Wilkeson Creek

This is a digital shot, but it was taken to emulate a classic film format, 6x9cm.

A winter’s afternoon in the Pacific Northwest (Wilkeson Creek)

This dark, gloomy, and beautiful place is a deadfall along Wilkeson creek, approximately where Buckley and Wilkeson meet. This was taken with a medium format digital back (Phase One IQ3) on a modern tilt/shift camera (Cambo’s ACTUS).

This looks like a single shot, and if I had taken the photograph with 120 film in, say, a Fuji GSW690 or a Plaubel Makina 69W, I would have gotten just about this same view.

(A little narrower on the Fuji; exactly the same on the PB 69W because I used the same lens on my setup as that camera does.)

This ‘extra wide’ format is one that I really like. I haven’t done much work in this format because I’ve had to slowly learn how to do it—it’s work intensive (it takes 10 images just to make one shot like this). One has to take five photos and five ‘flats’. The flats are taken with a translucent sheet in front of the camera, to record the uneven illumination of this lens. (Many wide lens are darker near the edges.)

To make a long story short, I have the right software to tackle this, so once I (finally) worked out the technical details, it only took an hour to get two complete photograms done!!! (two sets of 10 photos). That includes hiking to the site, carrying a tripod, camera, and accessories with me. Adventure!

I’m extremely pleased with the results. I’ll post more info in the near future to show you have a shot like this actually comes together from all the pieces.

Worth a footnote: the image is dark because that is how dark our fog-shrouded days are right now. I could have lightened it up to show more detail, but I like how it shows just what we put up with in the winter around here.