Should A Cloud Replace A Compass?

Originally uploaded by Sino Banes

This was originally shot at Koumos, Chania. It took some fiddling with Photomatix HDRi to get done. I like the outcome.

Osama, Viradon Version,
originally uploaded by Sino Banes.

Now, this was a difficult little bugger. The whole process from evaluation to final print took me about two hours without any stress — that means, which plenty of coffee and cigarette breaks, people talking on the MSN, etc.

The initial test was a 10 sec graduate of 7 steps. The final step was showing some midtones, but that was all I could see. I gave the second test an overall exposure of 100 secs and six ten second steps. Judging the outcome I decided that a 180 second exposure would be good enough, if I dodged the sea and buildings part and the skyline part for some time throughout the exposure.

I took down on that road, and my first full test was a 180 second exposure, during which I dodged the skyline for 35 seconds and the buildings for another 30. The dodging on the skyline was too apparent for my liking, and the buildings and the sea were dark enough; I was aiming for a sepia toning from the start, so I knew some of the darkest tones would go away. Still, I decided that I would rather have them brighter from the start so I can judge the outcome better.

The final print was using almost identical values as these, so: at first, a 30 second exposure during which I dodged the skyline for 30 seconds. This proved spot-on. Then, another 40 seconds during which I dodged the sea and buildings. Then, 110 seconds of normal exposure throughout the whole paper, and finally, a 40 secs burn of the sky area, the 2/3 of the paper when looked at vertically.

The ending result looked really nice and was toned in AGFA Viradon for ~5 minutes. I can not fully reproduce the tonality of the print due to scanning with a HP Flatbed that denies showing more tones, and Photoshopping the scan doesn’t seem to fix things enough for my liking. So, I came the closest I could to the original using a tiny bit of curves.

The numerous emails, polls and petitions caused no change in Polaroid’s decision to stop manufacturing their instant films. Maybe because they are so easy in filling out, or even easier to dismiss. Maybe an analog way will work better, when trying to save analog materials.

Please fill-in, print & send the following: Polaroid Survey. It might as well change something

Trying to find a complete bulk loading FAQ over the net wasn’t easy.

I did find this one, using the Wayback Machine and because it is no longer hosted anywhere I’ve decided, with all the respect to it’s original author, to host it here at BWphoto.net so it can be seen easily by search spiders etc.

Wish it helps people in search for it.