Assorted Blathering About
Equipment and Techniques:
Sarah Fox

I have quite an eclectic and extensive background in photographic work, partly as a result of my having collected, repaired, modified, and used almost every imagineable type of photographic equipment. Although I cut my teeth with darkroom work as a child in the 1960's and spent countless hours burning up film and paper, my preferred medium is now digital. I broke into digital photography early in the game, with a little Olympus D-460, mostly for use in my scientific research. However, I quickly discovered the many advantages of digital photography. Realizing the possibilities of digital SLR photography, I hungered for years for a consumer digital SLR that I could afford. Shortly after the turn of the millennium, such creatures burst into the marketplace. It wasn't until I turned professional, in 2004, that I finally invested in a digital SLR -- my Canon EOS 10D. I later upgraded to full frame photography with the EOS 5D.

Why digital? Why not? I've compared film and digital side-by-side, with my EOS 10D and my EOS Elan 7n. One would expect the 35mm Elan 7n, with its slightly larger format, to outperform the 10D. However, the opposite is true. Even using the same lenses, the 10D yields a sharper image with most (all?) types of film. Why? It's because the grain composition of photographic film is much coarser than the pixel distribution in the digital sensor. The difference doesn't end there, though. Digital imaging results in much greater color depth and lack of color noise than film, especially in the shadow regions of the image. And that's just comparing ISO 100 film to ISO 100 digital. The advantages are absolutely huge as ISO increases. I can shoot some relatively clean pictures ditigally at ISO 1600, if I have no other choice. (See someone else's ISO 1600 results here.) Or better, I can shoot underesposed in RAW at ISO 100 and "push" later, effectively losing 4 of my 12 bits of color depth. However, shooting with 1600 film is marginally acceptable at best, and pushing ASA 100 film by 4 stops would be horrible.

There are obviously some occasions to use film, which is why I have a few 35mm camera bodies and a film scanner. However, for most situations, I cannot think of a single reason why I would prefer film to digital. Most other professionals have apparently come to the same conclusion. There are still a few hold-outs for film, though, and the great debate rages on. Film proponents often argue that color rendition or sharpness is superior, or even that the superiority of film can only be appreciated in the form of a large print. A recent comparison of full frame digital (at 12.1 MP) and 35mm film was recently done in a semipopular venue, with rather amusing results. (This comparison also has interesting implications regarding other arguments, such as the supposedly critical necessity of a tripod or a vertical grip, neither of which was used.

I obviously do shoot film on occasion, depending on circumstances. For instance I often take an old Canon T-70 (FD) film camera out in a canoe, rather than risk losing any of my EOS gear to a tump or salt water splash. I have an EOS 1n film camera for inclimate weather, as it has excellent weather sealing. Also, I'm not above grabbing someone else's camera when the perfect Kodak moment arises and I'm cameraless. I've even taken a shot with a disposable. This inevitably leads to editing nightmares, but at least it gets me the shot -- better than no shot at all. In the end good photography is only 5% equipment, but 95% how you use it.

Whether I shoot digital or film, my days in the darkroom are behind me. Digital is where it's at! All film is digitized in my film scanner, and the images go straight from there to the graphic editing software. Trying to compare one's capabilities using a competent image editor with one's capabilities using "advanced" darkroom techniques is like trying to compare one's capabiities with a computer vs. a typewriter. Simply, most of the things that can be done with standard photoediting techniques cannot be accomplished at all in the darkroom.

To say that I like digital photography is not to say that I hunger for all forms of technological sophistication. I'm actually rather old-fashioned when it comes to my photography. Both of my EOS camera bodies are modern, full-featherd, fully programmable devices that would do all the thinking for me if I wanted them to. They have all sorts of "point and shoot" modes that control every aspect of the camera's functioning. I hate that stuff -- usually. Why? It's because the automatic adjustments and computations are usually wrong. While they may yield an acceptable picture most of the time, they nevertheless yield a great picture only rarely.

How old fashioned am I? Well, if I'm having to shoot lots of pictures really quickly, and if there is no time for intelligent metering, I just fly on automatic -- usually aperture priority. However, I usually shoot manually. I rely extensively on spot and incident metering and use a method that is similar to Ansel Adams' zone metering system. I often use my camera's internal metering and zoom lens capabilities to take spot readings. I take incident readings with my trustworthy Gossen Luna Pro CDS, which I have carried with me, repaired, and recalibrated for decades now. (Most recently I converted it to use silver oxide cells. Read about it here.) I take flash readings with my Sekonic Flash Master L-358. Once I've determined my exposure, I take a test shot and check the luminance histogram to determine how the exposure must be modified. Even when shooting automatically, I rely heavily on the luminance histograms to tweak my settings. Where I depart from Adams' basic technique is that I shoot in color and have modified my techniques accordingly in a manner that I maintain as a trade secret.

Some modern automation is unquestionably good -- very good. The image stabilization technology used in some of Canon's lenses comes to mind. My most frequently used lens is a 28-135mm f/ 3.5-5.6 IS USM. This lens uses a tiny gyroscopic stabilizer to shift a middle lens grouping, so as to compensate for tiny rotational movements and stabilize the image on the focal plane. This technology is amazingly precise and enables this middle-priced lens to outperform even the best of lenses most of the time in lower light conditions. Even even on a tripod mount (which levels the playing field), this lens boasts some very impressive performance specifications that place it among the sharpest lenses. The 28-135's companion lens is the 75-300mm f/ 4.0-5.6 IS USM, which I also frequently use. While it is not as optically perfect as the 28-135, the image stabilization is indespensible on this moderately extreme telephoto. My wide zoom is a Canon 17-40mm f/4 L USM, which of course performs very impressively indeed. This lens does not have the image stabilization feature, but this feature is not as important for such a wide angle lens.

