Plane Of Focus

I really haven't made much use of my Lensbaby Composer, but did wonder what it would be like for close up work. I do have a set of the close up lenses they sell. These sit in front of the lens and basically act as a magnifying glass which does two things - it shortens the focal length and allows you to focus closer.

I wasn't entirely happy with the results so I dug out my cheapy third party extension tubes and with the shortest on the camera and the Lensbaby mounted to that, and no close up filter, I narrowed the angle of view while allowing closer focusing.

The net difference is less depth of field with any lens, but what's more important - the Lensbaby no longer has the look of a centrally sharp image with vaseline smeared on glass set in front of the lens - the shift from sharp to blurred (and stretched) with the Lensbaby at normal distances doesn't usually work for me, but here, with the tilting plane of focus and extremely limited depth of field (as opposed to lens blurring, the result is very pleasing to me.

It's possible I could achieve the same thing with a fast lens and extension tube, but it happens I don't own any fast lenses at all. I did think to use the 70-200 because it has IS, but it's big and awkward to hold, and you can't shift the plane of focus. I think this might turn out to be an interesting combination, Lensbaby Composer and extension tube.

Brooks Jensen

I discovered a wonderful image today, by Brooks Jensen, editor of Lenswork and  serious photographer.

This photograph is the first of 10 images of a new folio of prints Brooks has created. Do check out the whole folio and see The Medusa in a larger size, in isolation. It is this image in particular that has me enthralled. The sense of space, the sense of a third dimension is remarkable, the faint markings on the ice looking like distant nebulae. To appreciate its beauty, click on the link above to see it larger and in isolation.

Oops:  This from Brooks: One minor correction that I really hope doesn’t diminish your enjoyment of the image, but it’s not actually ice. It’s a tidal slough down on the Long Beach Peninsula near the mouth of the Columbia. I was mesmerized by the slow rising tide bringing in floating debris and surface guck. Fascinating patterns and surface reflections.



On the contrary, given its mundane source all the more amazing what it can turn into and all the more power for Brooks realizing the potential.



Clearly time to add another folio to my collection, or do I arrange to purchase a larger print to be framed - I don't do that often, partly because of the cost of framing, and considering lack of wall space, but this time...

It's been a while since I have been this excited about an image.

Lenswork Monograph

I see that Lenswork has pre-announced a new programme - that of printing an entire paperback book, like the regular Lenswork magazine, but containing the work of a single photographer. The first is Brooks Jensen himself, editor of Lenswork, from his Made of Steel Series. I have seen some of these images and I think this will be a very nice monograph to have, and will report on it when I get it.

I really enjoyed the Paul Caponigro issue of View Camera magazine and given the printing quality of Lenswork - this promises to be even better. I`m hoping that once the series starts, there will be a way to sign up for all the monographs as they come out.

Brooks indicates he`s going to work with photographers who have already been in Lenswork. This gives him plenty of scope.

Ideally it would be great to see some of the top photographers who haven`t got a  series of books out there.Even some famous photographers haven`t got round to making a book in a long time. A monograph gives us a chance to see more than one project or even style of work by a single photographer. We could also possibly see how someone`s style changes over time or to see consistencies in approach to widely varying subjects - from viewpoint to printing style, from lighting to tonality.

I`m as geeky as the next fellow, but I make far more use of my Lenswork magazines than I ever do of Lenswork Extended - I like having a book in hand.

It would be wonderful if these could be a bit larger than the standard Lenswork magazine, but perhaps that`s impractical. I don`t see a size mentioned on the website.

I`m really looking forward to this Lenswork effort.

How Much Is An E-book Worth?

Until now, only a handful of e-books have been made available, and no one has burdened me with their sales information. So, anyone actually know the answer? Is there a 'price point' that makes e-books tempting? How would an e-book differ (offer additional value) compared to a free website? Is there money to be made?

Here's some thoughts though. When one of my books sells, I get about $3 royalty. If I sold an e-book for $5 and it cost me $2 to host the book (that's what Blurb is charging), I could make the same amount of money, and at $5, it could easily be an impulse purchase. Currently there doesn't seem to be a way to find e-books on Blurb and of course the vast majority of the books won't be of 'publishable' quality, but let's say that Ansel were still alive, kicking and photographing, and that for the heck of it, he did an e-book.

Now, lest my publisher read this and have a fit, yes, I know my contract with the publisher gives them the electronic rights to publish, not me, but were I to do a new book..., one of my images (which they have said isn't practical in paper - and I agree)...

How many people would rush out, and how much would they pay, to get hold of an Ansel Adams book on their iPad? After all, Ansel did calendars and posters and Yosemite sold and continues to sell prints of his images, so pretty good chance he'd be up for it.

