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The Equipment I Use for Woodland Landscape PhotographyVersion 1.1, ©2003, 2004 by Dale Cotton, all rights reserved There is an unbelievable profusion of cameras, lenses, darkroom, and digital darkroom equipment on the market. Almost all of it is well-suited to fulfilling a particular role in photography. I'm going to describe the choices I made, not because I believe they are the best choices for everyone; but because I am gradually realizing just how extraordinarily well-suited they are for what I do.
Fig 1. 149-17 and 100% crop What I do is create finely detailed prints of complex woodland landscapes at sizes up to 14" x 21". Trees and undergrowth, such as in Fig 1, place the utmost demand on image capture. Most experienced photographers would take such pictures with a 4x5 view camera. But - ever contrary - I use:
Although the above list represents a multi-thousand dollar investment, it is still extremely modest by the standards of many. Reala
Fig 2. Reala This little green box is the key to everything else. Virtually all colour landscape photographers use either slide film or high-megapixel digital. Today's slide film has wonderful colour, reasonable resolution, hideous acutance, and nightmarish dynamic range. To overcome the acutance of slide film, most photographers resort to heavier and pricier medium and large format systems. To overcome the narrow dynamic range of slide film, photographers fuss around with ND grads and fill flash. Reala, like the now defunct Supra 100, was originally engineered to make the smaller APS film frame yield satisfactory drug store prints. Then Fuji had the bright idea of issuing the same emulsion in 35mm and 120 formats. Shoot it at 80 or even 64 ISO for improved colour, which is possible because of the enormous latitude of this film. Because of the ultra-small grain (dye-cloud) of this film, scanning noise is similar to slide film. If there were a Nobel prize in film chemistry, I'd give it to the Fuji team that developed this film. Hands down. For more information see:
Nikon F80 / N80
Fig 4. F80 + 35-70 zoom (Not bad, eh? Maybe I should quit my day job and go into commercial product photography...) This is very much a mid-range entry in Nikon's film SLR line-up. Sure I'd rather have the pricier F100, but the F80 does just fine:
In truth, SLR film cameras from the big five (Canon, Contax, Minolta, Nikon, Pentax) are all excellent. Nikon offers a good lens line-up and its matrix metering. Canon has an even better lens line-up and digital SLR choices. Otherwise, for landscape photography, there's little to choose from between brands. For more information: Phil Greenspun's Nikon N80 review. Less expensive alternate: Any second-hand SLR camera, especially older manual-operation cameras, such as the Nikon F2 and F3 and the Canon AE-1. With minimal electronics and very solid mechanical construction, these cameras simply keep on going. Nikkor 35-70/2.8Question: why do I use a zoom lens when primes are sharper? Answer: my tests satisfy me that primes are not always sharper than a good pro zoom. (Lens design is a juggling act between cost, resolution, flare, and various aberrations. Modern zoom design tends to preserve resolution at the expense of aberration.) Even a good non-pro zoom, like the Nikkor 28-105, has prime-like sharpness when stopped down to f/8 and smaller. When composing a picture with 35mm equipment, you need to get as close to the final crop as you possibly can in the camera. Cropping in the darkroom can cost so much resolution as to make or break an image. Yes, I'd rather have the nearly twice as expensive 28-70/2.8. But the 35-70 is just as tack sharp as my primes at every aperture and is very light for a metal-housed lens. I switch to a 28/2.8 AIS prime when I need to go wider than 35. I have a 70-200 zoom but use it so rarely that I seldom bother to bring it along on a shoot. For more information: Bjørn Rørslett's Zoom Lenses For Nikon 'F' Mount, Evaluations. Less expensive alternate: used prime lenses. A kit of a 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm primes will get the job done, although you may have to crop to gain the equivalent of the 41mm or 64mm or whatever lens that would have perfectly framed the composition. In a pinch, start with just a 50mm lens - I'm continually amazed at how many compositions just seem to fall into place at 50mm. Slik Pro 500 DX tripod with joystick head
Fig 5. Slik, joystick, houseplant Slik is not a name that is usually associated with high-end tripods. If status symbol value strongly influences your purchases, buy a carbon fibre Manfrotto; otherwise save a fortune with no loss of stability and very little gain in weight over carbon fibre by springing for this superb tripod. Only (and minor) problem I've found after two years of use is that the quick release isn't quick to release. For more information: Photography Review Less expensive alternate: any tripod is better than none; and the lighter your camera plus lens combination, the less of a strain it puts on the stability of the platform. A tip from Michael Reichmann: attach a bungee cord (such as used to bundle luggage) in a loop dangling from the bottom of the tripod base. Put your foot in the loop and pull down to maximally stabilize the tripod during an exposure. And, of course, always use a cable release. Canon FS4000 film scanner with VueScan softwareThis scanner offers superb resolution, and if it's dynamic range is not the very best available, it is 'way more than is needed for neg film. One serious weakness of this scanner is the utterly atrocious software (FilmGet) that ships with it (at least for neg film). Fortunately, VueScan does a superb job handling colour neg film and is affordably priced. For more information: Less expensive alternate: most any dedicated filmscanner scanner that costs more than the least expensive models will give results quite adequate for prints up to roughly 11 x 16 (A3) for finely detailed subjects, such as woodland photography. Photoshop
Fig 6. Photoshop Since nearly everyone uses this image editing program, there's little point in describing it. It's outrageously overpriced, so look for a student discount or promotional price. The question often arises from novices whether Photoshop is worth the extra cost and learning curve over less powerful packages, such as Photoshop LE, Paintshop Pro, and Picture Window Pro. The answer is: only once you hit the ceiling on these excellent but less powerful packages. For more information: Bruce Fraser and Ben Long's Adobe Photoshop 7. Less expensive alternate: Photoshop LE, Paintshop Pro, and Picture Window Pro if you can get by with less functionality. Gimp if you run a Unix or Linux operating system. Epson 2200The lure of this 13" width printer is longevity. The new UltraChrome pigment inks are rated at 50 to 100 years on Epson's branded papers. There are two downsides. One is that the dark saturated colours don't work on matte paper and the non-matte (resin-coated) papers exhibit what is called bronzing - differential sheen at certain angles depending on ink colour. The other is that the extreme non-linearity of its output makes it extremely hard to profile, but from what I hear this is true of Epson's entire line-up, and may well be true of other brands. Fortunately, Epson have released excellent new 2200 profiles for their own papers. . For more information: Michael Reichmann's Epson Stylus Photo 2200 / 2100. Less expensive alternate: the Epson 1280 is a superb printer. Use ColorLife or Heavyweight Matte papers for reasonable print longevity. What I do with all this gear |
