St Clair Photography Blog | New Zealand Wedding and Portrait Photographer » 220 film back

Portrait Session | Maasa Asano | V

admin — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:13:15 +0000

Wow, and the shots keep coming. I should probably end this series soon so this will be the second to last post. Another portrait session is coming up in a couple of weeks so look out for that towards the end of the month, in the meantime I’ll post up some more personal work. Hasselblad 500 CM, Zeiss Planar T* 80mm f/2.8, Fuji Pro 400H film.

Portrait Session | Maasa Asano | IV

admin — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 11:50:19 +0000

Another location from the same portrait session with Maasa Asano. I can’t get over how a lot of these came out and they far exceeded Maasa’s expectations, and even my own. I got an “OMGGGGGG” response when she first saw the scans. I love the fact that I didn’t have to spend much time at all working on these when the scans came back. What you see here is almost exactly what the film recorded with no manipulation of any kind, a few blemishes taken out, a sharpen and that’s it. Awesome! I also love the natural look that I can create by shooting film, and it seems that clients appreciate that too. The amount of keepers from a session has also gone up so much since I’ve been shooting film, every shoot counts and my keeper rate is about 95%. I basically edit out the ‘blinkers’ and that’s it, please don’t ever stop making film Fuji! Hasselblad 500 CM, Zeiss Planar T* 80mm f/2.8, Fuji Pro 400H film.

Portrait Session | Maasa Asano | III

admin — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:53:22 +0000

So here is the third installment from this portrait session. These were all taken with my recently purchased Hasselblad 500 CM. I was super happy when I got the scans back and saw that everything was fine with the camera. Some of the photos are almost too sharp… I will post more photos later in the week, there are so many I’ll have to post them up quicker as the next portrait session is just around the corner! Hasselblad 500 CM, Zeiss Planar T* 80mm f/2.8, 220 film back, Fuji Pro 400H film.

Hasselblad 500 CM

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 05:24:38 +0000

So, a couple of weeks ago I finally got my own Hasselblad. I ended up getting a Hasselblad 500 CM in black, Zeiss 80mm Planar T* f/2.8, 120 and 220 film backs, and polaroid 100 back. So far it has been a lot of fun using it, and a lot different to the medium format Contax 645 I have. I will be getting the first rolls of film back tonight taken with the Hasselblad. I never use any of my cameras with tripods, everything is hand held so I have free movement when I work.

Compared to the Contax the Hasselblad’s construction is of a lot higher standard and made in Sweden. The body is all metal and the smaller dimensions make it a bit lighter to use also. Most of the body is covered in a leatherette covering compared to the Contax’s plastic / rubber combination. I do however find the Contax a lot easier to shoot and get critical focus due to the auto focus and prism finder. The Hasselblad definitely wins in the handling and shooting experience. Taking a photo with it is a completely different feeling to any other camera I have and the sound of the shutter is very unique, kind of a ” KA CHUNK” sound. It’s definitely louder compared to my other cameras, especially the Leica M7′s whisper quiet shutter.

For those of you are thinking “How much, how much?” I picked it up on ebay for $750 US, then bought an original lens cap and 220 back which gives me 24 photos per roll at 6×6 (the famous square format). If you’re interested to see what this combo produces then check back here over the next week or so.

Photo taken with a Leica M8 and Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.1 @ f/1.8