Going Back in Time
Shooting film isn’t entirely new to me. I played around with it in my late teens but I don’t think I would have become a photographer without digital. I love the sheer endless possibilities of digital technology and the instant feedback. But since my old film SLR died, I miss the feeling of shooting a roll of film every now and then. Time to search for a replacement. I’ve never shot medium format (film) before, so I was thinking of looking in that way. Last week, my friend Serge was so kind to let me shoot 2 rolls of film on his Hasselblad and be my victim.
A question on Flickr, made a very kind fellow photographer (nice meeting you Bart) drive to my place and drop of some film for free. A roll of Kodak Porta 400VC was the most recent expired film, and became our first test film. I’m not a big fan of the saturated colors of this film, so I did some minor tweaking in Lightroom.
I managed to get a roll of Fuji Neopan 400 black and white film too.
I found it pretty challenging to work with the Hasselblad but I’m completely in love with the look and feel of that camera. The square format feels remarkably natural to use too. But the most important thing is that this camera challenges me to work harder on my composition, pose and light. When I started writing this blogpost I was still doubting if I would buy “Da Blad” but by now I think I’ve made my decision.
It has a totally different look than digital I must say. I’ll have to get a blad to shoot with soon. The clarity and so crisp… Great work!
looks like dslr pics with Ascough Silver Actions applied.
Guess that’s a huge cadeau to his action set.
Great feel!
Thx, it does taste like more
@michael: Never tried Jeff’s actions, so I couldn’t tell
[...] filmpjes vol te schieten. Model van dienst: yours truly! Het resultaat van deze mini-shoot vind je hier. Share this on FacebookTweet This!Add this to Google BookmarksSubscribe to the comments for this [...]
Bert, thanks for sharing these images. I would have scanned the typical Hasselblad frame as well.
I look like a pro-model, don’t I
The lab scanned it without the frame. They scanned them at a ridiculously low resolution (1500px) too. I guess I could have just as well used my old epson flatbed scanner.
And yes, you’re a star
I bought a blad a few years ago, partly because I wanted to practice loading the film as I had done a couple of assisting jobs with a photographer who used Hasselblads and didn’t want to have to be shown how to load the film every time and also because I was hoping he would let me use a digital back for it once in a while.
It is such a lovely machine to use, but I missed the immediacy of digital and it languished in my cupboard for a long while. I’ve only started to use it in earnest now that I have bought a polaroid back for it that takes Fuji instant film.
Hi Bert, cool pics. I started and finished my photo studies at the Royal Art Academy in The Hague back in the filmdays. Although I fully embraced digital, I sometimes look back on the days with a bit of pain in my heart. It all seemed a bit more of a craft back then with darkrooms and pro labs to finish your work, nowadays everybody seems to be a photographer but is totally unaware of the skills and craft that goes into it with all the fancy pants cams on the market…lets not deviate.- My workflow very much consisted of working medium format almost every shooting day back then. I own I complete Bronica SQ-Ai set and its just now painfully sitting on a shelf for the last 6 years. I still have some (expired) film and maybe I go shoot a few rolls now
.
Indeed the format works very different and for me it´s the best. I loved shooting with it, hope to buy a digi back for it one day. I am very pleased to see a marvelous digi shooter trying out MF and performing the same quality on film. THAT is where the man separate from boys
Cheers
@Paolo: I think film and digital can exist alongside each other
@Vincent: Damned, I always hoped to stay a boy
not in this, my dear
for the rest yeah boys forever
Great looking images there.
The images are very similar to a current ad campaign that Microsoft has out for their latest and greatest (Windows 7).
The ‘blad images have a different look to digital ….. can’t quite put my finger on it
It’s not the square format, but it’s almost a mid/wide angle with the compression of a zoom.
Dunno – but they look great
)
thx
Bert. Great photos with the blad. I’ve been thinking about trying one myself. I was wondering what lens you used with the for these shots. I really love the sharpness and feel of them.
The wider shots are with the 80mm and the closer ones with the 150mm.
I guess sharpness will be even better when scanned at a decent resolution. These were scanned at 1500 pixels.
I just LOVE the square format. You should try the Polaroid films. They start producing them again, starting from this summer.
The black and white is great too. It’s just a fantastic camera to create a lot of atmosphere with it.
Keep using it!
thx, I’m certainly going to try polaroid one day
[...] nieuwe hype van 2010? Een vraag die ik me de voorbije weken wel meer heb gesteld. Bert is aan mijn Hasselblad gehecht geraakt en ook bij Pieter en zijn Mamiya C3 en de andere Pieter met zijn Rolleiflex is de [...]