And the moral is…

Less haste when packing! Arrived to find I’d done really well with the short, sharp approach to packing…except for not having packed half my underwear. Hmmm

Luckily, a quick trip to the shopping centre at La Défense sorted me for the week :O)

Sorting out the access to an internet connection took a little longer and probably cost me more. Having brought the ultra-light Macbook Air, I was disappointed to find the apartment had an Ethernet connection (silly me, should have realised not everywhere has wireless). Of course, the Air doesn’t have an ethernet connection. A trip to FNAC and I bought a USB-Ethernet converter and here I am back on the web. (sighs of relief all round).

Weather mostly OK, foggy on Saturday but cleared later, grey skies on Sunday but Monday started with beautiful blue skies. Later this turned to heavy downpours and we were caught more than once for a good soaking.

Possibly off to Monmatre tomorrow. Have had the Mamiya out today, and used the high ISO setting (set up by OBP) on the Canon 40D for night-time shots of the Eiffel Tower. These look pretty spectacular on the LCD, it will be interesting to see how they look given the likely noise they may suffer from.

Off to finish the red wine now, and enjoy a nice patisserie.

La Defense

From the top of Le Grande Arche

View from Centre Pompidou

The view from here – spectacular views across Paris, towards Sacre Coeur.

All aboard!

And here we are, aboard the 08:40 to Paris!

Packing

Having started the job of packing last wekend I admit to realising with some horror that we leave tomorrow and I’m only half done!

Nothing helpful from Eurostar other than that they will x-ray everything so probably leave the ISO1600 film at home..

The monopod/tripod/pole works great, dead simple and can cope with the weight. Until you set it up as a tripod when you get quite a lot of bounce. With no cable release on the Mamiya I don’t think I’ll be taking any medium format night shots. Thankfully, even though the 40D is slightly heavier I do have a cable release (and no worries about high ISO and x-rays of course). Will be interesting to use as a monopod anyway though as I’ve never used one before.

So, camera and lenses sorted and packed. Need to pack film and oddments. Books done, packing list for adapters, passports, money, guide books, laptop, ethernet cables, portable hard disk, card reader, etc. So that should be everything.

Oh, and need to remember to pack clothes :0)

Roll on Paris.

X-ray Vision

I’ve been doing a little bit of research and now I have a question: can I safely take my undeveloped (unexposed or exposed but not processed) film to Paris?

I’m not flying but Eurostar operate the same kind of traveller checks as airports.

Advice seems reasonably consistent – that up to 5 passes through the cabin baggage x-ray machine should be fine up to and including ISO400. However there is a difference of opinion about whether the upper limit cutoff is ISO800 or 1000. Either way, it makes thinking about taking my ISO1600 “interesting”!

Having checked (there’s nothing on the Eurostar official site) as best I could, I really need to be able to ask for a hand check of my film. However, unlike US airports I don’t seem to have a right to ask for this, and I’ve no idea if the French would be accommodating even if I was lucky on the outbound leg from London.

Have emailed Eurostar customer services in the hope that they will have some guidance. Not reassured to get an ‘out of office’ bounce-back though!

Film Stock

A bumper lot of film picked up from the post office yesterday. All stocked up for the rest of 2008 now I think. Although with real uncertainty about jobs at work I may need to eke it out!

At between £1.20 and £2.40 a roll for 120 and heavily discounted 35mm though it makes it reasonably affordable. It’s the processing that’s the expensive bit. I am thinking of processing my own black and white, both for creative and practical/financial reasons. Would need a good quality film scanner though as I would have no enlarging facilities.

I will know more about my future in the next few months hopefully but in the meantime I have my trip to Paris to look forward to and my exhibition in January to prepare for.

In need of support

Making final plans for Paris, buying in a stack of film, making sure I’ve got what I need. One regular problem – what do I do about my tripod?

A strong, carbon fibre tripod but weighty all the same and long even closed. It just fits sat diagonally in my largest suitcase but the combination of tripod and heavy head risks tipping the weight over except on the most generous of airlines. Even going by Eurostar as we are luggage needs to be minimised where possible.

It’s not that I’ve failed to try alternatives.

The dslr gorilla pod doesn’t cope well with anything heavier than a basic small dslr with kit lens, plus it needs something stable for it to stand/cling to.

Small cheap travel tripod, which was OK but again failed to cope with heavy lenses.

The gorilla pod cushion, which was such a waste of time I took it straight back to the shop. A lightweight dslr simply toppled the weighted cushion over.

Trip after trip overseas has been a compromise based on not having a decent support.

Thinking it through I decided that a sturdy goodbquality monopod might be the best compromise, perhaps with a cheap travel tripod if I could find one.

A fair bit of searching later showed that web travel tripods are relatively long (some only a couple of centimetres shorter than my existing tripod. They all had quite low weight support, which would be a problem for either the Mamiya or the Canon 40D.

I’d almost given up when I came across a travel monopod, built in sections, that also converted into a tripod (of a kind). The “Trekpod Go!” is capable of supporting up to 9lbs, which should be plenty for me. It also converts into a hiking pole so it has the height that has been one of the compromises of other options.

It arrived yesterday and is very neat. It comes in it’s own carrycase and I can’t believe how light it is! I’ll hopefully give it a brief workout this weekend to see how it fares.

Expert Advice

Had a good chat with L about advice for preparation for the exhibition. I’d wanted help with sizes, mounting etc but in the end, the discussion was much more about the initial stages of getting the right pictures to present.

Very helpful advice and suggestions, mainly that I need to accept I’ve not the time to devote to getting the maximum out of film (35mm or medium format) in time for January. There are darkroom and enlarging facilities I can access but I’ve a lot to learn. So I’m left with certain choices:

digital – and my 40D should be ample for the size I’m likely to go to

film – processed and printed by a professional company

film scanned and digitally post-processed – and this will probably give me the least quality unless I use some high-end scanner, or have them scanned for me by an external company

All really useful but quite depressing when I was hoping to get the kinds of quality and tonal range I see in film but am having trouble reproducing. However, I can still play with the film types to get something more like I want, e.g. using higher contrast b&w film. I have to accept that I will have much less control over what I get though, unlike digital where I can tweak things much more simply, at least until I can get time to go play in the darkroom.

Time to regroup, rethink and take some pictures. I can then go back for advice, help and assistance on the next stage.

Distribution

Distribution

Originally uploaded by Haysie1

So here it is, my very 1st medium format photo. The scanner isn’t designed for professional results but it does enough to provide me with something I can tweak and share. Thanks to OBP for his scanning expertise once again in getting the best from the equipment.

MW is going to introduce me to someone who can help me sort out what I need to do about getting prints I can use for exhibition and selling. Hopefully, that will remove the need to do digital manipulation, or will help me get better scans!

I really like this picture because it has turned out with some unexpected bonuses. The high sheen on the polished marble (actually deep black) has been rendered with this mirror finish by the excellent metering of the camera. In fact, I’ve pulled the tones back to get them nearer the original black. They appear to float above the ground and the apparent randomness of the distribution works well.