Not that long ago I tried slide film for the first time. Specifically Fujifilm Provia 100F in 35mm strength. And wow. Everything I heard and saw was true. Beautiful colors and amazing detail.
Wilson then showed me a roll he shot on his Pentax 645. To which I internally responded, “Yes, more of that, please. And thank you.” So a roll of 120 film it is. What to use? First up slide film has only a few downsides:
Done buying digital lenses. Well at a minimum I have everything I need covered. Never done. Thought I was done buying Hasselblad lenses. Those I did not have that I wanted were out of my budget range. Had a normal and a tele. Wide Hasselblad lenses are usually eye-watering-ly expensive. Made my peace with this. Minding my own business. Then Professor Lonnie Graham (check out his book here), who I interviewed for my first KEH blog post, sends me this:
And yes. Yes, I was. So the lens found me. I am powerless to fend off such an offer so the deal was made. Continue reading A Legend Purchased From A Legend: Hasselblad Distagon 50mm f/4
I have dabbled with a few medium format film cameras in recent years. Wonderful devices, but practical is not a word that jumps to mind. They kind of make no sense admittedly. If you want to use film 35mm cameras should do the job. Plenty of sharp lenses on 35mm. Plenty of great 35mm cameras. Nikon F-something, Leica M-anything, Contax G or T then number and on and on. But if you are looking for those things many like in pictures without even knowing why, like DOF, focus fall off and detail, it is hard to beat medium format film. Why not digital medium format? Go check out the prices of even years old, used medium format digital cameras at the big sites and come back. Start out with the son of Pentax 645N, the 645D, not even the more recent 645Z. I’ll wait…
You back? I know, right? Ok. As I was saying medium format film cameras.
Continue reading This Old Camera: Pentax 645N. A Practical Impractical Camera
So why a TLR? They look cool.
Started with my wanting to get my mitts on a Rolleiflex TLR. At first an f/2.8… Wait, how much? Ok, an f/3.5 then. That settles it. Wait, a Yashica f/3.5 for what now? So why an LM with an old tech selenium meter
instead of the 124G (great review here) and it’s battery powered meter? Continue reading This Old Camera: The Yashica Mat LM
For my second KEH blog contribution a part 1 of 2 comparing 4 medium format cameras.
Link below:
http://blog.keh.com/2017/04/25/comparison-of-varying-mediums-part-1/
Gallery after the jump.
Going back and scanning old film negatives. This roll is from a Hasselblad 501c.
Update: Received my first roll of film back and editing to reflect my experiences on the 2nd day of shooting.
I blame the internets. After a visit to keh.com and a quick view of shots with it on flickr all went blurry and this arrived a couple of days later.
Day 1: The first roll (all 8 exposures of it) is being developed at Southeastern Camera, Carrboro. Sample shots and full This Old Camera post coming soon. May not be able to tell by this shot, but this bad boy earns it’s Texas Leica nickname.
Having just received my first lens for this camera today so not one roll of film developed I may be putting the cart before the horse, but I am so impressed with this camera already I figured I would proceed…
For family reasons I wanted to obtain 3 medium format cameras. It relates to kids and is kind of mushy so I will leave that there. Having had one medium format film camera fall in my lap and another call to me from beneath a glass enclosure at the local camera shop the only question was “What to get?”. While I like to claim brand ambivalence…
it is hard to ignore the fact that I have Pentax leanings.
Continue reading This Old Camera: Medium Format Corner – Pentax 645
