winter trees

More winter trees, for your grim, gothic, wintry 'enjoyment'. Ok, technically they're the same trees as last time around, but I used different cameras, so it's not precisely the same thing. Or not.



The trees are next to one of the streetcar stops on Lovejoy up in NW Portland. I don't remember which one, but it's whichever one is closest to the Lucky Lab brewpub. After a couple of beers, taking lots of photos of bare trees seems like a fantastic idea.



The even-numbered pix were taken with a Pentax Spotmatic SP, circa 1964-66, with a Super Takumar 50/1.4. The odd ones were taken with a Mamiya 1000 DTL, circa 1967, with an Auto Sekor 55/1.8. They're both nice cameras, picked up at local antique stores for a pittance. Any failings you see in the photos are my fault. Or the fault of the el-cheapo drug store ASA 200 film. Or the one-hour-photo hut....




Or the weather itself, for that matter. I'd like to take this opportunity to register a formal complaint about the weather. I'd much rather post photos of flowers, or waterfalls, or colorful ethnic festivals, or basically anything besides grim winter weather. But that's what we've got at the moment, so here we are. I suppose I could still do, I dunno, food, or something, but the weather's giving me a creative block. All I see right now is bare trees and rain, everywhere, as far as the eye can see. It's not depressing, exactly, merely frustrating. I mean, these pics were taken with color film, believe it or not. The curving limbs and branches are cool and all, but the lack of color is seriously cramping my style.

assorted accidents & experiments

An accidental multiple-exposure photo, taken with an old Argus C3 Matchmatic I picked up a while back. This wasn't on purpose (and is quite easy to do by accident on a C3), but I rather like it. I have a bunch of 'normal' Argus pics too, which turned out better than I expected. I'll try to post some in the next day or two, or so.




A while back I read something about using out-of-focus Christmas lights to create a nice blobby background. I thought I'd give it a try, and although it came out on the underdone side, I still rather like the effect. The foreground is just a pomegranate I had handy. It's the background I really cared about. In the end it's just an experiment, after all.




A sorta-macro shot using an EL-Nikkor 75/4 enlarging lens. I picked the thing up really cheap, as it came attached to some sort of old industrial line-scan camera I can't make heads or tails of. I really ought to get an adapter ring to convert the EL-Nikkor's 39mm thread (the standard enlarger lens mount) to 42mm, so I can use it on macro bellows. And/or get a helicoid & extension tube setup so I can use it like a normal M42 lens. And/or get some additional adapter rings so I can mount it reversed, either on the bellows or the helicoid.

In any case, first I just wanted to see whether the EL-Nikkor takes decent photos or not. It seems to do OK, at least OK enough for me to spring for some of the gadgetry I just mentioned.

The candy, meanwhile, is a raspberry-filled chocolate from Denmark, which we bought at the annual Scandinavian festival at PSU a couple of weeks ago. The company's website is here. I highly recommend the Creamy Raspberry. Actually I highly recommend everything that contains raspberries, come to think of it.




I've posted a few UV photos here before, but they were all taken with my compact digital camera, not with film. So I thought I'd try it with film for comparison, since there was still a big question mark about whether I was really seeing UV or not. Digital sensors are bad at UV, we're told, and UV is incompatible with modern zoom lenses, with their 21st century optical coatings and all those glass elements, some with their surfaces cemented together with rather uv-opaque substances. My little digicam seemed to do it anyway, so I figured I ought to take a film photo or two for comparison. This definitely came out brighter than the usual digital image, but I didn't test both with all other conditions equal, so this is at best an unscientific comparison. I can at least say it looks pretty similar to what the digicam takes, which gives me a bit more confidence that it's seeing what I think it's seeing.

This was a ~1 second exposure, at f/1.4, handheld, because I was too lazy to go across the room and dig out the tripod and cable release. So I'm actually surprised it's as clear as it is. Did I mention this was just an experiment?




I also got the notion to try making a pinhole "lens" for one of my old SLR, which involved a few seconds of work with a piece of tinfoil and a needle. You can also buy the things premade, with precision laser-bored pinholes, and the results are no doubt a bit less fuzzy. And maybe I'll buy one at some point. But homemade is kind of fun too.




Now here's one that just failed completely. I bought a T-mount adapter to hook an M42 camera up to a telescope, but I haven't figured out how to get things in focus yet, try as I might. This is supposed to be the moon. I guess you'll just have to take my word for it.

a building vanishes

There was a bit of a commotion last night near this old building, located on Stark between 5th & 6th in downtown Portland.



They've been tinkering with it for the last month or two. For a while there was a big DANGER sign warning passersby that some sort of "remediation" was in progress. They didn't explain exactly what sort of remediation it was, but the place gave off an awful, gag-inducing musty smell for weeks on end. So I figure it was black mold, maybe with a side of asbestos.

