Just did these shots with the K10D that I got yesterday.

[dwinnert]

I'll get an image of the contraption one of these days. But in reality it's like a chair with arms, with a seat that is about 3' wide. I pull the seat off and then it folds.

Below are the before and after I did of the lilly. I was using brown linen in these shots because I was trying something with color film. To get the background really black I will knock the exposure way down and dodge the main object. This one had no PP other then exposure, zone adjustment and some burning and dodging. No erasing or cloning away any part of the flower. Took about an hour to get it right.

Both with film btw....Kodak 100UC

Before PP (Flower is actually in a saki bottle)



After PP with PS2 and Bibble Pro

Neat - any chance of you posting a photo of this gizmo? I always end up draping cloths over chair backs, tripods, etc. and it's not very convenient. Lovely photos, it's amazing how such a mundane object can make a pleasing photograph. Great conversion and pp, too - how much messing around did you need to do to get the black background? The one time I've done something similar, it was a real pain, what with all the little lint bits I'd never noticed on the cloth...

Julie

[foxglove]

I'll get an image of the contraption one of these days. But in reality it's like a chair with arms, with a seat that is about 3' wide. I pull the seat off and then it folds.

Hm. I have some broken wooden/fabric folding chairs (director chairs, if you know what I mean) hanging about, I wonder if that would work, with a little tweaking. I've been meaning to fix them, but they're old enough that if someone then sat in them, they'd probably just go and break again!

Below are the before and after I did of the lilly. [...] Took about an hour to get it right.

It sounds like we're doing about the same thing, then. And taking about the same length of time to do it!

Both with film btw....Kodak 100UC

Ah, film! I really must get one my old film bodies out, it's a whole different ballgame. Stupid question - why did you use colour film and convert to b&w? Was it just what you had in the camera, and you changed your mind?

I've been reasonably happy with my digital b&w conversions, but I still prefer the stuff I did with b&w film. But there's no way I'm going back into the darkroom!

That's a very graceful flower, and I find I prefer the colour version - the brown background brings out the lovely creamy colour in the blossom. But I do like the way it seems to float in space in the b&w version. Both are great.

Julie

[dwinnert]

Ah, film! I really must get one my old film bodies out, it's a whole different ballgame. Stupid question - why did you use colour film and convert to b&w? Was it just what you had in the camera, and you changed your mind?

I've been reasonably happy with my digital b&w conversions, but I still prefer the stuff I did with b&w film. But there's no way I'm going back into the darkroom!

That's a very graceful flower, and I find I prefer the colour version - the brown background brings out the lovely creamy colour in the blossom. But I do like the way it seems to float in space in the b&w version. Both are great.

Julie

I used to shoot B&W film years ago but since getting back into photography I lost patience with chemicals, even though I am thinking of doing it again. I bought a Nikon Coolscan V-ED to play around with film again and to scan some of my old stuff. The Coolscan has Digital ICE built in that removes dust and scratches during the scan. Unfortunately it does not work with B&W silver based film. The silver confuses Digital ICE into thinking it is just a lot of dust. Some of my old B&W negs no matter how much I blew and dusted before scanning required hours of PP just to clean. So I tried doing color negs which Digital ICE works fantastic on and then doing the B&W conversion in PP. Plus I do a mix of B&W and color when I shoot and like the freedom I get with color negs and CS2/Bibble Pro.

The flower was intended to be in color and with the brown background. My vision of what it was to look like when done didn't quite work out, so I did the B&W conversion....which I liked so much it got me doing more of them. That flower was my first color neg to B&W. I have a ton of ideas for color and plan to do it mostly with digital...and maybe some film.

I can't explain it, but color neg film works really good as a B&W conversion. But one of the reasons I bought the K10D was to see if I can get that same look, while not having to develop and scan. I have looked at many images in galleries, online, magazines and my own work and still think film out does digital when it comes to B&W...but it is getting damn close.

This is what I like about film. This is a Kodachrome slide I found of my Dads bike taken in 1958. That slide had the actual photons that bounced off the bike hit it. It's like the slide somehow actually touched that bike almost 50 years ago. It witnessed that bike first hand....

May be voodoo...but it makes me giddy.