Railroad tracks soon after sunrise critiques welcome

STM · Apr 18, 2012

I shot this image this past January with my ol' reliable, my Hasselblad 500 CM and my superlative 40mm f/4 Distagon (equivalent roughly to a 24mm lens on 35mm format for those of you not familiar with medium format) and Kodak TMax 100 film about 25 minutes after sunrise. Metering was done with a Pentax 1 degree spotmeter. This particular image is a scan of the negative on a Nikon LS8000 Super CoolScan. The only image manipulation in PS was removing a few dust spots and adding my watermark in the lower left hand corner. The 11 x 14" print I did on Oriental Seagull G2 simply blows the scan completely out of the water.

I REALLY want to do this shot in 4 x 5!

Comments welcome!

dxqcanada · Apr 18, 2012

Yes, I don't think the digitalized version does it justice ... I can imagine the tonality in the print, and it looks better.

Ever thought of picking up a Speed Graphic ?

STM · Apr 18, 2012

dxqcanada said:
Yes, I don't think the digitalized version does it justice ... I can imagine the tonality in the print, and it looks better.

Ever thought of picking up a Speed Graphic ?

Yeah, the scan just can't hold the detail in Zone II and III like the print does, especially in the trees along the left edge of the frame. The highlights on the tracks block a little bit too. You can see every single little rust pock mark in the rails in the print. Fine Art Photography, the OLD FASHIONED WAY!

I never thought about a Speed Graphic but I do have a near mint condition Rolleiflex with 80mm f/2.8 Carl Zeiss Planar lenses that I love to take out sometimes and play with. I traced the serial number to 1957 (if I recall correctly, I may have to go look it up again) and it still takes beautiful images