Buchannon, West VirginiaFrom a road trip in 2005, shot with the 7x17 inch Korona Panoramic View. Be sure to click on the picture to see a bigger version. I love the buildings here—the adjacent smaller one is an American Legion hall—but it's the portrayal of noontime light on a hot August day that really appeals to me.
8 comments:
I am not sure I understand what you are talking about ... fraternal orders, american legion ... but I really like the photo, :-)
I like the light on the building's peeling walls, but I wonder if, standing on that street, I would have been able to see into the doors under the marquee on such a bright day. Did the camera beat a typical human for dynamic range on that day?
scott
Martina,
Fraternal orders are basically "mens' clubs." These are really a bit like a low-key version of the Masons. You must join in order to attend, it is a social gathering matrix, and the group usually does some sort of charitable Good Work, but often the primary draw is that drinks are much cheaper than at a commercial bar. The American Legion is a group of this sort limited to people who have served in the U.S. military. The VFW (veterans of foreign wars) takes the exclusion a bit farther.
Glad you like the picture.
Scott, that's a fascinating question.
I think the answer is no, but there's a twist. Just as with the wide field of view in this picture, which our eyes can't possibly see in high resolution all at once, our brain constructs an image based on scanning. For the field of view, we rapidly move our sharp field of vision around the large thing we are looking at and construct a detailed impression. At the same time, our iris pops around and our retina changes its ISO to handle the dynamic range of the scene.
An HP5+ negative 'exposed for the shadows' and developed in PMK pyro can record a huge luminance range, and make it available for printing in Pt/Pd, or that new alternate process, VC silver, and also is very friendly to the scanner.
But, there's nothing you can find on the jpg that I wasn't intensely aware of while shooting. I could see all the way into the shadows and all the way into the highlights, though I was doing this in a methodical "do I have a picture here" procedure I use when working in large format. It was only when I decided that all of that stuff was worth working with that I opened the tailgate of the truck and got out the Korona.
Carl, I like your image of the iris popping around and the retina changing its ISO - very lively explanation.
Thx for the explanation of "the men's clubs" - Orioles Kanawha ... hm. Some specific Anglo-Saxon phenomena this is I suppose.
Carl, I like this photo a lot and it is very evocative for me. I have been in places just like this and you have captured the feeling.
I am nurturing a phobia about photographs of building with distorted perspective. This shot is amazing to me in that the rendering is rectilinear even out to the edges. It seems like this would be very challenging even with camera movements on such a wide field of view. I have never used a view camera so maybe this is all in a day's work for you, but it strikes me as quite remarkable. Thanks
Edd, rectilinear correction is a really high priority for designers of view camera lenses. I've become so used to it that the less than perfect correction of even high-priced lenses for dSLR cameras drives me a bit crazy.
In this case I used my "standard" lens for 7x17, which is a 305mm G-Claron. The lens design is originally for "process" (copying, reproduction, etc.) so its linear correction is high even by view camera standards. The design also has the quirk of gaining enormous coverage when stopped down past f/32. At f/64 it had sufficient coverage for a substantial front rise to include the tops of the buildings with the camera back perfectly plumb. That's all that's required to maintain "correct" perspective.
Carl, thanks for the explanation. I spent about 30 years in the printing business so I am very familiar with process cameras. Many years ago I scrapped a 30x40 process camera (that was the copyboard size, the back was probably smaller). Sure wish I had kept the lens off of that camera!
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