Xpan Go Bag

Just a quick post to show my Xpan Go Bag. The basic idea is that I can toss it in a backpack before a trip and have everything I need for a few days of shooting. Here's a list of what's included:

• Xpan body (can't forget that)


• 45mm lens


• Think Tank thin shoulder strap


• hot shoe bubble level


• extra CR2 batteries (the Xpan needs two)


• six rolls of film (126 panoramic shots)


• Hoya Orange(G), 85C, and 81A multi-coated filters


• shutter release cable


• aluminum bracket to recenter the tripod mount


• two 1/4" x 1/2" thumb screws (easy to lose)

I think I could get the 90mm lens in there too, but I don't have one yet. There's probably a more compact way to hold the filters as well, which I'll have to look into. Overall, it weighs in at about 7 lbs with my Gitzo 1155 Traveler tripod.



Also, my friend Chuck was nice enough to make the aluminum bracket for recentering the tripod mount (pictured above). I'm not sure why Hasselblad put it so far off to the side. Having it centered allows the camera to be much more balanced on the ball head, which means I can use a smaller and lighter ball head. The bracket is threaded on one side so the tripod can screw into it, and clear on the other so the thumb screw can go through and screw into the camera. There's some cork glued on one side to make things nice and snug. The separation between the holes is 2 inches, center-to-center.

Also, wanted to share this Xpan link to a Luminous Landscape article by Australian photographer James Pierce.

Happy shooting!

Xpan repair story

Ok, so this travel blog is turning into more and more of an Xpan blog. But hey, why not run with it for now...

After my Shendandoah trip, I started to notice that the parallax focusing prism was just not right. I would focus on the same object from the same location with the camera in different orientations (i.e. horizontal vs. vertical) and get different distance readings on the top of the lens. Not really a problem when shooting landscapes at f/16, but nonetheless, just not right.

I briefly entertained the idea of trying to fix it myself, but after loosening a few screws to remove the top, I concluded that I was only going to do more harm than good. It was time to bite the bullet and ship it in to someone who knew what they were doing. But where to begin?

Hasselblad.com listed Greg Hollmann as the regional partner for Maryland, so I dropped him an e-mail at ghollmann@hasselbladusa.com:

The rangefinder focus on my Xpan does not seem to be completely accurate sometimes. I'd like to have it looked at, but I don't know where to take it or ship it. I'm currently residing in Baltimore.

He promptly replied:

Hi Bill,
We have a service center in NJ, they will be able to take care of you. Here is the contact info:

Hasselblad USA - Camera service center
333 New Road, Suite no. 5
Parsippany, NJ 07054
USA
Phone number +1-973-227-7320
Fax +1-973-227-1063

Great! I carefully wrapped and boxed up the Xpan with a formal letter enclosed (headers omitted here):

To whom it may concern,
The parallax focusing mechanism on the enclosed Xpan (serial no. xxSSyyyyy) appears to be loose. It seems to go completely out of alignment after I have the camera tilted to the right (i.e. right end of the camera pointed downward). By tilting the camera to the left, then shaking lightly, the focus mechanism seems to fall back into place. It's difficult to be certain that I'm getting proper focus again though. Please examine and repair if possible.

I shipped it off via USPS with delivery confirmation and $800 of insurance for $17.95. Not bad at all. Three days later I received an e-mail from Maryann Murphy at Hasselblad:

Mr. Allen
We have evaluated your camera and determined it needs to be cleaned and calibrated. It also needs the Prism to be tightened. The cost of the repair is $193.00 including shipping.

Please advise if you want to proceed. Your repair # is xxxxxx.

Generally when I think Hasselblad, I think big $$$, so it was a pleasant surprise to get a quote of $193. Of course I gave the go-ahead. The following Monday I received another e-mail from Maryann:

Hi Bill,
The repair has been completed to your xpan. It has been calibrated, cleaned and the prism tightened. I just need a credit card and it will be shipped.

Now I can be slightly paranoid when it comes to credit card numbers, so I decided to give her a call the next day instead of simply e-mailing her my credit card number. She was ready with my order when I called though, so the call was about as painless as possible.

