Llanelly Wheat Silos

[Mick Fagan]

Shen Hao HZX45-IIA
Ilford FP4+
Fujinon 65mm f/5.6
Centre Graduated Filter 1/4 sec at f/16
4mm front rise

[Maris]

What a sculptural composition! And the light tones of the silos are repeated in the whispy clouds of a very nice sky.

Mick, I think I see a famous distortion achievable only with an ultra-wide lens like your 65mm. A circle imaged in the centre of the frame is rendered round but placed toward the edge of the frame becomes oval. The right hand silo is round (I checked with Google Earth) but it looks laterally stretched because it is off centre.
The centre grad filter works perfectly to keep all the tones even and unified. Sweet!

[Mick Fagan]

Maris, I agree with you entirely about the distortion in the right silo, it was a bit unavoidable. The trade-off, is that I managed to get the image I had in my mind when I first saw the silos.

Attached are two mobile phone pictures, the first shows the overall relationship between the silos and the other buildings that are often associated with wheat silos in Australia. This was taken as we walked towards the silos, I thought I wouldn't be able to isolate the silos at this point, we then walked to directly face the silos and I knew eliminating the background and buildings was possible; but I would have to be off centre to do so.

The second picture taken behind the camera, shows that with exact positioning, it was just possible to isolate the silos from the other buildings. I tried a 90mm lens, but I was basically standing in the trees and I couldn't eliminate enough limbs to get an image I was happy with.

So 65mm it was and as time was tight, because the shadow from the left silo onto the centre was fast disappearing, I kept the standard bellows on, and managed to scrunch 4mm of front rise. Which from experience I know is about the limit of coverage possible with this lens.

The first overall phone picture was taken at 11:30hrs, I then walked through the bush to our camp, grabbed the camera and hurriedly set things up. The second picture with the camera in the foreground, was taken at 11:54hrs; I exposed the film at 11:52hrs.

By the time I had packed up, there were no more shadows on the centre section and the structure was comparatively flat. We were camped quite close to the railway line; we heard a freight train around 03:00hrs each night. This was our fourth and last day, and the only day with good weather at the right time for shadows.