Magnolia:

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Mamiya RB67  105mm normal lens - Ilford HP5+ 120 film  Normally developed. Scanned as color from B&W print printed on Ilford paper. Shot inside under controlled environment.

-- Bahman Farzad (bahman_farzad@spotmetering.com), March 20, 1999

Answers

Another wonderful, subtle and artistic rendering. Your series has been a pleasure to behold. I always look forward to the next.

-- Garry Schaefer (schaefer@pangea.ca), March 20, 1999.

this is really beautiful- this is my favorite of your series. thanks for posting it- greg

-- Greg Rothschild (gnr@toast.net), March 20, 1999.

I usually don't comment on the images posted here, but this time I'll make an exception; and the comment is, "simply the most elegant image I've seen here in a long time".

Well executed, and a fitting testimony to the boldness of sometimes breaking the rules - in this case, the vaunted and often overused rule of thirds.

Wonderful image.

-- Stan Benkey (sbenkey@europa.com), March 20, 1999.

Beatiful exposure and delicate value study under perfect light. My only question is where is the stem and background?

-- Mike Green (mgprod@mindspring.com), March 21, 1999.

Mike: The stem is hidden under the front petal with the end of it secured to a long screw coming out of a hole that was especially drilled into the background's plexiglass for this shot. I've been trying to get a shot like this for about 10 years. This is the closest (still I am not totally happy with it!) to what I have wanted to capture!

-- Bahman Farzad (bahman_farzad@spotmetering.com), March 21, 1999.

Bahman

It's something about the lighting... It just doesn't quite have that snap that I want to see to really take this image to the next level. To flat, to cold.... I don't know just a feeling really. Maybe thats what you are looking for too. Composition etc....are wonderful.

Cheers

-- Bill Wyman (Bill.Wyman@utas.edu.au), March 21, 1999.

Bahman,

Incredibly beautiful! Takes my breath away! I love how the flower appears to be floating. The subtle difference between the white petals and the white background is exquisite. I love how the center part of the flower is framed by the barely discernible white petal behind it.

-- Barbara Kelly (kellys@alaska.net), March 21, 1999.

I find it a bit too symmetrical, a "bit too perfect" (if there is such a thing). Nevertheless a wonderful series of pictures you have. Just curious: you say you are not entirely happy about it. How ould you go about improving it?

-- Andreas Carl (andreas@physio.unr.edu), March 22, 1999.

This seems to me to have extraordinary depth of field for an image made this close. Seems sharp from the tip of the petal closest to us to behind the center of the flower, and not all that blurry behind that. Depending on the size of the flower could be several inches of depth of field. I don't think I could get that much DOF using my usual close-up rig with the camera straight-on to the flower.

What was the size of the original flower? What f stop did you use? where was the point of sharp focus? What was the angle of the camera body relative to the flower? (I'm trying to imagine the angle of the plane of sharp focus relative to the structure of the flower).

-- John Wall (john_wall@ncsu.edu), March 22, 1999.

To Andreas: I am not sure. I always think the picture could be better. I guess I am never happy with my pictures or if I am it is not 100%. To John: I did not take notes, this is the best I can remember: The magnolia flower (I guess if you live in the south you know its size, they seem to be everywhere!) depending on the type and the age of the tree, my guess is that it can be anywhere from 6 to 12 inches (15 to 30 cm) or more in diameter. This one was not the biggest but the nicest I could find during a week end shooting spree. 9/10 inches (23/25 cm) in diameter would be a good guestimate. Magnolia flowers are extremely delicate and bruise and damage very easily. RB67 camera's bellows extend quite a bit and always gives me plenty of magnification even with a normal(non-macro) 90mm (not 105!)lens. My main objective was to hide the non-translucent stem. Therefore I elevated the camera slightly. Due to the high ISO (400) of Ilford HP5+ film and an 800 watt. sec. speedotron strobe inside a soft box behind the Plexiglas, the apertures for close up-compensated exposure was anywhere around f: 32. RB67s have an index indicating the exposure compensation for a specific lens and bellows extension combination. In most of my macro/close-up work I always use the center or the most important part of the subject to focus on and let other parts fall into place. I also check the DOF preview extensively to inspect the final image. in this case, to the best of my knowledge was somewhere between the base (center) and the tip of the petal. I also gave you a wrong mm for my lens. The lens used was 90mm normal. sorry for the error.

-- Bahman Farzad (bahman_farzad@spotmetering.com), March 22, 1999.

Wonderful image! I am curious about the hardware and technique used in scanning the above photograph. Thanks.

-- Jeff Kelley (thocker@ix.netcom.com), March 23, 1999.

Jeff: The image has a very short tonal range and was very tricky to scan directly from the negative. My new scanner is a Microtek scanmaker 4 which scans negatives or prints from their surfaces. Please note that the light does not go through the negative or slide. The scanner seem to do a much better job scanning from prints than negatives. A rather flat image was printed on Ilford MGIV Multigrade 8X10 paper, enlarged using an Omega d5500 diffuser enlarger. The print was developed in 1:1 diluted Dektol. It was actually scanned as B&W and then I converted the mode to RGB color, then I added Red and Yellow to give its tone. The contrast was slightly increased and it was sharpened one time in PhotoShop 4.0. I hope these answer your question. Thanks.

-- Bahman Farzad (bahman_farzad@spotmetering.com), March 23, 1999.