[MF3D.FORUM:1456] Hawaiian Trip

[Brian Reynolds <reynolds@xxxxxxxxx>]

Liz and I got back from Kaua'i earlier this week and I now have all my
film back from the lab.

Kaua'i is great.  Nice weather (I generally don't like warm, sunny
weather) and an incredible variety of scenery.

I brought my new Canham DLC 4x5 camera (with a 150mm Caltar, a 10inch
Commercial Ektar and a rented 90mm Caltar lens) , my Sputnik and my
Yashicamat.

I tried one 4x5 stereo of the bay from the balcony of our room.  The
separation was about 12 feet.  I'm bringing it with me to tonight's
NYSS meeting.  The Canham only has 25mm (total) of front shift, so I
didn't try using camera shifts for stereo effect.  I brought the Bogen
"slidebar", but didn't use it.  The Canham's shifts should be enough
for closeup stereo.

The Yashicamat came along for a helicopter ride around the island.
While I had film in it I also shot a couple of pairs with it.

I had hoped Liz would use the Sputnik so that I could concentrate on
the 4x5, but I wound up using it instead.  The focus problem is
solved, but now I have really bad light leaks.  Many (most) of the
stereo pairs were ruined.  I may get some of the 6x4.5 or panoramic
mounts from RMM to see if cropping will help.  The light leaks may
have been caused by the generally sunny weather, my not using a case
(never do) and keeping the camera outside the bag most of the time.
Unfortunately I procrastinated before the trip and didn't get the
Sputnik fix up kit from RMM before the trip.  I was able to take
wildlife photos with the Sputnik.

I learned two things on this trip.  Photography is a skill that you
must work at to maintain, and photography and exhaustion don't mix.  I
got back a lot of poorly exposed slides.  I attribute this to not
having been out and about photographing for a few months.  My
exposures (especially color) are usually good.  It had also been over
a year since my last vacation and work has been driving me pretty
ragged.  While in Hawaii I knew I had screwed up a couple of sheets of
4x5 film, but the final count from the lab was higher than I thought
it would be (1 of 10 for B&W, 4 of 22 for color).  The one time I saw
something I really wanted in B&W (a sand castle at sunset and in
retrospect it would have made a nice stereo) I had managed to leave
behind all my timers and my watch back in the room.  I generally don't
count ("one one thousand, two one thousand, ...") evenly and the
negatives show it (underexposed).

Overall the trip was great, and I did get some very nice photos
(mostly non-stereo).  I highly recommend Kaua'i and the Kaua'i
Marriott.

-- 
Brian Reynolds                  | "Dee Dee!  Don't touch that button!"
reynolds@xxxxxxxxx              | "Oooh!"
http://www.panix.com/~reynolds  |    -- Dexter and Dee Dee
NAR# 54438                      |       "Dexter's Laboratory"