---

So those were the 'before' photos, and these are the 'after' ones.



Yep. The whole thing's gone, torn out in the course of one night. They're also renovating the notorious (and nearly as musty) 1960s aggregate-coated building down the block, and I gather this is part of the same project. I think they're turning the whole complex into a new upscale hotel or something.



I usually don't cheer the arrival of new lifestyle amenities for the idle rich, but I'm pleased to bid this building a hearty "good riddance". It was empty for as long as I can remember. Decades, possibly. The covered entrance was a popular home -- and restroom -- for the homeless, so walking past often made you gag even before the "remediation" began. So instead we'll probably get the usual doggie day spa / martini bar combo, but even that would be an improvement. Well, an improvement for everyone except the poor homeless people who used to use the place. The city and the Powers That Be keep offering vague promises to provide an unknown number of public restrooms for the homeless at some unspecified future date. So maybe that'll happen and maybe it won't. What usually happens with these things is that a proposal muddles along in process limbo for a few years, with endless public meetings and steering committees and such, and eventually they announce it'll cost far more than originally estimated, there's no money in the budget, and that's the end of it. Unless you're building an aerial tram, of course.

utter, abject greyness

Sure, I could try explaining why December isn't my favorite month. Conveying the point with pseudo-artsy photos instead makes it seem less like I'm whining, though. So I think I'll do that instead.

Enjoy. Or whatever. Or not.

Semi-obligatory Kloochy Creek Spruce photos

View Larger Map

By now you've probably heard the sad news. The (locally) famous Klootchy Creek Sitka spruce finally snapped in half during yesterday's windstorm on the coast. For those unfamiliar with the tree (like, if you just, like, moved here from, like, California, for instance), it was (allegedly) the tallest tree in the state, and (allegedly) the tallest Sitka spruce anywhere, as proclaimed by the sort of people who care about those things. Even if neither claim was true, it was still a really huge tree, and a well-known one, being located in a park right next to US 26, on the way to the coast.

After the damage it suffered last winter, everybody knew the thing was sick and on its last legs, or roots, or whatever. Although that can mean anything from months to decades, with a tree of this size. I took these photos back in June during that big mini-roadtrip I went on, because -- believe it or not -- I'd never actually seen the tree before, and I've lived here basically my entire life. So I figured I ought to see it at least once.

I'm not entirely sure why we never stopped when I was a kid. I remember wanting to see it, and I think I asked if we could stop at least once or twice, but the answer was always no. My best guess is that my parents figured anything built around a single tree must be a tourist trap and therefore -- and here's the key thing -- expensive. Sort of like the Trees of Mystery, except singular, and not mysterious.

On the news last night, people were hauling away chunks of the tree as souvenirs. Being a county park and all, I'm not sure that was precisely the legal thing to do, but I can't say I'm surprised. At least none of the pieces have shown up on eBay yet. (I just checked.) Possibly that won't happen until power and phone service is restored out on the coast.



Other photos of the tree (if you're interested) at GoLiNiel, Visit Old Growth Forests, tien mao's little read book, no fish, no nuts, LewisAndClarkTrail.com, and OregonPhotos.com. The latter has a tall stitched vertical panorama from the base of the tree. I wish I'd thought of that. Not that I could've gotten that close anyway. Not safely or legally, at any rate.




If you've ever tried taking photos of a tall tree, you might've noticed that getting it right is harder than you might expect. It's tall, and you're near the base of it. Point the camera up to get the whole tree, and the perspective goes all wonky, so that the tree looks like it's falling over backwards. Ok, I realize that's what eventually happened here, so the falling-over look was merely premature. But the tree wasn't actually leaning noticeably when I took the photos.

If, instead, you hold the camera flat, you just get the base of the tree and a chunk of uninteresting foreground. So that's not desirable either. People generally go with option 1 and call it good, and it's common enough that people have gotten used to how it looks. But it still isn't correct.

Your third option involves spending money for specialized photo gear. Either a tilt shift lens for your SLR, or you can go all out and get a view camera. Here's a photo of some redwoods with some tilt-shift action going on. It's not a perfect example of the genre, but at least the trees aren't all leaning backwards at crazy angles.

If you're using a little compact digicam like I was, you have no option three, and you're out of luck unless you figure out how to fake it in Photoshop or GIMP, and I haven't sat down and puzzled that out just yet. And if I did, and it turned out to be sufficient, that would mean one less specialized widget I'd have a good excuse to buy. So I'm not sure how avidly I want to pursue digital solutions.

UV+IR-UV

The latest experiment with my shiny black UV and IR filters. These were taken with the two together, which -- in theory -- should block most or all UV & visible light, and show only the IR that makes it through both filters.

Feel free to speculate about the yellow-orange color. I really have no idea where that came from, but I rather like it.

