Night photography: Ride the magic bus to Paul's Junkyard
The photo was shot during last month's full moon using a Mamiya 7 II camera with a 43mm wide angle lens on Kodak E100VS film. The exposure time was 90 minutes at f/16 during the March 2011 supermoon. Yesterday I printed a 30" x 40" of this cool old bus in Paul's Junkyard . The image really opens up at this size -- the color, tonal gradations, and sharpness are amazing. Thanks to Chris F. for doing a top notch job on the drum scan of my 6x7 chrome. A 4000 ppi scan yielded a 11,151 x 8,822 pixel file -- that's 98 megapixels! The native size of the file is just about perfect for a 30" x 40" print at 300 dpi.
The sRGB web version doesn't really do the image justice. At 30" x 40" you can see just the right amount of grain -- and it looks beautiful. The digital file was printed on Fuji Crystal Archive Matte paper using a Lightjet 430 printer. The image is exposed using R-G-B lasers, and then run through the RA-4 chemical process. The result is a beautiful continuous tone C-print. Photographers attending this week's night photography workshop will all receive a free 11" x 14" Custom Lightjet Digital C-print.
I hope you all have a great full moon. I'm looking forward to hitting the junkyard and seeing everyone's images. And prints!