Zion Winter 2021: Film Reveal

[Music] all right it is time to record my film reveal video this is where i take a look at my film for the first time from my zion winterfall trip and i don't quite know what to expect from this one uh i think a lot of that has to do with the fact that i haven't worked in an active snow before so i don't really have the best feeling as far as metering um and also sort of the the light that i was working with so uh i exposed just 20 20 something sheets of slide film and also just a couple sheets of clarinet film so we'll see how it goes and also the film it's in protective sleeve so i can handle it with my paws here without getting any fingerprints all over it so let's take a look at what we got all right so this is the scene that i was actually most curious about this is from the morning when i had the entire end of zion canyon all to myself because i was there before they closed off the gate and this is interesting there's a little bit of a magenta cast now what was happening at the time when i shot this it was right at sunrise and there were some small clouds are being lit up by the sun and they're casting some really warm light down in the scene because initially i was actually concerned about this being too cold as far as a strong blue cast on the snow but in this case those clouds up top really gave me a sense of warmth and i'm actually a little warmer than i like but i can certainly dial down the magenta cast exposure is pretty darn good i'm a little bright right here but to my eye that was pure white for the most part and so i think i'll have all the detail that i need now what's interesting about this composition is that there's a sandstone feature right here that goes over a little ways here and initially i was thinking of horizontal composition but this was creeping into view and i think it'd be a little bit of a distraction as a horizontal because it didn't really stand out enough in the background so i went vertical this right here is creeping into the shot a little bit but i knew i could always crop that out but this is this is pretty cool also worth mentioning there is a big it's dry waterfall right now but there's a big waterfall back there so it actually would have been pretty awesome to catch a snowfall along with the waterfall in the background but i don't know if that would necessarily coincide let's see how we do with sharpness oh yeah that is very sharp and i have good detail in the snow where i need it and then all the plants in the foreground just weighed down with this it was like the sloppy snow that came out of these big chunks and just coated everything that is a photo i'm very very happy with i'll need to scan it i'll need to take down the magenta cast but my exposure is good so i'm happy about that this is on fuji uh velvia 50. and i also have this on provia and i think i have another sheet of velvee as well i think i think i shot it before the light was at its peak okay so now this is actually interesting so this this is before the really warm light there's still some warm light there but if you look at these exposures pretty sure i have a little more detail right there on this one it's hard to say i do actually have decent detail there so yeah i have a little better exposure here so i don't know which of these i shot first but i'm glad i have two different variations with a slightly different exposure this one's a hair more magenta and i have good detail on the trunk here too for the scene the way i metered it is i just had my last to light pop-up gray card and just held it out and then spot metered off that and then metered off the scene because i was in the same general light as this scene but i'm really happy to see that it was such an amazing morning in zion all right so this is my experimental shot this is one where it was snowing in a slot canyon and i just didn't i was curious how this would look uh on film and i knew that i'd be blowing out highlights back there it's fine as snow but i was more so curious about the atmospherics in terms of the snow creating a little bit more of a fog and i didn't have any nd filters with me but if i did have nd filters it would have been really interesting to throw an nd on there just to have it where you have even more snow because there's actually some streaking here from the snow as it was falling because it was a pretty good snow so purely a experimental shot my exposure is actually quite good on the snow depth of field's a little weird this is my 240 lens so i don't know that i'll ever use this for anything but it was just uh something that struck me as i was there that you know this might be an interesting opportunity uh this is on pro via and uh trick exposure but not bad i don't think i'll use it for anything but always good experiment all right so this is the first scene that nice shot and so you can see what a difference the light makes and also you can see how strong the magenta cast is but here's the same scene and then here's this rock formation off to the side and i use the same lens to photograph i use my 450 lens and this is the day before and there was a it had been snowing at the higher elevations and then just a little bit of a snow started to fall down in the main canyon and when i showed up at the scene it looked way better than this there was an act of snow falling there are some strong atmospherics this formation was separated greatly from the background there's even more snow on the trees and it looks so amazing on the ground glass but by the time i had the camera ready to shoot put the film holder in the snow just stopped like that the sun started coming out there was a little bit of clouds drifting around so i was able to expose a single sheet and it's decent but compared to what it was i i'm a little bummed out i wasn't able to capture what it was before but in terms of exposure it's decent it's pro via so it's a little bland looking um that's just the way it is you can actually see there's still a tiny bit of snow falling i see some streaks there which is kind of nice i don't know i'll have to scan it my exposure is good exposure is very good i feel like this needs to be cooled down a little bit it's a little too neutral let me cool it down a little bit but we shall see again i'm a little bummed i didn't get the photo just a few