Kerr Photography - Victoria, BC, Professional Photographer » film

Another 4×5 Experiment

Matthew — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 02:16:45 +0000

These are the “lost” images that I was referencing on twitter the other day. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but they eventually made it home. The thing is, I loaded the film in hopes of shooting it in the summer of 2010. I then traveled down to Australia and New Zealand without the film, came home, made it through the rest of winter and then rediscovered it. I couldn’t remember what I had loaded. ISO, film type, colour, black and white, negative, positive, none of it was ringing a bell. Since I only had 2 speeds of film I averaged that it would be about 300 ISO and started my guessing there. You see, with my 4×5 camera that I built out of wood, I don’t know quite what the field of view is. So I have to guess. I do know that the aperture is somewhere around f/216. I also know that my light meter works, so I can tell what the exposure time will be at f/16. Taking that into account, I use this handy chart that I made to calculate my exposure time for the pinhole.

As you can see, as soon as it’s about an f/8 day, I’m up to a 5 second exposure on the camera. Approximately, that is. I also find I have to be a lot more selective with my choice of composition because of that whole guessing my field of view thing. It worked out well in the end. And, not to toot my own horn, but they were pretty well educated guesses.
What are your thoughts? Comment below.

Expiration

Matthew — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:36:53 +0000

So, I was over in Vancouver a couple weeks ago (not for a hockey game) and was able to spend the morning with my lady and a friend of her family-friend who oddly enough went to the same photography school as I did. We wandered down to Granville Island and had some lunch in the market and then cruised on over the bridge. I, for the first time (just before the wedding) took my Minolta out to play. These are two of my favourite shots from that trip.

We didn’t just go over for Granville Island market food, we actually went over to see the musical Wicked. If you ever, ever get a chance to see it, I recommend it with the highest of all recommendations.

I like this. Thoughts? Post them in the comments box!

Tasty Tuesday #19

Matthew — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 16:48:24 +0000

This Tasty Tuesday is from a very long time ago when we chopped a few trees down for some power poles. This was shot on film using my mom’s old camera and I found the film about a year ago. I scanned the pictures and then forgot about them again until recently when I found them on my hard drive.

Canon and Vimeo – Film Contest

Matthew — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:30:38 +0000

I use Vimeo, (I’ve been told not to) and I also use Nikon (and I’ve been told not to) but when it comes to something as cool as this, I had to share. Canon Inc. and Vimeo are coming together to put on a Film Contest with Vincent Laforet. You’ve probably heard me talk about him before. I am really interested in this upcoming video contest.

The idea is that there will be seven chapters to work on. In other words, 6 chances to win. The first chapter is shot by Vincent on his Canon 7D (seen above). That chapter ends with a still image. That still image is what you have to create your short video about. Interpret that still and make it your own, whatever that may be. The winner of the second chapter (who has a still frame at the end of their movie) is then the inspiration for the third chapter. And it goes like this for 7 chapters (Laforet + 6 winners). I’m really excited to see what comes out of this and I’ll try to keep everyone here updated on it as it happens.

Unfortunately, due to some strict rules, the contest is only open to age of majority in the United States of America. Sorry Canada/The rest of the world, you’re out of luck on this one. Perhaps they’ll open it up later in the game.

Like I said, I’ll try and keep posting on this with new entries and the winners of the chapters. And finally, a little plug at the end here, if you have 5 minutes, head on over to fill out my quick survey on web search, what you search for and how much you’ll pay for it. Once you’re done, if you could pass it on I would greatly appreciate it. Don’t forget to send in your submission to win a copy of my book (I’m not asking for your soul, just a cool picture that you’ve seen).

Project: 4×5 Pinhole Camera

Matthew — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:53:28 +0000

Complete! Almost. I just have to finish off the varnish on it. It’s done as far as sealing it up from light, functionality of the shutter, and the tripod mount. The first shot is pictured above. Shot at 40 seconds at f/216. A little under exposed as the shutter speed was a calculated guess. According to Mr. Pinhole dot com, the ‘actual shutter speed’ should be around 48 seconds. Nothing a curves layer can’t fix.

In my next post I’ll be putting up some production pictures as well as a shot of the final image (next post because I misplaced the production pictures somewhere on my computer). I’m going to try and do some night shots with it and some portraits. I’m also trying to figure out a good way of shooting strobes with it too. I might blind my subjects before I get them exposed, but it’s probably worth it.

Clean, Fresh and New.

Matthew — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:50:52 +0000

Just in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve made a few changes around the site. I had heard a few comments that my site was cluttered with visual information and inconsistent. I thought to myself, what is a clean and clutter free design. White. It’s simple, effective and brings the eye to the photograph itself. And considering I am a photographer and this is a photoblog, that almost makes sense. Redesigning the main website was a tricky decision, I wanted to keep my logo that I had, but it just doesn’t work very well. It seems like a stamp. So it’s been redefined and cleaned up as well. Please let me know what you think of the new layout. I’m open to opinion and suggestion.

And since I haven’t uploaded any pictures in a long while, here are a couple that I’ve worked on for the past month.