Tanner Springs in Ultraviolet

It was a cold, overcast, near-wintry day, and I went out in the late afternoon. It's hard to imagine more unfavorable circumstances for taking UV photos. But when you have a new toy (i.e. a shiny black UV-pass filter), you always want to go out and play, regardless of the weather.

Given the unfavorable circumstances, I'm reluctant to call these "bad photos", exactly. There wasn't much UV to go around today, so most of these are multi-second exposures, and I didn't bring a tripod so they're all handheld shots. And the subject matter isn't your classic UV fare, with closeups of flowers and such. UV with the camera's digital false color effect looks a bit postnuclear, if you ask me. But it's what I had close at hand. I'm not about to wait until spring. So rather than calling them "bad photos", I prefer to regard them as merely "preliminary results".

I didn't pick Tanner Springs just because it was close, actually. I've seen a few indications that water does interesting stuff in UV, becoming all shiny and reflective. I'm not entirely taken with today's preliminary results, but check out this waterfall for an idea of what I have in mind, ideally. Certainly nothing I did today comes close to that, but someday, perhaps, with more practice and better subject matter...

In any case, there's an interesting piece about UV subject matter here, which is where I found that waterfall photo. The shot from the golf course does look a lot like what I came up with, except a bit brighter and sharper. So I may be on the right track, at least.

Oh, and before anyone gets pedantic about it: I do realize the B+W 403 filter leaks a bit of infrared, such that these aren't completely pure UV. I took an IR photo for comparison, which you'll find down toward the bottom. You can't miss it, with the classic IR snow-grass effect and all that. The UV ones look nothing like it. I've been reading up a bit, and it appears that what I really need now is something called a BG38 filter, which supposedly cuts substantially all the IR while passing the UV, pretty ideal when used along with a 403. Or you could use it alone and take some fascinating(?) blue-green-ish photos, I suppose.

More fun with ultraviolet

Continuing with the theme of the previous post, here are a few more photos with the fancy new UV & IR filters I bought the other day. What I'm trying to do here is completely nail down the fact that my puny little digital camera can, in fact, see ultraviolet light. Various self-styled experts will tell you it's impossible, their opinions seemingly based on a couple of minutes worth of Googling and zero minutes of actual experimentation.

I took a few photos of more or less the same angle using various filter combinations. The first three were with a B+W 403 on the camera. This filter blocks visible light, and lets through UV and a bit of infrared. The second three were with a Hoya R72 on the camera, which lets infrared through, and blocks visible and ultraviolet. The goal is twofold: First, to show that yes, the camera does detect something with the 403 in place. And second, to show that what it's seeing cannot be just the IR component.

In addition to these two filters, I had a Hoya UV(0), which just blocks UV, and a half-opened window, which blocks even more -- but not all -- UV. I used both, because in the previous post I showed the half-opened window trick using a black light bulb as an improvised filter, and I wanted to demonstrate that the effect is visible with a real UV filter on the camera, and occurs with a known UV-blocking material just like it does with a regular window.

So the top photo is with the UV(0), and the second is with the window. As you can see, the window blocks substantially more UV, which isn't surprising since it's also quite a bit thicker. It's also nobody's idea of an optical-grade material. It should be apparent that the left and right hand sides of both photos are different, both in brightness and in color. The UV(0) and obviously the window look completely transparent in visible light, so the difference must be due to either ultraviolet or infrared.

[Oh, and before anyone accuses me of image manipulation: I did brighten the pics up a bit in GIMP using the Levels tool, since the originals were rather dark and it wasn't easy to tell what was going on. But no color tweaking, and certainly no lightening of individual regions within a photo. Everything's just as it appeared, just a few percent brighter overall.]



The third photo shows the R72 infrared filter being handheld in front of the camera. I'm not sure what this proves, exactly, but I was curious how it would look. It's black to the naked eye (as is the 403), but I wondered whether there'd be enough IR making it through both filters to make it transparent, or at least non-black in these circumstances. Apparently not, at least not in this photo. Possibly the auto-exposure is to blame, so I'll probably need to take a couple of additional pics with one filter directly on top of the other. I'm not sure what that will prove, precisely, but it might be interesting.



So photo #4 is the reverse situation, with the R72 on the camera, and the 403 handheld. Black again, just like last time. You might notice what look like a couple of spots of light on the filter -- I'm pretty sure those are reflections off the back, not light passing through it.



R72 on the camera, UV(0) handheld. This is to see whether the color & brightness differential is visible with purely infrared light. Sure doesn't look like it, does it? Regarding the top two photos, I said that the difference had to be due to either ultraviolet or infrared, and now here's what you get with the UV component removed. So if the difference isn't infrared, and it isn't visible, it must be the ultraviolet. QED, eh?



And the same experiment, this time with the half-open window. The non-window part might be just a shade brighter, indicating the window might be blocking a little IR too. But it's nothing like what's shown in photo #2, and there's no color variance that I can see here.