Shooting the Shoot {Soulwise}

As you may well know I love photography. All types. And while I say I'm a "natural light photographer" it is more of a "I-don't know-how-to-properly-use-flash-photographer" (that's just way too long and doesn't sound nearly as professional as the first option). Confiding as such to my photographer friend who works for this hotshot studio in Los Angeles, he offered to offer me help out in a shoot he was doing. It was a cover shot for the Soulwise magazine put out by the ever-magnificent Shmuel Marcus and Co..

And I learnt quite a bit. Mostly that studio equipment is ridiculously heavy. Shoots take time (a lot). And lighting is not that complicated (though lighting for constantly changing conditions like a wedding reception is a bit harder).

With me was my trusty Mamiya and a 45mm lens (and not so trusty light meter). All shot on HP5, processed at walmart and scanned on my Epson 700 (I got to figure out this dust issue). Oh, and for the record these are all the photos I took there. No masterpieces (that wasn't the point) but out of 9 shots, 9 were in focus and fairly well exposed (well...). I like that.

Most of the shots came out a bit underexposed, I don't think my meter (the built in one) likes bright lights. Lesson learned.

Who's who:

• Levi Tenenbaum - hotshot photographer
• Nechama Marcus - Design Genius (Creative Director of Soulwise)
• Menachem Krinsky - Can I use design genius twice? Also a typography freak
• Rabbi Hecht - Rabbi looking fellow (and author, talk show host, teacher...)
• Zalmy Berkowitz - Shlepper

Enjoy.

Hello Mamiya 645

In my last post I discussed my decision to sell my Hassy and pick up a new film camera. Mamiya 645 Pro is the name. Mamiya is a very respected name in the medium format camera world (recently they merged with Phase One to produce the most advanced and modular digital medium format system available). They've been around for quite a while and were for a while the most common name in the medium format camera world. 645 is the size of the negative. 6 cm x 4.5 cm, which is approximately 3 times the size of a 35mm negative. Mamiya also made a twin lens camera (6x6) and a 6x7 slr called a rb67 (later the rz67). The "rb" part stands for "rotating back" so you can just turn the back instead of the whole camera to switch from landscape to portrait or vice versa. The 67 was probably the most common studio camera, giving a huge 6x7 negative. The camera though was h u g e, so working in the field required either a bodybuilder or insanity. The 645 was (for many) the best combination of large negative and portability. Later on they also made a autofocus version and kept on updating it until its current incarnation as the Phase One DF. Mine is the Pro version. Has a metering prism (and even autoexposure!) and a power winder. Pretty nifty. Later on they also made two rangefinders, a Mamiya 6 (6x6) and Mamiya 7 (6x7). The Mamiya 7 is purported to have two of the best lens ever produced, the 80mm f/4 and the 43mm 4.5. Drool.

A while ago I wrote about my "normal" woes: Finding a fast high quality normal lens was causing ulcers of the mind. The Mamiya has a 80mm 1.9 which in 35mm terms is a 50mm 1.1875 and pretty sharp wide open. Yay!

The build quality leaves much to desire, reminding one of Canon's Rebel series. A lot of plastic, parts, screws. A huge step downwards in that department from the Hasselblad.

What I like:

• Very Fast Normal Lens!!!
• 1/1000 shutter speed
• Metering prism
• Well built lenses
• Very easy to focus (more on that later)
• Has a focal plane shutter, so will work with all of Hassy's F series lens (yummy) and a few others
• The 645 format (pretty much the same as a 8x10). First of all its much easier to compose than a traditional 4x6 especially in portrait mode. I almost never shoot in portrait mode with my D700 but I find myself doing it quite often with the Mamiya. Also for printing purposes it just makes more sense.

What's not so cool:

• Not all of the lens are top notch (the 35, 45 especially)
• only 1/1000 top shutter speed (the AF version and the Contax 645 both have a top shutter speed of 1/4000)
• No autofocus
• Build quality (the later AF and AFD versions are made much better it seems), pretty much on par with the Canon Rebel series.
• Flash sync is only 1/60 and slower (not that I see myself using flash with film anytime soon).

My hit rate has gone from 28% to 86%!! Yippee! For some reason even at 1.9 this baby is much easier to focus than both my Hassy and my Nikon D700.

Here are my first two rolls (the first was finished at an event so I didn't include that). Every single picture. The only one that's not a keeper is the last one, and that was due to my lens getting stuck (I thought it was sand, but I sent it in and they said it was an issue with the gears...), so I was focussing by moving the whole camera. Still having issues underexposing but i'm getting better. All are with 80mm, mostly at 1.9 with a few at 2.8.

The first roll is a generic B/W 100 roll developed @ Walmart and scanned by me. The second (Kodak Portra 160 NC) was developed and scanned by Richard Photo Lab in LA (I'm scared to scan color. See my lest post for why).

Not bad eh?

What say you?

Goodbye Hasselblad (sniff)

It is with a little regret and much fanfare that I bid adieu to my short lived stint with my Hasselblad. I've recently moved on to different pastures with my film life. We leave on good terms and hope to remain friends. For all I know I'll be picking up another in the future. But that future is not yet (futures are never yet).

