Background.
Small world. The daughter of my college roommate from Utica, NY…
…happened to attend a college in a whole other state that is 20 minutes from my house.
Well, she graduates this year. So I offered my photography services. This is the film edition from that session.
The camera?
A relatively late analog acquisition but I heart it just the same. <inhales deeply> A high quality film medium format camera with accurate autofocus, accurate auto exposure, an impeccable lens, and a built in flash all in a compact body that is light in hand and can be thrown in a camera bag pocket suitable for a small zoom… What’s not to like?
Back to the graduation photo session. For the second location I was told that it was not far. But… this was young folk who are used to walking a college campus not far. Not closing in on retirement, drive nearly everywhere, only walking I do is in a climate controlled room in my house on a treadmill not far. My miscalculation. It went fine but followed up by another photo session the next day I am feeling it today. Thank goodness I had pared down my digital kit. I said something in my last post:
Honestly could have made do with the camera, 35-150mm lens, and the lighting rig.
But you know what? This is the first time I have used this camera entirely for portraits. And after looking at the images I can make a modified proclamation.
If I were so inclined to be an analog only photographer I honestly could have made do with just this camera.
Hang this camera around my neck, throw a few rolls of film in my pocket and I am off. No light stand needed. No bag o’ lenses needed. Maybe a back up battery but from what I have read I am many, many rolls of film away from running out of battery. And what of other costs? Well… Not having all of that support gear can buy a lot of film and film developer. But I am getting ahead of myself.
The film for the day was Ektar 100 film I received on trade, developed with Cinestill CS41. More on this film below.
Below I will share a few samples with some follow up thoughts.
Follow up thoughts.
…respectfully what the cuss word?
This was done at the end of the formal digital photo session in a few moments with one roll of film. I didn’t post all that came out but there was only one miss. And that was user error. I was not paying attention to the shutter speed and the setting was too far in the shadows for ISO 100 film. In short the image was blurry/out of focus. So, one pic out of 16 was lost. I am certain I deleted a higher percentage of digital images this same day.
A portion of this IQ goodness can be attributed to this film I am sure. It says right on the box that it is the lowest grain film available. Looking at the results above I do not argue that at all.
I must also give credit to the built in flash. I really like he aesthetic that the flash metering provided. I definitely want to try out the flash with black and white film now.
Before this I had considered doing film only portrait sessions but I always kept a digital crutch nearby. With this result I am one step closer to trying out the film only route.
But I believe the camera is the star of the show here. This is confirmed by a little metric I just realized. In short order this camera is close to catching up the Flickr album count of the precious. And I have owned the precious almost 10 years now. It will likely be gunning for the album count of my long time go to medium format film camera, the Pentax 645N. Not better. They are different animals. But it is definitely a feather in the GA645’s cap. How is that for a mangling of metaphors?
Welp. Enough of that for now. Onward.
This concludes the second and last post from this portrait session.
Happy capturing.
-ELW
Eric L. Woods 