Black & White

[justaCanonuser]

Here's a shot that I took in October last year in Glen Coe, Scottish Highlands. It was taken from the Devil's Staircase on the 'Old Military Road' possibly now known as the Devil's Staircase because it's a steep point where the English army entered Glen Coe as part of the Glen Coe Massacre in 1692, although the army actually arrived just after the massacre of the MacDonalds had taken place. The mountain in the background is part of Buachaille Etive Mor, and the croft in the valley is known as Lagangarbh. Taken on Canon 5DS + 24-70 f/4IS L at 44mm @ 1/500 f/7.1, ISO 100 Beefree tripod
View attachment 214713

That's an exceptional beautiful image, Sporgon, many thanks for sharing!

 

[justaCanonuser]

I am no dedicated landscape photographer, but sometimes I love doing it. This one shows a flooded landscape close to the Rhine river in Germany, end of January 2018. Shot with a New Mamiya 6 + 50mm wide angle lens of this system on Ilford HP 5, f =22, tripod.

 

[Click]

I really like your shot. Well done, JustaCanonuser.

 

[Sporgon]

That's an exceptional beautiful image, Sporgon, many thanks for sharing!

Many thanks !

 

[Sporgon]

I am no dedicated landscape photographer, but sometimes I love doing it. This one shows a flooded landscape close to the Rhine river in Germany, end of January 2018. Shot with a New Mamiya 6 + 50mm wide angle lens of this system on Ilford HP 5, f =22, tripod.View attachment 214892

Nice to see a B&W image from B&W film making an appearance here, and to my eyes shows the classic ‘open’ contrast that is achieved with film, and I find that difficult to fully emulate with digital.
I have always found the square format challenging !

 

[justaCanonuser]

Nice to see a B&W image from B&W film making an appearance here, and to my eyes shows the classic ‘open’ contrast that is achieved with film, and I find that difficult to fully emulate with digital.
I have always found the square format challenging !

Thank you, also to EricN, YuengLinger, and Click. Indeed, I still love to use film, and one of my favorites is good old Ilford HP5 - a very forgiving film btw also when you develop it. With the square format something happend to me: first, when I got my New Mamiya 6, I really had difficulties to frame anything in square. But after a short time, suddenly something made "click" in the visual system of my brain, and I started to think so much "square", when shooting, that I suddenly was totally bored by wider formats. So I fell in love with square. For landscape, it is particularly challenging, because many landscapes demand for wider formats. That's why I mainly use this camera for street, art exhibitions of my artist friends, people. But here, with all the water, square worked perfectly to produce a symmetric composition and pronounce the visual equivalency of the sky and the water here.

Today, I am happy to use both square and "unsquare" formats, so my brain learned to switch between them

 

[AUGS]

Here are a couple of my recent images, converted to B&W. Something always draws me to black and white images, and sometimes feel they offer more than the original colour versions.
Original processing in Lightroom Classic, denoised using Topaz Denoise AI, converted to B&W using Nik 6 Silver Efex.

 

[Click]

Beautiful shots!

 

[EricN]

Thank you, also to EricN, YuengLinger, and Click. Indeed, I still love to use film, and one of my favorites is good old Ilford HP5 - a very forgiving film btw also when you develop it. With the square format something happend to me: first, when I got my New Mamiya 6, I really had difficulties to frame anything in square. But after a short time, suddenly something made "click" in the visual system of my brain, and I started to think so much "square", when shooting, that I suddenly was totally bored by wider formats. So I fell in love with square. For landscape, it is particularly challenging, because many landscapes demand for wider formats. That's why I mainly use this camera for street, art exhibitions of my artist friends, people. But here, with all the water, square worked perfectly to produce a symmetric composition and pronounce the visual equivalency of the sky and the water here.

Today, I am happy to use both square and "unsquare" formats, so my brain learned to switch between them

The nice thing about a square format is you have no reason to change from holding horizontally to vertically. Do you crop any of the square images or discipline yourself to say in this constraint?

 

[justaCanonuser]

The nice thing about a square format is you have no reason to change from holding horizontally to vertically. Do you crop any of the square images or discipline yourself to say in this constraint?

That's one of the secrets of shooting square . Normally I try to frame my images in a way that I do not crop them, so I compose with the camera. But sometimes I do when I have developed the film, in particular when I shoot landscape I do that - not very often indeed. Then I try to imagine an "unsquare" format while I peer through the viewfinder. I do not have the "MF" version of the New Mamiya 6, which also can be loaded with 35 mm film and has therefore more lines in the viewfinder. For me, this wasn't so important when purchased my camera from Japan.

 

[EricN]

That's one of the secrets of shooting square . Normally I try to frame my images in a way that I do not crop them, so I compose with the camera. But sometimes I do when I have developed the film, in particular when I shoot landscape I do that - not very often indeed. Then I try to imagine an "unsquare" format while I peer through the viewfinder. I do not have the "MF" version of the New Mamiya 6, which also can be loaded with 35 mm film and has therefore more lines in the viewfinder. For me, this wasn't so important when purchased my camera from Japan.

I am not sure, but you might be able to get yourself a replacement viewscreen and etch your own marks. many of the canon slr and dslr models had replacements.

 

[Sporgon]

A bit more fun with film; Canon EOS 1n + EF 50mm f/1.4 @ f/4. Ilford FP4 film.
(With a nod to Cedric Porchez)

 

[AUGS]

@Sporgon, your photo reminded me of one I took at Inch Beach, County Kerry, Ireland a few years ago. I did two versions: One on the meter, and one deliberately over exposed as separate shots. I'm not sure which one I prefer, but I like the subject isolation of the overexposed version
Canon 5DsR, EF 24-70 f/2.8L II.
Original processing in Lightroom Classic, converted to B&W using Nik 6 Silver Efex.

 

[Click]

Amazing sky! Well done, AUGS.

 

[Sporgon]

@Sporgon, your photo reminded me of one I took at Inch Beach, County Kerry, Ireland a few years ago. I did two versions: One on the meter, and one deliberately over exposed as separate shots. I'm not sure which one I prefer, but I like the subject isolation of the overexposed version
Canon 5DsR, EF 24-70 f/2.8L II.
Original processing in Lightroom Classic, converted to B&W using Nik 6 Silver Efex.
View attachment 215048View attachment 215049

Great example of how you can change the character of a photograph with different exposure. Actually I quite like the over exposed version. I took a similar shot a few years ago, also on a 5DS. This is Holkham Norfolk.

 

[EricN]

Great example of how you can change the character of a photograph with different exposure. Actually I quite like the over exposed version. I took a similar shot a few years ago, also on a 5DS. This is Holkham Norfolk.

View attachment 215062

I agree, the second image of @AUGS certainly works well!

The composition of yours also works well - especially with the darker path (I think where the hightide ended?) separates the two lighter areas of the beach.

 

[Sporgon]

I agree, the second image of @AUGS certainly works well!

The composition of yours also works well - especially with the darker path (I think where the hightide ended?) separates the two lighter areas of the beach.

Thanks Eric. Yes the darker path marks the most recent high tide line.

 

[YuengLinger]

At this age, pausing for a photo is considered a major PITA.

 

[YuengLinger]

Wishing to be outside...

EDIT: To save space and not repeat images, I've moved the image originally posted here to my reply to Sporgon.

 

[Sporgon]

Wishing to be outside...

This could be a very interesting image if you ramped up the contrast ! (IMHO of course )!