The ferry ride from Coupeville to Port Townsend provides some fairly dramatic scenery, from the more mudane (the ferry dock and environs) to the more spectacular view of the Northeast corner of the Olympic Mountains. The left over remnants of the morning fog reduced the clarity of the view, but added the ability to distinguish the various ridgelines.
Once in a while I will go out shooting and forget to download the images to my computer when I get home. And sometimes I will then start using a different camera for a while … variety being the spice, they say.
Both of these images were ones that I had in the camera for longer than I would admit. But a pleasant surprise when I finally saw them. I wish I had taken the mushroom in a focus stack so the depth of field was greater … but I still like the image.
Recently my friend Gary and I rode our eBikes up the Dosewallips Road past the washouts and up to the Dosewallips Campground … a distance of about 6.5 miles (each way). We had great weather and were just doing a day trip … although regular readers may note that another friend and I have made several trips up the road backpacking.
I carried my camera and the day was a great success, based on how much fun we had. During the bouncy ride, I lost my lens cap, but that’s why they sell extras, isn’t it?
My last post had a description of the pinhole lens I bought and the process. I thought i would share a couple more images that show the dreamy look that is typical of pinhole cameras better than the more general landscape shots.
I recently bought a pin hole lens for my Nikon D850. It has a variety of sizes of pinholes with a ring to rotate to switch between them. (see below for a look at the lens/camera) The pinhole concept predates photography … going back for its roots to the camera obscura. One of the interesting features of pinhole photography is that the depth of field is “infinite”…. everything is ‘in focus’. Of course, the focus isn’t as sharp as one gets with a lens camera and high resolution sensor (or film). Longer exposure times are required… since the size of the opening is so small. You are effectively using a very large “f-stop”. Therefore, a tripod is necessary. The top image of the ferry is a 5 second exposure, for instance.
I had a couple of different pinhole cameras that I had made in the past. One was an assignment for my high school photography class. These days you can buy various pinhole cameras … and spend up to several hundred dollars … some are very nicely made wood boxes. With those, you use either sheet film or photo paper and then have to deal with the development, etc. Since I don’t have a darkroom, I opted for trying out the pinhole lens that was designed with the Nikon F-mount.
Because the pinhole leaves the camera interior open to the environment (even if the opening is very small), I opted to put on a UV lens just as a method of keeping out dust. What I found afterwards is that the ‘infinite depth of field’ of the pinhole means that all the dust particles on the filter are also in focus (or nearly so). Interesting learning process! So, if you look carefully at the enlarged image, you will notice all the specks of dust in the sky areas.