The camera arrived a few days later via UPS (after a three rounds of delivery tag). I took it out of the box and was very pleased with what I saw. The viewfinder was pristine and the focusing mechanism was smooth, tight, and accurate. If it weren't for the wear on the finish, I'd have thought I was holding a new camera. The only down side of the whole thing was that the battery had run down during the journey, but that's no big deal. I keep spares in my Xpan Go Bag.

So if your Xpan (or any Hasselblad) is starting to show its age, I hope this article helps quell your fears a bit. Of course, this is the USA, so I have to list the following disclaimers:

• Your mileage may vary greatly in terms of pricing and timing depending on what's wrong with your camera.
• I have absolutely no relationship with Hasselblad; I did not get any freebies, discounts, or other compensation for writing this article.
• Please confirm any contact info I have listed here, as it may have changed. Do not blindly ship your beloved camera to Parsippany, NJ.

And don't worry, I'll get back to posting pictures soon.

Meanwhile, in New York...

Last weekend I was in New York City for Fall Fashion Week. Surprisingly, it was even crazier than Spring Fashion Week last September. I didn't even get in to the Diane Von Furstenberg, Jill Stuart, or Tracy Reese shows. Eventually I realized that enough was enough (especially for fashion) and decided that I needed to take advantage of being in one of the greatest cities in the world.

After grabbing a slice at Pronto Pizza, I hoofed it over to Penn Station to drop off my backpack with my clothes in it. All I wanted was a locker for a few hours until my train left. The Amtrak baggage check agent informed me that all the lockers in New York had been removed after 9/11... Thanks terrorists. He did say that he could hold it until my train left though, but that it would cost $4.50. This seemed odd to me since I could check one bag for free. In any case, I certainly didn't want to lug my clothes around the city for the rest of the day, and I didn't want to check it since my train would be arriving in Baltimore late that night, so I coughed up the $4.50. All I had on me was a $20, but another Amtrak employee (who apparently dealt with a lot of small denominations) was kind enough to make change. Perhaps I should have pretended to check the bag, then picked it up before the train arrived.

Since Penn Station was so close to B&H Photo, I decided to drop in there for about an hour. They've got pretty much everything, and it's fascinating to watch their system of queues and baskets in action. The folks at IMG who handle Fashion Week may be able to take a few hints from these guys. Anyway, after a brief stop in the used department to check out a Fuji 690 III (surprisingly cheap feel) and Leica M7 (utterly solid), I picked up an orange Hoya multi-coated filter and two rolls of Ilford ISO 400 B&W film for my Hasselblad Xpan. The 45mm lens on my Xpan takes a 49mm filter, which is not as common as I'd like.

Xpan in hand, I hopped on the A train, and headed up to Columbus circle to explore Central Park a bit. I quickly polished off the roll of Fuji Provia 400F that I'd started at the top of Rockefeller Center, and switched to the Ilford XP2 400 (C-41) B&W film and my new filter.

And this is where the story ends somewhat abruptly. I'm still finishing off that roll of B&W film. I mailed my two spent rolls of Provia to the lab earlier this week for processing. I guess I won't really know how good the Xpan is until I get those back. Based on it's solid feel, and the praise it's gotten from other photographers, I'm optimistic.

Also worth mentioning is a very entertaining show called Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, which my friends and I saw that Saturday night. Buy tickets in advance so you can get in early enough to pick a seat away from the isle (unless you enjoy getting plucked from the audience). Also try to forget what a fire-hazard the theater looks like on the inside, and enjoy the show.

Bagging Europe

Just got back from Europe last week. My wife and I flew into Paris, took trains to Heidelberg, Wurzburg, Rothenburg, Fussen, then flew out of Venice. Needless to say, it was quite a trip.

The photo above is the gear I took with me, which I took just before we left. I wish I had a before-and-after shot, but when you get back from three weeks on the go, you just kind of crash. I only got all my film mailed off to NCPS a couple days ago. That's for another blog post though. As I was putting the bag together, I kept my Notes from Rome post in mind. Here's the breakdown:

Hasselblad Xpan, because I just couldn't resist the urge to take it, even though it's really heavy.

Leica CL, because I wanted to take a Leica, and it's lighter than the M6.

Leica 90 f/2.8 Tele-Elmarit, for a little more reach, or in case someone needed a portrait taken (no one did).

Canon S95, for all the stoopid pictures in bad light, plus it can shoot video.

Polaris light meter, because camera light meters can't always be trusted.

