Well worth the effort even though it looks effortless to the observer.
I thought it would be interesting to write down the process I had to go through to get the shot.
1. Set camera/lens up - spend 10-15 minutes getting the optimum camera position.
2. Compose the shot on the ground glass. Check focus.
3. Realise that not all of the roses were sharp, and knowing that DOF is a real problem with 5x4 only more so when working close, apply a little swing (and IIRC some front tilt) to get the plane of focus where I wanted it
4. Remember to a) stop the lens down and close the shutter.
5. Fit the filter holder/filter (after having made a decision on which filter to use: red to lighten the red tones and darken the greens or green/yellow-green to do the other way. I opted for the red filter option).
6. Measure the exposure. I took an incident reading - 1/2sec at f22. I didn't use a spot meter as I knew the subject-brightness range would be quite narrow.
7. Measure the lens extension then calculate the increase in exposure needed.
8. Multiply the base exposure by the lens extension factor, then by the filter factor, which gave me an exposure of 2.5s at f22.
9. Load the film holder into the camera, remove the darkslide and make an exposure
10. Replace the darkslide, remembering to turn it around so the 'black' side is outermost to show the sheet of film has been exposed.
11. Reverse the film holder, remove the darkslide, make a second exposure of 5s at f22 (this time, I'm allowing for the reciprocity failure of the film).
Go through the same process using a 150mm lens rather than the 90mm lens.
Then warm up the darkroom...
12. do a quick clip test on my film fix, which, thankfully, was OK
13. make up some Perceptol
14. Load the film sheets into the developing tank. This is a character-building exercise when you haven't done it for over a year...
15. Get the chemicals up to temperature (24 degrees C)
16. Develop, stop, fix, wash
17. Make a chicken and mushroom risotto while the films were drying (Yum!)
18. Eat risotto and check films.
19. Scan the best films and make a print. There was about 1 hour of PP to get the image above.
20. Drink gin and tonic while doing PP
21. make print
22. post image on TP and relax!
It certainly gets the little grey cells working. Great fun, but not for the faint of heart!
