Lawrence Ripsher's Photo Journal » Olympus OM-4

Trees

Lawrence Ripsher — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:07:35 +0000

Not had much to write about recently (or rather not had enough time) so just posting a few pics from my past couple of rolls of film. Here’s two more of … well … trees.

Repeating Patterns

Lawrence Ripsher — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 07:48:46 +0000

I’ve had little time to do any very interesting photography in the past couple of weeks. Still, my cameras have been coming out with me and I’ve been grabbing shots when I can. However, with the weather being what it is (I live in Seattle so no surprise – it’s been raining) and work being busy, my images have been mostly opportunistic. When things are like that, I often default to a handful of simple styles and look for images that fit into that mold. Examples of styles might be reflection shots, contrasting (or dare I say juxtaposing) subjects, unusual compositions, etc. Another example is “repeating patterns”. It’s fairly self explanatory – find a scene where the subject repeats its pattern through the image and you often have the making of something half decent. Here are two examples which were on a roll I just developed – again, nothing groundbreaking but make for good filler posts. Both shots are Olympus OM-4 + Zuiko glass on Fuji Neopan 100 Acros.

Sora goes jogging

Lawrence Ripsher — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:57:27 +0000

Despite the fact that Sora continues to grow in confidence, I never thought I’d actually be able to take him jogging. He walks comfortably on a leash but while running, everything happens at a much greater speed and I thought he’d just balk at the idea of pacing through the streets of a big city with cars close by, etc. Turns out I was wrong. On Sunday we tried going out for a run and he was awesome. We ran about 3 miles, over to a local park, and he was perfect. Got a little unsettled from an 18 wheeler that went by but otherwise, he had a great time. He ran alongside me with us stopping at lights and when we had to cross the road. Sora needs only a couple of cues when running… One is “step up” which tells him that he needs to expect the curb and to pick up his feet (when he hears this command he starts a funny goose step marching movement)… The other is “stairs” which tells him to step down. It’s very cool. I get funny looks when we run – where you can tell people are thinking “is that dog really blind, cause he looks blind… but… he’s… running”.

Here’s Sora – not running.

Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM 21mm f2 on Fujifilm Neopan 400

The Dynamic Range of Film

Lawrence Ripsher — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 08:11:42 +0000

A follow up to The Resolution of Film. These are quick and dirty observations about film vs digital while I write a larger article on the topic.

This post is about the dynamic range of film – something film is famed for in photography.

Actually, I should be specific. It’s negative film, both black and white and colour, that has a highly regarded dynamic range – usually considered to surpass that of digital. For transparencies / slides (e.g. Velvia), this is actually the opposite as film of this type actually has a very narrow dynamic range. An example of that narrow dynamic range can be seen in this shot:

Olympus OM-4 + Zuiko lens on Fujichrome Velvia 100

See how the sky is exposed correctly but then as you hit the water and the areas not showing the reflection, the shadows take over and all highlights are lost. Well, that’s the effect of slide film. I actually like it in this shot and in several others I have since I started using Velvia – but it should be considered a limitation.

OK so moving past slide film, and onto regular colour negatives (C41 – the types you can get processed at a regular lab), this type of film has a great reputation for wide dynamic range. Here’s a shot I took the other day which was exposed using an in camera meter and followed by the direct sunlight. It was shot on Kodak Ektar:

Zeiss Ikon + Zeiss Glass on Kodak Ektar 100

The good news is that the sky is well exposed and despite shooting into direct sunlight, hasn’t resulted in a washed out / blown out sky.

But that’s normal – the result of underexposure. Look at the ground for example, which is way too dark.

So to test the ability of film to record details in these darkened areas, I scanned the film again with curves applied into a TIFF file and dodged some of that area in photoshop to see what I could rescue. The result was:

(image following rescanning with curves applied and some photoshop dodging)

Certainly a lot of detail was recovered – impressively so. Kodak’s Ektar 100 performed well and it didn’t introduce an unbearable amount of noise in the process. And of course that sky colour was still retained. Hard to say how digital would have fared in this situation, maybe the attention deserves a side by side comparison. In the meantime, a fun test and a little anecdotal evidence to back up the claims of film’s DR.

