Cameron Davidson

A little over a week ago, I flew down to Tucson, Arizona to attend a Mary Virginia Swanson workshop on finding your audience.  The workshop is oriented toward fine art photography and was quite amazing.  She is a gifted teacher and I was extremely happy I attended.  The workshop was full of professional shooters who knew what they were looking for and Swanee helped all of us along the path a wee bit.

Whenever I travel to a workshop or on an assignment, my goal is to always set aside time to explore the landscape if the schedule permits.

Tucson is known for its incredible light in the winter, plus there is a very fine helicopter pilot based there who I have flown with on several editorial and corporate assignments.  Aerials were definitely going to be a part of this trip.

I’ve been shooting a fair amount of medium format imagery the past year, mostly with my Alpa cameras and my trusty Leaf Aptus 75.  I decided to take the Alpa TC  with one lens: the excellent 47 mm Schneider XL along with the Aptus and my new Ken-Lab KS-4x4 gyroscope.  I wanted to see if I could shoot with the Alpa in the air and if the new gyroscope prevented roll in the frame.

I shot in Tucson on Sunday the 20th and Phoenix on the 21st.  Fantastic light in both cities - crisp, clean and specular. 

I learned quite a bit from the experience.  While the Linhof Multifinder is fantastic, there is a bit of a disconnect between what the camera reveals and the viewfinder shows.  Just a wee bit of parallax that I will lock down before my next shoot.  I am also hopeful that I can upgrade to the Credo 60 back which will give me a slightly wider angle of view with my Alpa lenses.

Ah the lenses!  So sharp, scary sharp, sharp corner to corner with very little light fall off that is easily corrected with the LCC tool in Capture One.