My Large Format Photography Gear
Because I often field questions about what Kind of camera I use, my camera is a good place to start when discussing my camera gear. Most people want to know how I can create such large vibrant prints and what kind of digital camera I use. They are always surprised to learn that I use a large format 4×5 film camera to capture all of my fine art images. There are lots of reasons I explored and have subsequently stuck with a 4×5 camera despite its dated technology and painstaking workflow. Below is a picture of the 4×5 camera that I affectionately refer to as “The Big Rig” which I use to capture all of my fine art prints.
My 4x5 camera , "The Big Rig" which I use to capture all of the images in my fine art landscape portfolio.
THE CAMERA. WHY I STILL USE A LARGE FORMAT 4X5 CAMERA FOR ALL OF MY FINE ART PRINTS.
1. I like it! I like working with a semi-historic camera, I like the feel of it’s cherry wood body, I like the feel of the brass fittings and I like the fact that I feel like I am creating art with art when I am composing a scene with this beautiful camera. It is a very Artisan way of capturing and creating fine art images. In a time of ever advancing digital technology, Film simply film simply feels more real to me. I consider myself a documentary artist. My intention is to capture natural scenes at their very best with minimal post processing. My 4×5 camera helps keep me in touch with that intention.
2. The deliberate process of using this camera makes me fine tune my images before exposure. This camera is largely the opposite of modern digital cameras with which you can fire away without discretion. The film is expensive as is the processing. I estimate that it costs me about $10 per exposure with this camera. The inherent deliberation required with using this type of camera, combined with the cost forces me to pay attention to composition, exposure and focus. This extra attention to details actually saves me time in post processing and that I like.
3. Perspective Control. Large Format cameras like mine are made with bellows so that the film plane and the lens plane can move separate of one another. This separate movement allows me to change the plane of focus in a given shot so that I can get a larger percentage of a given scene in sharp focus than is possible with digital and 35 mm cameras.
4. Big Image format. Part of the reason that I refer to my camera as “The Big Rig” is that it is physically large. The other reason is that it has a very large film format(4 inches x 5 inches, thus the term 4×5 camera). The magic of this kind of camera lies in this large film format. I have to enlarge my transparencies very little compared to digital and other types of film cameras when I want to make a large print. Because of this large film format, I can also make an exceptionally detailed fine art print at very large print sizes. I’ve read that a slow speed 4×5 transparency can be drum scanned and is the equivalent of a 150 megabyte digital camera. That’s huge and that is a big part of why I love this camera.
THE TRIPOD( see the above image)
I use a Gitzo 1228 Carbon fiber tripod and I love it.(Come on Gitzo, how about a little sponsorship money!) It is light for a tripod that is so sturdy because of the carbon fiber material that it is made of. It has plenty of stability, adjustability and it does a good job of dampening vibration which allows me to create images that are crisp and wiggle-free. I also use a Gitzo ball head, for a full range of camera focusing options.
THE LENSES
I carry a small stable of lenses when ever I go out shooting. Because telephoto lenses tend to have lower image quality than fixed lenses, I have opted to use only fixed lenses in my lens collection. My lens collection is pictured below.
My Lens Collection. These lenses include 75mm,90mm,135mm,210mm, and 300mm and at the bottom of this image is my Pentax 1 degree Spotmeter
4×5 camera lenses tend to have a field of view that is 3x wider than the equivalent 35mm lenses. That is to say that the 75mm lens for my 4×5 camera is roughly equivalent to a 25mm lens on a 35 mm camera. My lenses include a 75mm,90mm,135mm,210mm, and 300mm. In terms of a 35mm camera, this collection does not allow for a very long/telephoto option. This is fine with me. In general, the further away a photographer is from his or her subject, the lower the image quality is. Not having a longer lens option, forces me to get closer closer to my subjects and therefore I have more sharpness in my images and greater image quality. It is simultaneously a self control and a quality control mechanism! These lenses are all very specialized and therefore very expensive but without a great lens you cannot have a sharp image, so I’m willing to pay the price.