minutes before this but the scene was rapidly changing but i'm happy to see that at least i got something there so this is a little dark um this is another scene that was rapidly changing i like this little bush here it was backed up by the snow i'm a little underexposed here though i do have texture in the snow so in that sense it's a decent exposure but i'm getting a little dark in some of the dark red areas of the sandstone and what's happening is the snow was starting to melt as i shoot in this initially there's a little more snow in here it's okay i might have a brighter exposure of this one i like the concept of i like the diagonals like the little plant right there if i'm a little dark on the exposure so maybe if i get a little brighter exposure they'll that'll be better and then okay now this is interesting so this is my provia shot from that morning and i think i shot i think this is the first sheet of film i exposed because i went with pro via because it handles the longer exposures pretty well and i'm actually fairly neutral this is before the sky was lighting up really warm and i kind of dig this one it'll be interesting to scan this compared to the velvia and see which one scans better this one looks a bit more realistic let's check the exposure so i'm curious about is this area here and then these areas here in that area over there so let's see the brightest area yeah i probably have enough with a good drum scan i probably have enough to work with because it needs to be white anyways on it's printed so it's actually a pretty good exposure so this will be very interesting to see this compared to the velvia let me pull that velvia shot out so we're going to see a big difference in color here because the light was also different between the two of them this is pretty this is pretty much what it looked like early on but once that really warm light started hitting it did get very warm but i think the main thing will be see how it scans and see how it looks in the bright areas the dark areas aren't a problem i have a feeling that velvia might be better if i just tone it down a little bit but we'll see i'm really glad that my exposure was was quite good there because that was quite possibly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity not only to have the subject like this but to end up being at a point where i drove in there very very early and then they closed the gate after me so i had the whole place to myself it was uh not very common that one has that opportunity all right so this one let me just close this little flap here so it's better protected all right so this is my velvia shot and this is the ice with the frozen cottonwood leaves it was just a brown puddle the day before and then it froze nicely overnight there's some interesting textures here i did like the diagonal emphasis of that i picked up this leaf as one of my favorites they're all embedded in the ice but as far as just a lighter one standing out from the others um looks to be quite sharp that is very sharp this is very very very fun to look at i shot this on both velvia and pro via so i have multiple options but that is that is quite nice exposure is very good composition works well so i'll be looking forward to seeing the provia version of that as well so provia and velvia the same scene then here's another variation of that and i shot what's interesting is i shot two different time or two different windows of light one when i first had the opportunity and then another one as there was just a little more reflected light on the scene honestly i don't see a huge difference this one has a little less blues in the ice so if you compare that area to that area it's a little less blue so this might be the reflected light one this might be before either way there's going to be something there that's going to work quite well man these are so fun to shoot in large format another thing too whenever i shoot small scenes like this i pretty much always end up with some sort of like dead bugs in the scene so you never notice until you get a drum scan and you look at it and you just count all the dead bugs in the scene but uh that is very cool so happy to see that and so this is the first scene i photographed this is in the first snowfall that was only at the higher elevations and there was just this light dustiness snow that was sticking to some of the remaining fall color i shot the scene on velvia which is what this is a little notch right there shows you it's velvia i also shot it on provia via and also shot on color negative film because i was a little concerned about the darkness of that and also being able to maintain some detail in the snow there and it looks like the exposure is pretty decent it's a hair dark but if it was any brighter i'd probably blown out those areas there so i have good texture in the snow good fall color focus this could be a little tricky on this i have basically this area is in focus this area is in focus this area is in focus not this not a big deal and not the branches you really can't get both but for me it's all about just the snow sticking to those leaves and that is quite pretty almost black and white if not for the um the cool leaves there compositionally i just was working with all these branches because they provide these other elements that move you through the scene and this is with my 450 lens moderately long ones equivalent to about a 60 millimeter on a full frame so cool all right next up so this is that exact same scene by just pan the camera over to the right a little bit more because on this one you have all the branches arcing into the scene and the same thing with the exposure is a little tricky from the standpoint that i didn't want to blow the highlights i didn't want to block up the shadows it looks like i hit a pretty good balance there i don't really like this corner up here but that's something i was aware of when i was composing it thinking maybe i'd just crop in a little bit if need be it's a little bit of a blank corner up there um it's very sharp it's actually interesting there's some uh no those are actually just the seeds i think there's some pine needles that had been blown into the leaves but that's just from the the maple seeds hanging there good exposure again i was just spot metering off a gray card and uh worked