St Clair Photography Blog | New Zealand Wedding and Portrait Photographer » Zeiss Planar T* 80mm f/2.8

New Zealand Landscape Series | Te Mata Peak

admin — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 05:45:05 +0000

I’m thinking about doing a collection of work for exhibition in Tokyo next year. Keep a look out for more of these over the next little while. Hasselblad 500 CM, Zeiss Planar T* 80mm f/2.8, Fuji Velvia 50.

Film Film Film Film

admin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 23:39:27 +0000

This wouldn’t and doesn’t look out of place at all in Tokyo where it was shot. Using film cameras and shooting film in Japan is surprisingly common, film is still living on with both amateurs and professionals. The store where I used to buy film was the size of any ‘decent’ camera store here in New Zealand and they only sold film, nothing else. I really wonder why film has died out here in New Zealand, it surely doesn’t help when stores are charging $40 for a roll of Ilford 35mm, yes you read that right. It’s really not a positive way to encourage more people to use film again or use it for the first time. I’ve even been told you should buy film from said local store in New Zealand to help support local businesses instead of importing it yourself… Well I would love to but if I do that I’d have to sell my film camera to pay for the film. I love film and the unique look it gives to photographs, I love the little bit of surprise you get when you develop the roll and see what became of the moment you wanted to capture, I’ll keep shooting film until the day I can’t get my hands on another roll. Shot above: Leica M7, Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.1, Fuji Pro 800Z film.

Ahem… Monochromatic Monday

admin — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:51:25 +0000

Was yesterday… Again I’ve managed to forget! So here’s a black and white to start off the week. This was taken in the entrance to the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography ‘Syabi’. Hasselblad 500 CM, Zeiss Planar T* 80mm f/2.8, Ilford Delta 3200 film.

Monochromatic Monday

admin — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 03:05:25 +0000

Thought I would kick off a little series of monochromatic Monday’s where I’ll post a black and white image at the start of every week. Here’s a cool black and white of the other half of St Clair Photography, enjoy. Hasselblad 500 CM, Zeiss Planar T* 80mm f/2.8, Ilford Delta 3200 film.

Summer in the middle of winter

admin — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:23:41 +0000

I thought I would break up the wedding photography with a quick post from Tokyo. I shot this for Viviane three days before leaving Tokyo in Daikanyama. I love the feeling I get when looking at this photograph, it feels really warm although it was shot in the middle of winter. I’ll post some more up from this shoot this week. I hope you all had a great weekend, great enough to get you through this working week. Hasselblad 500 CM, Fuji Pro 400H, Fuji Frontier scan.

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

Portrait Session – Maasa

admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:21:05 +0000

Today I had another amazing portrait session with Maasa. You may remember her from an earlier shoot I did with Grant from New Zealand. The films are being developed and scanned and I’ll get them back in a couple of weeks. Here are a few Hasselblad polaroids from today. Hasselblad 500cm, Zeiss Planar T* 80mm f/2.8, polaroid film back, Fuji FP-100B.