Old World Technique

Most interesting as I was taught by my assigned photographer at PPG headquarters (every writer had one), Gaye Zold, on how to light dark areas using the B setting on a camera. We were doing a story on the capitol rotunda at the statehouse in Baltimore. Looking up, I could see the special gold paint provided by PPG but it would be lost as we were "shooting into a dark hole." 

No problem. Gaye, who was an "old world photographer" from Hungary, set up several cameras slaved together and handed me a light with reflector. The object was to open the lenses for more than 50 seconds and, keeping the light moving, illuminate the inside of the dome so we could get a clear, detailed picture of the architecture that used the special paint from our company. It turned out to be a great story and made the front cover of PPG magazine.

The idea, he said, was to not "burn in" a spot but to provide overall lighting as long as you kept the source moving. The same is true for your hand and could be for a puff ball of grays on fishing line moving over, for example, the smoke stack of the engine and higher above it. 

You have to experiment with all kinds of stuff (maybe a flesh rubber glove on your hand while holding something) to see what effects you can come up with. In this age of digital photography, you can just "erase" something that doesn't turn out - - in my day we had to shoot 10 rolls of film just to get two or three good shots that could be used for the magazine to illustrate the story I was writing.

Gaye Zold taught me a number of "tricks" I use today in my photos - lessons that are not printed in books. First and foremost, if you are hiring a photographer, look at his knees. If they aren't dirty, don't hire them; if means that they only shoot standing up and all the shots are from the same dull angle of perspective.

Have fun - experiment!

Dave C.

Looks like

the 'ghosts' that turn up all the time in the photo's on Shorpy.com

Indeed worth experimenting with !

cheers, Leo

Question

The new digital camera's don't seem to have a "B" setting. I looked through the manual for the Cannon camera and couldn't find anything. My old Konica has a "B" setting. I learned to paint pictures with that and a flashlight. Great fun.

Bernd

Cotton Balls and Bubble Wrap

I have (and still do) do most of my visual effects in camera.  Steam engine smoke using cotton batting.  Fog from bubble wrap and a blue fill light.

Now if we could just figure out

How to make atmospheric effects that could be viewed with the naked eye!  I can do it on a  backdrop by using a haze of flat white paint but I wish I could do it in front of and around three dimensional scenery! Impossible or at the very least impractical.

Michael

Like this?

I was at Jim Reardon's (the guy with the On3 layout in the MRH Theater section) shooting slide film photos many years ago. Exposures were running around 30 seconds at f/32. Jim suggested sticking some cotton (spray painted gray) in the stack and jiggling it. This is what we got...

Not bad for old fashioned "technology"... No Helicon Focus either -- but photos of O scale have substantially better depth of field than HO which in turn is better than N scale.

Charlie

...

I dare say that looks quite nice...though it might seem that engine is at idle!!

I do believe there are techniques that easily transcend with an improvement in technology, the improvement being in this case these incredible cameras we have nowadays...

Bulb or "B" setting on Digital cameras

Bernd,

There are digital cameras with the "B" setting, but they are mostly the more expensive DSLR cameras, as well as a new breed of interchangeable lens cameras, like the Sony NEX-7 at $1300.  I would bet that many of us would rather buy more modeling stuff than such an expansive camera.  Always more neat toys than money!

Rob Morrison

B settings

Rob,

Thanks for the come back. The Cannon my wife has doesn't have that option. And I've probably already spent $1300 on model stuff in the last couple of months between train shows and Internet purchases. I guess I won't be buying a camera very soon.

Bernd