Grand Tetons and Yellowstone Trip, September 2002

Grand Tetons and Yellowstone

For the longest time I promised myself that when I had time, a fast computer, and a place to host photos, I would go back and scan all the pictures I have on slide film into digital format for display. Part of it is that in this digital age, no one seems to have time to show up for a slide show any more. The other part of it is that I like to have images up for instructional purposes as well, and some of those pictures I had back in the old days were especially good. Slide photography is the most demanding form of photography there is --- unlike with color negative or digital photography, there's no possibility of rescue from a bad picture --- you can't even crop! Everything has to be done before the shutter is pushed. In addition, the very best slide films were slow (Fuji Velvia is ISO 50, Kodak Kodachrome is ISO 25).

Now that I have a little bit of time and a fast computer, I'll start with my Grand Tetons/Yellowstone Fall 2002 collection. That was one of those photo-trips where everything came together --- the light, the weather, and my gear all operated in peak condition, and I was very pleased with the results. The camera gear was an Olympus Stylus Epic 35mm point and shoot, and I had both my Canon bodies with me: EOS-3 and Elan IIe, as well as my entire collection of lenses and filters. I did suffer a mishap though --- as a cheap-skate I was always camping whenever I could, and after a stint in the hot springs with the tripod, the next morning I'd found my tripod legs frozen solid! I had to sit in the car with the heater full on and aimed at the tripod legs to get them to unfreeze so I could use them! All in all, I shot about 30 rolls of film for a 2 week trip, of which 7 days were spent in the back country without the serious equipment.

Scanning was performed on a Canoscan 4000US slide/negative scanner. It works like a champ, but of course, even the comparatively cheap Canoscan 8800F nowadays will be fast and probably just as good. I had to buy Vuescan because Canon does not provide a 64-bit Vista driver for that old scanner, but even if they had, neither Lightroom nor Photoshop support TWAIN scanners any more anyway! It sucks to be obsolete. Fortunately, Vuescan is very good and well worth the $40 --- the scans are so clean that I only have to crop them and post.

In any case, click through on the link, click "slideshow", and enjoy the show!