Who says rainy weather is bad?
I went back to the Isle of Eigg a week or so ago, and while I was there, I went back to the bay of Laig on the north western edge of the tiny island.
The weather was the usual mix of atmospherics that I’ve experienced before with Eigg. One minute dry and sunny the next, storm cloud brewing.
So here’s a new landscape image, kindly scanned by a friend of mine, as I managed to break the glass tray for my Coolscan scanner.
When I get images back like this, I know that the Mamiya 7 is a superb camera and I should not give it such a hard time. I do get frustrated with it at times, but as always, the final results always make me fall in love with it.
There is a stream coming down from the land to the sea, and in this shot, the left hand side of the image is actually the widening stream as it enters the sea. I deliberately used a long exposure to soften the current of the stream, so it blends in with the textures in the sand on the right hand of the shot.
It was raining quite a lot, and the sky as you can see was very overast, but soft also. All these things, plus using a nice wide angle to accentuate the foreground sand detail result in a lovely image.
So who says that rainy weather is the time to put away the camera?
Fantastic shot, Bruce. Michael Kenna would be envious!
Comment by David Mantripp — 16 March, 2009 @ 4:55 pm
Nice photo, as always Bruce.
Can you tell me what some of your frustrations are with the Mamiya 7?
Thanks,
Mark
Comment by olwick — 16 March, 2009 @ 7:39 pm
Hi Mark,
All camera systems are a compromise, and a barrier between you and the scene you want to record.
With the Mamiya, I find that the lenses are slow, estimating DOF can be hard because the DOF scale on the lenses is overly optimistic, so I tend to have to expand the DOF scale by a stop or two – so I don’t know sometimes if the scene is in focus – because it’s a rangefinder.
I sometimes feel I want to focus closer and I can’t do that.
That sort of thing. But overall, the benefits of the system are great – lightweight, superb optics, no mirror slap, so very sharp images, and it’s fairly transparent.
No system is perfect and I’m now finding that the 7 is really ‘my’ landscape camera. Whereas the Contax 645 is a people camera. In general.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 16 March, 2009 @ 10:06 pm
Bruce,
Very much enjoy this scene captured.
Great soft light, and wonderful tones. The lead in line is very effective.
Velvia 50 I presume again? The slight magenta colouring speaks to me its velvia?
Scotland’s light i noticed when there in Feb has this slight magenta hue to it…its very delicate, and using the right film you can really pick up on it and use it to your advantage.
Beautiful image.
S
Comment by stevef — 17 March, 2009 @ 5:35 pm