x pan, flash, NYC

[atlcruiser]

Hi All,
I got bored one evening in NY last weekend and went out to see what a X pan would do when mixed with a nikon manual flash. I really like them!

Shot at 1600
developed in rodinal 1:100 2 hour stand

I set the flash on full and the zoom between 18' and 24'. I rode the f stop like a rented pony to adj for distance and then used the flash zoom for width of flash.

I am pretty happy for a first time, WAG sort of experiment 🙂


0911 bw 12 Scan-110929-0007.jpg by urbanlandcruiser, on Flickr


0911 bw 12 Scan-110929-0009.jpg by urbanlandcruiser, on Flickr


0911 bw 12 Scan-110929-0002.jpg by urbanlandcruiser, on Flickr


0911 bw 12 Scan-110929-0012.jpg by urbanlandcruiser, on Flickr

 

[didjiman]

Looks good David. It turns out that I will be shooting in NY next week. I will bring my XPan even though for the workshop I am going to I will be shooting digital. I should try the flash at night idea...

 

[didjiman]

Sorry, hit "post" too fast, can you explain what "I rode the f stop like a rented pony to adj for distance" mean and give some concrete examples?

Thanks!

 

[atlcruiser]

Well, if one was to rent a pony you could ride it hard..sort of the rental car syndrome 🙂

I think my flash is a N80...older nikon flash that has a digital settign for zoom. It goes from 18-75 or so. To make the flash calculator work "correcty" you enter ISO then lens data into the zoom so that you can get correct distance. This is on on manual so no TTL or other fancy stuff.


the first frame was shot from across the street, 50-60 feet. IIRC flash on 18mm to get it wide enough and f5.6 for DoF

2nd frame very close..maybe 10 foot away from wall. Flash on 20 or 24, f16 or 22

3rd one about the same distance as the first but it is much different in flash output. The flash was on 24 or 28 and the f stop on 8 or 16. It was on this frame that I started thinking of going wide with the flash

I think the trick is to get the flash wide enough as well as get the film exposed enough...sort of add another level of complication to the whole thing.

Now I am thinking that, in all my spare time, I might design a dbl flash bracket with 2 of the big C series Metz flashes on either side of the camera. If one was to really screw with the aim of the flashes using a tripod and flash meter I think you could get an even beam pattern across a much wider area and be able to shoot 40ish feet @ f8/f16 with 400asa film. The GN of that contraption woud be around 300 and the width at least 18' 🙂 At that point I might need the ctr filter!

With the x pan I figured a 45mm in MF is about the same as a 24-28 in 35mm as I was concerned with the width of the flash output. As the flash gets wider the intensity drops over the area. I am sure there is a formula for that 🙂...I guessed.

At 1600 asa and 28mm on zoom lets say for f16 I was good at around 20 feet. I was still concerned that fall off would be extreme so I opened the zoom down to 18-20 and opened the f stop 1-2 stops. I fought the battle of DoF/flash intensity/distance