Hi Jack -
I just catch the crystals on a cold piece of glass. I do it all outside
in my unheated / detached garage. As long as the glass is a few degrees
below freezing it works fine. I've lost many crystals by holding the
glass too close and breathing on them - another Homer Simpson DOH! moment...
I don't mind disclosing all the info about taking the shots. A couple of
years ago I put together a little presentation about the evolution of
the process. In the early days it was quite difficult - I used a
Spotmatic and stacked lenses with extension, manual flash, and used a
Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet (DOS version) on a 486 laptop to calculate the
subject to flash distance, taking into account the exposure increase
factor that the extension called for. With film, the technical aspects
of getting a good exposure was difficult. With digital, you take your
best guess, do a test shot, adjust once or twice and you are there.
These days, anyone who is smart enough to tie their shoe can be a
technically competent photographer. That puts the emphasis on
composition and other factors, which is where it should be. At my little
workshops I have shown dozens of people exactly how to take the snow
crystal shots.
The real chllenge with snow crystals is just being there. In my
experience, it's rare to have a storm where good crystals fall for a
significant period of time. You get waves where nice crystals fall for a
while - maybe 15 to 30 minutes- and then you get crap for a long while,
then a little window with nice crystals. Unless you have a 6th sense for
these things, you just have to stand outside in the cold for hours on
end and see what is falling. That's what I do. I think that managing to
"be there" is the biggest hurdle to good photography. I'd a helluva
photographer if I could get up early and catch the morning light.
Mark C.
On 12/15/2011 9:45 AM, Jack Davis wrote:
This (these) shots are wonders to me, Mark. Considering their short fragile
lives, I'm very
impressed by your ability to overcome what must present numerous problems
You needn't provide your method in detail, but I do have one persistent
question please: Are the flakes caught on a freezing surface?
Thanks,
Jack
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark C<[email protected]>
To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List<[email protected]>
Cc:
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2011 4:47 AM
Subject: Re: GESO - Classified Snow Crystals
Thanks, Ann - it's an amazing 56F this morning, but hopefully I can get
some new shots in the next few weeks!
On 12/14/2011 11:41 PM, Ann Sanfedele wrote:
That's just amazing stuff, Mark
Thanks for showing it - the differences are fascinating -
science is beautiful :-)
ann
On 12/14/2011 23:32, Mark C wrote:
I usually try to post only new stuff, which means I may not post much at
times, but my blog's lead post was an announcement for a gallery opening
and book signing that have both passed so I had to put something new up
there. So - I reposted an article that appeared on my book's blog in
February, 2010, but never made it over to my main blog. 10 snow crystal
images, 8 of which never appeared in my main blog. It's here:
http://www.markcassino.com/b2evolution/index.php
or here:
http://www.markcassino.com/b2evolution/index.php/snow-crystals-with-classifications
We have some nice snow crystal photos, a scientific classification
scheme, comments relating Nietzsche's observations about the science of
history to the science of snow crystal classification, and links to the
original posts...
Mark C.
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