Rivertown Waterfall

As promised, here comes another shot of my current home, Hamilton. This area is another place I pass on the way to my apartment. When I come home in the evenings, I drive through a lot of the city. Surprisingly, this image was made within walking distance of the first one I post a week or so ago.

As residents know, Hamilton is a river town. And the access to that easy transportation led to the rise of industry in the city. The paper mills still run, but they aren’t don’t employ as many people and they aren’t as much of an influence on the city as they used to be.

H-Town has a long history with the river. There are actually tunnels that run under parts of the city that at one time used the river currents to generate electricity. These are no longer in operation and some are now collapsing and causing problems for roads that run over them. It is strange to think about that technology being used decades ago, much like the Model-T Ford that was designed to run on soy bean oil and drove 25 miles per gallon of fuel. Maybe we should have stuck with what we had.

Anyway, this is another night shot. Unlike the previous photo, it shows a little more of the river action. Hope you enjoy it. I can’t say that either of the recent Hamilton shots are that hard to recreate. They were both shot at very low shutter speeds, but if you have a tripod, you should have no trouble. The reason why I like these shot is that they take a page from Ansel Adams’ playbook. It has been said that he was not a landscape photographer, but was really a weather photographer. If you look at many of his images, his skies are always filled with clouds. That’s why your shot of Yosemite Falls doesn’t look like his. He wait for days and days for the weather to be be right.

The first shot of the High/Main Bridge required the wind to be blowing in the right direction and it needed to be cold enough for the steam to really plume out. Also, it needed to be a clear night with no fog. This second image desperately needed clouds, and the time of day needed to be right so I could pull some blue out in the sky.

Brush Factory

The neighborhood of Brighton in Cincinnati is becoming a new community for artist’s in the city. One of the new businesses in the area is called the Brush Factory. They tailor clothes, sell locally made goods, and serve as a craft space for artisans. We, CityBeat, featured them in our Wedding Guide as a place to get vintage clothing fitted. So I shot this photo. The space was extremely compelling and the strong light from the windows made it possible to pull out some great colors. Hope you enjoy the shot.

The Power of Film

So I recently purchased a Bronica SQ-A. It’s basically a Hasselblad copy produced in Japan. It is an SLR and uses medium format film. It has interchangeable lenses just like a 35mm SLR. But it also has interchangeable film backs which allow you to change film types or ISOs mid-roll without wasting part of your roll. In addition to that it has interchangeable viewfinders like a waist-level finder or the pentaprisms that are commonly found in 35mm SLRs. And there are also a large variety of focusing screens available for it. Basically, it rocks.

So, after loading the film in it backwards and shooting an entire roll, I figured it out and got some shots out of it. For those of you looking to purchase on of these, DO NOT buy a prism without a split-image rangefinder focusing screen. It is basically impossible to focus. Get one with a waist-level finder. This finder has a built-in loupe that will allow you to focus better with any screen. The shot below was shot at f/2.8 with an 80mm lens at 1/60th of second. It’s not tack sharp, but it’s close. I’m not sure if it’s camera shake or just bad focusing. But regardless, it really demonstrates the power of film.

Let me explain why film is where it’s at. Now, megapixels are not the most important thing when it comes to digital cameras, but it’s pretty important. The camera system sporting the most megapixels is the Mamiya DM56. Shockingly it has a 56 megapixel sensor. This camera cost $32,490. That’s like a nice BMW. So my Bronica kit ran me about $200, I got a really good deal on it. And my film scanner was about $150, not even close to top-of-the-line. So we’re talking about $350, that’s slightly over 1% of the cost of the Mamiya. Factor in film and developing costs, and you could burn through over 3000 rolls of film without hitting the cost of the DM56.

When I do a scan of a medium format negative at my scanner’s native resolution, it produces a file that is 10,250 pixels by 10,250 pixels. That 105 megapixels!!! How about that. The file is 67 mb closed and over 300 mb when opened in Photoshop. You can’t beat that. Anyway, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Here’s a frame from my first Bronica shoot… the sharpest one on the roll. I sized it down for the web, obviously. But I didn’t crop it. It’s the full frame. The shot below is a full resolution crop, meaning it’s a section of the photo that shows pixel for pixel what the images was scanned at.

That’s her eye, folks. Not only can you make out the individual eye lashes, you can see the individual windows of the room reflected in her EYE BALL. That’s serious stuff. And as I mentioned earlier, this photo is NOT tack sharp and my scanner is not even close to the best one on the market. At 300 dpi, this photo would be 34″ wide. That’s almost three feet at magazine quality resolution. In my ongoing battle to keep film alive, I think this is a victory. I’ve explained in past posts some of the reasons I’m attracted to film, but this gives those digital junkies some numbers to chew on.

**my next post will be a photo from my D700 digital SLR, if I keep talking bad about digital, my karma will catch up with me and my digital will fail at some important assignment.**

Hippies Make Me Giggle

No long story or in-depth analysis here. I was at York Street Cafe in Northern Kentucky last week and saw the funky little sign hanging. The place had a lot of antique toys and unique Americana all over the place. All the stuff definitely added to the atmosphere and the food looked great, too. The restaurant is part of the Best of Cincinnati Card program that CityBeat runs. In my opinion, it’s the best deal in town. You can get 40% off at a bunch of different places. Check it out.

So yeah, I also love the little dancer guy above the sign, too. It makes me pronounce the sign in a foppish French accent, which makes me giggle more.

Always A Bridesmaid

CityBeat has a special wedding section that will be coming out soon, so a few weeks I found myself at a bridal show. I have to say it was a pretty interesting experience, and I have to say it wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared it might be. Everyone there seemed to be in a great mood, which I guess should be the way it is. There were also a lot of photographers there, several of whom were friends of friends and the like. It was pretty hard to shoot given the bad lighting of the convention center, but I think I got a few good frames that capture the essense of the event. Also while I was there, I made the frame below. It most likely won’t be used in the issue because it doesn’t really say much about the event, but I think it’s cute. And I am never one to waste a cute picture. I like the pose and all the dresses, I don’t know, I just dig it. Hope you enjoy it, too.