PREFACE
I was shooting a job for a company that makes photo tile. Before you ask, this is not tile for photographers; rather, it is more like a humongous wall-sized jigsaw puzzle made of tiny bits of a photograph. If you look at it from a photographer's standpoint, it immediately becomes clear that this job cannot be shot on 35mm film, or with a 6MP DSLR. I mean, it certainly can, but the quality…

EQUIPMENT
Evidently, a client was aware of better options. Hence his first requirement was a medium format camera. His second requirement was digital capture because at some point of his rocky tile-making career he had already swallowed a bitter pill of scanning fees. Digital was not a problem, because I own a Kodak DCS ProBack 645c, a 16MP 39x39mm back dedicated to Contax 645AF medium format system. For me this now discontinued digital back has been a bliss, because, as probably any person whose first camera was 6x6, I hate 645 format so much that my Contax 645 spent more than a year on a shelf after I bought it. This back once again brought a joy of square-format shooting to the boring rectangular world, and now this Contax/Kodak setup is my system of choice for most of commercial applications as well as for teaching.

Well, enough of that… Let's go back to my location shoot for the tile company. Nobody told me that I had to shoot macro when the job was discussed. However, since the shoot was about two hundred and fifty miles from my studio, I decided to take a set of extension rings just in case.

As you probably know, larger format delivers shallower depth of field at the same magnification level and f-stop. This fact is especially sad when it comes to macro. Maximizing DOF without a tilt lens means very low aperture values, which in turn means that there is no such thing as too much light. In addition to that, use of extension rings to achieve higher levels of magnification further lessens quantity of light coming through the lens. With this in mind I packed my location lighting kit that consists of three Visatec Solo 1600 monolights. I prefer them for location work to my studio Broncolor Minipuls flashes because they are lighter, smaller and, what is very important, cheaper to fix. At the same time they deliver virtually the same level of stability, convenience and ease of use.

Another enemy of macro photography besides shallow depth of field is motion blur. At levels of magnification of 1:1 and higher camera shake becomes a real problem, even when working with short-impulse studio flashes. Therefore, a big tripod is a necessity. My location tripod of choice is a carbon-fiber Giotto's Professional 8170, a great compromise between size, weight and price. It is more than suitable for product photography because it has a fully articulated center column, which is strong enough in horizontal position to hold a medium format camera with a 140mm lens. Gitzo 1275M off-center ball head perfectly complements this tripod because it is reasonably light, precise and easily holds a ten-pound rig.

Shooting digitally is certainly convenient, but it requires more equipment when you are on location. Five years ago I would just shoot ten rolls of film and forget about them until the next day. Then I would run them through my JOBO ATL-1000 processor and bring slides to the client. You could say that it is even easier with digital: just fill a CF card with images, bring them home and run through a computer. It would be awesome this way, wouldn't it? Well, it is not. In the digital age the client wants an instant gratification, which simply means that you have to bring a computer to the shoot. I thank Apple engineers every day for my 15" PowerBook G4. It seems to me that it was invented by a photographer, so ideally it suits my needs. The next best thing to it is a Lexar 32-bit CardBus PC-card reader that is as fast as Firewire, but fits neatly inside the computer without any protruding wires. I never shoot tethered to the computer for two reasons. First, I hate cords and wires. I know that if something is on the floor, I will inevitably trip on it. Second, transferring a batch of pictures to the computer and reviewing them gives me a needed break and a chance to discuss and adjust plans with the client.

TECHNIQUE
When among forty items to be photographed I saw a tulip with fringed petals, I knew that it would make a great macro shot, but only if I manage to squeeze a bottom of the flower, a pestle, stamens and edges of petals within the DOF. Fortunately I one of the lenses at my disposal was 2.8/140 Sonnar, which could be stopped down to f/32. I put it on a combination of 13mm and 52mm extension rings and focused from about a foot to the center of the flower. As the viewfinder looks pretty dark at f/32, especially through the set of extension rings, it was impossible to check DOF with a preview button. It was necessary to take a test shot in order to find out what the actual DOF was. But before it could be done, I had to figure out how stabilize the flower and set the lights. Backlighting was the only feasible option, because apparently it was no way of putting a light source inside the flower. Incidentally, backlighting happened to be the best option possible since light shining through the petals revealed their beautiful and intricate inner texture. I placed the flower in a tall and narrow glass cylinder and set two flashes on the opposite sides of the tulip. In order to make the light soft and even I bounced the flashes from white Visatec reflectors. Correct exposure was determined by taking an incident reading inside the flower. It took full power of the flashes to provide enough light for f/32 with two extension rings. Even though Carl Zeiss lenses are famous for withstanding glare, in this instance chances of getting it were probably no less than 100%. To prevent glare I made a six-inch extension for a lens hood by taping a piece of black seamless background to it.

Irakly Shanidze Bio

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