Small island in the thousand islands

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Original is a 120 format Velvia transparency. This is a flatbed scan from an 8x8" type R print. 80mm at f/16 on a tripod, bracketed exposure.

-- Russ Arcuri (arcuri@borg.com), September 11, 1998

Answers

What appeals most to me about this picture is the breakwater effect of the island; the water in the foreground appears smoother than in the background. A really fine image. Bravo.

-- Richard Shiell (rshiell@lightspeed.net), September 12, 1998.

Very beautiful image.

-- Jan van Bodegraven (janvnbdg@mandic.com.br), September 12, 1998.

The bottom and in particular the bottom right is just a shade to dark and lacks enough detail to suit me. It unbalances the shot making it to heavy in the bottom right. The sky color is fine, however and the overall affect is pleasant. I struggle with these shots myself and am about to invest in a set of Singh-Ray neutral grad filters to help out (hopefully).

Cheers

-- Bill (Bill.Wyman@utas.edu.au), September 13, 1998.


Thanks for the comments thus far.

The original slide, as well as the prints made from it, show a lot more detail in the lower right region. A third-generation copy (scan of a print made from a slide) is definitely sub-optimal, but I wanted to put a copy of this up and I lack the funds for a medium format film scanner.

I have a big (16x16") type R print that would have scanned better, but my cheap ($99) flatbed won't handle anything more than 8x11 scans. Okay, I've done enough whining for now. Anybody got a spare Nikon LS 4500 film scanner lying around they'd like to give me?

-- Russ Arcuri (arcuri@borg.com), September 13, 1998.


Very, very nice photo, Russ. What I find surprising about this photo is the wide contrast that was recorded by the film. Velvia does not have a whole lot of latitude; I would have expected this shot to go totally dark in the lower quarter of the frame.

-- James Tarquin (tarquin@erols.com), September 14, 1998.


James - this is exactly the kind of shot I would have preferred using a 1 stop split ND filter with. However, I was using my TLR, which is nearly impossible to use split ND filters with. So I bracketed my exposures around the meter reading hoping that one of them would be okay. I was surprised at how well the water held up in this exposure.

As I mentioned above, the original transparency and the prints do show more detail in the water than this scan does. However, as Bill suggested, I think it might have been a bit better if I could have used a split ND filter.

-- Russ Arcuri (arcuri@borg.com), September 15, 1998.


I just tried viewing this on a PC (mine is a Mac) and realized that it looks very different, likely due to differences in gamma. If the sky looks super saturated and the water is too dark to show much detail, try boosting the brightness on your monitor some. The original doesn't look anything like what I'm seeing on this PC.

-- Russ Arcuri (arcuri@borg.com), September 15, 1998.

Don't worry about the PC users. On my (PC) monitor, it is an excellent picture with all the details Velvia can handle. Yes, it is a very nice shot. Maybe the colors are a bit oversaturated for me, but this must be the "almost unreal" feeling sponsored by Velvia.

Maybe it's not the right place for this kind of question, but I wonder why all of the photographers are addicted to Velvia on this forum???

-- Gabor Avasi (avasig@hotmail.com), September 17, 1998.


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