Sea to Summit Soft Cell, otherwise known as the Xpan Go Bag. These days it's more organized thanks to the Tiffen filter case to the right.

Manhattan Portage Europa Medium Messenger Bag, because it's light weight, well made, looks sharp, and can swallow a ton of stuff when expanded. It even had room for a music box on the return trip.

Nine rolls of Kodak 400TX (Tri-X), which is my go to black and white film with lots of latitude.

Seven rolls of Kodak Portra 400, which I mainly planned to use in the Xpan. It turned out that Venice was very colorful though, so I did the unthinkable and put color film in the CL as well.

One roll of Fuji Pro 400H, which has been sitting around since before I switched to Portra.

One roll of Ilford FP4 125, in case I wanted to shoot some higher quality black and white.

Kalt Blower Brush, for the battle against dust. Thankfully there are no worries about dust on the sensor when you use film.

Garmin eTrex Venture HC, so I'd know where I'd been. It's also fun to post far-away places on Strava.

Extra pair of glasses (in the white case), so I'm not completely helpless if something happens to my main glasses. Really they're just the glasses from my previous prescription; better than nothing.

Toothbrush, because I'm paranoid like that.

Day to day on the trip I didn't lug all this gear around. Usually I'd carry either the CL or the Xpan, depending on what I was expecting to shoot. If I took both, then I just needed to remember to give my shoulder a rest now and then. The coffee shops of Europe make it very easy to take breaks.

I like the way the film and small-digital complimented each other on this trip. I could take all the touristy, I've-been-here shots with the S95, which let me conserve my film resources and be more considerate when I was in "real" photography mode. Having both also provided some insurance that all the shots from the trip would not be lost. In the end, I came back with about 10 rolls exposed, plus about 500 digital pictures from the point-and-shoot.

More to come when I get the film back...

Bagging the Bay Area

Another year, another trip, another bag shot (last year, +JCH). This time, the destination was the Bay Area of northern California. The bag is the same, but the contents are almost completely different.

Fujifilm X100S, from LensRentals and the main camera of the trip. I'd been drooling over the Fuji cameras for a while, but I'd never actually used one. This trip seemed like the perfect opportunity. I plan to put my impressions of the X100S in another post.

Hasselblad Xpan, because I can't seem to leave it behind on big trips, and I had an unfinished roll of Velvia inside.

Canon 1D Mark II, the old sports workhorse. Surfing is one of my favorite sports to shoot, and northern California is a bit of a mecca for surfers, so this was a no-brainer in spite of the size of the kit. I'm pretty sure the 1D charger alone is larger than the whole Fuji kit.

Canon 400/5.6 L USM, my current go-to, long-reach sports lens. It's about as good as a lightweight 400mm lens can be. I used to have the Canon 400/2.8 L USM, which was a stunning lens, but it was a beast to travel with, and was hard to justify owning once I stopped shooting sports regularly.

Manhattan Portage Europa Medium Messenger Bag, because it's light weight, well made, looks sharp, and can swallow a ton of stuff when expanded. Even I was amazed when I got the 400 in there with the 1D, 1D charger, and Xpan.

Sea to Summit Soft Cell, otherwise known as the Xpan Go Bag. These days it's more organized thanks to the Tiffen filter case to the bottom.

Canon 400/5.6 lens case, because the Manhattan Portage bag doesn't have any padding. I hate overly-padded bags that add bulk and weight.

Two rolls of Kodak Portra 400, a nice, general purpose film for traveling, with good color rendition.

One roll of Kodak Tri-X 400, which needs no explanation.

One roll of Ilford FP4 Plus 125, which I've been meaning to try for a while now.

Think Tank Pee Wee Pixel Pocket Rocket (red), for the the X100S SD cards. I had to scrounge for enough SD cards for the trip since most of my storage is compact flash for the ol' 5D and 1D.

Think Tank Pixel Pocket Rocket (gray), for the 1D CF cards. I brought way more than I needed, but this was one of the few opportunities I would get to shoot surfing (we don't get much surfing here in Denver), so I certainly didn't want to run out. I also brought some smaller, obsolete CF cards that I could just give to people if they needed a photographer in a pinch.

Kalt Blower Brush, for the battle against dust.