This all leads to the question of what makes a good lens. Sure, the image stabilization features are great for natural light conditions, especially when shooting telephoto, but the 17-40 is great when I have contrasty scenes that would otherwise be likely to yield chromatic aberration. Chromatic aberration is a "bear" to edit, and the results are never as good as if the lens didn't have the defect in the first place. Of course sometimes the best lens to use isn't one's "best" lens. Under harsh conditions, it's a great idea to use one's second-rank lenses. I have two cheaper Sigma lenses that are great for more challenging situations. Sigma lenses are generally "OK" and are sometimes even among the best lenses available. However, I'll caution that these lenses must be tested thoroughly, as Sigma has some serious quality control issues. A case in point is Sigma's 12-24mm zoom, which is the widest full-frame rectilinear zoom ever manufactured. When the lens works correctly, it is remarkably sharp and has almost no chromatic aberration. However, after two attempts at finding a correctly assembled lens, I gave up, ordering the not nearly so wide Canon 17-40mm L (above).

Those interested in learning more about lenses can find some very thorough test results on the Internet. One of the better resources is the extensive test results by the eminent Lars Kjellberg on the Photodo web site. He has tested nearly 1000 different lenses. He has not tested some of the more recent lenses, though. Tests of the Canon 17-40 f/4 L can be found here, and tests of the Sigma 12-24 can be found here. In looking at the latter results, it is important to remember that the lens that was tested was unusually good. As far as can be determined, most Sigma 12-24 lenses are defective.

I'm sometimes asked why I prefer zoom lenses to prime lenses. Although I wasn't a fan of zoom lenses when they burst onto the photography scene back in the 1970's, they have improved markedly in their design, producing images that are nearly indistinguishable from prime lenses. The zoom lens' principal weaknesses are distortion and chromatic aberration. The former problem is easily corrected during editing. The latter problem is less pronounced, and the bulk of the lens's middle range is fairly abberation-free. And while fixed focal length lenses still give a slight (but now almost negligible) edge in image crispness, they cannot do one thing that zoom lenses do very easily. They cannot be adjusted so as to balance the relative image sizes of foreground and background. It is this feature that makes zoom lenses indispensable to artists interested in fine-tuning the composition of their images. Of course nothing can compare to the crispness of a fine L-series prime lens, provided it just happens to have the right focal length to achieve the desired image composition, but given the choice between an optically perfect image of suboptimal composition and an almost optically perfect image of perfect composition, I'll choose the latter every time.

Ultimately, after an image is captured, something must be done with it. If it's used as-is, it might look like anybody else's well-composed vacation snapshot. That's where the miracle of modern digital photoediting comes into play, and this is where I have a competitive edge on most professional photographers. I often joke that I should take a job with the scandal magazines, because I could be content cranking out photos of Elvis and invading Martian toad-people all day. It is not uncommon for me to take a shot, knowing that I'll have to remove a person -- or a car -- or a tree -- from the image. Or perhaps I'll need to close a drawer or combine elements of two different shots. All this work involves hours of tedious mouse-work, matching of spatial resolution and light noise, and so forth. Of course every photo also requires careful correction for things such as barrel, pincushion, perspective, darkness, gamma, contrast, color balance, color saturation, etc. I utilize two different photoediting packages, neither of which is PhotoShop. My pre-editing is done with Digital Light and Color's Picture Window Pro, a color-profile-aware package that is very adept at brightness and color editing in 48 bit. After these initial steps are taken, my images are edited with Corel's PaintShop Pro, which has all of PaintShop CS's capabilities and more, in a much more intuitive user interface, except lacking the 48 bit capabilities.

Finally, the image must be printed. The choice between printing in a professional lab and in-house printing was not difficult. Epson has recently developed a pigment-based line of inks for use in their professional printers. Because these inks are pigment-based, rather than dye-based, they are highly resistant to fade. Examples of pigment-based images can be seen on the walls of the great pyramids and even the caves of Cro-Magnon man. The pigments in Epson's Ultrachrome inks are even encapsulated in acrylic particles to increase their permanence. This technology far outperforms even the best conventional, lab-based printing -- both color and black & white. Wilhelm Imaging Research, "the" independent Consumer Reports of the professional imaging media world, has evaluated and compared countless imaging technologies. They estimate that Ultrachrome inks, used on high-quality paper, and suitably matted and framed, will take as long as a century to fade or color shift by 5%, under ordinary indoor lighting conditions. (Their report can be viewed here, and a general discussion of inkjet lightfastness can be found in this article in Digital Photo Pro.) Moreover, the 7-ink Ultrachrome images are beautiful, with excellent clarity and depth of color.

Graphic Fusion does all its printing on an Epson Stylus Pro 4000 printer. This impressive brute (nearly 100 lb of it) can print high resolution images as large as 16.5" wide by any length. By printing in-house, Graphic Fusion can not only offer its customers this unparalleled technology, but it can also maintain absolute control over the end product. It's a win-win situation.

All prints are top-coated with Lacquer-Mat fine art lacquer to inhibit oxidation. Then they are matted in archival-quality materials and framed behind acrylic glazing, which is whiter than glass and blocks UV light. It is because of these painstaking methods and advanced technologies that Graphic Fusion can offer an Lifetime No-Fade Warranty on all its framed prints.