Miscellaneous Hiking

In the past month or so I've shot a fair bit of 35mm just casually hiking at state parks or on the Appalachian Trail. Here's a few photos from these places, including Amicalola Falls, Buck Shoals State Park, Three Forks, and other trails:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's just a couple more images, which instead of at a park or hiking were taken at the Georgia Apple Festival in Ellijay, GA:

 

 

 

That's all for today. Now you probably won't see much from me for the rest of the year as I'll be leaving this weekend for a long trip to the west coast, and then travelling to visit family for Christmas...so will have plenty of film to shoot/develop in January!

Lake Lanier, Drought

My parents live right near Lake Lanier, and the lake extends so far north that I am also only 30 minutes away from many access points. Lately we've had a terrible drought and so the lake right now is almost 10 feet below its normal level, making things a bit more interesting.

First though, I spent some time at the lake last week on the evening of the "Super Moon." In truth it makes very little difference size-wise but I did take the opportunity to try making a more unique image. I shot this photo with my Linhof Technika and 75mm Biogon on Portra 160:

This exposure was over 2 hours long. The moon appears higher than the horizon because the sky was so dense with smoke that you couldn't see it till it was that high. It also made the whole sky hazy. I like the way it turned out.

I made a few other images but here's one more, a shorter exposure of just the moon out of focus in the tree:

This morning I went out to another part of the park right at dawn. I shot a bit of 4x5 and medium format. I found a small park and boat ramp that was near some islands and due to the low water level actually had land bridges to these islands. The exposed rocks and dead trees / driftwood made for some interesting photographic material:

Here you can see the path of land going to what was an island. I am standing near where the shore used to be, past those trees a bit:

I walked to the island and shot some with my Rolleiflex "Old Standard" (K2) from around 1933:

And finally, here's two more from 4x5:

Testing shutter speeds with a digital camera

I wanted to write a quick "how-to" about how I recently tested a couple of shutters before using them for an important shoot.

One of the issues inherent with shooting older large or medium format lenses in their leaf shutters is accuracy of the shutter. I have heard that even newly manufactured shutters were said to be "within specifications" even if the shutter speeds were up to 30% off. And it's a known fact that the fastest speeds on these shutters are never even close to spec.

So while I recently pre-ordered a newly-designed shutter-speed tester, I needed one to test my 15cm and 21cm APO Lanthar lenses that I knew were shooting slow.

It's quite simple to test using a newer digital camera with "Live View" and a couple of tripods. Set up the digital camera, sans lens, behind the camera with the lens being tested mounted. The digital camera should be in a somewhat dark room but aimed at a suitably bright subject - I usually just shoot out of the house into my yard. The film camera will have the ground glass back removed and the DSLR placed as close to the camera as possible.

The lens can be set to T or locked open otherwise to focus. Then I set the DSLR to bulb. Using two hands, I trigger the DSLR on bulb and then immediately shoot the lens at whatever setting I am testing.

I set the DSLR ISO and the lens aperture at a proper setting to get a decent exposure. Then, having a baseline result, I again lock the shutter open and shoot the DSLR at the same shutter speed. If the results match, the shutter is shooting at the written speed. Otherwise, I change the DSLR shutter speed around in 1/3 stop increments till I match the exposure.

At first I wasn't sure if I could differentiate between 1/3 stop increments, but after trying this it was easy to see when the exposure was exactly the same vs. off by just a fraction of a stop. I tested each individual shutter speed and matched it to the "actual" speed as demonstrated by my DSLR. Shooting these two lenses later, my exposures were dead-on accurate using the "corrected" shutter speeds.

If you already have an appropriate DSLR to do this with, this method can be a cheap (free!) and effective way to check exact shutter speeds. Admittedly it's a but cumbersome compared to a dedicated tester - which is why I am buying one and will more thoroughly test all of my lenses. Also, this method may not work for wide-angle lenses since you can't focus accurately with a DSLR due to the flange-focal distance vs. the mirror box (a mirrorless camera could work).

I used these two lenses almost exclusively for my wedding images, hence my need to get perfect exposures!!

Fall on Brasstown Bald

I've been a bit busy and neglected to post these photos from Brasstown Bald. I hiked up to the summit just in time for peak fall colors, and brought along my custom 2x3 Century Graphic with a Schneider 38mm f/5.6 XL lens and my Rolleicord Art Deco with 7.5cm f/4.5 Triotar (some of these photos were posted with my review of that a few weeks ago).

Here are some of the photos, taken on Provia 100F, Portra 160, or Acros 100:

 

And lastly, here is that custom 2x3 Century Graphic and 38mm lens in front of some leaves. I wanted to see how the out of focus rendering of the Triotar looked and it was a handy subject.