Garmin eTrex Venture HC, so I'd know where I'd been. It's also fun to add new trails and locations to OpenStreetMap whenever possible.

Extra pair of glasses (in the white case), so I'm not completely helpless if something happens to my main glasses. Really they're just the glasses from my previous prescription; better than nothing.

National Park Passport, because it's fun to get stamps for the parks my wife and I have visited.

Moleskine notepads, for writing stuff down, though I find myself using my iPhone for notes more and more.

Peter Turnley card, from the San Francisco Leica Store, which had his French Kiss series on display. If you ever get a chance to see his work in person, I highly recommend it. The SF Leica Store itself is a very nice space with plenty of new and old gear to drool over. The staff were very friendly and didn't bat an eye when I took out the Fuji for a couple shots. It definitely made me wish I had my M6 or CL with me though.

I didn't carry all this gear around all the time. The San Francisco Bay Area is hilly (understatement) and I certainly didn't want to bring the 1D and 400. There were times when I wanted the Xpan, but even that was too heavy for a full day on foot. Most of the time I just had the X100S, a bottle of water, and a pull-over fleece in the bag. In the end, one decent camera is all you really need.

What The Fuji

By which I mean, I've really been wanting to know, for a while now, what it's like to use one of the new Fujifilm cameras. I'd considered renting the X-E2 and the 23/1.4, but in the end renting an X100S seemed like it would capture the fundamental Fuji experience at about half the rental cost.

The tl;dr version is that the Fuji's sensor doesn't quite live up to the spectacular optics that Fuji is known for. I still love the optics in my Hasselblad Xpan (built by Fuji many years ago).

I really enjoyed the aperture and shutter controls, but there were other little things besides the sensor that simply didn't make sense to me. For instance, if I've got the camera in EVF mode, why does the EVF retract every time I turn the camera off? Just leave it in place. If the on/off switch is convenient enough (eg. Nikon and Fuji), then I'm one of those people that turns the camera off and on between bursts of shooting to save the battery. That's a lot of actuations for the EVF. The Xpan has a similar mechanism for the lens magnification when you put on the 90/4 lens. And you know what, that's the one part of the camera that's totally broken. I foresee a similar fate for the EVF on the X100S. It makes me think that an X-E2 might make more sense since it only has an EVF with no extend/retract mechanism to break.

Don't get me wrong, there were some things I liked about the camera. The fact that I could see what my shot would look like in B&W through the EVF as I was shooting was a revelation that would never have occurred to me if I hadn't rented the camera and tried it for myself. It wasn't an exact translation to what I would later see on screen, but it was pretty good.

Another thing that didn't make sense to me was that the Q menu showed up in the viewfinder when I had the rear display turned off. Why would I want to hold the camera up to my eye to change settings like that? Those people that hold up their iPads to take pictures look pretty dumb, and I felt just as dumb holding the camera up to my eye to change settings. Just put the menu on the rear screen, Fuji.

Some of my gripes with the camera might have been addressed if I'd had the camera for a longer period. For instance, knowing what I know now, I would have made more use of the higher ISO's. Most of the time I was trying to keep it in the 200 to 400 range, with an "f/8 and be there" aperture priority setting. However, ISO 800 and 1600 would have produced very usable results, and "f/4 and be there" would have been fine with the smaller sensor.

Even with the vintage shutter/aperture control aesthetic, I still found the camera to be more complicated than it should have been. Still, I'm very glad I gave it a try, and I can see why some people really love their Fujis; if you can only have one camera, it's not a bad choice at all. I think I'll stick with the Leica and Xpan for film and maybe give the Ricoh GR a try for street photography, where you really need digital for all those silent, throw-away shots. I did manage to capture a couple street shots in Chinatown, San Francisco with the X100S though.

Happy shooting with whatever camera you have in your hand.

Florida

My film finally came back from NCPS yesterday just before the snowstorm, so I've been busy posting pictures to flickr. We covered a lot of ground, including St. Augustine, Everglades National Park, and South Beach. I was somewhat underwhelmed by my DSLR pictures from the trip. My hit rate seems to be much higher with the Xpan, probably due to the extra time taken for Xpanomics. As such, I've pretty much decided that my Rome kit will consist of a nice P&S (S95, DMC-LX5, etc.) and the Xpan. I finally ordered the Xpan 90mm lens too. I think this will make for a nice, light travel kit. The Leica bug is still in my ear, but getting pictures like these helps me shew it away for a little longer.