Best of 2009

Lawrence Ripsher — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 07:14:30 +0000

I wrote recently about the importance of selecting your best images from 2009 to give yourself a true reflection of your photography year. After much deliberation, here’s my top five images. Overall, I’m happy with where I ended up with these five. I think some are reasonably memorable and as is the case with my photography, consist of a range of topics – from the familiar (Akuri and our dogs) to the somewhat bizarre. The year 2009 was supposed to be a time for me to return to “shooting for pleasure”. About halfway through the year I was struggling to meet that simple goal but by rediscovering 35mm film, things started to turn around and by the end of the year I had too many pictures to post and share. Overall, the year was an absolute joy for me photographically – after shooting professionally between 2007 – 08 (and losing some personal motivation) – a genuine love for photography has returned and it’s intertwined deeply into my life again.

Some new years resolutions for 2010:

Shoot more with Medium Format
Take fewer pictures
Take better pictures
Finally get around to entering some competitions (and winning a few)
Continue to write on this blog and expand Lost In Focus

Anyway, onto my top 5. Please feel free to share your favourite images !

“Victory”
Olympus E-P1 + Kit lens. Taken at Gasworks Park, Seattle.

“Akuri and Ume”
Canon 5D Mark II + Canon 200mm f/2.8 L lens. Our late Rottweiler Ume and my wife Akuri. Probably my favourite shot this year (and easily my most meaningful). Not a posed shot – I just sat at the back of the beach while Akuri and Ume played together in the surf.

“Burgers Now Open”
Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm f/2 on Fuji Velvia 100. Street shot taken of a dog waiting for its owner outside a burger bar

“Morning”
Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm f/2 on Fuji Velvia 100. Akuri again with Sora.

“The Birds”
Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8 on Fuji Neopan 400. Triptych of birds & trees, somewhere in Washington / Oregon.

Oregon Pacific Coast Trip – “Family”

Lawrence Ripsher — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 08:20:37 +0000

Happy New Year everyone.

OK this is the last in the series… Just a few shots of my little family as we made our way down the coast. As I’ve already said a dozen times, it was a wonderful four day trip and I intend to do it several times more over the next 12 months. I’m delighted with the shots I took over the week – only the second time I’ve ever felt strongly (i.e. brave enough) to bring only film equipment with me on a trip… I’ll never stop shooting digital as it offers so many different benefits / advantages, but my recent foray into film has definitely opened my eyes to a new way of shooting, processing and thinking about photography. I certainly expect more interesting film + digital combinations through 2010.

Zeiss Ikon + Zeiss 50mm f/1.5 on Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros
Lets start off with Akuri, taken on a beach in N.Oregon

Zeiss Ikon + Zeiss 50mm f/1.5 on Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros
Rio racing by on a gloomy, sandy beach

Olympus OM-4 + Zuiko glass on Fuji Neopan 400
Sora, “looking out” to sea… Seeing Sora (who is blind) play on the beach was a truly wonderful experience. He’s never seen the ocean before in his life (and as he won’t be able to see it in the future, he pretty much has no idea what it is)… but despite this, he quickly adapted to realising it was a place where he could run for miles in one direction and not bump into anything for once :). He got dumped on by a couple of waves at the beginning and then quickly learned to avoid them by sound. A true wonder.

Olympus OM-4 + Zuiko glass on Fujichrome Velvia 100
The wild exposure is a combination of the meter getting thrown and the shallow dynamic range of slide film. Ended up with a pretty interesting effect and an image I’ve found myself coming back to over and over

Zeiss Ikon + Zeiss 50mm f/1.5 on Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros
Akuri and Rio, taking a seat on the Oregon Dunes

Olympus OM-4 + Zuiko glass on Fujichrome Velvia 100
A final beach shot. This is Ektar – looks a lot like Velvia if you ask me which is kinda cool and a testament to the film.

That’s all folks – hope you enjoyed the series.

Oregon Pacific Coast Trip – “Life”

Lawrence Ripsher — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 03:54:17 +0000

I’ve photographed in a dozen different countries, with countless models in abandoned mansions, inside the the hull of a supertanker, with a hundred different dogs, from the pressbox of ATP tennis matches and on set at a TV series… but I have nothing to speak of when it comes to widlife. I have no idea if I even suck or not :) – growing up just outside London gave me little exposure to wildlife and the time I spent in Singapore yielded little more than close proximity to lizards.

That will soon be changing when I go on a trip to Yellowstone in Spring… Can’t wait for that. In the meantime, here’s some pictures that just about qualify as “life” (not all of it moving) from my recent Oregon trip.

Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 55mm f/1.2 on Fujifilm Neopan 400
Trees across a river in the Redword National Park. I actually really liked this shot. It came out overexposed with default settings (exposure meter thrown by all the dark shadows) so just adjusted some curves and was v pleased with the result – I reckon this will look cool and abstract in a print.

Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 55mm f/1.2 on Fujifilm Neopan 400
A real wildlife shot ! I’m sad to say that this is as close to a truly wild animal as I’ve come. This baby seal was laying on the beach – was pretty excited to see this

Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8 on Kodak Ektar 100
The same pup up close and on Ektar

Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm f/2 on Kodak Ektar 100
Life washed up

Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm f/2 on Fuji Neopan 400
It felt impossible to photograph the amazing trees in the Redwood National Park and convey a sense of height and perspective. This tree was probably many hundreds of years old and about 80 metres high

Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm f/2 on Fuji Neopan 400
I include this only to remind to myself to mention an amazing photographer called Chris Jordan. Click here to see his incredible and moving Miday series.

And finally my favourite shot from the trip and an image I shared earlier this week.

Oregon Pacific Coast Trip – “Sand and Sea”

Lawrence Ripsher — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 04:11:10 +0000

OK, second part. This was the best part of the trip – the endless coastline with deserted beaches. Oregon allows dogs on their beaches so anytime we felt like stopping, we’d pull over, let the dogs out and start photographing. Other than the single trip down to Cannon Beach this summer (when the sea was relatively calm), I’ve never really had the chance to photography the ocean so this was a treat for me. At the beginning of the trip, the weather started in a howling rage but within a couple of days the sun was out and the contrast was stunning.

I liked the pictures I ended up with for this set. I ended up throwing away a lot more though – things I thought might look good and experimented with often came out horrible. Overall though was v pleased – the key thing being that the images captured a slice of what this awesome coastline looks like.

This came out nice. A little overexposed as the metering on my OM-4 got thrown by the huge contrast (and it’s velvia so fewer stops of DR), but I liked this.
Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm f2 on Fujichrome Velvia 100

A bench with one of the finest views in the world (well at least for the surrounding 50 miles)
Zeiss Ikon + Zeiss 28mm f/2.8 on Fujifilm Neopan 400 Acros

These two were originally shot on Kodak Ektar 100 in colour but I converted to BW in post

This is one of my favourite shots from the trip – it was in the Oregon sand dunes. We wandered around on a deserted beach under a beautiful sunset – such a perfect place
Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 55mm f/1.2 on Kodak Ektar 100

Somewhere along the south coast of Oregon. This is Sora
Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm f/2 on Fujifilm Neopan 400

This seemed like a good idea at the time. Only marginally pleased with the results though.
Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm f/2 on Fujifulm Neopan 400

A cliche just waiting to happen :)
Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8 on Fujifilm Neopan 400

Oh and one more I missed the first time around (Velvia)

Oregon Pacific Coast Trip – “Skies”

Lawrence Ripsher — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 06:30:54 +0000

I’ll be uploading my pictures from our Oregon trip last week in four or five parts. Here is the first part in the series – “Skies”.

These are basically shots of the amazing stormy skies that tracked us as we headed down south on our trip. This subject matter has not been a classical area of strength for me so it was fun to actually get a chance to shoot some of those vast open skies.

I’ll post the rest of the images in coming days.

Olympus OM-4 on Fujichrome Velvia 100

Olympus OM-4 on Fujifilm Neopan 400

Olympus OM-4 on Fujichrome Velvia 100

Zeiss Ikon on Fujifilm Neopan 400

Creating yesterday’s triptych

Lawrence Ripsher — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 21:25:48 +0000

A couple of people asked me how I created the panoramic look in yesterday’s triptych. Here’s a post containing a couple of the original images which made up the final version which provides an easy answer to that question.

I arguably prefer the shots in this format, which fits so well with my recent style and Horizons project – but there’s something about seeing the three shots sandwiched together that makes me want them presented in a triptych. I also think they’ll print well like that (which I’ll try tonight).

All three images were shot with an Olympus OM-4, Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8 on Fujifilm Neopan 400. The shot came when I’d mentioned to Akuri that I wanted to shoot some trees on a horizon, and shortly after she noticed those two trees in the distance. I pulled over to the side of the road, changed lenses and started composing when suddenly out of nowhere a huge flock or birds started rapidly swirling around. I got about 5 shots off before they took off. A perfect combination of a great eye (thank you Akuri), having just enough of the right kit (and shorter than 135mm and it’d have been too small) and some good old fashioned blind luck. Isn’t that what all good photography is about ?