P. David Van Verst <prolab@xxxxxxxx> said: Hi Andy, >I have a scanning back and the bl images in Gallery-S caught my eye. Could >you let me know how say: bl-10.jpg - was done? Timeline, lights, etc, etc. >Maybe you could post it on PF as an interest thing. OK - at: http://www.rit.edu/~andpph/gallery-s.html or directly at: http://www.rit.edu/~andpph/gallery-better-light/bl-10.jpg The Better Light scanning camera back has a linear array in it that moves while it captures or scans the focal plane of the camera much like if you had installed a flat-bed scanner in place of the sheet film holder. Or much like a focal plane shutter slit would expose film in said holder (except the focal plane shutter slit generally would move much more rapidly than the linear array in the digital scanning back). Anyway, to make this particular photograph the camera was used in its preview mode because in this mode one can see in almost realtime the display on the computer screen of the capture of the image line-by-line. So how was this photograph made? The "actors" stood close together as the scanner array moved from the top of their heads down their heads and to their shoulders> The student (wearing purple sweater) had his arm and fist in the position shown in the photo just to the side of the bearded fellow. He stood quite still all during the making of the photograph. Anyway once the linear array had passed past their shoulders the other fellow stepped back beyond the fist and once the array had passed the fist he stepped back forward to his original position ... but apparently wavered a bit afterwards as shown by the wavy nature of his legs. Anyway, that is how the photo was made. The total time for the scanner to scan the film plane was about 10-15 seconds or so. The lighting was a single tungsten floodlamp in a 12 inch reflector in a room also lit by fluorescent lamps. Typical classroom lighting. Lens aperture forgotten but probably something like f/5.6. The lens was covered also by a light blue-green IR absorbing filter as the tungsten lamp did provide an overabundance of IR. The scanning back also has the capability of setting different equivalent film sensitivity indices or indexes - anyway unfortunately I don't remember what that was set to. The file size was probably something like 5-6 Mb - although if the scan had been made in regular scan mode it would have been a lot larger. But in that mode one can not see the image changing on the computer screen as the array traverses the image plane and so "directing the actors" is somewhat more difficult. For illustrations this "low res" preview image we believe is quite adequate for many purposes. So, that is the story behind this and the other photographs as well. If I left anything out I'll be happy to try to find more answers from the students who took notes during the process! regards, Andy Andrew Davidhazy, Professor School of Photographic Arts and Sciences/RIT andpph@xxxxxxx http://www.rit.edu/~andpph
