Landscape Triptych in the rain. S2 with 35mm wet first test

[JMacD]

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I have been producing and selling a niche form of landscape triptychs for several years. I enlarge them to 7-9 feet wide in three panels of 26" to 36" each. I started doing triptychs because I couldn't frame and mail a panorama without very special glass and shipping. So I divided the scene into three panels. Then I discovered that it was an extra challenge to make every panel work as a photo on it's own.

 

I was creating the images originally via a Canon tilt-shift 24mm on the origional EOS 1Ds and merging the two shifted images into a panorama, then slicing the panorama into the triptych. But the Canon lens at that time was not good in the corners.

 

So I stepped up to using a Leica M8 and photo merging three shots into the panorama and then back into the triptych. Pretty good results thanks to PS CS4 doing very nice merges. But if light changed, or wind moved things, the merge was not always more than a compromise. I figured that a medium format camera would allow me to skip the photo merge. The S2 seemed like a good answer. So I waited and waited for the S2 plus 35mm to arrive. I have had it on order for more than a year.

 

The machine and lens combo arrived this morning from David Farkas. This afternoon I shot a scene during a rain storm to quickly test if I was correct that the system would deliver what I needed. It does. The corner sharpness is very good. The image quality is all that I expected. The ease of shooting in the rain, well, it is better than I expected. Most of the following photos have no adjustments for sharpening. No color adjustments yet. Yes I can mess with this much more, but then I would not get this up tonight. So yes, the camera is fantastic for my needs.

 

First image is the full frame reduced in resolution for this forum

The second image is the resultant triptych as I might use it. I probably will not use it since the right frame of the triptych is not an interesting scene in and of itself.

 

The third image shows an enlargement of the center of the frame.

the fourth image is the left. . The fifth shows a rain drop in motion. The last is a sharpened version of the left photo, 100% crop.

The shot was not taken on a tripod, but hand held at 1/90 of a second. I will do some comparisons of tripod versus hand held later, as at these high magnifications, I gave up sharpness when hand held at 1/90. Go ahead and pixel peep if you must, it is not really worthwhile from a reduced jpeg on the internet. One does not use an S2 for internet shots. For me it is for very large prints. Comments are welcome regarding the triptych concept.

 

I'm sorry if this particular image is not a perfect composition, but merely a first test. But imagine this as a nine foot wide triptych.

 

 

The camera delivers for my needs.

 

Thanks David, sorry but the lens is mine now.

[LeicaS2]

Love the format of the triptychs. The rain will usually reduce your sharpeness too, not just an issue of hand held. Then too you have a lot of depth to handle with a fairly wide open f-stop in this shot. I know you said it was a test, but next time, use a tripod in the rain, so you can stop down. Having seen some of your other work, you are taking advantage of this camera and lens. Keep it up.