Lincoln Center at 3200 ISO on Hasselblad

I took my old Hasselblad to the theater this weekend. Or more specifically, to see the Paul Taylor Dance Company at Lincoln Center. Even got to go back stage after to hang with my friends. Everyone who complains about the amount of noise at 3200 iso on modern digital SLRs needs to go shoot some film. Yikes.

Seth – Fuji Instant #1

I’ve got one pack of fuji instant film for my Hasselblad. I’m going to shoot a frame a day and post them for 10 days.
First one a little overexposed, but a start. Trying to get used to it’s exposure characteristics again.

Day 50: Eleanor

So I decided to shoot film today. In fact I asked for a victim, um I meant subject, to come over and submit to getting all Avedon with me. Ilford XP2 Super for those interested, because I wanted to shoot B/W and get it processed before the end of the day in my neighborhood. And dammit if the results aren’t really pretty. Argh, damn film. It’s like the hot ex-girlfriend who lives in another state so you know it’ll never work out, but you crave her anyway. Anyway, need to do a bit more of this. I also think a big part of it might be that pretty Zeiss glass and their T* coating. Damn those Germans and their excellent technology.  Click to enlarge.

Japan book.

If anyone is interested, I’ve published a book of 36 of my images from Japan.
It’s available 12×12″ Hardcover for $85.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/761253

Japan Scans – set #3

One last small set of scans from Japan.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/billwadman//sets/72157616809298067

I’ve got one more roll to get developed next week, but I’m done with everything I’ve got right now.

Now I’ve got to cull the 122 that I scanned down to 25 or so for a show at the Red Horse Cafe in June.  <sigh>

Japan Scans – set #2

Here’s set 2 of my photos from Japan.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/billwadman/sets/72157616477543783/

Japan scans – thumbnail

I’m still working on scanning all of the film from my trip.  It’s massively time consuming. 
But in the meantime, I thought it would be interesting to make a little collage of all of the thumbnails.  So here’s 2 weeks of photos in 710 pixels.  Click here for a bigger one.

Japan Scans – set #1

Ok, here’s my first set of 50 images from my recent trip to Japan.  Due to the number I’ve decided to host them on my flickr account that I never really use. So feel free to comment here or there.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/billwadman/sets/72157616408174078/

Scanning film is a giant pain in the ass and very time consuming.  I spent all day yesterday and got through 9 of 24 rolls of film, so there is a lot still to process.  More to come in the coming days.

They are in no chronological order, just the first 9 rolls I put in sheets, and really more about fun and interesting things I saw than the normal portraits I do.

Let me know what you think.

Photography in Japan

So I’m back from Japan, now have a few hours of sleep toward the ultimate goal of not waking up in the middle of the night anymore, and would like to share a few thoughts on taking pictures while on a trip to Japan.

As you know I went with only a film camera, an old Hasselblad 500cm.  Today’s job is to start culling through all the pictures and scanning and whatnnot, but I can already make some conclusions:  
– The Hasselblad takes really pretty pictures.
– Film and processing are getting more and more expensive.
– Slide film sucks on contrasty scenes.
– and finally, if I had it to do over again, I would shoot digital. Probably the 5DII with the 24-105IS zoom and an additional wide fast prime for night stuff.

It was really fun shooting film and certainly changes the experience of taking pictures. And even though with digital there isn’t that “this piece of film was there at the location where the picture was taken” kind of like an ‘moment time capsule’.  In the end the cost of film, I probably spent almost $400 on film and processing,  as well as the inability for me to change films quickly, led to some frustration.   And yes I know I could have had multiple film backs with different films, etc, I didn’t want to deal with that kind of complexity.  Plus at over $1 a shot with medium format film, I was more hesitant to take more fun and silly pictures that might not work.  Digital would have let me be a bit more experimental.

All of that said, for those photographers planning a trip to Japan, here are a few pointers.  You really can find film over there.  120 is no problem, I even saw 11×14″ sheet film.  I should have brought some home for Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.  The big camera stores like Bic Camera and Yodobashi have large film selections which are just out against the wall for you to peruse, and even little camera places in tourist sections of town carried a more impressive range than most pro shops here in New York.  I’ll agree with the person who suggested Provia 400.  It’s beautiful, though a little too expensive for me at $8 a roll.  Yikes.

As far as processing goes, I didn’t do any until I was back in Tokyo the second week. I brought most of it to a place called Kimura Camera  on suggestion of an old post on photo.net.  I was in Shinjuku, so it was the closest place that wasn’t some huge mega store.  However they sent it out and it took a few days, though it was done faster than they promised.  Quality seemed good and the people there was super nice.  Like if they were that nice in America, they would be being sarcastic. This place also had cases of old cool stuff to oogle, some of it at reasonable prices. 