The pentax spot meter at the bottom of the above picture is the tool I use to take light readings which I then use to calculate exposure times. The fact that it is a 1 degree spot meter means that it samples light from a circle only 1 degree in diameter. This gives me greater control over exposure which is especially valuable is some unusual lighting situations.
Me and "The Big Rig" at my preferred office, high in the Oregon Cascades. Photo Credit: "Old Mike" Croxford
These are the high points from my gear collection. I have a hand full of other goodies that accompany me on my photography outings, but they aren’t as critical as my camera, lenses, and tripod. If you are an aspiring photographer and would like some further information or advice about photography gear, please feel free to contact me through the “contact” tab at the upper right hand corner of the home page of this website.
Thanks For Visiting,
Mike Putnam
Framing My Fine Art Landscape Photographs, A Little Bit of Blue Collar Bliss
Because I have fielded lots of questions regarding the framing That I select for my Fine Art Landscape Photographs, I’ve finally decided to write an informative piece about this very subject, and here it is! Many people have noticed that when my fine art prints are seen in shows or exhibits, they are all framed very similarly and most people tend to find the framing very attractive(at least the ones who hate my framing don’t tell me about it!) Below is one of my large format landscape photographs framed and hanging over the mantle in my house. A little bit of history will reveal why I frame my prints the way I do and then I’ll go into how I actually make the frames.
One of My Large Format Landscape photographs framed with the Cherry wood frames that I make by hand in my basement workshop.
Long ago, after I had printed my very first large scale fine art print, I took my print into a frame shop. Lets just say that it is a very large chain type of frame shop. This particular store frequently has 50% off sales, so I took a coupon in and selected some matting,mounting,glass, and moulding(the pre-made framing material). When the charges were totaled, the price was mind bogglingly high! Even at 50% off! I quickly realized that I would not be able to afford to frame many large scale fine art prints with this ridiculous pricing structure. A Do-It-Yourself mentality took over and I decided to try to make my own frame. Because I am fairly handy and I have done a little furniture making in the past, I extrapolated from what I already knew. An underlying insecurity drove me to select cherry as my wood of choice because I knew that if no one ever bought one of my framed prints, the prints would still match the mantle in our living room, which is also made of cherry wood! I have to admit that I have also had a preference for cherry wood in that It is hard, works well, it often has wonderful grain patterns and I think it looks beautiful with a natural Oil finish which I prefer. I’ll spare you the intricacies of the evolution of my framing techniques and I’ll jump straight to how I make my frames.
Before I delve into the intricacies of frame making, let me preface everything by saying that the following pictures are in no means fine art. They are snap shots. I’ll also add that my process of frame making is not fine art. It is hard blue collar work, that makes me feel tough. It is dirty, sometimes physically tiring, and after a long day of frame making, I’m exhausted. That being said, I love the results. I describe my frames as being simple, elegant, natural, and unique. They are a perfect compliment to my fine art photography. They are not perfect, because the real cherry wood that I make them from is not perfect, but it does have wonderful character that makes it much more interesting that processed, fake frames.
I start my process with real, cherry wood that I buy at Hardwood Industries here in Bend Oregon. The guys there, Tom, Hunter, and Mike are very helpful moving pallets of wood around with their forklift so that I can get to the high quality cherry wood that I need. I go through big piles of rough sawn wood an select boards that have mostly heart wood and interesting grain that I think I can make into a beautiful frame. Below is a pile of hardwood in the raw at the Hardwood Industries.
Piles of rough sawn Cherry at Hardwood Industries, in Bend, Oregon.
After selecting the boards I want, I stuff these 10 foot long pieces of lumber into my truck and haul them down to my basement once I arrive at home.
