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Cameras For his landscape work, Jim uses two different camera systems. For his "standard" perspective photographs, he uses a Pentax 67 camera which provides a piece of film measuring 6cm x 7cm. He uses a variety of lenses including the 45mm wide angle, 55mm, 75mm, 105mm, & 200mm. For his panorama landscape images, Jim uses a Fuji GX617 panorama camera which produces a 6cm x 17cm strip of film. This large film size provides razor sharp reproductions during the printing process. His Fuji panorama lenses include the 105mm, 180mm, and 300mm. Jim uses Nikon cameras for all his 35mm sports photography; both digital and traditional film bodies with high-speed motor drives. He employs a full range of Nikkor autofocus lenses from the 16mm fisheye to the 300mm telephoto. Film All photographs appearing on this site were made with Fuji Velvia film. The images in the landscape galleries were made with 220 roll film. Velvia captures the rich, vivid colors found in the natural world and provides a very tight grain pattern. Both these characteristics combine to create beautiful results when printed in the large sizes required for wall display. His sports images were made using 35mm film. Filters Jim uses the Lee system of 4cm x 4cm resin filters for all his landscape work. Lee Filters offers a wide range of high-optical quality color correction, special effects, and split-image filters. These square filters are mounted to the lens using quick-release filter brackets. Jim uses filters sparingly mainly to compensate for the limited light-sensitivity latitude found in film as compared with the human eye. Filters which accomplish this are called split-image neutral-density filters. When, for example, the upper sky-half of a scene is very bright and the lower half is much dark, these filters will darken the sky to bring it more into balance with the lower half of the image. While your eye is capable of recording the wide range of brightness across a scene like this, film is simply not able to. Without a filter, if you were to expose correctly for the lighter sky portion of the scene, the darker lower half would go completely black. If you were to expose for the darker lower half, the sky portion would be completely blown out. Jim also uses a couple color-correcting warming filters to reduce "undesirable" color casts caused by light reflecting off green foliage or blue sky in open shade. Very occasionally, he employs the use of a polarizing filter, mostly to reduce reflections off autumn leaves or water in the tropics. Tripods Jim uses a lightweight, yet stable, carbon fiber Gitzo G1228 Mountaineer tripod. This 3-lb tripod provides the height and stability required by heavy camera bodies yet weighs half what a traditional aluminum tripod weighs. When combined with an Acratech Ultimate Ball head which weighs less than 1lb, his entire tripod setup weighs in under 4 lbs; an important consideration when lugging gear into the backcountry. Other Gear Jim uses a Pentax digital spot meter to determine light readings. He loads all the above gear into a variety of Lowepro backpacks including the Supertrekker AW. |