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| Joe Farace on Landscape Photography with the Zeiss Ikon SuperWide Camera |
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When I was a student at the Maryland Institute, College of Art I discovered my interest for landscape photography. I developed a series of guiding principles on the "what" and "how" for photographing landscapes that I still follow today:
1. Photograph Locally
While it may be a gross oversimplification to say that anybody can make a great photograph in Monument Valley the truth is that the art of landscape photography often seems to be reduced to the location. But it does not need a legendary site to capture a great picture.
I made this photograph one block from the front door of my house as I set out on my daily walk one evening. These are scenes you might ordinarily walk or drive by. But when you take the time to photograph them, you’ll discover that these private landscapes are the ones that will mean the most to you.
2. Wide Angle-of-view
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| Shot with a Kodiak Professional BW400CN film |
Angle of view describes the angular extent of a given scene that can imaged by a lens. So-called “normal” lenses generally cover an angle of view of between 50 and 25 degrees. A wide-angle lens’ field of view typically covers between 100 and 60 degrees. Super wide-angle lenses can cover up to 180 degrees.
For these images I used the Biogon T* 2,8/21 ZM. It shows extremely sharp image details and low distortion. There is no “magic bullet” or perfect lens for photographing landscapes but I find this wide-angle lens produces a dynamic perspective especially in those situations where you cannot back up enough up to capture those wide vistas.
Tip: Be sure to use a lens hood! Capturing large chunks of sky in your photographs increases the chance of flare. It is caused by the front lens element being struck directly with light from the sun. This can create the traditional flare artifacts on film but can also reduce contrast and affect apparent sharpness.
3. Max Depth-of-field
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| Mount Evans, near the town of Idaho Springs, USA |
When you focus a Carl Zeiss T* ZM-mount lens on a specific subject, all subjects at that same distance are sharp. Objects that are not at the same distance are theoretically out of focus and not as sharp. But there is a range of acceptable sharpness that is referred to as the depth of field. Increasing the depth of field increases the overall level sharpness of an image. My personal rule for landscapes was to always use the lowest smallest possible aperture to produce the great amount of depth-of-field.
Tip: Depending on what the ISO of your film is you may have to use a tripod to steady your camera because of the slow shutter speeds produced by these small apertures.
4. Saturated Colors
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| © 2007 Joe Farace: Captured with the 21mm Zeiss Biogon T* 2.8 ZM lens set at f/8 with focus set at hyperfocal distance. |
There are—at least—three ways to produce highly saturated color images. One of the easiest ways is to start with a film that produces saturated color. Fuji’s Velvia color slide film is legendary for its warmth, saturation, and contrast. For those of us who prefer to shoot color negative film might want to try Kodak Professional Ultra Color film that available in both 100 and 400 ISO versions.
The way you expose your film also determines saturation: I slightly underexpose color slide film (and overexpose color negative film) to produce the most vibrant colors. The third way is to use digital methods and I leave that up to you to decide whether manipulating images saturation through film and exposure choices is any different than doing it with Adobe Photoshop.
Joe Farace is the co-author of "Better Available Light Photography", a book aimed at film shooters. Be sure to visit his website at www.joefaraceshootscars.com. |
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December 2007 |
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