I’d like to remind you that My basement wood shop, which I affectionately refer to as Lava Lands Wood Shop(because there are small basalt columns in my shop which are remnants of an ancient volcanic eruption) is not a show room and it is not especially pretty but is is efficient and I do a lot of real blue collar work there. I bet the guys on “This old House” don’t have a lava flow in their shop! Perhaps the only thing pretty about my shop is my new Cabinet grade Table saw(Thanks to the folks at Grizzly who made it). I love my table saw! I is burly(526 lbs) and will cut through anything. Yes, Mom, I know it will cut through my arm too. Below is a dusty shot of my workhorse grizzly table saw.
My Grizzly table saw in my dusty,"Lava lands wood shop"
Back to the frames. I decide how many frames I want to make and of what size and then determine which individual board will work the best for my purposes. I then chop the boards to approximate length with my Dewalt miter saw.
Cutting hardwood to length in my wood shop with my miter saw
Next I rip the wood to the appropriate width with my beautiful Grizzly Table Saw.
Ripping wood to width on my table saw.
I usually rip the wood for several frames at a time until I have stacks of wood of the appropriate dimensions as seen below.
Unstained cherry wood cut to dimensions for picture frames.
Next I examine each piece of wood and determine which of its two wide faces are best for the front of a picture frames. I don’t like sap wood(white wood) to show on the face of my frames and I don’t want any cracks or worm holes to be present either. After the inspection, I cut a “Rabbit” out of one corner of the bottom face of the wood so that I have a notch to fit the print, backing,glass,matting, etc. into. Below is a picture of m cutting a rabbit out of a piece of framing wood.
Cutting a "rabbit" out of the back of a piece of framing wood
Next I step over to my vice and do some more fine tuned work. First I plane out the saw blade marks from the ends of each piece of wood.
Planing out the blade marks from a piece of hard wood
Next step is the first of many steps involving sanding. Sanding is dusty,tiring, monotonous, it makes my hands achy the next morning, and I do a great deal of it on every frame I make. Despite being a grueling part of making frames, the results are wonderful. To feel a buttery smooth face on a piece of hard wood is always rewarding. First I sand each exposed side of a given piece of wood with 100 grit sand paper, then I sand it with 220 grit sand paper.
Sanding the edge of a piece of hard wood.
Sanding is a very time consuming step in my frame making process. After it is thankfully over, I miter the corners of each piece of wood as seen below.
Mitering the ends of a pice of sanded wood
Then I’m left with lots of little triangular pieces of wood. I typically throw these pieces away but I suspect they would make great kindling for a fire place, so if any of you readers happen to live in Bend, Oregon and need some great kindling for your wood burning fire place, you are more than welcome to come pick it up at my house.
Waste wood/kindling for anyone who wants it!
After Mitering, I pair and mark and number the corners so that I can accurately join the corners when glueing and clamping them. I match up adjoining pieces and mark a joining point that serves as a marker for cutting a biscuit slot.
Marking a corner before joining and glueing
Below is an images of two mitered ends. One with a biscuit slotted into the joint face.
Two mitered ends with a biscuit slotted into one end of one of the framing pieces.
The idea of adding a biscuit joint to picture frames or any piece of furniture is that having a biscuit slotted gives more surface area for glue to adhere to, therefore making for a much stronger joint. This might be a little over-kill for picture frames but I like the idea that my picture frames are very durable and under normal conditions should last a lifetime.
Picture frame being clamped up after glueing
You can see glue dripping off of the corners of the frame in the image above. After 24 hours of hardening, I begin another long session of sanding to even out and round off the corners and to remove any glue that has been smeared on the frames face during the glueing and clamping process.
I start this session with 100 grit sandpaper and follow that up with 220 grit sandpaper. Once everything is smooth, I burnish the entire surface of the frame with 0000 steel wool. Burnishing serves to further smooth the frames surface and slightly darken it as well. With vigorous rubbing, the surface of the frame actually heats and finishes with a wonderfully smooth finish which helps to highlight the beautiful grain of the cherry wood that I use to make the frames. Burnishing gives me a brisk upper body work-out and gives my frames an excellent quality finish.