Xpan in Port Covington

Here's one of the two shots I took with my Xpan last weekend while finishing up a roll at Port Covington. I'm really liking this Kodak E100VS. The colors you're seeing here are straight out of the camera. Awesome. This shot also makes me really want the 90mm lens. Maybe when I get the Xpan back from the shop... More on that later.

Savage Xpan

Ok, I've been bad about posting lately, but hey, I did just get back from Alaska. I plan to have several small posts about the trip in the coming weeks. I think it would take too long to write a huge post about the whole trip; just look at how long my PAGC post turned out to be.

In the meantime, I thought you might enjoy this shot I took through the viewfinder on my Hasselblad Xpan. It was taken at Savage Creek in Denali National Park a couple hours after sunrise. The yellow box in the middle is the parallax focus area. The mounted lens is the 45mm, which only blocks a small corner of the viewfinder.



In case you were wondering, the shot through the viewfinder was taken with my little Canon SD800 in macro mode. Pretty cool.

What's in a Camera

I just wanted to post this photo to show that composition and timing matters more than the camera. I took this photo with a little Canon SD800 in the Outer Banks last May. "f/8 and be there," as they say.

That being said, I've had my eye on the world of film lately, especially rangefinders. In particular, I was drooling over the Leica M4P and M6, thanks mostly to the recent rants of Ken Rockwell. I was especially interested in the light weight, high build quality, and excellent optics that the Leicas had to offer.

Luckily I took a deep breath before buying anything. I realized a few things:

1. There are other high quality options that cost less and offer more features.
   
2. I needed to think about the kinds of pictures I really want to take with film (as opposed to digital), and where I was planning to take those pictures.
3. The Leica is just the main example Ken Rockwell is using for his fanatic crusade against the Nikon D3X. Leicas are still expensive (and obviously give a very healthy kick-back for referred sales).
   

Eventually I decided that I wanted to focus on landscapes when it came to film. Leica's reputation for street photography is alluring, but the idea of taking pictures of strangers on the street doesn't seem right, plus it's too experimental for anything but digital. I also don't have any upcoming trips where electricity and batteries will be scarce, which is another situation where the Leica would excel.

Inspiration! After reading many posts on photo.net, and looking at many rangefinder photos on flickr, I came across the Hasselblad Xpan. A film camera that can be switched into true panoramic mode, perfect for landscapes. On top of that, the optics are excellent, and the build quality is very high. I was particularly moved by Mathew Joseph's work, and his love for this camera; I believe the quote was, "Lost for words..."

My Xpan should be here next week. I'm anticipating a bit of a learning curve due to the panoramic format and the reintroduction of film in my work. Hopefully I can get comfortable with it this spring in time for my cross-country road trip this summer. I'm really looking forward to some panoramic Fuji Velvia.

In other news, I've been working on a way to get a lomographic look from the 5D in-camera (no Photoshop). I thought about buying an LC-A+, but I have trouble justifying the recurring costs of film for experimental snapshots. Anyway, I think I'm almost there with the 5D. I'll be sure to post my findings once I refine the idea a bit.

Links

• More Lomograhy
• More Xpan

That First Roll

There's a lot to be said about the first roll of film that comes out of a new camera. Simultaneously bringing all your experience to bear on a new photographic tool. The feeling of uncertainty that comes with film, followed by the satisfaction of getting that first roll back from the lab. It's completely intertwined with the act of photography itself.



Occasionally it results in disappointment. The first time I went out to shoot with my Xpan, I completely botched the film loading process. After walking all over downtown Baltimore to finish a whole roll, I opened up the back of the camera only to find the film lead just sitting there. In the end, I simply had to write off the whole thing as a "scouting opportunity" and move on. It wasn't until just a couple months ago that I returned to some of those places for a do-over:



Of course, the real reason for this article is my first roll through the Leica M6, which I acquired about a month ago. This thing certainly lives up to the name. The meter only worked for about the first half of the roll before the cold killed the batteries. No matter though, because this is a fully mechanical camera. As long as you can set the shutter speed and aperture, it will gladly keep shooting.

I'll admit, eyeballing the exposure was a bit intimidating at first, growing up in an automatic age. A little practice with a free Exposure-Mat and soon I was memorizing f/8 exposures for all kinds of situations.

