Posts Tagged: Canon 5D Mk II
Companion: The Dark Side
This is an image from seven years ago, shot in almost the exact same location and view as this from this year: https://markmusephotographs.com/2019/01/19/sno/
45mm Zeiss Tessar CY, Canon 5D2, Lr C, Ps CC.
Rumsey Bridge
This image connects to my earliest awareness of photographs as art objects (images with some emotional connection for me). I have a distinct memory, as a child in the early 1950’s, of looking at gravure images on dark, blade-coated newsprint in the Sunday newspaper. Each week there was an insert that had a photographic feature. Of course at that time they were B&W. The rotogravure process printed on that paper made rich and dark images with amazingly subtle tonality.
21mm Zeiss Distagon ZE, Canon 5D2, Lr 6, Ps CS6.
Bear Oaks – Dolly Sods
Bear oak unfurling new leaves, Quercus ilicifolia. This was at dusk a few years ago. For some reason I never did anything with the images in this group, probably because they are a little soft in places. But I love the soft light of dusk and the gentle color pallet here. I would love to have a couple of bear oaks as bonsais, but they do not transplant well and probably would not like pot life because of their need to grow a significant tap root. I would never collect one from a wilderness anyway.
This spot in Dolly Sods has special meaning for me. It is the symbolic final resting place for my daughter Erin, who died in 2008, and will be the resting place for my father’s ashes. And, if I can find someone to do it, it will be my final resting place as well.
Did I mention that I was honored by being chosen to exhibit along with a handful of other nationally known photographers (Clyde Butcher, Marc Muench, etc.) who photograph in wilderness areas? This will be the official national celebration of the Wilderness Society for the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Wilderness Act. The celebration will be held in Warren to honor Howard Zahniser, the principal author of the Wilderness Act. For those of you who are local and know my friend and colleague Ed Zahniser, Howard was Ed’s father.
21mm Zeiss Distagon ZE, Canon 5D Mk II, Lr5.5, Ps CS6. After years of using this lens in the ZE and now ZF.2 iteration I am just now learning how to be successful with this extraordinary lens in the landscape. I always avoid ƒ16 like the plague because of diffraction effects. But because this lens is as sharp as a razor in the center and has severe field curvature, ƒ16 is necessary to kind of smooth it all out. It tones down the sharpness in the center a bit and overcomes the field curvature. Unfortunately this image was shot at ƒ8. But I am going to exhibit it anyway, perhaps this fall in the Wilderness Society 50th Anniversary exhibit in Warren Pennsylvania.
Shenandoah Panorama
This is finally taking shape. And somebody wants to give it a home! How cool is that? In my book, very cool. It is a three frame panorama shot from a sandbar in the Shenandoah at Shannondale Springs in May of 2012. The orange background is not sky… it is the Blue Ridge. The finished size of the image is 60 inches wide by 15 inches high.
150mm Pentax-A 645, Canon 5D Mk II, Aperture 3, Ps CS6.
Canaan Valley Haws
Lots of old gnarly hawthorns in Canaan Valley, Crataegus sp, though this group is relatively young.
This image was processed from raw in Aperture. I use Lightroom now for conversions because because I like some of the tools better. But having said that the color renderings I get from Aperture are far superior to Lightroom, IMHO of course. Wish I could take some tools from Lightroom and Capture 1 and and use them with Aperture’s color engine.
150mm Pentax 645-A, Canon 5D Mk II, Aperture 3.x, Ps CS6.
Allegheny Front at Dawn
Mining some older exposures, as I tend to do this time of the year, and working them up fresh from raw. This was made just before sunrise in May of 2012. I wonder how much snow there is on this landscape right now. Probably plenty.
This was shortly before I got my Nikon 800e. I was using my Canon 5D Mk II then. It did some things very well, like color and its implementation of live view; but it was really poor at other things, like resolution and producing robust raw files. I can see why it was popular with wedding photographers.
21mm Zeiss Distagon ZE, Canon 5D Mk II, Lr5, Ps CS6.
Sunrise on the Shenandoah
This was an early morning in April. The sun had just cleared the Blue Ridge and was rapidly burning off the fog. The quality of the light was amazing, and this surely doesn’t do it justice. It was soft light but from where I was it backlit the fog and trees with intense golds. Difficult to convey in the real file and impossible in this dinky file in the truncated sRGB color space.
This is another three frame, 5 foot panorama like the recently posted and shown North Fork Mountain. Each of my panoramas have been well received, so maybe more of them for a while? I do enjoy making them. Each one is like a universe of its own while I’m wrapped up in it.
I don’t know what lens I used for this, but I think it was probably between 50mm and 150mm. It was shot in April of 2012 when I was still using my Canon, so it might have been any of a number of the unchipped manual lenses I have, like the really sweet little Takumar 50mm ƒ1.4, the Pentax 75mm 645-A, Pentax 150mm 645-A, or my Zeiss 80-200mm CY at 80mm or so. Pretty sure I didn’t have any Mamiya 645 lenses yet. My Zeiss ZE and ZF.2 lenses are all chipped, so they register with the camera. The camera was for certain a Canon 5D Mk II. Raw files processed in Lightroom v4.x, and assembled and finished in Photoshop CS6.
Speaking of vintage manual lenses, I have quite a number of them, from Zeiss for Hasselblad, Pentax and Mamiya 645 lenses, and Pentax Takumar and Zeiss Contax for 35mm. I really enjoy using them. It started because they were relatively inexpensive, but I quickly began to recognize that they each have their own personality. I was able to use a lot of different lenses on the Canon because it has a relatively short lens flange to sensor distance. This is established as a standard for each camera lens mount, sometimes across brands like m42, but usually it is unique to one manufacturer. So with Canon’s standard being pretty short most other 35mm lenses have longer flange back, allowing one to use an adapter and still focus to infinity. But then I got my Nikon. Nikon has a long flange to sensor distance, longer than most, so few of these lenses could be used without serious modifications to the lenses. I did have one Zeiss Contax and one Leica R lens modified for the Nikon, but all the other 35mm lenses (I am able to use my 645 and 2-1/4 lenses) have been waiting patiently in drawers.
Well, the wait is almost over. I ordered a Sony A7R, a new mirrorless interchangeable lens body that will allow me to use virtually any 35mm lens I wish to use. I should have it in early December. Anyone interested in a low milage Nikon 800e (and accessories) in excellent condition? I have one good (brand new) Nikkor 70-200mm ƒ4 to sell, a Zeiss ZF.2 100mm and 50mm Makro-Planar, a Zeiss 21mm Distagon ZF.2, a Canon mount Zeiss 100mm Makro-Planar ZE and a 35mm Distagon ZE, and a Leica-R 28-90mm Vario-Elmarit ASPH in Nikon mount. All in like new condition. You can see images on my site taken with all of these lenses. I am the original owner of all except the Leica that I purchased second hand. The Leica can be put back into the R mount. The conversion work was done by David at Leitax and is completely reversible. I have the parts. Email if you are interested.
Dolly Sods
Dusk near Bear Rocks. This is an older image I reworked recently to print for a show. This and other images are currently exhibited at The Bridge Gallery in Shepherdstown in connection with the Conservation Film Festival, now in progress in Shepherdstown.
21mm Zeiss Distagon ZE, Canon 5D Mk II, Aperture 3, Ps CS6.