The Lone Tree of Llyn Padarn
My favourite image from the shoot. I talk more about it below. 30s 20mm F16 5 stops ND filters Fuji Acros 100 (expired) Nikon F100.
The Lone Tree of Llyn Padarn is one of the most famous photography spots in the Snowdonia area. It’s an image I am sure all of you have seen at one time or another but, despite having lived in North Wales for four years, I had yet to actually photograph it myself. As I’ve talked about in my recent blogs, I was shooting my autumn road trip entirely on film (Portra 800 on my Bronica SQ-A and expired Fuji Acros 100 on my Nikon F100), and with this particular subject I decided to experiment with both composition and aperture. The latter to see if there was a significant drop off in quality as the F stop increased. This is not something I would normally do with film gear as each shot has a cost associated with it, but sometimes you just have to try things if you want to get to know your gear. It also gave me an opportunity to see if Porta 800 could hold up with exposures longer than 1s, something it is not designed for.
The first of the colour images, notice the more green and blue hues of this image… 8s 110mm F32 5 stops ND filters Portra 800 Bronica SQ-A.
…and compare it to the more purple tones in this image with half the exposure time. Could underexposure be producing this colour shift? 4s 110mm F32 5 stops ND filters Portra 800 Bronica SQ-A.
The first two images were simple long exposures taken using neutral density (ND) filters to get the long exposures required to smooth out the water. You’ll see this on almost all photos of the tree, as it gives a more pleasing artistic effect, though unfortunately I didn’t get any luck with the sunset and had to settle for grey skies. What I do find interesting is that these two images show very different colours with the 4s image showing a lot more purple than the 8s one. From what I remember correctly 4s was closer to the metered time out of the camera and I then doubled it to 8s in order to compensate for reciprocity failure. The other images I took later (which you can see below and were shot at speeds faster than 1s) show the same colour palette as the 8s image so perhaps the purple colours come from the shot being underexposed. I’d need to play around with this a bit more to confirm but it’s an interesting thing to have observed. It also goes to show that long exposure photography with Portra 800 is possible if you really have to do it.
This first image was shot at F32. 1/2s 110mm F32 Portra 800 Bronica SQ-A.
I think even without zooming in you can see the increased amounts of detail as I drop to F16. 1/8s 110mm F16 Portra 800 Bronica SQ-A.
Finally we reach F8.0 where the sharpness is perhaps a tad higher but there no real practical improvement in detail. 1/30s 110mm F8.0 Portra 800 Bronica SQ-A.
For the next three images I took off the ND filters and altered the aperture to see if there was an optimum for detail. I started out at F32 as I had used on the previous images (overcoming ISO 800 wasn’t easy), then went down to F16 and finally F8.0. Unsurprisingly when I look at the results F32 yields the poorest sharpness, which is pretty standard for any lens at such a small aperture. Though the results were still acceptable. It was very hard to tell the difference between F16 & F8.0, they were both significantly sharper than at F32. Perhaps F8.0 wins it by a hair when pixel peeping but the difference is practically irrelevant. At least now I know to try and avoid going above F16 when I don’t need to, and you can see the comparison yourself below (though it is harder to see on low-res files online).
These zoomed in comparison allow you to see the differences more closely. It’s quite obvious when you compared F32 to the other two. Click the image to enlarge. (L) F32 / F16 / F8.0 (R).
Then I moved onto playing with composition in B&W, which I predominantly used my 20mm lens for. Perhaps foolishly I hadn’t brought any wellies with me on this trip and so I was limited to standing on the water’s edge, tricky when I don’t have a medium range zoom lens that is compatible with my Nikon F100. I moved around as much as I could, going higher and lower, putting the tree in the centre and then trying to offset it. Of the four I think the final image is my favourite, it’s similar to the penultimate image but by taking a step back I could improve the framing and keep the entirety of the new root system in the image without cutting off the bottom.
First up I put the tree in the centre of the image. 3s 20mm F16 5 stops ND filters Fuji Acros 100 (expired) Nikon F100.
Second time around I pull back a bit to get in more of the foreground elements. 6s 20mm F16 5 stops ND filters Fuji Acros 100 (expired) Nikon F100.
Now I move to put the tree off-centre which I think works better. 6s 20mm F16 5 stops ND filters Fuji Acros 100 (expired) Nikon F100.
Finally I complete the composition by taking a step back so as not to cut the bottom off of the foreground elements. 20s 20mm F32 5 stops ND filters Fuji Acros 100 (expired) Nikon F100.
I then tried to shoot a vertical image using my 70-200mm lens, but I only managed to record one successful shot after a misfire. I think this composition for this subject could work but I would need to find a way to stand further back and using a longer focal length in order to compress more of the background (difficult with what was in my way on the shore). Perhaps this could be a good idea instead for a shot taken from the opposite side in a boat.
My vertical shot of the tree, I think this image could have worked in colour with golden hour colours but it doesn’t stand out on a gloomy day in monochrome. 13s 50mm F32 5 stops ND filters Fuji Acros 100 (expired) Nikon F100.
For the final two images I used my 20mm lens again but took another few steps back to take in more of the foreground, the first one being my favourite from the whole shoot. It is well balanced with the foliage on the left-hand side forcing the eye towards the tree in the centre and the whole image has a good sense of depth. The second shot just doesn’t work because there is too much empty space on the right-hand side, giving a feeling of it being lop-sided. Notice as well that I didn’t use ND filters here either, if you compare the tree’s reflection between the two images you can see a significant difference. When using the ND filters enough detail is retained to give shape but by blurring the edges it doesn’t become a distraction and melts away into the image.
The headline shot and my favourite from the shoot. It is more balanced tan the other shot and has a great sense of depth. 30s 20mm F16 5 stops ND filters Fuji Acros 100 (expired) Nikon F100.
This second image doesn’t work because of all the empty space on the right hand side. Perhaps it would have done in colour, had the water been reflecting golden hour colours. 1s 20mm F16 Fuji Acros 100 (expired) Nikon F100.
Overall, although it was actually a somewhat frustrating shoot on the day it was good to play around with my film gear in a way I hadn’t before, a good learning exercise. Though in the future perhaps this kind of thing would be best life to much cheaper rolls of film.
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