I was also afraid that the pictures wouldn't have enough contrast since I didn't have any E39 filters. I almost always use a 49mm Orange(G) filter on my Xpan to add contrast. Lo and behold, the legendary Leica lenses came through, adding their own creamy contrast.



The sheer simplicity of it really is mind-boggling. And nothing else in photography feels quite like the smooth, manual action of winding the film crank on a quality camera. Just wow. Need a Leica alternative? Fear not, the winding action on the venerable Nikon F3 is extremely impressive as well.

But I digress, this is supposed to be about photography, not mechanics. It's that clean, featureless simplicity that allows the photographer to focus on being a photographer.

Here's to another amazing tool in the toolbox.

Alaska Gear

I think some people have been wondering what camera gear I took with me to Alaska, so here's a quick post to fill in the blanks:

• Canon 5D with extra battery and charger
• Canon G9 with charger
• Canon SD800 with charger
• Canon 17-40/4 L USM
• Canon 24-105/4 L IS USM (my default lens)
• Canon 70-200/2.8 L USM
• Canon 50/1.8 II
• Hasselblad Xpan with 45mm lens
• Gitzo 1155 Traveler tripod with G1077M ball head
• Manfrotto 488RC0 ball head (heavy backup head, never used on trip)
• Approximately 15 GB of compact flash
• Two rolls of Fuji Velvia 50
• Two rolls of Fuji Velvia 100
• Dust brush with blower
• Lens cloth with cleaning fluid (had to check this)

I used a ThinkTank Urban Disguise 60 to carry everything but the tripod during the flights.  My Xpan Go Bag fit perfectly in the bottom.  Once I arrived, I put only what I needed for the day in my Kelty Basalt backpack.  The backpack itself was checked for the flights.  I kept my North Face rain coat in the bottom of the backpack to provide padding.

I think that about covers it.  Notice that there's no laptop in that list.  I did have my iPod Touch with me, but Internet access was fairly scarce.  I didn't go all the way to Alaska to browse the web though.

Now get packing!

So It's June

Whoa, April and May blew by, and now it's June. Time for some updates.

April included trips to Summit Point and Monongahela National Forest. It was good to break the 1D Mark II out to shoot racing again. I'd lent the camera to my dad to take to Africa, so this was the first time I've really used it since. It didn't miss a beat.

Of course, you don't need a 1D to get shots like the ones below. I was going for a speed/blurring effect on the first shot, which was taken at 1/13 of a second at f/20, ISO 100. It takes several shots to get it right, since no one can track and pan perfectly. When you get it really right though, it's awesome.

Monongahela was also fun, though the Smoke Hole motel we stayed in left much to be desired, especially for the cost. In any case, we visited Spruce Knob, the highest point in West Virginia, as well as Dolly Sods, a tundra-like expanse that bears great resemblance to areas way up in Canada.

May included a trip to Shenandoah National Park. It was a chance to try out the Xpan since I got it back from an aborted repair down in DC. I'm still waiting for the film back on that one, but we also hit up Luray Caverns, which I haven't been to since I was a child. For the caverns, I thought it would be a good chance to shoot wide with the 17-40/4. It hasn't gotten much use since I got the 24-105/4. Unfortunately, I don't think my idea panned out. The pictures you see below are thoroughly cropped, so I probably would have done better to bring a fast 35/2 or something instead. I'm sure there are impressive, wide shots to be had, but the tour group was moving along pretty quickly, so there wasn't a ton of time to try every angle of composition. In the end, most of the wide shots I got were too cluttered. Photographer or not, I do recommend Luray Caverns though.

I also finally took the time to cut all my film from the past couple years with the Xpan. I couldn't let the lab cut them, since the shots are panoramic. I have this recurring vision in my head of a beautiful panoramic shot in E6, sitting on the light table, cut right in half. Painful.

While tedious, cutting film and seeing it on the light table through the loupe is one of the simple joys of photography that I think a lot of people miss out on. I've heard that with a really good loupe, your slides can look so good on the light table that it's enough to make you quit your real job to become a full-time photographer. In other words, the light table and loupe can be dangerously awesome.

