California's Route 66

05 06 07 February 2016

Presented in ultra-high resolution; outstanding on Retina displays.

Explicit technical photo details.

Earlier Route 66 Photos.

05 February 2016, Friday

First stop was the Route 66 Museum at the Barstow Station.

California Route 66

California Route 66, 2:32 P.M. 1993 Zeiss Planar T✻ 80mm f/2.8 CF with B60 Heliopan Yellow filter, 1992 Hasselblad 503 CX with 1985 PME metered prism, Kodak T-Max 100 in 1993 A12 magazine, f/8 at 1/125, 3.1' focus distance. More technical details. bigger.

 

Oil Can Display, Route 66 Museum

Oil Can & Map Display, Route 66 Museum, 2:51 P.M. 1993 Zeiss Planar T✻ 80mm f/2.8 CF with no filter, 1992 Hasselblad 503 CX with 1985 PME metered prism, Kodak T-Max 100 in 1993 A12 magazine, f/16 for 5 seconds. More technical details. bigger.

 

Ford Wrenches, Route 66 Museum

Ford Wrenches, Route 66 Museum, 2:58 P.M. 1993 Zeiss Planar T✻ 80mm f/2.8 CF with B60 Zeiss T✻ 0.5m PROXAR, focus ring set to 20 meters, 1992 Hasselblad 503 CX with 1985 PME metered prism, Kodak T-Max 100 in 1993 A12 magazine, PME reads EV 8, use EV 7 to place white board higher, f/16 for 3 seconds to add another ½ stop for reciprocity failure. More technical details. bigger.

 

Brick wall outside Route 66 Museum

Brick Wall Outside Route 66 Museum, 3:06 P.M. 1987 Zeiss Sonnar T✻ 150mm f/4 CF with B60 Heliopan Yellow filter, 10 meters focus distance, 1992 Hasselblad 503 CX with 1985 PME metered prism, Kodak T-Max 100 in 1993 A12 magazine, f/13.5 at 1/125 (EV 14/15). More technical details. bigger.

Next we headed to Tom's Welding.

 

Rail Road Crossing Sign

Rail Road Crossing Sign, 3:32 P.M. 1993 Zeiss Planar T✻ 80mm f/2.8 CF with B60 Hoya Orange filter, focus distance set halfway between 1.7 meters and 6 feet, 1992 Hasselblad 503 CX with 1985 PME metered prism, Kodak T-Max 100 in 1993 A12 magazine, f/11 at 1/30 (EV 12). More technical details. bigger.

I probably should have used a red filter instead of orange to darken the sky more and bring the sign forward. At the time I was concerned that the silver sign would be too bright if I did.

 

Gulf Sign Behind Fence

Gulf Sign Behind Fence, 3:38 P.M. 1993 Zeiss Planar T✻ 80mm f/2.8 CF with B60 Hasselblad Green 11 filter, 1.7 meters focus distance, 1992 Hasselblad 503 CX with 1985 PME metered prism, Kodak T-Max 100 in 1993 A12 magazine, f/8 at 1/60 (EV 12). More technical details. bigger.

I used a green filter because I wanted to render the orange of the Gulf sign darker. An orange or red filter would have rendered the orange as white! The green filter darkens reds and oranges. A blue filter would have rendered the orange parts of the sign dark, but the sky behind would have been much lighter.

 

Signs on Ceiling

Signs on Ceiling, 4:00 P.M. 1989 Hasselblad 903 SWC with B60 Heliopan KR 6 warming filter, 10 feet focus distance, Fuji Velvia in 1996 Hasselblad E24 magazine, f/9.5 at 5 seconds (metered EV 4/5 and added ⅓ stop for reciprocity failure, split-toned print). More technical details. bigger.

 

Texas Route 66 Sign with Skull

Texas Route 66 Sign with Skull, 4:14 P.M. 1987 Zeiss Sonnar T✻ 150mm f/4 CF, no filter, 7.2 foot focus distance, 1992 Hasselblad 503 CX with 1985 PME metered prism that says EV 8, Kodak T-Max 100 in 1993 A12 magazine, f/22 for 3 seconds to add ½ stop for reciprocity failure. More technical details. bigger.

Wow, not bad: these seven B&W shots are from my first roll of TMAX 100 (12 exposures total). 7 shots published out of 12 presses of the shutter? Yes!

 

Bar Stock at Tom's Welding

Bar Stock at Tom's Welding, 4:27 P.M. 1989 Hasselblad 903 SWC, no filter, 4.6 foot focus distance, Kodak T-Max 100 in 1993 A12 magazine, iPhone app says EV 4/5, I use f/22 for 40 seconds to add 1 stop for reciprocity failure. More technical details. bigger.

And now we head to the home swallowed by sand:

 

Spinning Twig in Sand

Spinning Twig in Sand, 5:00 P.M. 1987 Zeiss Sonnar T✻ 150mm f/4 CF with B60 Heliopan Yellow filter, 2 meters focus distance, 1992 Hasselblad 503 CX with 1985 PME metered prism, Kodak T-Max 100 in 1993 A12 magazine, PME reads EV 11, f/32 at 1/2. More technical details. bigger.

 

Post and Weeds in Last Light

Post and Weeds in Last Light, 5:07 P.M. 1987 Zeiss Sonnar T✻ 150mm f/4 CF with B60 Heliopan Yellow filter, 4.2 meters focus distance, 1992 Hasselblad 503 CX with 1985 PME metered prism, Kodak T-Max 100 in 1993 A12 magazine, PME reads EV 11, f/32 at 1/2. More technical details. bigger.

