More film camera issues

When I decide to do something, I usually just go all in.  I know I should probably take my time and work up to things, but it's just not what I do.

Take, for example, my recent acquisition of a WWII era Speed Graphic.  Photo here:

Now, I already have the Graphic View camera, so why did I need this?  Well, of course, I didn't.  But I wanted to do a project and this camera was necessary.

Historically, this is a cool camera.  It weighs a ton and I don't really know how the journalist photographers back in the day could lug this thing around and actually get photos of any action.  It's not conducive.  But that's what they did and most every photo in a newspaper or magazine from the early 1900s until just after WWII would have been taken with a camera like this.  I like this history.

But, my real purpose was to use an old lens that I've been carrying around since 1980.  In my grad school days in an optics lab, I rescued an old war surplus Kodak Aero Ektar aerial photography lens that we had bought for cannibalization purposes.  The optics were great, and I could not bring myself to see the thing go in the dumpster, so I saved it.  I always wanted to use it to make a large format camera, but never knew how to start.

Recently I realized there are other strange photographers like me who also have AE lenses, and they found a way to retrofit them into the Speed Graphic cameras.  See, the SG camera has a focal plane shutter in addition to the normal leaf shutter in the front lens, so an AE retrofit without a leaf shutter will still work.

Great, you say.  So what?  Why go to all the trouble?

And the answer is:  Portraits.

The AE lens on the SG body gives you a 7-inch focal length with f/2.5 speed onto a 4 x 5 inch negative.  That means very small depth of field, perfect for portraits.  Plus, the positional adjustments available with the rails on the SG camera allow some funky control over perspective and focus area.  Look at this photo, for example courtesy of (https://www.facebook.com/macieklesniakfotografia?fref=photo):

By playing around with the positioning of the lens board with respect to the film plane, you can control what areas of the image are in focus and which are not.  Here's another more extreme example courtesy of (https://www.facebook.com/kornel.kabaja.portrety/photos/a.617290181622240.1073741828.617195194965072/1093089077375679/?type=1&theater)

OK, so maybe you don't care about this stuff, but I think it's cool and I wanted to play around with it some.  So, I take my 50 year-old lens and my 70 year old camera body and make some interesting photos.  That's the definition of a hobby, to me.

Going back to film

I really like my digital cameras.  Really.  Like. Them.

And when I have to shoot something important, I'm very happy to have the instant review features, as well as the latitude of adjustments available when shooting raw.

But, well, it can get sort of boring sometimes.

See, the affordability of high quality digital cameras has created a proliferation of wanna-be photographers that I find incredibly annoying.  In the old days, photography was an actual skill that combined both understanding of light, imaging and chemistry, as well as a trained artistic eye.  Now, anybody with $1000 can actually make images with high technical quality.  Of course, they mostly don't have the creative eye, but it's surprising how many clients can't tell the difference.

Well, I don't try to make money at this so I don't care about the faux-tographers unless they get in my way.  But I do like to find ways to set my work apart from theirs, as haughty as that sounds.  Sorry.

So, recently I decided to take up film photography again, as a hobby-art thing.  So I'll post some stuff here about that in case anybody wants to get into it.

First, I had to gear up.  I still have my old film cameras (Nikkormat, Nikon 2000, Yashica Mat 124G) and I got fresh batteries to make them work again.  But I was intrigued by the availability of some classic film cameras that were beyond my reach when they (and I) were 30 years younger.  So I bought a 1956 Leica M3 and a Mamiya RB67 Pro SD.  Then I picked up a Graflex Graphic View II camera and finally a Graflex Speed Graphic.

Don't ask.

Here are a couple of photos of the gear:

First, the Leica -

The View Camera-

And finally the RB67-

Now, a few of my initial photos.  Nothing special, just playing around.

Here's an instant film shot from the RB on Fuji instant film.  Scanned on an Epson V700 and cleaned up in Photoshop to remove dust, etc.

That actually came out a lot better than I expected, although the instant film is very soft and had to be sharpened up in PS.

Here are a couple of shots taken with the Leica and the Nikon on old, expired film.

I was also pleased with these, but I had to clean them up some to remove excessive grain that resulted from the film being expired about 15 years ago.

I should pause here to talk about exposure.  The Leica and RB67 do not have built-in light meters, and frankly, I am a bit rusty using the old fashioned hand-held meters.  So I used a combination of a separate digital camera, an old Seiko light meter that seems not to be working very well any more, and a light meter app on my phone.  And guesswork.  After playing around with a lot of bad exposures, I realized that I just need to shoot more so that I get my intuition back.  Turns out the sunny 16 rule plus experience is pretty much all you need in most situations.  But I did pick up a newer, modern light meter from a friend to help me out.

Here are a few more shots I took just to finish off this entry.  More fun and details next time.