After burnishing, I apply natural oils to the frame which slightly darken the wood’s surface. Frames are often lighter in color than I want them to be after I finish oiling them so I set them outside in direct sunlight to help darken the frames a little bit.
Picture frames suntanning in my front yard
Suntanning my frames can be a little frustrating during winter storm cycles that offer little direct sunlight and frequent snow falls. If I have a delay in framing, it is usually because of this set in my framing process. For those of you not familiar with cherry wood, cherry naturally darkens with age and exposure to ambient light. Each piece of wood has a limit beyond which it won’t darken anymore, but some pieces can get quite dark. I try to reinforce this fact to collectors who select my framing rather than opting for their own custom framing. I am quite proud of how my frames look and how they make my landscape photographs look but it is important to note that I am never offended if someone wants to have one of my prints custom framed. I do the framing at cost so I receive no monetary benefit from someone selecting my frames. They are also very labor intensive( hours of work goes into each frame) but because I enjoy the process and because I like how they make my prints look, I continue to offer these hand made frames at a very reasonable price.
I should also note that while I do make all of my own picture frames, I do not cut my own mattes or glass. I leave that up to the guys at Art On The Go (David, Brian, and Matt) who do a great job at a fair price. I don’t have the space for matting equipment in my home and I honestly don’t think I could do as good of a job as they do anyway.
While making frames is far from blissful, I do enjoy the results and the opportunity to make something beautiful with my hands. It is a very blue collar activity but one that gives a little balance to my life as an Oregon landscape photographer.
If anyone has further questions regarding my framing Please feel free to contact me through my website, or E-Mail me directly at mputnam@bendcable.com
Thanks for Visiting,
Mike
New Photographs Now showing at the Volcano Vineyards Tasting Room in Downtown Bend, Oregon!
I’m excited to announce that I recently hung some of my new Oregon Landscape Photography at the Volcano Vineyards Tasting room in Downtown Bend. Their address is 126 NW Minnesota St., which is located between Bond St. and Wall St. Through some mutual friends, Mark Merrick and Susan Ruzzo, we have gotten to know Scott and Liz Ratcliff who are the owner operators of the Volcano Vineyards and we all decided that their beautiful new tasting room would be an excellent location to share my art work with the people of Bend. They source their grapes in Southern Oregon where they craft phenomenal reds and whites. Their wines really are excellent. In fact, Volcano Vineyards is considered to be the most highly decorated winery for its size in the U.S. ! Follow this link for some more information about Volcano Vineyards’ recent awards. Volcano Vineyards. Below is one of the Oregon Landscape photographs that are currently on display at Volcano.
Photo/picture of Oregon's Mount Washington in autumn now on display at the Volcano Vineyard tasting room in Bend, Oregon.
Timing and hard work and good friends were the keys to capturing this stunning Oregon Landscape photograph. I’ll simplify by saying that I’ve worked hard to make good friends, explaining two of the three keys. I take it back, I’ve been very lucky to find great friends here in Central Oregon. One of these great friends is Troy McMullin, who is an excellent photographer and exceptionally talented beer drinker. Thus we are friends! Troy found this glorious location which aptly displays the beauty of Oregon’s Mount Washington after he had scouted long and hard. It takes a grueling bushwack through dense underbrush along with a good GPS to find this location and I would have never found it without Troy’s extensive advanced scouting and his unusual ability to suffer in the name of adventure. Regardless, I owe him a thanks and I’ll probably buy him a beer sometime in gratitude for pointing me to this wonderful scene. As I mentioned, Timing was also crucial to capturing this landscape photograph. I wanted fresh fall snow and preferably some fall color on the opposite shores of Cabin Lake. The key is to get snow on the mountain and not around the lake and to have clear skies to the east so that the rising sun is not blocked from Mount Washington’s summit and preferably some clouds behind Mt. Washington to add some interest to the sky. Well, after several visits to this difficult location, everything came together. Once again, timing and/or luck were critical!