quite well interesting there could be like a square potential in here too but i might have to just crop out that corner i guess i could also er yeah there's no real getting around that interesting to see look forward to seeing the pro via versions of those speaking of pro via here is the pro via version of the leaves in the ice so it's more subdued color a little less contrast let's see if i can dig out the velvia version for you all right so for those of you that are curious about velvia versus pro via is the provia here is the velvia and looking at these two now that blue is a little excessive this is a bit more accurate though honestly somewhere between the two would be pretty good because prove it gets a little bit of a cyan cast velvia is not only more saturated more contrast he goes a little magenta i actually wouldn't be surprised if the provia might be the better scan because i have a little less contrast let's see how we do for sharpness it shouldn't be any different than the others yeah that is tack sharp all the little bubbles in the ice it was funny when i was uh after shooting the scene i took a picture of my camera and then it showed me pointing it at this puddle here and you can't tell on the instagram photo but it looks like just i'm aiming my camera a little pile of trash on the ground um but in that pile of trash we have these wonderful leaves and some ice patterns it was at frosty morning and just after shooting this i broke my arca-swiss cube geared head which i just sent in for repair yesterday i always carry a backup because if i didn't have that backup tripod head i wouldn't have been able to shoot the first photo i showed in this film reveal which is the snow covered tree because i wouldn't have had a tripod head can't shooting it by 10 with that tripod head again very good and i would not be surprised if this is the one i end up scanning in terms of pro via versus bell be on the scene um because this is more this is more realistic you still get those cool tones um but we'll see it was so cool to find that puddle the day before it froze and see what it looked like and then return to it the next day all right so here's pro via of that scene with the tree and again i think i'm digging the pro-via version over the velvia we have a little less contrast we got a little better detail in the shadow tone there and highlights are still looking really good um so for ice and for snow it seems like pro via does pretty well these are things i was not super sure of when i was in the field um but if i reduce a little bit of side cast on this i think i'll actually have a good skin to work with it's just that corner there which is a little annoying it's so cool to see the vibrant color there during the winter what's have we got here so here is pro via that same scene just centered on the tree and this one the composition as it stands works fine got all these lines working through tying it together again these trunks are not going to be in focus but it's no big deal because this photo is all about these snow-covered leaves bits of fall color this same this is also interesting when i was in zion near the end of the trip on my fall trip i should say i photographed the scene with my a7r iv with these cool looking maples and then rocks below it stuff this is that exact same tree um so and i've shot this same tree other times as well it just changes so much i could show you all these photos side by side you never know they're the same tree it's very sharp and for me at least that's the reason why i love going back to location because you see these changes in the subjects over time and it was really cool seeing that tree covered in fresh testing of snow so here's a pro via version of the slick rock with the snow on it this is one where provia does not do super well it just kind of goes blah but also i mean the the velvia version wasn't particularly amazing either footprint right there um i don't know i'll have to scan it it had an interesting look to it when i was there but i don't know that i'm particularly in love with it but exposure is quite good i have some really good texture on the snow no blown highlights no shadows messed up i messed up being too dark so i don't know maybe scanning this one and then trying to fix the cyan cast a little bit it would certainly do better i believe than the velvia version of the scene all right okay so this scene this is interesting um this is on the first snow um i think it's the third day no fourth no this is a second snow there's like three different snow snowfalls that happen i was walking through the wash and i found the snapped off maple tree just laying there on top of another maple tree it was laying in the nice clean snow nice snow on there it just had some order to the chaos i love the contrast of the snow on there against the darker limbs of it and it hadn't it just basically started with this no it didn't go from rain to snow so all the branches and stuff they're not super dark and waterlogged and then also you get some really nice snow on the remaining fall color there i believe with my spot meter i think the snow right here was about positive 2.4 and same thing i spot metered a grey card and then set that as put in memory set as the average look through the scene and it looked like it was giving me good values and i'd say i i did quite well on the exposure and it was actively snowing when i shot this focus is good it's actually a really good exposure i had all these concerns that my photos would be way too bright or way too dark i like that the one of the concerns i had was the top of this right here because this is the trunk for that tree i wanted to show a little more of that but also the business end was down here and i didn't want to start chopping this off too much so i might chop crop just a little bit off the top so i don't have that little point going up against the top there and i actually wouldn't mind cropping a little off the bottom as well to reduce the conflict of these branches so close to the edge but it's a mild crop of this i think would help i should have this on provia as well so we'll see how that does and here is the pro via and so because it's provia we have a little less contrast so our shadow tone is a little bit better you don't worry about things being too dark i feel like i'm almost