LF: f128: Snow Gum Dance

[Maris Rusis]

Snow Gum Dance, Charlotte Pass​

Gelatin -silver photograph on Ultrafine Silver Eagle VC FB photographic paper, image size 24.6cm X 19.5cm, from a 8x10 Fomapan 100 negative exposed in a Tachihara 810HD triple extension field view camera fitted with an Apo-Nikkor 610mm f9 lens working at f128. Titled, signed, and stamped verso.

90% of this picture is down to the subject and lighting; hard sunlight, deep shadows, and strong bark patterns with cadenced forms make for a striking photograph. The subject is also striking enough to capture the photographer and hold him hostage until he has set up the camera and made the exposure.

My prosaic making notes indicate Fomapan 100 rated at EI = 50 exposed for 2 seconds at f128. Development was in replenished Xtol for 3 minutes at 30 Celcius in a tray with constant agitation. This is very hot and short but with practice it is possible to get even development. And it saves time. At 20 Celcius my dev time would have been 11 minutes and I'd be turning out 3 negatives an hour. With 60 negatives from my last expedition to do that's a lot of dark time and I might forget what daylight looks like.

Time in the contact frame was 7 seconds with the illumination supplied by a 4x5 enlarger with its lens set at f11. Paper contrast was filtered to grade #1. There's a minor burn in the lower right hand corner and in the upper left. All else is the familiar archival routine.

One hears a lot of dismay about the sharpness killing effects of image diffraction. Almost all of it emanates from digital shooters using miniature cameras trying to make big pictures. A big camera making a photograph that won't be enlarged is not so embarrassed. Even though Snow Gum Dance, Charlotte Pass was exposed at f128 it still contains detail finer than the eye can see!

 

[Asher Kelman]

Maris,

Just beautiful!

But before I relate to my experience viewing your magnificent photograph, could you share your thinking on the need for f 1/128 and the long shutter exposure?

You do not have leaves or grass to sway in the breeze, but even then, did you really need that extra DOF? How far away were you? It gets better with distance of course. I guess if you were f 1/64, at 20ft from the trees, then your DOF would have been just 9 inches!

Still, how much can you enlarge this do you think and still maintain a look of sharpness?

Asher

 

[Dr Klaus Schmitt]

Very well done, great to see that LF photography and working with silver halide film and paper is not forgotten! Congrats!

 

[Maris Rusis]

But before I relate to my experience viewing your magnificent photograph, could you share your thinking on the need for f 1/128 and the long shutter exposure?

I need a longer exposure time because the lens is too big for a shutter and I have to use a lens cap. Two seconds is about the minimum I can consistently manage by counting. I count one hippopotamus, two hippopotamus,... and so on.

You do not have leaves or grass to sway in the breeze, but even then, did you really need that extra DOF? How far away were you? It gets better with distance of course. I guess if you were f 1/64, at 20ft from the trees, then your DOF would have been just 9 inches!

The depth of field available with a 610mm lens at f128 (and assuming a final picture size of 10"x8") is about the same as a Leica 50mm lens working at f16. View camera movements do help place the focus plane to suit the subject.

Still, how much can you enlarge this do you think and still maintain a look of sharpness?

If this photograph were enlarged to 20"x16" some diffraction softening of detail would be just visible. The working aperture would be need to be f100 or bigger, say f90.

 

[Chris Calohan]

As an olde filmer, pinhole to 35mm to 2 1/4 to 6x7 to 4x5 to 8x10 I am quite taken by this image, the choice of aperture and processing. Perhaps in my day I should have given more attention to detailed info but like most of my contemporaries, I shot by feel, past knowledge, situational circumstance, and whatever else popped into my head at the time of the shoot.

I appreciate the technical and truly marvel at Asher's, Doug's and all the other techies information, processes, etc and in more than one instance gone back and reshot using said info...but 90% of the time, I shoot from the seat of my pants...maybe I'll never aspire to some of your levels, but hey, everyone has a different reason for how they craft their craft.

This has a Kim Weston feel to it...yummy.

 

[Asher Kelman]

I need a longer exposure time because the lens is too big for a shutter and I have to use a lens cap. Two seconds is about the minimum I can consistently manage by counting. I count one hippopotamus, two hippopotamus,... and so on.

That makes sense, Maris! Here, we count "One Ansel Adams, two Ansel Adams….", and so on!

The depth of field available with a 610mm lens at f128 (and assuming a final picture size of 10"x8") is about the same as a Leica 50mm lens working at f16. View camera movements do help place the focus plane to suit the subject.

Richard Learoyd, the British portraitist, uses a 760mm lens at about f32 for an image 70 inches x50" directly on Cibachrome positive paper! The DOF must be in mm! The ISO of the paper is about 2 and then the lights and the camera lens have to be heavily filtered to remove UV contamination and get the color temp perfectly right respectively.

Asher

 

[Dawid Loubser]

As evidenced in my own work, I can't resist a tree and a big piece of film either - this is very nice! Intriguing composition, and gum trees surely have the most photogenic trunks / bark patterns.

I take it you purposefully went for a low-contrast, gentle look to this image? Because the one thing a big negative has in abundance, is the data to drive some dramatic tone. What did somebody on this forum once call it...? "Brute force tonality". This is why I enjoy the larger formats.

Again - lovely composition... I find myself peeking into the depths behind your subject, most engaging.

I'd like to add to your sentiment that big cameras don't mind small apertures. I frequently shoot f/32 and f/45 on my 4x5in, and I *do* enlarge (16x20 usually) and any diffraction softening is nowhere to be seen. You're only one effective stop down from my f/45 on your 8x10 (at f/128), so even if you did - and spectacular it would be - diffraction would be the least of your worries.

On a more daring note - if your end result is an 8x10 print on photographic paper - how am I to be convinced that 8x10 is worth it (over 4x5?). Anybody who tells me that they can see a visual difference (resolution, tone) between a contact print, and a 2x enlargement (or, say, a 4x enlargement) are, at best, seeing technique differences in the printing process in my opinion.

What have you found to be the real advantages?

I ask, because I frequently flirt with the idea of a nice modern wooden 8x10 to use my Rodenstock APO Sironar-S 360mm on - it's a real beast on 4x5in as a short tele - but I just can't convince myself. With my 16x20 prints, my printing technique - and not the equipment - is the limitation.

regards,
Dawid

Snow Gum Dance, Charlotte Pass​

 

[Maris Rusis]

The 8x10 photograph made by contact exposure with an 8x10 negative beats an 8x10 made by projection from a 8x10 negative. The difference comes from the fact that the contact method is absolutely flare free. Flare manifests itself by making fine black detail larger than it is (power lines against a sky look thicker) and fine white lines look thinner. And 8x10 beats 4x5. But actually all the combinations of 4x5 and 8x10 projection and contact work look wonderful unless you are in the unusual position of being able to place examples side by side. To make such test samples would appeal only to a somewhat obsessive individual. I know of at least one.