What if someone were becoming a serious fine art photographer, and for $5 each, they could pick up some 50 images, with some interesting text, by a well respected photographer, and further more, could do so from dozens of famous photographers. $100 would see you well on the way to making a wonderful library of images, all happily fitting on your iPad, and ready to learn from.

I see that William Neil now sells his e-books for $10. Landscapes Of The Spirit is a real book I own, and enjoy, and paid considerably more for. I note on his website that the price was $15, and I'm not sure that it wasn't more than that when he first made his publication available in electronic form. Keep in mind, this is a real book, of 120 pages and 79 images, not some hashed together portfolio with a few words that someone with delusions of grandeur decides to call a book.

Does that make the 'right price' $10, or does the price reflect the reputation of the photographer. Is Ansel's e-book worth more than that of one of his accolytes? Or does popularity and therefore number of sales determine success. After all, that's how it is in music. The price for a Feist song is the same as one by Fred Blogs, and only the number of sales determines the difference. Is that the way it should be?

Occasionally I splurge and pick up a Blurb book from someone I know or think might have interesting images - but by the time I pay frieght (it comes from downtown right here in Calgary), it adds $10 to the cost of a $37.00 book, which means I don't do it that often. Once Blurb starts promoting their e-books I might well pick up more, and if reasonably priced (ie. iTunes equivalent) for lots of famous photographers, well, I know I'd be buying left right and centre.

Since the publication of my first book, I have had a standing offer of any four prints, 8.5X11, $100 including shipping. I get a request every couple of months - hardly a money maker, and probably more trouble than it's worth. Perhaps and especially with the next generation high res iPad, purchasing small prints will be unnecessary and only large prints will be purchased, at prices that compensate the photographer for the shipping and handling, so that he or she can turn a reasonable profit margin. However, don't forget that all of this article is discussing electronic books, not portfolios - though the same arguments apply.

Will I give up the printed book, or the printed image for that matter? Very unlikely. But is the e-book in our future, as photographers as well as purchasers. Damn right!

Fish Creek

Finally, a chance to get out and photograph. Mostly I was working on the ice of the creek, while under an overpass. Late in the shoot the sun moved round far enough and low enough to strike this ice formation, warming the tones. This is mostly a colour image, though in a few places, the colour wasn't there for some reason. I sampled the colour from where it was present, then added a fill layer of that colour, then set layer blending to colour. Now the entire image was this colour, which hadn't been my intention, so Command I to invert the mask of this new fill layer, then painted in where I wanted this additional colour.

Focus blending was used, with the water as a single layer (Helicon Focus does odd things to running water that is focus blended). Shot with the 5d2, 70-200 mm. f4 L IS lens, a total of 10 images for the blend. It wasn't perfect and required a fair bit of manual editing to get right along the water edge and some of the openings in the ice.

I don't think I have the colour saturation quite right yet - but this is where it makes sense to stop for the evening and pick up another day, with a fresh eye.

Originality

None of us wants to be a copycat, or even worse, to be thought of as one, but how to avoid it. If it's true that by now everything has been done before, even the most original ideas are likely exist already, somewhere, sometime, even if you didn't know about it. Coming up with what is for you original because you didn't know of someone elses work does not relieve you of being seen as unoriginal - exactly what you strived to be.

So how do we say something interesting as photographers?

It is argued that no one else will bring to your subject your life experiences, your biases, and the accumulation of the things that interest you, catch your attention, or the way in which you like things arranged or presented. The problem with this is that unless all of what is unique to your viewpoint comes with a considerable dollop of skill (notice I didn't say talent), little is likely to come of it.

It doesn't take long to realize that as a novice photographer, your images are typically crap, either technically or aesthetically, and likely both. So you start reading, and you discover a photographer you like. For me it was Ansel Adams. I tried to emulate him, to near complete failure. I expanded my book collection to include other landscape photographers of the same ilk - Bruce Barnbaum, John Sexton, even Edward Weston, but because their approach to the landscape was similar, I didn't learn as much as I hoped.

Then I came across the work of David Plowden - medium format, not grand landscape, often industrial or small town America - and here was something different - the technical quality was there, but the subject, the closer presentation, and the introduction of a whole range of other subject matter really opened my eyes.

I went back to the work of Brett Weston and instead of concentrating on his landscape work this time round, studied his close work and especially his abstracts.

I acquired a book of Arnold Newman portraits and learned a lot about design.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. The path you take will almost certainly be different based on what you like and what motivates you, but the point is that by expanding your horizons, even if you do come across a style of photographs you like, say those of Michael Kenna, if you then see a scene that reminds you of his images and want to photograph it, you do so with the entire path of your experiences and image education behind you. If you then combine that with your own personality and experiences, there is a good chance of producing interesting original work.

