Vulture Again
Monday, February 8, 2010 at 7:01AM 
Recently most of my work has disgusted me. This seems to be a form of an artistic block but it is a tough place to be. I am trying to continue shooting as much as possible and also doing some printing, etc. I hope it helps soon. I may do a post this week focusing on my thoughts and experiences with blocks.
On Saturday I was bound and determined to get out and shoot 8X10 mostly. It was looking pretty marginal up North so David and I decided to head to Vulture mine. This was the first trip where the 8X10 was the primary camera. I purchased an adaptor plate for the 810 which allows use of the 45 lenses on either camera. The new 600mm lens for the 810 is currently mounted on a large lensboard and I forgot to bring the adaptor so I shot with the 600mm lens all day. It is a great lens but a little slow for the dark buildings at Vulture and it is so long that the bellows was not long enough in many cases and some shots were compromises. Frequently I will go out and take only 1 lens. But that lens is usually a short long (210, 300) or a wide angle (115, 135). This 600mm beast although roughly equivalent to a 300mm on the 45 feels much longer than does a 300 on the 45. Interestingly I adapted to the larger camera. It was not a comfortable as the 45 but I can see it will become so quickly. Much of the problem with it on Saturday revolved around the extremely long feel of the lens and the bellows not quite long enough in many cases.
The photo above is of the old schoolhouse looking at the swings with one moving slightly. I took 2 of this photo the other one has more movement in the swing but I like this one best.
The photo below is of an old metal lathe in the machine shop. This was taken from about 20 feet with the 600mm lens. Unfortunately, this is a significant crop. The distance was as far as it was because of the 600mm lens vs 700mm bellows. For those who do not know the problems here, as the object you are focusing on gets closer to the camera, the focal distance from the lens to the film plane increases. I was restricted to the 20' because the bellows would not extend farther.
None of the negative from Saturday have been printed yet but I hope, this week.
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Reader Comments (1)
I like both of these, Michael ! I'm still working on mine, but so far I'm liking what I caught as well. Like we were talking, it really is great to go to a familiar location, and look for different shots.. particularly with a new lens, like we both had. I really enjoyed the challenge that we created for ourselves. And the light held in there just long enough !