However when I picked up my last batch from them, I had a half dozen or so more rolls and not enough time to do it their way so I asked if he had any faster suggestions and he pointed me to Horiuchi Color, which is the kind of place I was looking for all along.  Pro lab, overnight turn around, better prices than people who have to send it out. Their work was great, and they only took cash (which I found interesting) but the one guy in there didn’t like me at all.  I was trying to be polite to the girl who was helping me, and maybe he was dating her and felt threatened or something, because he was cold.  A drastic 180 degree difference from everyone else we me there.

Oh and as far as film suggestions.  I think sticking with negative film over slides is a good idea. The dynamic range of chromes is a little too narrow for many settings.  If I were starting over on the trip, I’d grab a couple boxes of Portra 400VC and then a few rolls of 160 and 800 for certain settings.  

Ok, time to get to scanning and such. If anyone has any specific questions, let me know.

Japan gear

So, I’m heading for Japan on Saturday, and I figured I’d talk a bit about what I’m packing.  Photo-wise of course, I’m sure you aren’t interested in how many pairs of socks I’m bringing.

Well, this is it. One camera and it’s film.  I decided on my old Hasselblad 500cm just to make things interesting and slow me down a bit. When it’s all folded up, it’s surprising how compact they are for a medium format camera.  It’s from about 1973, and I bought it from KEH a few years ago with an 80mm lens for around $800, bargain grade and it works great.  I did replace the focusing screen with a acu-matte that I found online used.  It had a couple small scratches on it, but it cost $30 instead of the usual $120 for ones without a scratch. I think I can handle the damage.  I’ve also added an op/tech strap like I use on my Canon as well.  They’re comfortable and I like the way they just click disconnect when they get in your way.

Next is a meter, since the 500cm doesn’t have one. So I’m carrying my Sekonic 308. It’s not fancy like some of my friends have, but it does the job for what I need it for, which is mostly purposes like this and when I’m shooting film with a strobe. Actually in this case I wish I had a smaller one like the 208.  Some little old school analog one that took up a little less space, but at the moment I’d rather not spend another $100 for a marginal size decrease.  One thing I like about the lens I’ve got is that the aperture and shutter speed are linked and related based on EV which is a measure of the amount of light there is available.  So your meter reads 12EV, you left the lever and set your lens to 12 and then all of the correct combinations of aperture and shutter are available at a twist.  So maybe f/2.8 at 250th, f/4 at 125th, and f/5.6 at 60th are all options for 12EV.  Well the lens is locked to 12, so just select the combination you want. Makes it really easy, especially when your traveling and your head gets fuzzy.

And since it’s a film camera, I’ll be bringing film.  It’s all in a plastic bag so that I can ask TSA security to hand check it and not have it go through the machine.  Apparently they have to if you ask nicely and make it easy for them.  I always bring a roll or two of Ilford 3200, both because it’s handy when there’s no light, and also because it’s really fast, so you can say, “Well, there’s high-speed film in there, so it absolutely can’t go through the machine.  I plan on getting the film processed there when I can, just so I don’t have to deal with security on the way back, and I’ve heard that I can buy film there, but I’m more of a Kodak guy than Fuji, so I thought I’d bring some just in case.  So in the bag I’ve got:

Kodak E100G Chrome
I love this stuff, something about the subdued colors it’s got.  Shot some in Paris a few years ago and they were my favorite pictures. Plus looking at travel positives on a light table is so satisfying as well as making scanning easier. Some of the more observant of you might notice that there are a couple rolls of Provia in there as well, but I’ve replaced them with more E100G since I took this photo an hour ago.  I figure I prefer the Kodak, and I’m sure I can get Fuji over there.

Kodak Portra 400VC
I usually get NC, but they didn’t have any in stock so I figured I’d try the more saturated stuff.  My girlfriend Holly at Calumet assured me that it wasn’t too garish, I’ll find out for myself. Went with 400 for times when 100 chromes are just too slow.  I also threw in a roll of Portra 800 just in case.

Ilford 3200 B/W
This stuff is really fast, really contrasty, and pretty grainy, but fun for dusk and nighttime in the city.  I imagine it could be magical in Tokyo.  We’ll see.

My goal is to shoot about 1 roll a day, which would leave me with about 200 photos over the two weeks.  That’s a lot of scanning, and processing fees, but when’s the next time I’m going to be in Nara?  Exactly.