When I wrote the third book, I included Michael Kenna and then Michael Levin. In the essay i wrote on Levin, I made a point of discussing the differences between the two Michaels. Not surprisingly, Leven had been through this all too many times and asked if I could eliminate the comparison and I could see his viewpoint and so respected his wishes.

In a way that was a pity, because I don't see Levin's images as copying Kenna - sure they pick some similar subjects, and photograph with long exposures and use the square format at times, but there are huge differences in the vast majority of their images. Kenna's images are dark. He favours burning in the edges, and isn't afraid of grain. This gives his images a dark moody atmosphere.

Levin comes from an 8X10 background and his huge prints are creamy smooth and speak of the infinite and are much more meditative than moody. I don't think Michael Levin should be in the least uncomfortable with comparisons.

The worst thing we can do as photographers is to wear blinders, to avoid anything unfamiliar, uncomfortable, different.

More On Meidum Format

OK, so perhaps this is a way to show the difference. Here are two huge enlargements of a tiny section of image. SO enlarged that virtually no detail is visible in either image, but what you are seeing is each square is a pixel, and look at the difference in tonal variation, even both images had similar overall contrast, highlights and shadows. This isn't noise you are looking at - it is genuine detail as confirmed by careful inspection of lower magnification views of the images show.

The first is the Canon 1Ds3

and the second is the Pentax 645D

This implies it isn't the number of pixels that counts, it is the quality of the pixels. Is it possible that removal of the fuzzy filter will so improve the quality of the dslr pixels as to make up the difference - I simply don't know. But what you are seeing here at 1500% magnfication is why you can see the difference in ordinary size prints.

This even has implications for stitching - I can easily equal the pixel count of the Pentax by stitching two or three overlapping Canon 5D2 images, but the inability to resolve low contrast areas will remain.

And I haven't even begun to look at shadow areas in which the differences between the two cameras is far greater. That Pentax, with all its limitations (no live view, shallow depth of field) may just be what I'm looking for.

Below are 100% crops of the same area, Canon first, Pentax second.

 

Medium Format Vs. 24X36

As you know, I have been struggling with whether to go to the Pentax 645D. There is a controversial article by Mark Dubovoy on Luminous Landscape at the moment - to the effect that 'real photographers shoot medium format'. Of course, that isn't what Mark said, but it is what he implied - that no matter what the print size, one could see the difference between medium format and smaller formats.

The example he used showed distortion with the dslr image, and greater contrast and thus less well controlled highlights, and better shadows.

Of course, much of this is a function of the particular lens and f stop he chose to use, and I dare say the two images could have been made to look MUCH closer to each other with a bit of care.

My immediate reaction was 'what a load of bull', but then I calmed down and decided to look at far better comparisons made in some of the reviews of the Pentax 645D, in which images are compared to the  Canon 1Ds3.

I made prints of reasonable size, 24 inches in the long dimension - something that both cameras should be capable of making. I then looked at the images at 100%.

I have poured over the images, and here is what I have found. If one looks at the finest details, branches on the horizon miles away, there is nothing to separate the Pentax from the Canon at this size of print.  The same applies to railings and bricks and anywhere the contrast in tones is significant. Where I can see a difference between prints is in the low contrast areas, branches against bushes or downed leaves. Here there is a noticeable difference in the Pentax images - it's as if large areas (up to 1/4 inch of the print) were smeared, the colour blended, a complete absense of texture and detail and even simple variation in tone, on the Canon image. it isn't about greater resolution (which doesn't really show up until you make very large prints), but if the Canon can smear details over 1/4 inch at this size, it can still do that over 1/8 of an inch in a 12 inch print - that is definitely visible.

I don't know what the difference is - whether there is a lot more manipulation of data to squeeze every bit of accutance (edge sharpness) and low noise out of the Canon at base ISO, or whether this loss is the fuzzy filter, or due to the number of bits per pixel in the pipeline, or what - all I know is that for all I think Mark picked a poor example, he is fundamentally right that there is something different about medium format.

Whether this will still be true when there are 36 megapixel full frame dslrs without fuzzy filters remains to be seen.

It reminds me though of the days of film when people using Technical Pan and special compensating developers could show extremely sharp prints, albeit terrible ones, lacking in the tonalities that were readily visible in an 8 inch print when comparing 6X6 with 35 mm.

Careful examination of the two digital images at 200% clearly shows that no amount of sharpening or local contrast enhancement is going to bring back the missing texture in the smaller camera images - for whatever reason.

I wish I knew the reason. It would help me decide whether to fork out $10,000 for the Pentax, or spend almost 2/3 less for the next generation Canon or Nikon with 36 megapixels. Those cameras will have sensors 3 years newer than the Pentax, but their pixels will be considerably smaller than the Canon 1Ds3 has now - does this mean even more loss of subtle contrast detail?