DynoRange - Way Before HDR

Thu, 25 Apr 2002 18:05:08 -0500

The semi-seminal band, The Snaggs were tenants in my building by a kind of weird back door, take-over-a-space kinda way. Actually, I wasn’t occupying the building yet, but was in fact still at the great old bohemian studio - The Brewery. Although I owned the Bliss building already, and had a rag-tag mix of tenants already, I could barely keep up with their comings and goings. The Snaggs were different though: they became a group I could count on reliably week-in-and-week-out.

I was very eager that they were going to let me try out my new Canon D30 digital SLR - all 3 megapixels of it. Here’s my favorite select from the shoot, and I think I will always love this take the most. It was my first experiment with “DynoRange”, a tool I collaborated on with some Apple engineers. Mind you, this was long before HDR became all the rage, and all I had at the time was a G3/350Mhz machine. Even at 3 megapixels, there was a LOT of processing time involved. And to think, I wasn’t even shooting in RAW yet...

Shot with a Canon D30, 20-35mm f/3.5L lens, 3 JPEG frames composited within TIFFany’s DynoRange tool.

Photo ©2002 Hans Rupert

When Film Was King

Fri, 16 Oct 1998 20:18:21 -0500

There was a time in the late ‘90s that I could sense digital photography coming to steal film’s future. I had already seen a digital scan back for 4x5, and Kodak had introduced the DCS 520 – a 2 megapixel SLR based on the Canon EOS-1N body. Despite its $25,000 price tag, I knew the writing was on the wall for film. I wanted to prove to myself that I could make a killer image in less than a dozen shots, and without the aid of Photoshop or even a digital camera. I also wanted to see just how much life film had left.

Here you see an image I created from a total of maybe 10 frames over the whole shoot for a salon client. They wanted to create a fantasy beauty shot for salon posters to show their capabilities. At the time, I didn’t even own a copy of Photoshop, so I relied on my training. The shot was meticulously planned. The lighting was tested extensively on Polaroid proofs. The makeup, hair & hat were tweaked. Other than eliminating scanner dust, this image has not been manipulated, retouched or airbrushed. Click on the image for a detailed view to see just how well film has held its own.

Shot on a SINAR f2, Schneider Symmar-S 210mm f/5.6, Fuji Velvia 50, Bowens Quad flash at 12,000w/s to achieve f/16.5 @ 1/30 second.

Photo © 1998 Hans Rupert

Kodachrome + Hasselblad

Mon, 7 Sep 1987 07:54:01 -0500

Just before I was able to embark on my professional photo career, I saved-up and purchased a simple Hasselblad system in anticipation of doing commercial work. Having owned a Canon FD system before that, I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to do any low light, hand-held work with it. So, I began to practice. I took that big, beautiful, clunky camera with me everywhere. Keep in mind, this was in the day when shooting a 12 exposure roll of chrome film cost nearly $12, so I had to be pretty judicious about my shots.

I was working as a technical photographer at the time at Northern Illinois University. I had noticed the fall before these strange, lovely, glowing tree leaves that lasted all of about a day under this single tree. The light they reflected back was almost eerie, but beautiful. I knew the film I was using would enhance the feeling even more so. I squeezed-off about 5 or 6 frames, and prayed.

Shot with Hasselblad C/M, 100mm f/3.5 CF lens, 1/60s @ f/3.5 on Kodak Kodachrome 64 Professional.

Photo ©1987 Hans Rupert