrate. However, I remember distinctly that day I upped the ISO to 400 and pushed processed the film hoping to get sharper images. I would have been shooting with a 135mm f/2.8 Nikkor on a Nikon F2. Not the sharpest images in the world, but at the time, good enough for my purposes. I can get an acceptable, but slightly grainy 11x14 print from the neg.

Skip to a week ago while I was in Austin attending a reunion of the 1970's Daily Texan photographers. I was shooting my Canon 5D MK-II with a 24-105 f/4 L IS lens. The above image of Karen and Mike was shot at 3200 ISO, 24mm, 1/200 at f/4. As easy shoot. If I had been shooting film, it would have had to been lighted by flash, or I would have to had used TMax-3200 -- a super grainy film no matter how you process it. The digital image looks as though I was shooting Panatomic-X processed in some super compensating deveoper like FR-22. (Haven't heard of that one in a while, have you?) Need I remind you that I'm shooting at ISO 3200 and getting the results of an ISO 25 film, and without the inherent contrast of fine-grained film. 35 years later a lot has changed....for the better me thinks.

My point is this: everyone is bemoaning the demise of film and silver prints, but many of those who are crying the loudest have not seen the promise of the new technology at its best. The 5D2's full resolution images will print about 13x19 inches right out of the camera, and will astound died-in-the-wool silver folk. Especially when printed with the latest inks from the latest printers on the latest "glossy" baryta fiber based papers. I printed the Evans image above on Innova's Ultra Smooth Gloss Warm Tone. I warmed the RGB image with a color balance layer and on the warm toned paper, it comes close to looking like Protriga Rapid 111. Oh, don't forget, that if I had shot Evans with today's technology, it would have been sharp and full-toned and not grainy. Even if I printed it 24x36 inches. And the image of Karen and Murph would have printed 24x36 inches, also, and would be without grain. AND I could print it as either color or B&W.

JUST BECAUSE

West Boylston, Massachusetts 5 Jan 2009

I was going to the bank, and had parked. When I opened the door of the truck, this glove was at my feet. I'm not sure why I took this image, other than it was, at that moment, an unexpected oddity. Of course, one sees discarded or lost articles of clothing all the time, and probably single gloves more than any other. I have been carrying the 5D2 with me everyday, and this is the only image I've shot that I've been willing to post. Besides, I haven't posted anything this year, and since I will probably require my digital students to maintain a blog again this semester, I had better make good on mine. Onward.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE.....as promised

Ed Bissell, Worcester, MA Dec 9, 2008

This image was processed just like yesterday's post, but shot somewhat differently. The lens was a older Canon 17-35 f/2.8 L at 35mm, ISO 3200, f/3.2 at 1/20th. I love being able to shoot so causually in really poor light and get results like the this. My 40D Canon could come close to this at ISO 800, but that would have required an exposure of 1/2 sec. I have yet to try the boosted ISO of 25,000 -- that's play for another day. (Note: next time I'll have him clean his glasses.)

DON'T NEED NO FILM...

Me, yeah, good ol' me during our stay at Stephen's house while waiting for the power to return to our house during the ice storm. What else is an ol' photographer to do besides play with his new camera -- Canon 5D MK II. I continue to be impressed with the new technology this camera offers. No, I have, at this point in time, little interest in its video capibilities, but rather I'm totally blown away with what it can do at extreme ISO ratings. Combined with ARC 5.xx I have been able to process its RAW files any which way I choose. The above image might have been taken by my wife who mere picked up the camera and fired a frame. She is not a photographer and if the camera had not been set for the lighting conditions (ISO, AV mode, aperture set, auto focus on, IS on, etc) she would not have know what to do. I had taken a couple of images of Stephen and of her and the camera was on the table. But more to the point, this image was shot at ISO 800, and essentially grainless (noiseless) as a color or monotone image. Why don't I call it a black and white image? Because it's not. It is an RGB image from beginning to end. I used a channel mixer layer to monotone it, and let it remain in RGB mode. I have added slight coloration in the shadows allowing the image to appear very slightly warm. I also added a curves layer in inverted screen mode to allow for "painting open" the shadows under the hat brim. The rest of the image is as it came from ACR. For a bit more tonal separation, I added an USM with settings of 10%, 60 radius, and then an additional USM with settings of 90% and .5 radius. I've been photographing for almost 50 years and I know of no film however developed that could produce this results. The camera just happen to be set to ISO 800, I'll put up another image in my next post that was shot at 3200 ISO which doesn't look a lot different in quality from this one. It also should be noted that the native size print from the converted file will print 12.5x18.75 inches at 300 ppi. That would be like printing a full frame 35mm negative on 16x20 paper. Now the question will be asked: Why not print this image in color since it was obviously shot in color? Matter of choice, and I didn't particularily care for mix of lighting on the image -- tungston, flouresent, and daylight. (Note: the bottom image represents viewing the image at 100% in CS4.)

FINALLY

This is Greer, and I shot this image of her with my new Canon 5D MK II which I got one week ago today. So far, it is everything that was promised. The quality at ISO's of 1600 and 3200 are amazingly good -- see the above image. Any slight softness of the image is this old man's shaky hands when shooting at 1/13th of a second. More to come after I get passed the end of the semester.