Hard At Work On Location

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Harold Gough
Posts: 5786
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:17 am
Location: Reading, Berkshire, England

Hard At Work On Location

Post by Harold Gough »

It's grim job, having to travel to foreign countries and slog away all day in the hot sun, taking photographs. Someone has to do it!:D

Here I am, together with my wife, in the most recent location, the grounds of the second hotel of our recent visit to Sardinia. The exotic gardens provided plenty of material, from lizards to a mantis to carpenter bees. With three hours to go until dinner, this was a typical, for us, afternoon refreshment break.

This picture was taken by Suzanna, one of the bar and restaurant staff, using my E-P2 and the Lumix micro 4/3 7-14mm zoom, set on 14mm. It is slightly cropped.

Image

Harold
My images are a medium for sharing some of my experiences: they are not me.

DQE
Posts: 1653
Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2008 1:33 pm
Location: near Portland, Maine, USA

Post by DQE »

Sardinia doesn't look all bad! (insert friendly smiles here)

Thanks for posting the photo - it adds a very welcome and enjoyable personal note to our ongoing discussions.
-Phil

"Diffraction never sleeps"

Harold Gough
Posts: 5786
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:17 am
Location: Reading, Berkshire, England

Post by Harold Gough »

The photo shows a rarity, myself with a jug of coffee rather than a beer! :D

Harold
My images are a medium for sharing some of my experiences: they are not me.

SONYNUT
Posts: 635
Joined: Sat Jan 22, 2011 2:27 pm
Location: Minnesota USA

Post by SONYNUT »

You have it way easier....

:wink:

and warmer



Image
..............................................................................
Just shoot it......

Harold Gough
Posts: 5786
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:17 am
Location: Reading, Berkshire, England

Post by Harold Gough »

Not too many lizards or mantids, eh, sonynut?

Harold
My images are a medium for sharing some of my experiences: they are not me.

SONYNUT
Posts: 635
Joined: Sat Jan 22, 2011 2:27 pm
Location: Minnesota USA

Post by SONYNUT »

Not from november -june
..............................................................................
Just shoot it......

Harold Gough
Posts: 5786
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:17 am
Location: Reading, Berkshire, England

Post by Harold Gough »

My images are a medium for sharing some of my experiences: they are not me.

Harold Gough
Posts: 5786
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:17 am
Location: Reading, Berkshire, England

Post by Harold Gough »

These white flowers, which I have never seen before, were growing on a sandy beach. My wife took a shot from the pavement:

Image

Image

Here is a severe crop:

Image

The flowers have various names:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancratium_maritimum

Had I known then that they are pollinated by the Convolvulus Hawk-moth I might have visited them in the evening.

Harold
My images are a medium for sharing some of my experiences: they are not me.

Harold Gough
Posts: 5786
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:17 am
Location: Reading, Berkshire, England

Post by Harold Gough »

Many months ago, before I bought my digital camera, one of the members said it would be good to see what I do with my X-Pan panoramic film camera. Several years ago I asked someone to copy this through his digital SLR. He warned that the quality would be poor and is certainly does not show anything like the detail the camera produces on 100 ISO transparency film. However, by keeping it small, I think I can convey some idea of the beauty of this ice lagoon in southern Iceland, and why I prefer this camera over standard format, without disracting pixels. Yes, the ice was blue.

Image

Harold
My images are a medium for sharing some of my experiences: they are not me.

DQE
Posts: 1653
Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2008 1:33 pm
Location: near Portland, Maine, USA

Post by DQE »

Interesting photo. I had forgotten about that type of film camera.

I believe that some of the new P&S cameras have a built-in panorama mode. One swings the camera through an arc spanning the scene and the camera takes a sequence of photos and then blends them into a panorama. From reviews I now vaguely recall that it seemed to work fairly well after a little practice. No need for a tripod, apparently, which surprised me.

Using my DSLR and a tripod and a panorama head to take very wide photos is a complex undertaking that can require a lot of computer horsepower to assemble a lot of overlapping raw photos. It also requires that (ideally) one position one's axis of rotation properly. I assume the P&S digital panorama cameras just ignore such details.
-Phil

"Diffraction never sleeps"

Harold Gough
Posts: 5786
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:17 am
Location: Reading, Berkshire, England

Post by Harold Gough »

Phil,

Way back, I had a point and shoot 35mm film camera which just masked out the top and bottom thirds of the frame.

More recently, I obtained a Horizon/Horizont 202 swing lens camera:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_(camera) (copy, to include (camera) and paste in browser)

That uses a slit behind the lens to do the reverse of scanning the film, much as in those cameras which take the photograph of the year of a whole school in one shot.

Eventually, I could afford an X-Pan which uses medium format lenses on 35mm film, giving (landscape format) the horizontal axis of the frame as 65mm but the vertical a standard 24mm. This is somewhat the opposite of using a full frame 35mm lens on a half frame digital sensor, in that it gives nearly double the angle of view for the focal length, but only across the long axis of the frame. This is possible because of the large image circle of the lenses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasselblad#X-System

http://www.hasselbladpages.com/xpan.html

Harold
My images are a medium for sharing some of my experiences: they are not me.

