Last night my girlfriend had her best friend over and there was much consumption of wine, girly haircutting, and photo taking. I decided I wanted to try out some lighting techniques that evening and set up an area in the living room for a photo shoot… which basically entailed pinning up a floral bed sheet.

I loaded the Hasselblad with Kodak Tri-X 320, a supposed “old school” type film. Is it? Well, judging from the results I can’t tell if the photos were taken in 2008 or 1968. It has a certain quality to it.

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The stuff

The big experiment. I decided to process my own negs which would allow me more flexibility and possibilities. I gathered a bunch of supplies at Pro Photo Connection in Irvine (I needed everything). Looked at a few youtubes and blogs of people developing and felt I was ready (after practicing reeling up 120 on a steel reel).

So today my girlfriend and I went to Orange, CA to eat at a Lebanese place. I took pictures along the way, all in all I spent maybe 45 min taking photos. I just wanted to get through a roll and process. I used Ilford FP4 because it’s easiest to expose correctly with with my camera.

So I got home and reeled things up in the bag, poured in the D76 and followed the steps. The result? I’m really happy. 1: because things actually turned out, and 2: I was delighted  with how my Hasselblad performed after disappointing results last week.

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I don’t get much photography experience outside the realm of Numismatics. Luckily there’s the internet. Meetup.com directed me to a group in OC that allows photographers to come together and shoot some young models. Both the models and the photographers get to gain a lot of experience from the event.

I took my new Hasselblad 500c/m but results won’t be forthcoming today… it’s Sunday and I can’t get them processed. BUT I did take a few shots on the digital camera, my Canon 40D.

Since all this occured this afternoon I haven’t spent much time on the images post-shoot. I did get rid of an occasinal blemish, and on the last shot I did haphazardly edit out some blurry onlookers in the background.

I still have a lot to learn when it comes to this, especially when it comes to directing the model.

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EDIT:I got back some results from the Hasselblad. So-so, and a little disappointing. The images below aren’t necessarily good, but at least they’re clear and sharp. There’s a learning curve to the camera I guess. I did not expect mirror-slap, at least that’s what I think it was. A certain doubling that occurred occasionally. The camera was difficult to focus as well, i got a lot of softness. That may be due to the quick nature of the shoot, the model would turn to various photographers at a quick rate… come to think of it the model may have started to turn their heads once they heard to mirror slap up but not for the exposure itself (which would explain some blurry heads).

However with some more experience with it it should produce some great stuff (with the aid of a strobe and using the mirror lock-up). This’ll be my artsy-fartsy camera.

I’m still struggling with the negative film though. Everyone says “Overexpose it! Overexpose it!” that may be well and good but I’m having a hell of a time scanning it (I used Fuji 160s and Portra 160vc.. try to guess which is which). Slides are no problem though. In this case it’s Provia.

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As I mentioned before, my trusty Yashica-Mat that introduced me to the amazing world of medium format was sick. At over $100 to repair (and that’s not including the new symptoms that have developed), I began to question whether I should get it done, or get a new one (say a 124g). But I wasn’t so sure I wanted a camera as unreliable lest it be prone to more repair (I know, I know, these cameras are old, but Yashica-Mat isn’t even still in business making them hard to service).

So I started looking at other Medium Format cameras. Hasselblad first came to mind, ever since I saw one in the local shop I was stunned by the awesomeness of the little machine. But they can be expensive… but the older models were tempting.

I looked at Mamiya (too heavy… I need portability), Rollieflex (couldn’t find a reasonably priced one), and a whole bunch of others on the net. None really appealed to me other than Hasselblad.

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On New Year’s Day my girlfriend and I went to Joshua Tree National Park deep in the Mojave Desert in California. I decided to shoot film for this excursion, and I brought along my grandfather’s old Minolta SRT with some Velvia 50, and my YashicaMat to see if it was operable.

I was very much pleased with the old SLR’s shots. I had shot film before on the camera, and looking back at them they’re all very much too underexposed. But I was careful this time, and metered the Velvia at iso 40 which yielded good results for the most part. I didn’t have nearly enough time in the desert though (not enough daylight) so none of these are what I would consider my best at all.

The Yashica-Mat was a lot more dissapointing however. The focus knob issue remained (which made focusing on the fly difficult) but everything I shot, save one (included below) was dreadfully overexposed. Granted I had to use the Sunny 16 rule for the meterless camera but that had come through for me quite well on previous occasionals (especially with Provia). But here everything was off big time… except the one shot I thought would be too UNDERexposed.

You may be asking yourself who the proud young man is in that one photo (my favorite of the bunch). Well he and his two other friends built that standing stone structure. It was obvious they worked hard to make the thing and I was there to catch the moment of glory upon completion.

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