Friday 7 October 2011

Old-time landscapes in the digital age

I have always liked the old glass-plate photos from the late 1800s and early 1900s. I have tried to create that look here. The weather has been less than ideal for photography so I had to try something different.

This scene is of Mimosa Rocks. Taken with an Olympus E-P3 and 12mm f/2 lens. I have used a HiTech 10-stopper to extend the exposure to 6 seconds and of course given it a black and white treatment. I think I have captured the feel of the old photos.

Oh, something the photographers of old may have not been able to do - the shot is actually a 4-frame panorama taken in portrait mode.


Thursday 6 October 2011

Mini-review of the HiTech Pro 10-stop filter

A moderately affordable 10-stop ND-filter, the new HiTech Pro 10-stopper doesn't have a magenta cast like the old high-stop HiTech filters but under certain lighting a slight green cast (similar to the Lee filters) that is very easy to correct. The filter has a gasket that stops light leaking around and reflecting off the back of the filter or causing a reflection of lens lettering. It is very effective.

As a 4" filter, it comes with a choice of two different gasket fittings for Lee filter holders and HiTech filter holders. One drawback of the gasket is that it is stuck on to one side of the filter making it a little more difficult to clean. I trick I learnt recently to clean filters is to rinse them in luke-warm water and then blot off the excess water until dry. It is rare that this does not remove any marks. The gasket does extend the drying time a little but doesn't seem to retain water.


In this example, there is a little bit of vignetting caused by using an ultra-wide lens and filter. The outer corners of the image have light coming through at around 45 degrees which causes the darkening. This is typical of ND filters on ultrawides.

All up, a great value filter that works well.