Technik #6 ~ Aspect Ratio

If you think about it, what is the aspect ratio of 90% of your photos? I bet your thinking 4:3 or 3:2 right? Why? Why not 6:6 or 12:6?

Why limit yourself in your photography skill to one simple aspect ratio? There are so many powerful aspect ratios that aren't taken advantage of because it just isn't convenient. There have been hundreds of cameras in history that have had peculiar aspect ratios.

Give it a shot sometimes it comes out better with a fine crop.

Technik Der Woche #5 Time Lapse

Do you ever wish you could make  everyone disappear from a crowed city street, and capture just the emotional value of the architecture? Well some of you are probably thinking to yourselves the people add to the emotion, keep them in. You could do that, but you could  also create a very interesting effect out of the entire event. Slow things down, to the point where everything moving is but a blur or gone entirely.

Wait what? If your shooting at night, or in a dimly lit room, this is an excellent technique. Set your camera to manual mode, or on a film range finder just set the following settings.

1. Aperture Should be set to smallest setting (Highest F/Stop I.E. F/16)


2. Shutter speed should be adjusted to the point where the meter registers +1/3 generally around 30seconds to 1 minute. On a manual film rangefinder set the camera to bulb, and hold it open for a count. If you have a shutter release this may help as well.


3. Do it again. Not every shot is going to be blurred as much as you want it to be. Keep trying. You might try opening up an old cheap rangefinder like a Argus C3 and creating a pinhole camera, out of it, dragging exposure times from 60seconds to several minutes.

There are tons of things to try just go try.

Technik Der Woche #4 ~ Developing Film With Coffee

On my first role I relied of this video heavily, and received a nearly transparent first role of film. It seems that every role of film is a little different. My first role developed for 8:30 minutes quite insufficient for my film. When I developed my second role I developed for 10 minutes and received denser images, however they were still not very good and required a large amount of manipulation to bring back detail into the images. Finally on my third role, which was shot almost exclusively in the Duluth-Superior area came out almost perfectly, having been in the developer for 15minutes. My next role will be developed for a total of 20minutes, as my negatives only needed to be slightly adjusted in GIMP.

Last Thursday had the chance to process my first role of black and white film, using the Caffenol method. If you're not familiar with this method, it essentially entails developing your film using instant coffee, a few household items, and a simple dark room chemical.  Don't believe me, it costs only around thirty dollars to get started, and it will last you tens of roles.

Materials include: Development Tank ~ Instant Coffee ~ Vitamin C Powder ~ Washing Soda ~ Film Fixer ~ Film Can Opener ~ Black And White Film

Following link only to items I used in the making of these images.

First of all before you can ever develop any of these you need to expose a role of film, I used a role of Fuji Neopan Professional 400 film, which can be ordered on amazon for around $3 a role at the time of this posting. I great deal for a fine grain film with 36 Exposures.

I first discovered the concept of developing my own film after finding a video online made by make magazine, a favorite of mine. Here is that video below.

Technik Der Woche #3

Shoot Manually With Out A Meter

If you have ever used a manual film SLR or rangefinder you may have encountered shooting without the aid of a meter. If so this guide may seem a little redundant. However if you've ever been interested in vintage photography and cameras this is a must tutorial. There is a rule in photography for meterless shooting called the Sunny 16 rule.

"On a sunny day set aperture to f/16 and shutter speed to the [reciprocal of the] ISO film speed [or ISO setting] for a subject in direct sunlight."

From this and the nature of shutter speeds one can derive the speeds and f/stop combinations. Here is the chart that I have had the best luck with.

Technik Der Woche #2

This weeks technique entales something a bit different than last weeks. This photo was taken using my Olympus PEN using a plain of focus technique.

It isn't a very hard technique, however doing it correctly, and getting good results out of it can be a little difficult.

For this technique you well need a very bright medium telephoto lens. On standard  Digital SLRs a 50mm f/2 combined with the 1.5x frame of view crop will work perfectly. On my m4/3 PEN I used a pentax lens converted to the m4/3 mount in order to get the control I needed.

First thing I did was find a suitable subject. If you need one, look around for clover patches, or shoot grass like I did.

To compress the depth of field (DOF) set the aperture to f/2 anything smaller isn't going to work well. Set the lens focus to its closest setting (On a 50mm lens generally around 1.5 feet) if your lens is a macro set its focus to around 1 foot. Place your camera down on the ground and frame up your subject. On a true SLR you must be using the DOF button to see the depth of field, or use the live view setting.

Your looking for a narrow band of focus to keep only a few blades or blooms in focus. Adjusting the focus a little can help bring the blade of focus into sharper focus, but only adjust a little. Moving the camera back and forth is the best way to make large adjustments.

The low angle will make a line of trees in the background seem like out of focus mountains, and the blades of grass almost like a jungle.

Tips: Pick a subject that isn't to densely packed, shoot at different times of the day, adjust colour in post processing, to add to the effect. The effect works best a lower light try shooting just after dawn or just before dusk when the light isn' t too strong.

Technik Der Woche #1

Shots like this aren't as hard to come by as one might think, its more a problem of location and timing.

In this first technique of the week, were going to look at how I got a shot like this.

The first issue was with location, for me it wasn't really a problem as I spend an exorbitant amount of time in Duluth Minnesota, which has amazing locals for seascapes.

The second issue was like I said time, which is probably the most important if you get the timing wrong your images won't come out. I recommend spending time between 8pm and 9pm at the location your are shooting and take several shots through out the time period.

I shot this photo using my Olympus PEN, at a moderate shutter speed of 1/30sec and an aperture of F16 which maximizes depth of field in the image, keeping everything in focus.

Processing brought out a lot of detail in the photo by using layer masks to enhance separate parts of the scene, and bust real world contrast. One could use HDR, and I have in the past, however it doesn't offer as much control.