What I'll miss:

• Lack of battery: Never need to worry about recharging, extras, leaks, age. And the weight.
• Speaking about weight, for a medium format rig that thing was quite light and compact
• Dunno what it is about those Western German/Swiss types but they sure know how to make things. The Hassy feels (and is) so well made. From the precise way the lens clicks into the mount (with a tiny fraction of a turn), to the smooth way the the waistlevel finder folds into the body, mmmm.
• Metal and leather, metal and leather, metal and leather. That's it.
• Square format. It's vintage, retro and modern. For indoors it absolutely rocks. And no worrying about which way to hold the camera.
• Image quality. Although my new rig comes pretty darn close, it's not the same.
• Once you lock in the EV (exposure value on the lens (the aperture/shutter speed combo) changing one automatically changes the other. Neat.

So, ask you my avid reader, why am I saying goodbye? Because (as you must have learned in preschool, unless you're a poor homeschooled child (that's an inside joke, though I'm not sure how inside)) that's what you do when you take leave of someone or something. And why am I taking leave? Ahhh now you're asking all the right questions.

Why I'm saying goodbye:

• Too hard to focus. I've tried both the waistlevel and the prism and A. it takes too long and B. I couldn't even tell after taking all that time if my image was in focus or not. My hit rate was an abysmal 28%. And when you are paying for film, developing and sometimes scanning, that turns out to be quite a hit in the wallet (and depending on where your wallet is that might hurt quite a bit). And while I could of gotten a new ground glass, I just didn't feel it would do the trick.
• As much as Iove the old-schoolness of it, there are times when I'd like to have a meter in my camera.
• Price. Holy Schmoly those Hassy's command a price. Every back, hood, prism, cap, strap cost a finger or two. And while the lenses rock, compared to other medium formats they aren't that much (if at all) better (though you wouldn't know that from the cost).
• Lens speed. The lens just aren't that fast. Since each lens has a shutter in it it would be too complicated (and therefore expensive) to create a fast lens (larger shutter etc.). And while there is an F series (the "f" stand for focal plane shutter, where the shutter is in the camera, not the lens), with much faster lens (50 2.8, 110 f/2 (yummy), a 150 2.8 and a remarkably expensive 300 2.8), they aren't supported anymore and are hard to repair (though I might pick one up eventually anyways).
• Shutter speed. The max shutter speed is 1/500. Not much leeway if you're going with a 400 film. (Again the F series goes to 1/2000).

What now? Stay tuned (next post).

I spent the last week scanning in a bunch of film. Many out of focus (see above) and most were underexposed. Why? Because I tend to underexpose. That's why I wanted film in the first place to start nailing my exposures. And when I see that exposure after exposure is off, it makes me get my act together and start paying attention.

Here are a bunch of the semi-decent exposures (and some indecent ones) from my now-on-craigslist Hasselblad 500 C/M. Most of them were with generic B&W film (100 or 400), some with slide and other with color negative. Boy are those color negatives hard to scan! (hence all the color issue at the end)

Enjoy.

It's Scanning Day (not the more common scamming day)

Hope y'all are having an easy fast. Figured there ain't no better way to spend a fast day than firin' up the ole scanner and digitizin' all them film and stuff.

Hope to be postin' a bunch of ma film stuff to this blogeeo one of dem days. For now we is gonna have to suffice with this doozie.

That was ma first exposure from ma new picture takin' device. I'll be keepin' y'all updated in the comin days.

Fast days oodle my mind and play with ma thiknkin (an spellin').

f/8 and be there (up north and black again)

When I first got a dslr (Canon Rebel) and picked up my first decent lens (50mm 1.8) I was blown away. The sharpness combined with the narrow depth of field offered me opportunities I never knew existed. It also started an obsession with fast lens that is still biting me in me left back pocket. An unfortunate side effect was that I was relying on my lens to give my photos interest and to separate them from the pack. Almost any face shot with an 85mm 1.4 will look awesome.

To cure (to an extent) my reliance on my equipment to creat interest I picked up an el cheapo 25-50mm manual focus f/4 lens that isn't really tack sharp until f/8. And I started working on my compostion. And I'm glad to say it's helping quite a bit.

Here are (as usual too many) some photographs I made on my last trip up North (here's part 1, 2 and http://zalmyb.com/?p=414). Most were shot at f/8 or higher unless it was too dark. All were shot with old (and therefore cheap) manual focus lens.

On the way up I stopped off in San Francisco and picked up a few more lens. One of the seller was kind enough to drive me around Marin County for a few hours. We chatted a bit (he has quite the assortment of manual focus lens) and shot a bit more.

Thanks for looking.

Reading Stories & Telling Stories

I posted a while back how pictures do not have to live on their own. Joined together they create storylines, plots, and tales. As a photographer (or as someone who just takes pictures), telling a story should be the point. Wether (how do you spell that, my mind is drawing a blank. On my dictionary its telling me its spelled right but means a "castrated ram". ) its the story of children making cookies or a child reading a book, when you are photographing the scene have in mind what you want to be part of the story.

Zevi was reading some books to himself (it's quite funny how he does so), and I wanted to capture it in a series. I tried to make each photo tell a different aspect, and to that each one should add something to the mix.

It took a lot of whittling down (with some help from some kindly folks on the forums), and here is the end result.

I'd really like to do this sort of thing for clients. Just tag along on an excursion (or even at their house) and just tell the story of their everyday, mundane (yet delightful) world.

On another note these Beautrix Potter books are wonderful. The language it uses is just magnificent.

"...and 'ticed him to eat quantities"

"No breadth at all, and cut on the cross; it is no breadth at all; tippets for mice and ribbons for mobs! for mice!"

Ah, the good old days.