Notes from Rome

Itinerary

Day 1 (May 19, 2011): Check into our apartment near Piazza del Popolo, get groceries, eat pizza at 06 Cafe, visit Spanish Steps.
Day 2: Castel Sant'Angelo, Vatican Museum
Day 3: Colosseum, Palatine Hill, Roman Forum, night pictures along Tiber
Day 4: Bike ride along the Appia Antia
Day 5: Basilica San Giacomo, Pantheon, Piazza Nuova, Villa Borghese
Day 6: Ostia Antica

Gear

Canon 5D
Canon 24-105/4 L IS USM
Canon 50/1.8
Canon S95 (amazing P&S, BTW)
Canon SD800 (knock-around/backup)
Slik Mini-Pro V tripod
Kelty Basalt backpack
Think Tank Chimp Cage
Think Tank Pee Wee Pixel Pocket Rocket
Think Tank Pixel Pocket Rocket

Etc.

Photographic fulfillment can be an illusory beast. While Rome was very personally rewarding, the 10 pictures I took at the Suburban Airport seem more photographically rewarding than all the 450-ish pictures I took in Rome. As a photographer, it's difficult to separate personal fulfillment from photographic fulfillment. If being a visitor automatically makes you a tourist, then how does one find photographic fulfillment in a sea of tourist photography?

Some would say that it's a film vs. digital thing; that shooting film forces you to slow down and take more care on when and how to shoot. To some extent I agree, but there are other, more important factors to consider.

If you are traveling with others, you have to put the group's priorities first. If the group's priority is not photography, then you're simply going to have to make due with the time and place as is. Waiting for the Light does not apply.



So this begs the question, should one bother lugging a DSLR if there's a high probability that most of the photos are going to be of the tourist variety? I'm still not sure. While there's no question that the quality of the photos coming out of the DSLR are going to be higher, there's a lot to be said for lightening your load.



It really comes back to personal priorities. If you just want to take pictures for the memories, then a point-and-shoot will certainly do the trick. If you're going for more of a photo journalistic approach, then a DSLR and a solid general zoom is probably your best bet. If you want to play Henri Cartier-Bresson, then take a rangefinder with one good prime. And if you want to get all lomographic and artsy, then take a toy camera.

I tend to lean toward the photo journalistic approach, which is why I took the 5D and 24-105/4 as my primary camera. It's a solid combination that's going to reliably come away with good pictures. In other words, it was the safe option. Can great art come from playing it safe though? Is the safe option always the boring option?

I do wish I'd taken a wider lens though. The 17-40/4 would have been great for capturing the immense art and architecture. Whether I should have taken the Xpan is still debatable. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to waste a bunch of film taking tourist photos, but it's hard to shake that romantic Xpan in Rome ideal.

In the end, it's best to be thankful to be on this Earth; even more so if you have a camera in your hand.

Arizona on Film

I already wrote my post on our trip to Arizona a while back, but I've been meaning to post some of the film shots that I took with the Xpan while I was there. I used almost all of my remaining Kodak E100VS in the process. I'm sad to see this film go out of production; it has some of the best sunrise and sunset color I've ever seen. Using it almost seems wrong. However, the Xpan was made for the wide open desert vistas, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to shoot one of my favorite films in one of my favorite cameras. Film can't live in the freezer forever.

This is what I'm talking about

Pictured above is my carry on from a recent trip to south Florida. For the most part, it flies in the face of what I've been trying to achieve in terms of traveling light. The laptop's there, there are two camera systems (Canon and Xpan), the binoculars are there, and I brought along the tripod. I think I'm going to create a new rule of thumb: if I bring the laptop, then I'm probably not going to serious enough to use the tripod, so why even bring it.

The binoculars also come into question. However, they are nice for enjoying the moment or passing the time while waiting for the light.

As for the two camera systems, I'm not sure what to do here yet. Part of me is tempted to just take the XPan and a nice digital point and shoot like the S95 or LX5. However, it's hard to argue with the results of the good ol' 5D. I just wish its lenses weren't so flippin heavy. Maybe I should switch back to my Australian kit: 5D, 17-40/4, 70-200/2.8, and small Slik tripod in a backpack. The 24-105/4 is great, but it can't touch the unique perspectives of 17mm and 200mm.