DQE
Posts: 1653
Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2008 1:33 pm
Location: near Portland, Maine, USA

Post by DQE »

Here's a link to an early film-based panorama camera that I stumbled upon today: The swinging lens tube and focal plane slot design is interesting.

http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/cameras/item53.htm

This is from Oxford's online catalog and images of its photography-related museum collection. Many fascinating cameras and much history is provided here. Makes me really want to visit the physical museum! I wonder if many of the zillions of digital cameras will make it into a museum in the future? It would presumably be impossible to maintain their electronics or to read transient digital formats and media by not too many years in the future. At least film-based media can be directly viewed or projected.

http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/cameras/
-Phil

"Diffraction never sleeps"

rjlittlefield
Site Admin
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Post by rjlittlefield »

DQE wrote:The swinging lens tube and focal plane slot design is interesting.
This is done to get a high quality very wide angle image from a lens whose coverage is not nearly so large. The trick is rotate the lens around its rear nodal point. When this is done, objects at infinity are stabilized on the focal plane. So by rotating the lens while keeping a focal plane slot centered on the optical axis, the entire width of the film can be exposed without motion blur and always using the best part of the image. The lens still has to cover the entire height of the film, but no more. It's a very clever and classic design.

--Rik

Harold Gough
Posts: 5786
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:17 am
Location: Reading, Berkshire, England

Post by Harold Gough »

rjlittlefield wrote:
DQE wrote:The swinging lens tube and focal plane slot design is interesting.
This is done to get a high quality very wide angle image from a lens whose coverage is not nearly so large. The trick is rotate the lens around its rear nodal point. When this is done, objects at infinity are stabilized on the focal plane. So by rotating the lens while keeping a focal plane slot centered on the optical axis, the entire width of the film can be exposed without motion blur and always using the best part of the image. The lens still has to cover the entire height of the film, but no more. It's a very clever and classic design.
The 28mm lens is only about 5mm diameter and swings through 120 degrees. It covers a 35mm frame 58mm wide (X-Pan is 65mm). The lens swings during a significant fraction of a second and it takes some intellectual effort to accept that can represent an effective shutter speed of up to 1/250 second. Although the results do not challenge those from X-Pan they are on a par with those from typical 35mm MF lenses. I use the camera for those the X-Pan 30mm (AOV 98 degrees) will not cover.

Here are a few shots (not mine) with the 30mm on some of the best film stocks:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/revie ... 30mm.shtml

On my last 2-3 trips overseas I have shot several panoramic series with the X-pan 30mm, each set to eventually be stitched to give 270 -360 degree coverage.

Harold
My images are a medium for sharing some of my experiences: they are not me.

Harold Gough
Posts: 5786
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:17 am
Location: Reading, Berkshire, England

Post by Harold Gough »

Some profile stuff, about lenses, my personal philosophy and practice:

When I bought my first new SLR, a Canon A1, I started on a policy for glassware* ~.

The A1 came with a 50mm standard lens and I couldn't resist the 20mm manual macro bellows lens (RMS). However, I also started into Tamron Adaptall-2, with the 90mm SP macro.

Within a few years I was into the Olympus OM system, in particular for the OTF metering, including for flash, such metering then being a new thing. It came with a 50mm f1.8 lens, yet to be used, and I invested further in the Adaptall-2 SP range, with a 70-210mm and a 24-48mm. I would have loved the bellows lenses but could not afford them for over 30 years. Other Adaptall-2s were gradually added: 17mm, 500mm mirror, etc., with super telephotos (300mm f2.8, 400mm f4) added in the last few years, together with the auto bellows lenses.

Now into digital as well, I am with Olympus via the E-P2 but really into the m4/3 system. Also, via adapters, I can use my OM and Adaptall-2 lenses, plus others, such as the recent Leica-R# one, for m4/3. Thus, I have a somewhat integrated system of lenses, all but the dedicated 4/3 & m4/3 useable for film or digital on a selection of bodies. The ultra-wide angle provision for m4/3 had to be via the purchase of a Lumix 7-14mm.

* My experience with e.g. landscapes has, in recent years, led me to invest in specialist panoramic cameras, the Horizon 202 swing lens and the X-Pan.

~ I am not a collector, buying only lenses I expect to use. I have duplicates of my most-used MF film lenses to cover any loss or periods of repair. With the wideangles that also provides for motion freezing stereo pairs by using two identical camera/lens combintions on a stereo bar with a double cable release.

# The time comes when, especially with digital, small sensors, cropping, etc., a re-examination of the capabilites of the hardware is advisable. I did this several years ago, replacing some of my Adaptall-2 lenses, then for film use, with later models with better resolution. Now, when I can afford it, I am looking at finalising (?) my lens kit with some of the best manual lenses that are not at ludicrous prices. The Elmarit 60mm was the first and I don't expect there to be more than one or two more, with no redundancy to arise. My Carl Zeiss Jenazoom IIs are intermediate. There will not be duplication here, as there has been for my most-used lenses!

I don't know whether any of the above will help anyone but it does help me to consider these matters periodically.

Harold
My images are a medium for sharing some of my experiences: they are not me.

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