Spring Flowers Digital 4x5

It has been a great spring for wildflowers here in Texas.  After a wet winter and spring with some nice drought breaking rains we have had a great wildflower display.  Bluebonnets have already come and gone.  It was a good show.  Now we have a variety of red, yellow, purple, white, etc.  A visual feast.


I took the 4x5 out today to see if I could capture some of that spring color.  I had some Velvia 100 I wanted to shoot but I also decided to take the 50D along and hook it up for some digital work with the Arca-Swiss.


I carefully waded out into the wildflowers and found a good spot with some bare ground for the pack.  Then I set up the Arca-Swiss.  I went with the 210mm to compress the flowers.  I shot a couple of sheets, then switched over to the DSLR to see what it could do.


When working with the DSLR I can only use the longer lenses to get anywhere close to infinity.  Now the 210mm on a crop sensor DSLR is like using a 300mm on a full frame camera as I am only using a small piece of the image circle.


Open up the lens like I normally would.  Use Live View to compose and focus.  Use Aperture Priority mode for the image.  Viola-image.


I get the 4x5 experience with instant digital feedback and I did not have to spend $30,000 for a high end digital back.  I just get a smaller file and cannot use wide angles.  However for what I was doing I thought the longer lenses would be a better choice.


I saw a few Indian blankets and thought they might be a good subject.  Used the 10x on Live View to really check focus.  Then it was just wait for the wind to lull for just a second.


Then when I caught that lull, I got this one.  Canon 50D, on Arca-Swiss 4x5 with a 210mm Nikon lens.

4x5 + DSLR An Experiment

I did an experiment recently to see if I could use my DSLR with my view camera.

I have seen the digital scanning backs or medium format digital backs people have purchased but the several kilobuck price tags places them clearly out of my budget.

Then I saw that some people were buying adapters to allow the use of their DSLR with their view camera. The price was only a couple of hundred, so it was of more real potential.

Then the brainstorm happened....

The modular nature of an Arca-Swiss camera means the ground glass uses the same frame as a lensboard. Meaning I thought I could mount the camera to a flat lens board and use it in place of the ground glass.

I had a flat lensboard so I bought a cheap $15 set of extension tubes off ebay. A buddy took the flat lensboard, took the #1 sized lensboard hole and widened it a bit. Then he epoxied the extension tubes to it.

Viola!-an instant digital camera mount.

The only thing we had to do was play with the extension tube pieces until we got right distance so the camera prism could clear the board.

Once we had that, all I had to do was pop off the ground glass, pop on the new lens board, and mount my Canon DSLR on the extension tubes.

It fit great.

Then with live view I could now compose and focus!

I was able to use both my 210mm and 125mm lens. Although it was a squeeze to make the 125mm work and in this setup anything shorter was out of the question. Remember since I am using the DSLR sensor the lenses act like they would on the DSLR too. So 125mm is slightly wide on the 4x5 but fairly long on the DSLR.

I was still using the large format lenses, still setting the aperture on them, still using movements too. I had just replaced film with a digital sensor. Albeit, a tiny one.

By using Aperture Priority mode on the camera plus live view, it was easy to focus and the camera could still get the exposure!

Images were sharp and had good color.

This not only worked, it had potential.

Then I expanded into what I was really hoping to do-use the movement features of the camera to stitch images into panoramas.

That was when I found the limits.

The Arca-Swiss model I have-the Discovery has all that Arca modularity but it also has friction movements.

Meaning that to shift, I have to loosen a knob, slide the frame, and retighten the knob. What I found was there was ever so slight focus shift when I did that.

So the stitching of panos was lost. Or at least I found it was much easier just to hand hold and use the DSLR as opposed to using the view camera and DSLR to try to stitch.

So an experiment that kinda worked.

I can use it and get an image. however I think you would need a camera with geared movements to take advantage of the shift and stitch.

So the merger of digital and large format is still not happening for me. I'll just do hand held stitches with the DSLR and stick to film with the view camera.

Double Time

Photographing on the open range of southern New Mexico is fun. It is also a lonely, empty, and dusty place.

As I mentioned in prior posts it is a difficult place to capture in one image. So in addition to trying to put it on a single sheet of film I was working with the DSLR too. The hope was to be able to stitch several images into a long pano that can begin to capture the size of the land here. Stitching is one are that I just cannot make work like I want it with film. I think the scanner is the weak link. But even with all else being same on the exposure and processing I still play havoc getting scanned images to stitch right. On the other hand it is a quick and easy process with a digital capture. A couple of clicks in PS and you have an image.

So my plan this day was to work with the DSLR for panoramas and to work a scene for one image with the view camera.

It meant two ways to think and kept me busy working two tripods. It was a double time day.

Little Buddy

As if carrying a backpack full of large format was not enough, I finally got going into the digital world.

I had started photographing with a 35mm system, then went into medium format. That jump was amazing as the larger increase in film size gave my images a much better quality and detail than 35mm could deliver. But after a few years I came to realize that bigger is better yes, but also to make the kind of images I wanted I needed the abilities in a camera that only a view camera could offer. That led to several months of reading, studying, and practice until I finally got the Arca.

At first I would bring all three on a trip. Using the 4x5 and the 645 at dawn and dusk for the best light. Then I would use the 35mm and occasionally the 645 during the day when hiking. What I found was that I no longer liked the images from the 35mm. The sheer size of the 4x5 film and the technical capabilities of the camera overwhelmed what I could get out of 35mm. Even the 645 images paled in comparison to what I could get with the 4x5.

So I sold most of my 35mm gear keeping only one body and two lenses. But after another year I had only only run three rolls through it and kept none of the images. So I sold out of the 35mm game. I still kept the 645 but even it's use had become less.

In summer 07 I decided to dip my toe into digital and got a DSLR. I was back to taking three formats again. This time the 645 became the odd man out. At dawn and dusk I was still using the 4x5 but my backup quickly became the DSLR. I sat down a few weeks ago and looked over what I used the 645 for in the past year and realized I had only run 5 rolls through it. The 4x5 was where I was doing film and everything else was now digital.

So then I sold the medium format.

Now I am back down to two formats. The 4x5 and a DSLR. A morning in the field means a backpack for of large format, a small bag over my shoulder with the DSLR and a tripod in each hand (carbon fiber helps here).

I am quite pleased with the two as I think they compliment each other very well. The 4x5 allows me to work slow, think about an image and use it's capabilities (like tilt) to make special images. The DSLR lets me work fast, in the wind, handheld, and has "free film". I got the best of both worlds going.

Here is an example of both at work in Canyonlands NP. I am working the wider view of the canyon with the 4x5 and can work the distant landscape with the zoom on the DSLR.

Bliss.