Thetford Forest

Part I

I have been looking for new forests recently that are close but different from the ones I have ben visiting regularly for the last couple fo years. My wife ad I took Mollie to Thetford forest and I amongst the plantation pines there are some more wild beech forests. So a couple of weeks ago Mollie and I got up early and we headed to an area near Two Mile Bottom. 

We trekked through pine forest and along forest roads and stumbled upon an area of beech forest with its clean vegetation-free floor littered with beech nuts. The leaves were still quite green on most trees as this has been a warm fall with no frosts. The grass on the walk up held heavy drops of due and my boots were soon soaked through. Wind whipped in gusts through the tree tops. Coming upon this beech forest next to a farmer's field we could see and hear the early potato harvesting activity. I setup the Intrepid with a 150mm lens. The sky was mostly cloudy so it was appropriate to use some chrome film (Fuji Astia in this case). While setting up and metering more potential in the scene was glimpsed as the sun rose and briefly shone sunbeams into the forest. 

Beech Forest Thetford (Fuji Astia 150mm f22 1 sec)

As it was this one the only occurrence, so I continued to compose, focus and meter the scene. It was dark enough that stopped down to f22 I was out to a 1 second shutter speed. The wind would now be significant. I would wait perhaps 15 or 20 minutes until I felt I had a long enough break and took the photo. 

Crop to show wind effects.

The wind really ruined the image but the image confirms to me it is worth coming back at a later date. Which I do in Part II. 

This was mostly an exploration and the conditions were not good for further work. I sat on a log and watched the dog gambol about the forest floor chasing scents. I drank my coffee and ate some porridge while Mollie ignored her bowl of food in preference for the excitement of a morning in the forest.  

Part II

 I returned to the same section of Thetford forest about a week later. The weather forecast said there would be less wind in indeed when I arrived at 7:30am there was almost none. A frost had settled on the grass and dead leaves with rising sun melting it off where it touched. Small patches of mist were scattered in the openings. Mollie and I walked directly to the beech grove again and set ourselves up there. I was in luck the sun was shining as I wanted from the right into the grove. I had a chance to get this right. 

Again I set up my 150mm lens and metered the scene with and Ev6 (ISO 100) in the deep shadows and Ev 13 on the brightest areas of the tree trunks where the sun struck them. This is probably too much to expect Astia slide film to handle as it is 7 stops and I can only expect about 5 stops. I expect the Astia version will have deep shadows. I placed the highlights (Ev 13) in zone VII and we shall see where the shadows land. 

Beech Grove in Fuji Astia

Here I held the highlights but lost lots of shadow detail. As suspected the scene was too much for slide film. I have a very contrasty image with little to redeem it. 

Next I shot HP5+ and I was able to get the results more immediately as I self-develop B&W film. In this case I placed the Ev 6 shadows in zone III as HP5+ should have more latitude. Something went wrong and I underexposed the image. The negative is pretty thin. The scan recovered well but I don't expect it to print well in the darkroom. I added some extra contrast in the upper right corner down to the center of the image. This compensates for the source of light in the image being stronger where it enters the scene. 

I did not use a GND filter because I expected the heavy canopy to block the sky light. I think the image would have benefitted from a GND however. I am learning that woodlands can use a GND where the sky is bright to equalize the light distribution from the canopy to the forest floor. My first attempts at printing many woodlands scenes switched my onto this as I hade to burn the upper half of the image to get the tonal ranges to make sense. I have considered a red or yellow filter on cloudless days to deemphasize the blue light from the sky on black and white images. 

Ilford HP 5+

 I then shot an Ektar version with the shadows Ev 6 in zone 5 which is pushing even more exposure over the HP5+ version. 

Beech Grove Kodak Ektar

Here we see a much better color image in terms of dynamic range. In my post-processing I did not intend to mimic the contrast and highlight and shadow details of the black and white. In fact they are a very close match that probably says more for my preferences than anything else. The lack of wind helps complete this. In retrospect I should have topped down to f32 to sharpen the mage a little more. 

The image has a broadly different mood than the Asia version at the top of the post when there was no direct sunlight (but lots of wind :)) 

We wandered around as I looked for other subjects and found a couple of different birches with orange leaves that I liked the color of. I shot the first one on Ektar. As there were beams of light on the leaves the dynamic range was likely to be too much for the Astia so I opted for Ektar. I used a 2 stop GND filter to knock down the highlights in the top of the image which happens because of the sky and a more open canopy. Checking the focus range it looked like I could use f22 as it was about 4mm. 

Beech 1 Kodak Ektar (150mm, f22, 2stop GND)

Overall the film excelled in keeping the shadows on the tree trunks and the highlights where the sun strikes the leaves.  The GND really helps blend what would have been a brighter top of image with the more muted light on the bottom. Looking closely, the focus was good across the image which is pleasing. I neglected to notice the tree trunk on the right edge which is distracting. I would need to crop this out in a final version. 

The second was a larger beech tree. I learned from this day I needed to pack more than 2 sheets of color negative film. The sun streaming through the canopy creates a wide dynamic range that slide film handles with difficulty. Being out of Ektar I was left with Velvia 50 and Astia and Ektachrome. I shot this tree with Velvia 50 and Astia. Fortunately clouds had covered the sun and the range tightened up allowing me to expose this scene better. I would lose some of the drama that was there with sunbeams. 

Beech 2 Fuji Astia (150mm, f22, 2 stop GND)

Beech 2 Fuji Velvia 50 (150mm, f22, 2 stop GND)

As expected the clouds helped keep the scene dynamic range down so I could hold it with both versions of slide film. As expected the Velvia gives slightly punchier colors and a hint more blue in the shadows. The composition is a mess as I failed to 'see' the patch of green leaves in the upper right corner. They are nearer and make for a distraction. They are also out of focus as are the line of leaves over the trunk below the large patch of leaves. I thought I figured these into my focus but I clearly needed to be stopped down more. I also set my main focus on the tree trunk and should perhaps have focused on the leaves in the front of the trunk letting DOF cover the trunk and other leaves just be 'ok' with some background softness.