Bob Keefer
Is a writer and photographer who lives in rural Oregon. This is an informal blog with no particular purpose other than to give myself something to do with some of the welter of photographs I take each day.
For more considered work, see my hand-colored photography at BobKeeferPhoto.com.
You can email me at bob/at/bkpix.com.
-
Recently on BKPIX.com
Search BKPIX.com
Tag Archives: BW
And here’s another one
photo: Grape leaves at twilight, digital black and white, 2010
Here’s a shot I don’t quite understand….
… But I really like it.
I was out this evening at twilight shooting pictures in the garden when I began to get this odd edge effect around the grape leaves. The photo is shot into the evening sky, matrix meter +2 stops, at 3200 ISO. The leaves have a wonderful outline that must result from the blown sky, but I really don’t know. The out of focus areas are beautiful and other-worldly, too.
All the other photos in the series share this look, so long as they were shot into the sky.
I need to play with this some more.
It makes quite a beautiful black and white print, as well.
Photo: Grape leaves by twilight, digital black and white, 2010
Getting to like digital BW — and a brush with Gus Van Sant
After a couple weeks of playing with it, I have to say that digital black and white is growing on me.
The proof, of course, is in the printing. And that has always been digital’s weak spot.
But let’s start with the strengths. Everyone pretty much knows the advantages that digital offers over film in terms of speed, spontaneity and flexibility. Let’s just say that extends, of course, to black and white. And especially so when you’re trying to learn and control a new process. Taking lots and lots of pictures is the only way to go. And that is what digital is all about.
Shooting at ISO 2500 gives something that looks a whole lot like grain, which I like.
Now the printing part. Messing around with my little Epson C88+ with its MIS continuous ink supply filled with Eboni carbon-pigment ink has been both frustrating and fun. Fun, because it’s cheap, spontaneous and unpredictable. Frustrating for many of the same reasons.
I’m continuing to buy good watercolor paper at the art supply house and cut it up into 7.3-by-10-inch pieces, giving me nine prints per full sheet. Which means really cheap, good quality paper. ($4.95 per sheet/nine pieces = 55 cents per almost 8×10.) (That’s because it doesn’t say “photographic” or “inkjet” anywhere on or near it.)
My latest prints have been on Artistico + Fabriano hot-pressed 140 pound paper. It gives the best, deepest blacks I have found so far — and blacks are a challenge to this process — and clean, sharp images where I want them sharp.
The biggest problem I’ve had so far is that painting with acrylics on the prints causes the ink to smudge. Still need to work that out. Fixing with spray fixative works, more or less, but is smelly and unappealing. Next up, I’ll try washing the print first to remove loose ink particles.
There is so much to learn….
Oh, yes, Van Sant: I got over to the Schnitzer Museum this morning for a sneak peak at a new show of Polaroid photos by Andy Warhol and Gus Van Sant, still not installed. More on this later, but it was very cool to see what amounted to half an art show — Van Sant’s half — in something a bit smaller than a cigar box, on a table in the museum vault.
photo: Spring rain, digital black and white, 2010
Beautiful flash blur in the orchard
I love this effect. And the neat thing about digital is that you get instant feedback on whether or not you’ve done it right.
On the other hand, I still haven’t figured out how to print digital BW so that the prints can be hand colored…. a longer topic for another post.
photo: Pear tree and moon, digital black and white, 2010
Posted in Uncategorized
Also tagged digital, hand-coloring, landscape, nature, trees
Leave a comment
Pentax K-7: First impressions
If it’s not love at first sight, it’s close.
The K-7, which arrived last week, has been a clear winner for me, right from the first touch. It feels as good in the hand as, say, a Nikon F100 without being big and heavy.
I’ve been using it every day, especially as I begin to explore the idea of digital black and white photography.
Here’s how it looks so far:
- Autofocus — always Pentax’s weak spot — is much improved over anything previous. I won’t be covering track and field, or shooting birds in flight, but I also won’t be cursing a camera (K20D anyone?) that simply can’t latch on to a face at a social gathering.
- The feel: As I said above, it feels great in the hand — tight, compact and well machined. It sounds good, too, quieter and more refined than the K20D, which tended to thunk.
- Metering seems more accurate than the K20D, which often needed about +2/3 stop of compensation. Not a big deal, though.
- The control layout is just enough different from the K20D to be irritating. It’s better, I think. But my hands don’t know where the buttons are anymore.
- Big negative: The SD card slot is terribly awkward when it comes time to remove the card. People with big hands are going to be tempted by forceps.
- Low light/high ISO: As everyone says, not as clean as you might like above 800. But this is a complicated issue, and I’m not sure it’s a problem that can’t be easily fixed in post. Rumor has it that Lightroom 3, now in beta, does wonders. That would be great; I’ll wait for the actual release. A head to head comparison with the K20D at 1000, shooting with the Pentax 21 Ltd on both cameras, produced much sharper, if slightly noisier, images on the K-7. This could be a clue that in-camera sharpening is more intense on the new body.
More as I figure things out. The manual is the size of a novel and seems to be written in postmodernist Swahili.
photo: Pear blossoms in the orchard, digital black and white, 2010