Category Archives: Dragon

Shangri La, Sichuan Province, China 2018

by Brent Osborne

Shangri La is located near the province of Tibet in southwest China, in the Sichuan province. Not many tourists seemed to be there, despite the amount of local tourists in other parts of China. Maybe it was because there wasn’t much to see in the town except one of the largest prayer wheels in the world and a spectacular night time lighting of the local monastery. The town had been devastated by a large fire, destroying most of the original buildings only years prior to my visit.  Needless to say, we did not stay in Shangri La very long, only 2 nights, before heading south to the more interesting provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi. Shot on my Sputnik MF3D camera with Fujifilm Provia 100f film.

Bubble Star

by Bob Venezia
Bubble master Tom Noddy displays the extremely complex Bubble Star

Bubble master Tom Noddy displays the extremely complex Bubble Star

My friend Tom Noddy came over to my house so I could capture some of his amazing creations in 3D. The back wall is draped with black velvet. DOF is pretty narrow. Shot with TL-120, Provia 400x, and flash units aplenty.

The Bubble Star is a very complex bubble and takes some time to build, So by the time it’s finished it will not last long. Something is going to pop.

Tom was presenting once in Israel (he does a lot of science museums) and you can imagine the reaction he got when he presented this.

The Finally, Part 1

by Bob Venezia

Independence Day fireworks over Lake Union in Seattle

Independence Day fireworks over Lake Union in Seattle

The process for getting these shots has been talked about in other posts, but this is shot with twin Hasselblads outfitted with 150mm lenses and separated by 40 feet. They are taken from the roof of a building owned by one of my best friends, and I have the roof to myself. That’s helpful because the cameras are tethered by a wired remote and I wouldn’t want someone tripping over a cord and killing 2 Hasselblads. That wouldn’t do.

The cameras are aimed into the sky during the day. This usually works out well, but last year I got burned. The cameras were aimed normally high but the fireworks were set off abnormally low. So I got almost nothing. This year I’m planning to shoot with a wider lens to capture more of the entire scene, and I’m in the process of running tests on those lenses to see if they match.

Reflection Lake Star Trails #3

by Bob Venezia

Long nighttime exposure, with star trails, of Mt. Rainier from Reflection Lakes


My best guess is this is from 2010. This is a one-and-a-half hour exposure at f16 from 2 Hasselblads. These would be the 50mm lenses, and the film is Provia 100F. I don’t remember if I’d planned it this way, or if I later determined I’d gotten the exposure very wrong, but I ended up pushing the film 2 stops which was clearly the right thing to do. (I may have taken a test exposure from another film magazine to make the determination; just don’t remember). I probably had some children’s socks tied around the lenses, with handwarmers inside, to keep the lenses from fogging.

I’m impressed with the color and how blue the sky looks. Well, it is sunlight after all, it’s just getting to the scene via a large reflector in the sky. The moon would have been pretty full here. The challenge with these shots is to get enough light on the trees on the other side of the lake without blowing out the top of the mountain. I do like the reflected star trails in the water.

Ian Andvaag d21 submission

by Ian Andvaag

Beechy Sand Castle

Hyper Hills

The first two images I have submitted were taken last summer at a unique location here in Saskatchewan called the Beechy Sand Castle and Sunken Hill. There are a couple of quarter sections of ranch land near the inlet of Lake Diefenbaker on the south Saskatchewan river that are home to some interesting land formations. It’s on private land, but the owner is gracious enough to allow visitors to come and hike around the area. Legend has it that an underground gas pocket collapsed,  causing the land to give way.  One day, the rancher went to check his cattle, and the tracks left by his truck a few days prior led right into the crater of the Sunken Hill!

The location is only accessible during dry conditions, since you have to drive through a field to get there. It was very hot the day I went and also quite smoky from forest fires out west in British Columbia. After walking around a bit and seeing the lay of the land, I knew I wanted to try out some hypers, but I had neither a laser rangefinder, nor Mike Davis’ stereobase calculator. I tried some anyway, but as you can see by my slipshod cutting to expand a panoramic mount, I didn’t get it quite right. Most of the hypers I took had very distracting retinal rivalry in the water, but this one didn’t seem quite as off-putting for whatever reason. This summer I have a goal to get a working system for hypers using two Agfa Isolettes.

Smell the Roses

Frosting

The other two slides are from my city, Saskatoon, on one of the few days of the year that we get hoarfrost. It’s always so beautiful and it’s one of my favourite things to photograph in MF3D. I titled the one slide “Smell the Roses”, because the frost can make even a pile of overgrown weeds in an industrial district look pretty, and it seems like many people don’t stop to take notice.

Now that I’ve got a workable B&W reversal process, I’m more motivated to shoot black and white. Hope you enjoy!

Don Lopp d20 submission

by Don Lopp

Note: Don Lopp passed away February 24, 2019. Bob Venezia has graciously continued to allow Don’s slides to circulate.

This is Don Lopp’s contribution for loop d20, grandfathered in from loop 20 of MF3D Folio II managed by Brian Reynolds.

Mt. Shuksan. 10-02. Velvia 50. Pol 22.0

Botanical Garden. Bellevue, WA. Velvia 50, f/22. Home-made camera – obviously inferior lenses from 1950s.

Bald Eagle. Provia f22.0 Heidoscope.

Pike Place Market – Tossing Salmon. 6/97. Heidoscope f16.0 Astia.