I was busy this fall. Below is another picture now hanging at Volcano. In this image I captured some wonderful fall color along the Crooked River north of Redmond, Oregon. Here is a link to a previous blog entry about this landscape photo. Crooked River Photo.
Oregon's Crooked River Canyon with brilliant autumn color
There are three separate images that I captured during a family backpacking trip into Canyon Creek Meadow at the base of Three Fingered Jack during this past summer. It is extraordinarily lucky for me to get three separate images with my large format 4×5 camera that are print worthy during the same trip but that was the case this summer during our trip to Three Fingered jack. The Canyon Creek area is always beautiful but this year the lupine meadows were especially full and stunning. Below are a couple images taken in the upper Canyon Creek Meadow.
Picture of Purple Lupines in Central Oregon's Canyon Creek Meadow
I like that the lupines in this images are in excellent condition and I like the gentle sway that some of them have which gives this Oregon wildflower picture an elegant feel. There were Lupines everwhere as you can tell from the following image, also taken in Canyon Creek meadow.
Photo of Oregon's Three Fingered Jack Mountain and Canyon Creek Meadow at sunrise.
Finally, here is one more picture from Canyon Creek Meadow that I took on the same backpacking trip. It is a different part of the meadow and I believe it generates a much different feel than most photographs you will find of Three Fingered Jack or Canyon Creek Meadow.
Picture of Central Oregon's Three Fingered Jack Mountain and a wildflower lined alpine stream.
As I think about all the images I’ve currently got hanging down at Volcano, I realize that I’ve got that place pretty packed. I hope Scott and Liz don’t mind! Below is a distinctly more wintry image I took two years ago at Benham Falls along Bend, Oregon’s Deschutes River Trail. I was lucky to be able to drive to this location after such a heavy snow fall. It was actually pretty questionable and my poor daughter Emma got cold feet while patiently waiting for me to compose this snowy photograph. I’ve been to Benham many times and I’ve always had contrast control issues but the heavy snow load allowed me to capture an image that was not too contrasty. I am especially happy that I found this scenic waterfall while the trees around the river were still heavily flocked with snow, making for a great landscape image and making me a happy photographer!
Photo of Benham Falls in winter. This well known Bend Oregon waterfall is located along the Deschutes River Trail South of the city of Bend,Oregon
The following is a Sparks Lake Photo that I have never printed until now and I’m very excited about it. I captured an awesome light display with great snow on South Sister and Broken Top in this image. I was able to capture rare and wonderful light at one of Oregon’s most photogenic locations. Please stop by volcano and tell me if you like it as much as I do!
Photo of a beautiful sunrise from one of Oregon's most photogenic locations, Central Oregon's Sparks Lake.
Below is one more photo that can be viewed at the volcano tasting room in downtown Bend, Oregon. It is a simple but beautiful image of a vine maple overhanging the North Santiam River slightly west of the Cascade Crest. This individual tree had some of the most wonderful layering and color of any vine maples I’ve ever seen. It is a simple image but has a pleasant artistic feel.
Vine maple in autumn color along Oregon's North Santiam River
Well, that includes all of the Fine art landscape photographs that I currently have displayed at the Volcano Vineyards tasting room on Minnesota Street in downtown Bend, Oregon. Please stop by to see my work and while you are there, buy a glass of wine. The Syrah is my favorite! Their wine really is excellent and Scott and Liz Ratcliff (the owners) are great people who are growing a unique and special business right here in Bend. While you are there, you might also tell them you like the photographs that currentl decorate the walls of their lovely tasting room!
All the Best,
Mike Putnam
Oregon Cascade Mountain Gallery
High Desert Print Gallery
Trees and Wildflower Prints Gallery
Rivers, Lakes and Waterfalls Gallery
All content © 2010 by Mike Putnam Photography