Regarding my last post on Xpanomics, I think Tokyo Camera Style was either reading my mind (or my blog?) because suddenly there were posts on how to roll and develop film at home and how to improve as a photographer in 2011 with the one-camera-one-lens project. Filmus Monochromus was particularly informative. Unfortunately this also reignited my desire to own a Leica.

A Leica kit would certainly weigh less than a DSLR system, which fits nicely into my goals of minimalism. Hmm. Unfortunately it would also minimize the money in my bank account. :-(

Speaking of which, you can help support this blog by using the product links to Amazon. You don't even have to buy the item I've linked to, just go to Amazon through my blog and The Photo Way gets a small percentage of your purchase at no cost to you.

In any case, I'll try to get some Florida pics up soon. Happy 2011!

Crop This

8x10, why must you be so square? Your frames and mattes are so readily available, and yet you are virtually useless when it comes time to make a wide landscape print. Your cousin, 8x12, is much more reasonable, and yet nowhere to be found at Michaels or A.C. Moore. If only Aaron Brothers hadn't moved out of Maryland, there might be some hope.

In case you haven't already guessed, I've been in the process of making a lot of prints lately. This seems to happen every year as the weather cools and more time is spent on my butt indoors. It's time to put down the camera and make use of all those photos taken during summer travels. Nostalgic, isn't it?

As for the 8x10 dilemma, perhaps I should just start shooting everything with a Mamiya 7 like Ben Roberts. Then again, he also shoots with an Xpan. :-)

By the way, here's a shot from last March during a special overnight trip to Rocky Gap State Park here in Maryland. It's called Sidling Hill. It's worth a brief stop if you find yourself driving along the I-68 corridor.



This is also one of the photos I had to painfully crop down to 8x10. While it does still work, I think the drama of the striations is significantly diminished. Luckily the trees are still there to provide some struggle.

Playing Catch-Up

Ok, so let's see if we can do a little catching up here...

We stumbled across the Continental restaurant (pictured above) while we were looking for breakfast on our trip to Philly last month. This picture only partially captures the awesomeness of the decor. The food was also great. Highly recommended.

More recently (like yesterday) we went down to the Newseum. It's been on my todo list for quite some time, so I'm glad we went. The tickets were a bit pricey, but they've got a pretty impressive collection of exhibits. They're big on timelines and multimedia, which makes sense. Their collection of old newspapers and Pulitzer prize photographs was also impressive, as was the view over Pennsylvania Avenue. I also enjoyed the Walter Iooss exhibit, which is only there until the end of March, unfortunately. The food court was clearly an afterthought. Also worth noting is that the tickets are good for two days, so if you're in DC for a weekend or something, don't feel like you need to do the whole thing at once.

Also worth checking out is Cameron Booth's redesign of the DC Metro map. If history is any indicator, he will be ignored by the powers that be, but let's hope I'm wrong. His interstate highway map is also cool.

On the camera gear side of things, I've discovered that the framelines don't change in my Xpan when I put on my new 90mm lens. Now I often find the viewfinder half-way between the 45 and 90mm frameline windows, so something is clearly loose or broken. I have to tilt the camera to the right to get the 45mm window to fall back into place. Needless to say, I was disappointed, especially since the camera was fixed and CLA'ed last June. I've contacted Hasselblad in NJ, so hopefully they'll cover it. We'll see.

Turnagain Arm

Turnagain Arm will take your breath away. Just head south out of Anchorage along Alaska route 1 (Seward Highway) and you can't miss it. Be sure to stop at Beluga Point. Watch for whales and bore tides. Don't walk on the sand/silt, as the extreme tides can turn it into dangerous quicksand. Also stop at Bird Point. It's got some similar views, as well as displays that explain the scenery, whales, and bore tides.

Here are a couple shots I grabbed with my Xpan:

National Gallery of Art

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art is a work of art unto itself. It's confusing as all-get-out to navigate, but its hard to beat as a photogenic open space to explore. These are some pictures I took with my Xpan on a cold weekend last January. I.M. Pei's fractal-like application of triangles throughout this structure is brilliant. And with the free admission, you get way more than you pay for. Also, they allow shoulder (camera) bags, but not backpacks. Last time I was at NGA, they made me check my backpack, but this time they didn't care about my camera bag. They just said not to put it over my back. Maybe they're worried about people backing into works of art inadvertently. In any case, make sure you stop in next time you're in DC.