Mamiya RB67 ProS

Mamiya-Sekor C 90mm f3.8

 

Recently I bought myself a set of medium format camera, the RB67 ProS. I bought the camera with 3 lenses. I decided to have some fun shooting my new friend. 😀

Mamiya-Sekor C 50mm f4.5

Mamiya-Sekor C 180mm f4.5

They are all very beautiful! which one do you prefer? I took some photo from the camera, and it was shockingly good in image quality, the only downside for this system is the size! It is a lot bigger then the famous medium format film camera-Hasselblad. Since my summer break has started I am definitely brining my Mamiya camera set out for a shoot soon. I would like to experiment with film photography more!

 

My first enlargement.

After I shot my first roll of 120 film, I did my first enlargement. It was taught by a course-mate of mine. 😀 I was surprise of how enlargement is done, it is basically taking a photo again, you have to chose a lens, and your ‘film’ the photographic paper. Then you need to set your aperture of the lens, size the projected image to the size of your paper and then focus the image projected. And then after you put your photographic paper into place (with the focusing light off) you then uses a timer machine that control the amount of time the enlarger will project the image on the paper. At first we will need to use test strips to find out the exposure needed for the end result you want, normally we will start with a 5 seconds projection of light, and expose our test strip in 3 different places for the period of 5 seconds,10 seconds, and 15 seconds. If you are lucky, you will get the perfect exposure that you wanted from one of the exposure, but most of the time we will need to do many more test strip until we get our desirable result. After figuring out the period of time need for my shot with numerous amount of test strip, then only we can use a full size photographic paper, and to tell you the truth, I am nervous at that time. But when I see the finished photo, I am very happy with it.

I got more than what I was expecting, maybe this is where the essence of film photography is. The texture, the annoying dust that are now permanently printed on my photos, the naturally occurred frame around the photo, and finally is to be able to see a finished product that you spent hours in the dark room to create is just awesome. But this is definitely not a easy thing to do. 😀

Ilford FP4+ 120 – 1/10

 

My first roll of 120film, shot with a Mamiya RB67 in a studio. Thanks Mauri Sherrington for being my model. This is the first exposure, and thanks to my inexperience of a medium format film camera, it’s shot too early into the film roll. But the mistake dint stop there, I scanned it with a wrong setting, thus my black and white film is now colorized. But this is my favorite photos out 10 of them. 😀

My first roll of film. HP5

With the great facilities that I can use in my school, I decided to venture into film photography. I borrowed a Pentax K-1000 with a 50mm and a 28mm lens from our Kit Room at school. Then I bought a roll of film, Ilford HP5 400 from our campus shop.

At first using a fully manual camera isn’t that hard but one thing is manual focusing. As I wear spectacles, it’s so hard to see clearly in the viewfinder, and if I try to find the focus for a longer period then my specs will start to fog up. Very irritating, but other then that shooting film on a manual camera is fun.

Shooting film makes me think so much more before I press the shutter. Unlike digital I can shoot first then see what setting to change from the camera playback, while when you are using a manual film camera you need to know what you want and what to chose before every shot. It’s challenging but surely a good exercise for my photographic knowledge.

It’s hard to capture that ‘moment’ that you are not expecting with a film camera, maybe I just need more practicing. For example the photo above, I saw the couple walked pass me and into a path, I thought it would be great to take a photo of them holding hand from their back in this surrounding. But after struggling to focus on them and the insecurity of pressing the shutter even-though I think it was a great composition, made me missed that moment and only manage to get them small in the photo.

I think is much more easier to get that ‘moment’ while I am ready, I framed, set the exposure and focused then I just wait for my subject to get into the place I know hes going. I remembered from a documentary I saw of Henri Cartier-Bresson, he said that sometime he will wait for hours before someone to get into hes photos, even waited days for some.

zone focusing are also useful when you are dealing with manual lenses.

I also developed a film for the first time, as I was using a black and white film I can’t use the machine to develop it. I need to do it manually, which is very challenging, luckily my course mate, Tiddy helped me a lot. It took so long to develop a roll of film, I underestimated the time need and it made me missed a class. 😦

Overall a great experience trying out shooting film for the first time for me. So I checked out 35mm film photography on my list, whats next? Medium Format of course. 😛 Okay, I’ll go and check for the price for a roll of medium format film now. 😀