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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
05-13-2012, 02:01 PM
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Good evening,
(oups - looks like this has become a somewhat long post - please forgive a newbie)
as this is going to be my first post on this forum, I would like to make use of the opportunity to introduce myself: my name is Peter and I did chose the Pentax 67 system for my diploma in Graphic Design. After endless efforts in getting sharp pictures out of an east German Pentacon Six in the middle of the 80s, the Pentax 6x7 was my first serious medium format camera and please let me call it a quality boost right from the start. I have found everything right with this camera and so it accompaigned me for 5 more years, until I fell victim to madness and traded it in for a Linhof Super Technika 5x7 inches (which I never seriously used due to its enormous weight, but which still have, along with its smaller sibling, the SuperTech V 4x5 inches and a few other really big cameras).
I remembered the Pentax that once gave me such a good start in medium format and so I grew the strong wish to get it done with this camera.
This was the starting point to lurk around at your forum and to view the lovely pictures uploaded. Subject of my conceptual work is the consequent usage of only one kind of perspective - central perspective - with the goal to teach a sensibility in watching. This might read boring at the first and none of the pictures appeals to be a piece of art, but with the large number of shots, each very similar to the pervious and all to follow, I hope the viewer will end up with a sharpened sensibility for what has been unspectacular to him prior to watch my pictures. In addition to that, I have chosen an area of the town of Dortmund, which is known for its growing social problems with prostitution, severe drug abuse and rotting architectural substance with all very beautiful, old houses, but in mostly terrible shape. So there is a reporting part to my work. Of course, a camera of serious weight with a wooden handle would have served as a decent anti-offence weapon if needed, but the people there (almost 70 percent of the population are muslims, who of course do not love the idea to be photographed because of the islamic rule, not to picture humans or even animals) turned out to be very friendly and just stared at me with my monsterious camera. I had to promised many times not to picture them or at least to retouch the images afterwards, with which I also served my own intention, as I wanted to show a town without any people. The long exposure times of the film I have finally picked made it possible.
I should have asked you for advise first - but I just did not find the time (or spare time) to start with a post, so the camera work and post production is almost done.
A very good 67 body with metered 67 prism was obtained from a US seller off ebay (seller name: shutterblade) and next was to get handle and lenses. I went for a set of wide primes: 45mm (67 version), 55mm (3. version), a fluted 75mm plus an 105mm (fluted, but not yellowed at the rear) and the newer 200mm - all tack sharp as expected. Especially the 75mm seems to be sharp as a razor, despite it shows signs of a badly cemented rear group (hence a true bargain at what makes 40 US Dollars). The 55mm utters the rattling sounds when being shaked for which it is well known and there is also movement to its rear element, but I have learned from a Pentax technician that on this lens, the front and the rear part are to me moved independently from each other whilst focussing. This lens also takes tack sharp images. A few weeks later, as second body (a 6x7 MLU) was obtained here and meanwhile I can reload the beast in almost no time. I took all pictures from a sturdy and hefty Schiansky tripod with ball head, dating from the early 60s - weighing 7 kilograms - feels like people used to believe in steel and iron during this decade. Due to heavy road traffic, I needed to prepare the camera for a shoot, then enter the middle of the street and get the picture doe very quickly. The metered prism was supported by my trusty Spotmeter V, for which I used the many satellite dishes hanging around in this suburb as grey cards. I bought 100 rolls Fuji Velvia 50 of which in the end I had exposed 50. Prior to switching to Fuji I exposed 20 rolls of expired Agfachrome RXII which gave me very unique, hard to describe colours - much softer than Velvia and washed out in a lovely way. I still have 10 rolls Agfa in my freezer and will keep it for a special purpose in the future. I also tried Velvia 100 and was pleased with the results in dull, cloudy weather, but disaponted by its bluish tint when shot in sunlight.
I did the decision to shoot chromes before I got aware that I could have to opportunity to make use of one of the 2 Imacon scanners at school and as I knew that scanning negatives on a budget scanner can be somewhat tricky, I wanted to avoid such problems by using chromes instead of negative film. But of course, the Fuji Velvia is a film capable of handling something like 4 steps and I was surprised to experience a very mild autumn, with many weeks in bright light with deep, long shadows. Imagine you have to shoot street pictures under this conditions (limitations) and you know how happy I was to be able to use the Imacon with its wide dynamic range. This machine has saved me. I did almost 300 drum scans, which - if done at the professional lab I got the developments - would have set me back... I have calculated I could have bought 2 Pentax 645D for the money I saved by using our school equipment for free. Apart from retouching dust, I corrected lens distortion with both the application ShiftN and in Photoshop.
I hope a question of mine is welcome. It is about sharpening images and as you know the sharpness your 67s are able to achieve, you surely can answer it best.
I want to get 5 photo books done, the pictures will be printed in a screenless technique on photo paper, like ordinary prints you order at photo labs. Whilst scanning, I have switched off the scannerīs own sharpening to be able to do it later in Photoshop - if needed at all.
Let me describe the pictures: most of them are highly detailed, with fallen leaf or copplestones in the front (I used hyperfocal focussing to get the images sharp from close to far distance). Would you unsharp mask them at all? Due to the load of images, I cannot care for every of them and would need to make use of a batch sharpening. How would you handle such images?
I think the monitor can only warn against severe oversharpening and the fine differences are to be seen after the print is done.
Here is my sharpening strategy:
Radius set to 0,8 in order to serve the fine details in the pictures
Amount set to 90
Threshold set to 3 in order to spare out the walls and the sky from being sharpened and to save them from sharpening noise
Please, how would you sharpen for such a purpose? Would you sharpen at all?
As I do not have a storage for uploading pictures in big resolution, I have only these small previews for you. None of them is meant as a piece of art, the meaning is in the series of pictures. I hope they give you an idea of how they will look.
Thank you in advance!
Peter
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