The 4x5 View Camera

 

A photographer I know who works about as differently as another photographer can (from my macro tabletop style) brought his 4x5 view camera to Studio 11. This is a camera with the accordion bellows and the ability to tilt the front lens part and the rear film part around. This lets one push the focal plane around a great deal. Stephen Benskin does art photography in 4x5 film format, black and white lanscapes. Great stuff.

Anyway he brought his camera and gave me a long lesson on the view camera. To make a four hour session story short-I learned a ton. He scanned one one of the resulting negatives, and sent me the file. I then gave it a thorough workout in Photoshop to fix my rookie mistakes in exposure and color balance. Note to myself-Portra 160 or maybe the scan really blues up my 5000k lit tabletop studio. Next time-warmer light. Or Kodachrome? The subjects were a couple big CZ diamond simulated gems, and real 24kt gold grain, the kind jewelers use to make 18 karat gold.

Finally!

 

Study In Polarization

 

 

These two shots show what happens when you polarize both light sources and the lens. The lens polarizer got rid of the camera flash blowout on the top facet the "table" of the blue sapphire.

Polarizing Works

 

Close Up!

 

Lost Liquidity

 

Spray!

 

Splash of Light

 

Cobblestone

 

Study in Sapphire

F32 and F8-A study in clarity

For jewelry we often push the depth of field to get the whole piece sharp. However as I found (with some help from Steven Benskin) that a lens is at its most sharp almost wide open, which severely limits depth of field. You will notice on the sharp shot the bottom of the ring shank is soft, the less sharp ring is as sharp as it can get at F32, from the stones to the bottom of the ring. I have a depth of field calculator that shows the hard numbers.

Platinum History

 

Depth

 

Afternoon Garden Meditation

 

Platinum Band