Funny you should mention the slot canyons, since I just got back from Upper
Antelope Canyon this week. Wow, there must be a European travel guide that
highly rates this canyon. I figured that on a weekday, there would be very
few people there, but to my surprise there was a constant 30-40 people in
the canyon the whole time I was there, mostly German and French. While
everyone tries to be cooperative, it remains the fact that many shots are
ruined when someone walks into your exposure field. I found that
11:30am-1:00pm MST was the best time in terms of light. If there is no
wind, the famous "rays of light" are less than spectacular since sand
falling from the top of the canyon is what really makes the rays stand out.
Wind, however, makes for a lot of sand falling on your camera during the
stay!!
I took my OM4t and my Pentax 67 and am glad I did. Manfrotto makes a #3269
long plate attachment which is 11 inches long and allows easy attachment of
an Om4t and a medium format camera to one tripod. I used one lens on my
OM4t(35-70) and merely adjusted the zoom to fit the lens I was using on my
Pentax. I spot metered a medium area of the canyon, adjusted both cameras
to the same f-stop, fired the empty OM and then immediately opened the
Pentax as a time exposure. I closed the Pentax when the OM closed its
shutter. It is very difficult to focus in the canyon at times because of
low light. Also, I find that there are often rock ledges so near the camera
that one needs marked depth of field to keep from getting a blurred
foreground in the final image. This dictates VERY long exposures, often
30-45 sec. in my case at f11-16
I feel badly using my beloved OM4t as a mere meter, but it performs very
well in this role. I find that slot canyon shots often lend themselves well
to large blowups, so I am very happy with my large 6x7 transparencies. I
used Velvia exclusively. My wife used Provia one year and I found her shots
lacked the beautiful punch of color afforded by Velvia. She, however, had
fewer wasted shots from people walking into her field since she had shorter
exposure times. I often wonder about using Velvia and pushing it to ISO 80.
Hope this is helpful. Have fun.
Ron Crabtree
Santa Fe, NM
-----Original Message-----
From: WKato@xxxxxxx <WKato@xxxxxxx>
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thursday, May 13, 1999 12:44 AM
Subject: [OM] Slot canyon help and low light spot metering
>The last time I wrote on the above subject I was thinking about taking my
>Pentax 645 but have had second thoughts and decided to take two OM bodies
>because I want to take some black and white as well. I think I will take
the
>OM4T and OM2s.
>
>I wonder if I could trouble the group for some advice on the low light
>metering capabilities of the OM4Ti. What is the longest automatic exposure
I
>can make with a spot meter on the OM4Ti?
>
>Also with manual metering on the OM4T and OM2s, what is the lowest exposure
>(EV setting) I can make within the metering range. Shipman mentions that
the
>OM1 has an EV value of EV 2 at ASA 100 @f/1.4 which means I can count down
>and make an equivalent exposure of 2 minutes at f/22. My version (1985)
>doesn't list the exposure measuring range for the OM2s and OM4T and I can't
>find it in the Hawkins FAQ.
>
>Keeping in mind also the latest Pop. Photo results on exposures between 1/8
>and 1/30 second and mirror shake, I will make use of mirror prefire
whenever
>possible.
>
>Warren Kato
>
>
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