Monthly shooting assignment May/June 2012: "Weekend!"

Hi folks. Apologies for the delay, been hectic at work of late with all sorts of software upgrades creeping in and the need to re-test everything. Damn computers! I fully understand why so many of us here want away from them as much as possible!



Anyways, with most of the Northern hemisphere folks approaching Summer and us of the temperate South approaching our very mild Winter, it's time to get out.

So, show us something about your weekends, your free time, your time "away from it all".

Beach, camping, sight-seeing, gardening, Summer sports, fishing, that "special" reading spot, something that any of us can look at and say:

"Hey! I'd like to be there/do that one of these weekends...".

That sort of thing. I'm after a "I feel a break coming".

I'll start things off, and will sit on the sidelines eagerly awaiting to be delighted by your ideas.

Go out and shoot, folks. Plenty of things to look at and do.

For those who might want more detail on the example I posted, "Afraid of the water?":

The photo was taken mid-afternoon Sunday after a very nice lunch at the Wharf's restaurant.
There were quite a few folks involved in water sports. When I looked at the little dinghy on the pontoon, all on its own and no one using it, it struck me as odd: such a nice day and no one using it?

So I thought of taking a shot of the "odd one out". Light was perfect: sunny Autumn day, warm, not a cloud anywhere, mid-afternoon starting to get the sunset "glow", deep dark blue water with a little breeze blowing.

Had to frame tight, didn't want to get any wind surfers and kayakers around. So I used the 105/2.5, the longest "tele" I had with me at the time. Had to walk to the end of the wharf, as near as possible to the pontoon, to get the tight framing I was after.

Switched to spot meter and checked the range of light. Waaaaaay too high for Velvia 50: more than 5 stops. So I decided to leave the water under the front of the pontoon in deep shade, with the underside of the pontoon in the dark. I was after the boat, not the pontoon!

There is some detail there if I really push the scanner but no point in stretching: the image works fine as is.

Metered the inside of the boat and had to decide how to place it. I thought way up (>+2) would "wash out" any detail inside the boat. So I went for a mid term.

Bracketed on manual for +0.5 and +1 on the inside, either would keep good texture of the white interior. Velvia 50 can cope easily with up to +1.5 and even +2 without washing out.
Since meters try to make everything "mid-grey", I gave it the extra to make the white really white without blowing it.

But I must have measured a little bit of the dark part of the interior with the spot meter, so it all ended up a bit lighter than I thought. The +1 was a bit washed out for my taste, while the +0.5 gave the overall light the "glow" I felt it had at the time.

Then it was just a matter of scanning and cropping tight, sharpening with Focus Magic and then downress for Apug use. I have made a 8X10 print of the slide scan and it worked really well.

And that's about all.

nsouto said:

So I used the 105/2.5, the longest "tele" I had with me at the time.

Click to expand...

I love my 105/2.5 Nikkor. It's a pre-AI version. So well used over the decades that the detents are almost gone. Closest thing to zero lens abberations that I have, and sharper than all get out. Just gorgeous in any early morning or late afternoon warm slanting light situation.

nsouto said:

Switched to spot meter and checked the range of light. Waaaaaay too high for Velvia 50: more than 5 stops.

Click to expand...

OK, so I'm a home darkroom b&w kind of guy. My only forays into color over the years were Kodachrome. Since the Great Extinction I've only exposed three rolls of non-Kodak transparency film (some Provia 400). Never done Velvia, so I'm curious. If 5 stops is waaaaaay too many, how many would be just right? Four? Three? That doesn't sound like much to work with in any situation. Would fill-flash help? Or just be too noticable, even on a sunny day?

Ken

Ken Nadvornick said:

OK, so I'm a home darkroom b&w kind of guy. My only forays into color over the years were Kodachrome. Since the Great Extinction I've only exposed three rolls of non-Kodak transparency film (some Provia 400). Never done Velvia, so I'm curious. If 5 stops is waaaaaay too many, how many would be just right? Four? Three? That doesn't sound like much to work with in any situation. Would fill-flash help? Or just be too noticable, even on a sunny day?
Ken

Click to expand...

For keeping good detail at both ends, over 5 stops is a stretch with Velvia 50. The film is designed for high contrast, high saturation. Things fall off quickly once off the middle. Not dramatically but much quicker than for b&w or colour neg.

Good for landscape and nature photography: one wants to enhance all those greens and separate different tonalities. Velvia does that real good. It's bad for portraits of course, where one wants smooth tone transitions and low saturation so folks don't look prematurely aged.

In general I aim for 4-4.5 stops max between high and low light when using Velvia. With Provia and Astia for example, I go up to 6 stops. And with colour neg like Ektar100 or Fuji 100, I go for 7. More with b&w, where I can control the development. All to do with how much tonal compression one can manage to control.

Of course if I don't want to keep detail in a particular area, it's OK to drop it out completely - either end. Hence why I let the underside of the pontoon near the water drop out: not the main point of interest, anyways. In fact: it being so dark kinda contrasts nicely with the white of the boat, so that worked out OK.

Fill-flash can and could be used of course. But I didn't have one with me and it was a bit too far anyway. Besides, unwanted reflections might have been a problem. This being film I can't check for reflections and re-take the shot so I prefer to err on the side of not using flash. Most of the time nowadays I bounce flash off a wall or the ceiling anyways, to prevent the problem.

Just place a photo in the monthly shooting assignment. Somehow it got placed a couple of rows down, don't know why its there. Thanks for looking.

sorted on date

It will added on date and the date was Feb 14th, 2012 03:14 right?. Great photo B.T.W !!! and Welcom. Lets hope you make more and newer photo's for May/june, thanks!

alan951 said:

Just place a photo in the monthly shooting assignment. Somehow it got placed a couple of rows down, don't know why its there. Thanks for looking.

Click to expand...

Weekend along the coast. Bronica 6x6, 110 mm and Fuji reversal film in Scheveningen, Holland.

Good one!

Been away interstate for a week, just got back.

What a great set of photos so far!
Thanks heaps for the contributions, folks.
This one is gonna be very hard for me to find a winner:
so far I like quite a few of the images, a lot!...

Sorry for delay in publishing this month's winner, folks.
I've been sick with the flu, it's the cold season here in Australia...
Will publish the result either tonite or tomorrow my time.
Once again, my apologies.

Hmmm, do I reallly have to chose a winner?

This one to me was one of the hardest to pick a winner: I love all shots!
The real winner has to be APUG, with such great photographers making up its membership!



Thanks a lot for the great participation, folks! It's been a real privilege to watch this one.



But I have to pick a MSA winner...


The closest of calls between Barbara's runner and sand (amazing shot, that one!), Sparks' fishing and photo folks, Sly's cars and kid, Bertus' amazing shots, Ken's amazing aircraft (I wish I could spare the time to visit Australia's aviation museum at Temora, NSW!).


Dang, I gotta pick one...


Ah well, here goes: Bertus, you're it!
That Lotus is just the ticket: it evokes so many sunny weekends of my youth, driving around just for the pure pleasure of getting the wind through my hair...

Mine was a Toy MR2, not a Lotus. But the end result was the same feeling. Yup, it brings back so many memories.


And that's one of the things photography is very good at and supposed to do: remind us of past moments - good and bad.


Take it away, my friend.


Given that Sly can't do the next one, perhaps you'd be so kind as to undertake the task of running the July/August MSA?
I do apologize once again for having "stolen" the first 3 days of it.