Camera Talk

Hi all,

Last Saturday we did one more try on a studio with a friend and my gf.

As usual I took the Hasselblad 501CM but this time only the 80mm Planar and the 160mm Tessar, also I wanted to try Superb with Heliar despite to be another 6x6 and for a different format I took Graflex Series B 6x9, once I arrived to the studio I checked the light and I loaded Acros to Hassy and Superb (tripod) and handheld Graflex Series B with TMax 400.


The hardware.

I alternate the 3 cameras for the two models during the two hours we were there, I will show first the ones against the wall.

This was with Superb, f/5.6




And this was with Graflex, f/8



Photos are harsher than I would like, specially from a Heliar lens, I metered with Digisix incident light in front of the subject, maybe I should have metered the shaded part of the model to get the punch I was looking for, lucky me the second photo fitted perfectly the outfit and the look I was looking for that photo.


Second series are done near the window, same way of metering, this time photos are smooth and soft as I wanted, even the ones done with Hasselblad lenses, done all of them wide open.

Tessar CB 160mm f/4.8.






Planar CB 80mm f/2.8



In this last one I missed the focus, placing the tripod was difficult here and watching through the WLF was a very awkward position, I got a tip for composing, panning to face, focusing the eyes, panning down to frame and shooting.


Graflex Series B, f/11




Overall very satisfied how it went, we enjoyed the experience and we finally have some photos we like.

Full album:
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmVeuNYt

The same week I shot one roll outdoors with Superb, this time I got what I was looking for shooting three with 3 different f-stops, looks like the sweet spot is at f/4,5ish


Next thing I need to improve is the focusing when the subject is not in the center of the image, I will run a whole roll with different lenses and different f-stops to learn about this, any tips are welcome on this or any other topic

Thank you for looking,
Alex

Very nice, Alex, especially the first one, although I am not too sure about the composition. The rule of thirds always works. I would take a little more off of the top to position the eyes on the upper left third crosspoint. You may also want to try using a white reflector to supplement the lighting in some of the images. A white foam board from an art supply shop works well. Your focus technique of focussing on the eye nearest the camera is and re-composing good. Nice photos. Bravo!

Thank you, Graham, basic things as rule of thirds is somenthing I can forget in the moment of shooting
I should have use the light screens there were lating around, even without light they would have reflected some light from outside.
It was very interesting about light and I didn't expect what I found, studio windows were west oriented and about 100 meters away there is a huge panel building (typical from 70-80's) with white panels so at the moment we went there was half stop more of light than when we left because of the angle of sunrays against the white panels and building windows