Saturday evening found me over by the canal on the Princeton/West Windsor border, Sunday afternoon I was back nearby at the Updike Farmstead (previous posts – here and here). Both areas qualify as falling within the remaining buffer and both will remain so since they are protected areas.
Delaware-Raritan Canal, February 27, 2010
Post-sunset, same spot, it was all about the color.
Updike Farmstead on Sunday:
Updike Farmstead, February 28, 2010
Old growth forest, deer tracks.
I brought Bix with me on both outings. On Sunday, there was a large herd of deer watching us. At first they hid in the trees. But then on our way back, the deer, having had enough, darted out across an empty field and back into the woods. I have never seen a herd this large, 2-3 dozen strong. Bix, whose fur is so overgrown he can barely see, missed the action visually but was all too happy to explore the tracks left out in the open.
*This is a 2/26 re-edit of this post. I first published it on 2/24 running the photos in color. Since then I came up with a b&w conversion I am much happier with – so out went the color.*
I rushed last weekend to complete some more work on the buffer project. I know I’ll continue when the weather gets nicer but I wanted to get some more images while the snow was still around. It seemed having the contrast would make the images more graphic and this past Monday onward the forecast called for warmer weather (40’s) and rain. Surely, the snow would be gone within a few days…
Well, we still have 6″-8″ left and now are due for 10″-16″ more, starting tonight and continuing into Friday.
Washington Road Fields
Washington Road Fields
Harrison Street, Millstone River
Harrison Street, Millstone River
Seminary Drive Fields
I have reworked the five images from the previous buffer posts (here and here) with the new b&w conversion.
Seminary Drive Fields
Seminary Drive Fields
Alexander Road Fields
Alexander Road Fields
Alexander Road Fields
Some equipment and software notes:
All of the raw images were processed in Aperture 3, some received additional work in Photoshop.
The b&w conversion was done in Aperture 3. I created a platinum-esque preset which tones the image and alters the tonal curve a bit.
The top five images are composites made with the Canon TS-E 24mm II lens, in each case combining three images into one.
I’ve been testing a new tripod head, the Arca-Swiss C1 Cube. It’s a joy to use – simple, very quick, rock solid, and an engineering marvel. Its built-in levels are quite accurate and negate the need to add a bubble level to the camera’s hot shoe. I’ve come to love the fact that it has two pan controls. One at the bottom and one at the top, above the leveling controls. This way you can orient the head with the bottom control first (a rough line up or if the head needs a different orientation relative to the tripod), level the head, and then fine tune the pan with the topmost pan control. Since the head is already level adjusting the top pan won’t throw it out of alignment.
I live where I grew up, in Princeton, NJ. While the town has changed over time, as any place would over 46 years, it remains essentially the same. What has changed the most is the surrounding area.
Back in the day, as a kid, Princeton was surrounded by a belt of green 10-20 miles thick. Made up of farms and woods, it was a buffer that was as much psychic as it was physical. It kept the rest of the world at bay and it ensured a sense of small town life even though New York and Philadelphia were only 50 miles away.
Once, when probably 13 or 14, I went on a bike ride with a friend. We headed northeast along the canal and then at a certain point veered off. Up and out of the Millstone River basin, hours seemed to go by. Hot and thirsty, lost in every sense of the word, we were rewarded for our efforts when a Stewart’s Drive-in appeared off on its own, inhabiting a space carved out of a cornfield. Where was it? Where were we? We didn’t know and to a large extent it didn’t matter. It was summer, the days lasted forever, and it was hours until sunset. We had enough change for drinks, the owner pointed us back towards town, and after ten miles or so, biking through woods and farms, we were home.
Princeton is no longer isolated in that physical sense. The sod fields which lined Route 1 are gone, replaced by malls, shops, and hotels. There a long lines of traffic headed into town in the morning, out in the evening. Most of the rest of the land has been developed for housing or office parks. But traces of the buffer remain. To the east and the northeast of town, on the other side of the lake and the canal, there are still fields. Decent sized swaths of land, divided by long stretches of evergreens which rise three stories tall.
Photographed this past fall, NYU Dental School’s new Oral and Urgent Care suite struck me in how much it reminded me of the house in North by Northwest.
Vandamm House, North by Northwest
The house in the movie, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, never existed in real life. The exteriors were painted mattes composited with live action foreground images.
NYU Dental School’s new suites:
Larger versions of the last two images are on my web site in the Architecture>Commercial gallery, here and here.
Well, the Jersey Shore must have been getting too much attention lately so the Pinelands decided to reclaim some for themselves. Dateline: Vineland, NJ, 1/21/10 – the police have arrested a man, the lessee-manager of a bowling alley, for contracting the torching of a rival alley a few miles away. The accused’s business has “Family Fun” in its name. I guess we can add arson to the list of family activities.
I have posted reports on both of Canon’s new TS-E lenses (aka tilt/shift), the 17mm f/4L and the 24mm f/3.5L II, and I have been using them full on since receiving them earlier this year. They’re great optics. It’s clear how much of an improvement they are and how much they stand out the first time you use them.
Now, architectural photographer Rainer Viertlböck has posted two tests comparing them with his medium-format digital back, a 33mp Sinar e75, coupled with Rodenstock’s high-end view camera lenses; the 23HR, 28HR, and 35HR. Rainer used the Canon lenses on a Canon 5D Mark II.
Many are in agreement about how great these new Canon lenses are but I don’t know that anyone, myself included, expected them to compare so favorably against a medium-format digital back when used with view camera lenses. In the 17mm TS-E test, the Canon doesn’t have quite the detail or resolution of the medium-format kit but it comes awful close. This holds true even when the Canon files are res’d. up to match the Sinar e75 resolution.
In the 24mm TS-E II test, the Canon does a much better job than the Sinar/Rodenstock combo in controlling flare from tungsten light sources.
Every digital kit is a compromise of sorts. With a DSLR you have flexibility but loose in sharpness; with a medium-format digital back you gain in sharpness and resolution, but are more limited in workflow, operability, and the cost of entry is orders of magnitude higher.
It used to be that one of the main factors in digital architectural photography tipping the scales toward medium-format digital backs was the ability to use view camera lenses. This combo offered a photographer image quality which a DSLR with SLR style lenses could never attain. Well, never is broken and that compromise is looking less like a compromise and more like a choice based on style and needs.
