I was asked to take a group shot of everyone at work as a parting gift for one of our coworkers, who is leaving to join the Computer Science faculty at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and “pursue a career in teaching and bioinformatics research”. So, once again I borrowed Steve’s Mamiya 6 x 7 and most of his studio lights to get this shot – taken in the lobby of our office in Emeryville.

I chose 400 speed film because the wide angle lens is fairly slow (4.0) and I knew I would need to stop down to f8.0 or 11 to get enough depth of focus for the large group. I used two flashes with large soft-boxes. I took numerous test shots with my digital camera so that I’d get a good exposure. Unfortunately, the digital camera’s lens is no where near as wide as the lens on the 6 x 7, so I did not notice that the left side of the shot was somewhat underexposed. And now that I see the shot, I can not believe that I didn’t think to turn on the lights leading down the hallway on the left. Argh! No way to re-shoot this one!

The scan I made (on Steve’s scanner, of course) from this 6 x 7 negative was 265 megabytes in size – over 10,300 pixels wide.