 

Abandoned Wall in Sand in Last Light

Abandoned Wall in Sand in Last Light, 5:10 P.M. 1993 Zeiss Planar T✻ 80mm f/2.8 CF with B60 Hasselblad CR 1,5 warming filter, 7.5 meters focus distance, 1992 Hasselblad 503 CX with 1985 PME metered prism, Fuji Velvia in 1996 Hasselblad E24 magazine, PME says EV 12, I added a half stop for the light wall and shot at f/19 at 1/8 (EV 11/12). More technical details. bigger.

 

Earth Shadow Rises over Barstow

Earth Shadow Rises over Barstow, 5:23 P.M. 1993 Zeiss Planar T✻ 80mm f/2.8 CF with B60 Hasselblad CR 1,5 warming filter, focus set to the left side of the infinity loop, 1992 Hasselblad 503 CX with 1985 PME metered prism, Fuji Velvia in 1996 Hasselblad E24 magazine, f/11 at 1/4 (EV 9). More technical details. bigger.

The sun had set two minutes ago. The blue/magenta line you see above is the shadow of the earth seen looking east. It rises after the sun sets.

Now back to the hotel:

 

Sleep Inn, Barstow

Sleep Inn, Barstow, 6:09 P.M. 1989 Hasselblad 903 SWC with Series 8 Tiffen CC40M filter carefully balanced inside front of lens, 9 foot focus distance, Fuji Velvia in 1996 Hasselblad E24 magazine, f/16 at 30 seconds (iPhone app read EV 4 through the filter and I added a stop for reciprocity failure). More technical details. bigger.

The Sleep Inn on Route 66 in Barstow is the best place to stay for miles anywhere near Barstow. Not only is it clean, new and nice, the staff went out of their way to welcome our group.

I used my strong magenta CC40M filter to make the fluorescent lights look natural on film; otherwise they are way too vivid green on Velvia.

 

Sleep Inn, Barstow

Square Hole in Stucco Wall at Night, 7:50 P.M. 1989 Hasselblad 903 SWC with B60 B+W F-DAY mild fluorescent filter, 4.5 foot focus distance, Fuji Velvia in 1996 Hasselblad E24 magazine, f/11 at 25 seconds. More technical details. bigger.

To calculate this exposure, I read LV 4●● at ISO 100 from my tiny Gossen Digisix in its incident mode.

The weak F-DAY filter needs about ⅔ stop extra exposure when metering without the filter. Therefore I need to set EI 32 for my ISO 50 film.

LV 4●● at ISO 100 is EV 3 at EI 32.

EV 3 is f/11 at 15 seconds.

To compensate for Velvia's reciprocity failure, I added another ⅔ stop from 15 seconds and thus exposed for 25 seconds.

Easy, at least if you've been doing this for as many decades as I have. I was shooting Kodachrome in the dark over 40 years ago as fifth grader.

 

Stairwell at Night

Stairwell at Night, 7:57 P.M. 1989 Hasselblad 903 SWC with B60 B+W F-DAY mild fluorescent filter, 2 meters focus distance (needed from 4.5' in focus), Fuji Velvia in 1996 Hasselblad E24 magazine, f/16 at 1 minute. More technical details. bigger.

Yes! Velvia does crazy things under artificial light that can't be duplicated on digital cameras.

This is the same exposure as above, except I needed to stop down one more stop for deeper depth of field, so I used an actual exposure of 1 minute to compensate for reciprocity failure for an effective exposure of 30 seconds, as opposed to using 25 seconds for 15 seconds as before.

Not a bad photo, considering that I was only shooting this to get the old roll of film out of the magazine so I could pop in a new roll for our walk around town at night.

And now back into the electric night of Route 66:

 

Motel 66 Sign at Night

Motel 66 Sign at Night, 8:13 P.M. 1989 Hasselblad 903 SWC, no filter, 50' focus distance, Fuji Velvia in 1996 Hasselblad E24 magazine, f/11 at 15 seconds. More technical details. bigger.

The sign was 25 feet away. I needed everything from the sign to infinity rendered with optimum sharpness, which for the 38mm BIOGON means f/11 and of course setting the focus ring to 50 feet.

My Gossen Luna Pro SBC read EV 4● at ASA 50. At f/11 this would be 6.3 seconds. Taking Velvia's reciprocity failure into account, that meant a 15 second exposure time. That's the easy part; the hard part is figuring where to point the meter.

The 10-pointed stars on bright points of light are standard for the Hasselblad's 5-bladed diaphragms. Hasselblad doesn't use curved blades which would have rendered the bright lights as boring fuzzy dots instead of nifty stars.

 

Red Neon OFFICE Sign at Night

Red Neon Office Sign at Night, 8:38 P.M. 1989 Hasselblad 903 SWC, no filter, 8.5' focus distance, Fuji Velvia in 1996 Hasselblad E24 magazine, f/9.5 at 25 seconds. More technical details. bigger.

I used my Gossen Luna Pro SBC light meter and did the same calculations as above for reciprocity failure. I also bracketed a stop above and below, which was just a waste of film; this exposure was perfect. As Ansel Adams said, you need to get your technique perfected so you don't waste time or film bracketing, because when you bracket you're wasting time, film, energy and concentration that could be going into making better pictures — and if the lighting changes, you've lost the shot.

 

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