Downpour, Second Avenue Fair
The damned heat is keeping me from shooting. Hot weather is about the only thing that keeps me from getting out. I get lethargic. Plus, my A/C is not great, so I don’t feel like doing much of anything in the house. I guess it’s about 100 degrees in NY, and about 85 in my apartment. I’m going to spring for a new Air Conditioner this year… real soon. Don’t know if the cat just picks up on my mood, or whether he’s hot also, but he’s just been sleeping all day.
If you’ve been following the blog for a while you’ll see that every summer my shooting slows down. It seems to be the only season that I’ve not been able to capture. It’s frustrating because I’ve got a head full of ideas right now, but all I can do is lie around and watch repeats of police dramas. The heats supposed to drop tomorrow night. All I’ve done the last two days is keep a piece of paper by my bed and write down ideas for shots.
I did a bit of research into Feininger and his “Big Bertha” lens which he used with a 4×5 camera. I figured out to get the same compression I’d need about a 1000mm lens. Not something that is going to rest comfortably atop the street walker. He built a platform to raise his camera to do the Lunchtime Fifth Avenue shot. Not real practical for me. And those lenses aren’t cheap - not just to do one or two shots. I’ll stick with wide angles stuff for now which I like better anyway.
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Dave - I noticed your comments about Feininger’s Big Bertha lens. He used a 40″ lens on a 4×5 Graflex body. That’s only 8X (40/5=8), which is only about 178mm on a Canon 40D (22.2 x 8 = 178mm).
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That’s true in terms of framing - but not in terms of telephoto compression. If he used a 40 inch lens then the compression effect is still going to be 1016mm. (Am I wrong!) I’ve been wrong before you know.
Another way of looking at it is that when I put a 20mm lens on the 40D, the crop factor makes the frame smaller than on a full-frame, the DOF qualities of the lens are still a 20mm lens. It’s just that you’re cropping out the edges.
Comment from Steve Rosenbach
Time: June 9, 2008, 9:07 pm
Dave - why not rent a very long lens for a day.
Other option might be to try to buy a 600mm or 1000mm Russian mirror lens. I tried a Russian 500mm a few years ago with a film camera - it was quite good. 500mm is equiv to 800mm on your 40D.