The Wedge (using my "new" OM2)

[Darkhorse]

For the past few days a series of massive waves up to 18 feet tall have been inundating the coast of Orange County. The apex of these waves occurred along the jetty in Newport Beach called "The Wedge". Yesterday I received a new OM2 from RFF's own ChrisN, so I thought catching a few photos of these waves would be a good way to test out the camera.

Finding a place to park this morning was the toughest part because everyone else wanted to see the waves as well, as if Newport wasn't busy enough on a sunny summer Saturday. We spent a good hour finding a spot over a at Newport Peir which is some distance away from the Wedge on foot.

Taking photos with manual or auto exposure was exceptionally difficult in the beach conditions. You have the white crests of the waves, the sand, the saltwater mist suddenly covering you (and your lens), the mid-day sun, but also lingering fog from the morning sometimes putting the sun behind a little veil of cloud. I played around with the OM2's exposure compensation ring blindly.

The waves, of course, were incredible and nothing like I've ever seen before. People were gathered cheering on the biggest ones. I had a completely inappropriate lens for capturing the waves themselves. Others there, however, may have gone a bit too far because I must've seen the biggest, longest lens I've ever seen in my entire life.

Bulldozers created bluffs on the beach near the pier, otherwise there surely would've been infrastructure damage.

I swear I saw a wave come up to the pier platform but I couldn't really capture it.

I'm sure I could do a whole series on the underside of the pier. I don't know why I picked this one to post. I had more symmetrical and, I guess, more compositionally exact (or could be cropped to be as such) shots. This one's a couple of feet off center - yet I'm more attracted to it for some reason.

I used my wide angle and orange filter for this one. Maybe I should've used it a bit more. I was using a 400 speed after all.

Back. Young version.

I developed this in HC110 dilution "H", I think I should've used B, there was no real reason to use H in hindsight. My dev time was 13 minutes (6.5 x 2). Although I'm not entirely sure of the 6.5 minutes for dilution B to begin with. Maybe I should've cut the time down because the negs do seem a bit darker than usual.

Back. Old version.

News crews were there to report on the waves. Lifeguards eventually had to tell people to get out of the water because it became to trecherous, even for the pros. These waves have claimed lives this past week.

These beautiful people were kind enough to pose for me. I don't think they knew I was there, though.

My fiance liked this shot the best. I'm fond of it, too.

Technical issues:
- There was a squiggly piece of dust at the top of the frame that I had to photoshop out.
- Lightleaks, lightleaks, lightleaks! Luckily I could take care of this and put in fresh light seals this afternoon.
- I need to figure out how to hang my 35mm negs diagonally.

 

[amateriat]

I'd say you're off to a decent start here. HC-110 is my standard developer of conventional b/w, and quite versatile. Keep with it for a bit before venturing into other developers.

And, yes, those are some serious waves.


- Barrett

 

[Darkhorse]

I've used the HC110 with Plus-X in medium format and quite liked the results (particularly with dilution H compared to B). I do plan to stick with it - but for TriX I think I'll stick with dilution B.

 

[Darkhorse]

Here are further tests with the OM2. It's also a test using Adox Pan 25. Man, I ran into problems using this film that I've never had occur before. I heard it had a thin emulsion so I was careful not to make the film buckle while reeling. It might've buckled ever so slightly at the end of the roll, but just enough for a frame and a half to be completely covered with emulsion. The top of the roll had some weird markings to it too, luckily none of it affected the images.

Of course it's a fine grain, which resulted in amazing image quality for images that weren't underexposed... which many of them were because I used some filters for quite a few shots. Naked, filter free shots, turned out the nest. I brought my tripod along on a walk through Santiago Oaks Regional Park, so that's how I was able to use filters to begin with.

I'm sure the film would be great for portraits and other low DOF work - but for practical purposes out in the field, it's a pretty impractical film.

I used the OM2's auto exposure feature a fair bit. For sure I used it in the leaf photo.

I developed these in HC110 as well. Dilution F as per Massive Dev Chart. I was torn between using HC110 or the Rodinal that I have beacause I see this film being used with Rodinal a lot. A voice inside me screamed for me not to do it. So I used HC110.

Here are some large photos. It's iso 25. Why not?

 

[John Hermanson]

Squiggley piece of lint in each picture? Open camera back, open shutter on B. You'll see lint hanging from one of the shutter tracks. Pick lint out with tweezers. John

 

[Darkhorse]

Oh I took care of it. Thanks.