martinimages
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Cowpers Cross
This is a hard slog to get to for an old-un like me especially with LF gear on your back, anyway its a cross on Ilkley moor, possibly a christianised monolith, its desolate up in them hills in winter and I love the feeling of isolation on the moors.
--- "After that shutter closes it’s all over. The physical light captured on film is all that is left, a history of light preserved in chemical form, and I have to move on to the next one."
http://martinhensonphotography.co.uk
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15/Jan/16, 7:22 pm
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Alan Jones
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Re: Cowpers Cross
Nicely balanced image, both tonally and from a composition viewpoint,
Regards,
Alan
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15/Jan/16, 7:49 pm
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martinimages
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Re: Cowpers Cross
Thank you Alan appreciated, would anyone be interested in seeing the scan that made this image ????
--- "After that shutter closes it’s all over. The physical light captured on film is all that is left, a history of light preserved in chemical form, and I have to move on to the next one."
http://martinhensonphotography.co.uk
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15/Jan/16, 8:08 pm
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Alan Jones
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Re: Cowpers Cross
quote: martinimages wrote:
Thank you Alan appreciated, would anyone be interested in seeing the scan that made this image ????
Yes please, an ideal candidate for a before and after demonstration,
Regards,
Alan
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15/Jan/16, 10:02 pm
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martinimages
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Re: Cowpers Cross
Ok this is the scan, scanned on an Epson v700 using Silvefast 8 scanning software.
I took this image with a 4x5 Ebony field camera using a 90mm Rodenstock lens (35mm equiv 29mm) the film was Kodak Tmax 100, I used front rise and kept the camera level.
For exposure I used a spot meter, the reading was on the darkest area that I wanted to retain detail and moved the exposure by under exposing by 2 stops placing the shadows on Zone 3, as I did not want to use a graduated filter I reduced the development time by 15% (called N-1) to tame the highlights, you can even stop the Sun from blowning out.
For those that dont know what N-1 is I will try to explain. When you take light readings and find that the exposure EVs are beyond the films dynamic range, you can effectively alter the density of the negative to bring it back in range, this does not effect the shadows as they develop in the first few minutes of development, ideal for large format cameras. you can use from N-2 TO N+2 these numbers correspond to full stops from normal development time, minus is reduction in dev time and + is added time.
I know that the scan looks awful but it retains all detail with no blocked shadows or blown highlights giving me a lot of room for edit, I tend to use only darkroom edits in a Digital way in PS such as Contrast grading control in Curves. Gradients and Dodge and Burn until I reach a satisfactory looking Histogram then finished of by spotting marks out, there are a lot, but I dont mind doing that being used to the Chemical darkroom prints, (spent hours with a spotting brush and dye)
Last edited by martinimages, 15/Jan/16, 10:49 pm
--- "After that shutter closes it’s all over. The physical light captured on film is all that is left, a history of light preserved in chemical form, and I have to move on to the next one."
http://martinhensonphotography.co.uk
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15/Jan/16, 10:35 pm
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Alan Jones
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Re: Cowpers Cross
To be honest Martin, the original RAW file looks OK to me, ample dynamic range to work with,
Regards,
Alan
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16/Jan/16, 12:00 am
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martinimages
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Re: Cowpers Cross
To be honest Alan its not a Raw file,its scanned as a black and white 16bit Tiff, I can bring it into Adobe camera raw for editing which I do, but its not a raw file as such probably best described ad a Raw scan
--- "After that shutter closes it’s all over. The physical light captured on film is all that is left, a history of light preserved in chemical form, and I have to move on to the next one."
http://martinhensonphotography.co.uk
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16/Jan/16, 10:00 am
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Elines
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Re: Cowpers Cross
Simpleton question (but helps to remind people of my lack of knowledge) but .....
..I don't quite get where scanning film comes in.
Do you develop the image in a conventional dark room and then scan the image to process in ACR/PS/LR?
--- Chris
One day I might grow up, but I hope not
Say YES unless good reason to contrary
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16/Jan/16, 11:04 am
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eternumviti
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Re: Cowpers Cross
Interesting post. The technical stuff makes me even more sure that I would be hopelessly lost with serious film, even though I learned it at college a million years ago. It is all worryingly close to maths, which instills brain freeze.
On the (finished) photo itself, my only point of critique is that the tones on the grass around the base of the cross seemed rather flat, though now seeing the original scan it is also clear that much work has been put in on that front.
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16/Jan/16, 12:37 pm
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martinimages
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Re: Cowpers Cross
Yes I develop the film then scan it thus creating a tiff file that can be edited in Photoshop or lightroom, the advantage's are you get the film look, films dynamic range , big files that you can pull every ounce of detail out, plus if need the ability to crop and still have plenty of pixels to work with and for me a certain feeling of satisfaction in knowing I have made the original picture through knowledge off exposure and development of the negative of which I thoroughly enjoy.
--- "After that shutter closes it’s all over. The physical light captured on film is all that is left, a history of light preserved in chemical form, and I have to move on to the next one."
http://martinhensonphotography.co.uk
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16/Jan/16, 1:09 pm
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