shooting notes

2nd trip to c.p. zoo. meter at 100; 25 filter; bessa (remember that the 35mm with goggles does not fit on the bessa); first couple of shots on 5th avenue were strictly according to meter; overcast; something like f4 & 1/60th

tucan - woman was feeding them - very little sunlight - didn't want to use the flash while she was there i was expecting someone to come over and say "no flash here" and that would have spoiled the rest of the shoot. based on last time i shot the Tucan I opened up another stop to f2 and shot at 1/30th.

then inside. first to the bat cave. very tricky since the glass that encloses them is angled out. mostly shot at f4 with flash full power, manual set to distance i wanted; some shots were with the flash and lens right up against the glass to cut out reflections.

but the rain forest itself was the most interesting because they keep releasing steam (vapor) whatever to create the humidity. now the whole thing is glass enclosed. my theory (will see later) is that some infrared is cut by the glass - but i don't know that.

did several variations with the flash. some assuming that the meter reading was close and just using it as a bit of extra fill; other shots assuming there was next to no ir in the room and going with full flash.

the last few shots were without any flash, just going by meter reading to see how much ir is being radiated in there.

with all the camera bag switching i forget to bring along the finder for the 28mm (which is all I shot with.) in terms of pictorial content - there were some interesting chances.

RESULTS:

First off, the shots I did in the glass enclosure without flash were fine. even over-exposed. so there's lots of infrared in there.

One of the full-flash shots of the bats actually came out - but the bat was flying too fast for the flash (I guess) because it has motion blur.

I blew a couple of interesting shots (flash used) where people were in the scene against glass background. They're just way too blown out. In general, the flash used in wide angle shots where there was lots of distance in the shot gave a really weird - almost super realistic look except for the light fall-off. i would say that unless you need the flash to try and do something like the bats, or this strange fish i was after behind glass - either turn it off or get someone behind me to hold a white card to bounce off. the direct flash kills the softness of the ir. again - though one shot is intriguing. this is good in a way since i can go back next time with the M3 so I can use my goggles / 35mm.

NEXT:

I still have one thing left to try and that's the deeper IR filter. I also think that for outside work - seals, etc. I'm better off with regular old tri-x. Seals (actually they're sea lions) in water - with IR - you don't want to know.

Okay I've Figured

out a bunch of things about using the flash with infrared film. I'm not going to waste another roll on my apartment. Back off to the zoo tomorrow. I'll go into the details after I've gotten some spectacular shots.

Probably a good time to do all this experimenting since sales have been zilch the last two weeks. Just weird inquiries that I'm sure will pan out to nothing.

The Tucan print really is fantastic. It takes me back to some primeval time. That rain forest keeps pulling at me.