a little too bright right there but i don't know it might actually be okay i'll have to see how it scans this is really borderline with regard to the exposure so it could be that the velvee does a little bit better but i love the the lighter tones through here as far as the actual branches itself but it'll be good to have the options of both the velvia and provia what i'm learning is i'm learning to i really do like pro via a lot of situations this one didn't turn out so great so after shooting the very very first photo i showed you with the large cottonwood tree covered in snow and all this stuff in the background see when i shot that there were some clouds that had lit up really nicely and then they cleared away then it was just blue sky and since i had the whole end of the place to myself i was trying to find some other things to point my camera so i found this scene figured a long lens showing the desert varnish some snow there this is velvia first i thought this would be provia but this is velvia the light is just not great here i'm overexposed yeah i'm definitely a bit overexposed but just the light isn't great it's very cold light because this is just nothing but blue sky lighting this this is in the shadow the sun is starting to creep down this face here i thought velvee would be a little warmer with this but it was a really blue light i remember taking some pictures with my iphone and it was definitely a very cold light by then so even though i'm a little bright on the exposure i'm losing some detail in there i just don't think the light was all that great there to begin with i think i only shot a single sheet of that and this photo is along the same lines um this is just aiming the camera downward a little bit more and i didn't have an amazing feeling for this scene it was more so me just trying to find something to point my camera at while i was there because i knew that that first photo would be a would be good one but also i am quite bright on the exposure blowing some highlights in the snow back there but it's no big loss um because the light just wasn't great you got to have good light so i did kind of like the composition and stuff but you know if you don't have good light you know i'm good light all right next up okay so i did shoot a second variation of let's see now this one actually has a better exposure because looking at this some of my dark tones are starting to get a little close to being too dark especially in here you know if i needed to have the print of the scene this one actually is okay um but it's i think it's just asking too much from slide film my exposure's actually fine on this one let's do a little comparison it is this one so these are both velvia and yeah it may be kind of hard to see but this one is a little bit brighter than this one this one is a little bit better detail but it's still not amazing just because the light's not great it'll be worth a scan to see but maybe scan it warm it up a little bit see if i can get some of the actual warmth from that sandstone i've always loved that sandstone wall i've always tried to find some way to photograph it but i just don't know that that's the best way and then here's the other scene on provia again my exposure is a bit bright yeah it's blowed out but the light just isn't all that amazing um yeah even even as a panorama i'm still blowing that up it's just it was such a beautiful thing i mean after i shot these photos that morning i grabbed my digital i walked around and shot some long lens digital stuff and uh at a certain point i just i didn't even feel like she needed more photos it was just i wanted to experience walking around and and seeing the beautiful sights and again i'm really happy that that first one turned out alright color negative film so this is the stuff that will be hard to see exactly what it is we're looking at so this is the maple cover the maple covered in snow there's the branches there the leaves with snow on it and i think i think this slide film would be plenty for this but i should scan that just to see how that does i probably should have shot a little more colored egg but and this is um this is the the experimental shot with the slot canyon the snow the bright areas up there and it'll be interesting to scan this but again i'm not expecting anything great from it that and i did one of the things you're not supposed to do i'd use some front tilt in this slot cannon to make sure i got these as well as that and focus at the expense of some of the walls here aren't going to be in focus [Music] but overall i'm actually pretty happy with what i see um really happy about that first photo and then i'll have to scan some of the snow-covered maples and see how those do and the ice the ice was cool as well so my goal is to get maybe a couple shots from this trip and we'll see how that goes now as far as the timeline of everything i've been back from this trip for a week now and while i was on the trip i learned that they were opening up the campgrounds in death valley again so that was actually one of the reasons i went to zion in the first place because i couldn't go to death valley but now death valley is on the table and so now that i know that i got some decent stuff from this trip within about a week or so i'm going to head out to death valley and i've got some subjects in mind there so i'm really looking forward to having this extended stay in zion for the snow then head to death valley and see what i can find there but i'm going to scan these in see how they look and then start packing my bags for head to death valley but i do want to thank everyone for watching and i'll see you around next time if you enjoy this ad free and clickbait free content and want to help me live my dream a voluntary contribution of just 24 a year helps keep my gas tank full and my film freezer stocked for more information on how to support me and my work please visit the donation section of my website at benhorn.com donate i also have prints in my portfolio box that available on my website you can find a direct link down below in the show notes thanks in advance for your support you

Channel: Ben Horne

Views: 12,503

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Id: bxW2akxxWAU

Length: 32min 51sec (1971 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 28 2021