First Roll Through the RZ67
Went out yesterday to put a roll of film through my new (second hand) Mamiya RZ67 and 180mm f4.5.
Now don’t get me wrong I’m not really going to use this as a street shooting camera but I was testing to see how it would handle and to make sure it was all good 🙂
The 180mm lens kind of threw me after shooting pretty much nothing but an 80mm for the last year or so not to mention the rectangular aspect ratio.
I still have to get used to it but its a freaking sweet camera… I cant get over how bright the matte screen is compared to the 50 year old one thats in my Rollei (apparently you can put the RZ one into the Rollei with a but of tweaking)
Next its time to try some studio stuff and maybe some colour film…
The shot of the guy reading is a good example of how sharp this lens is… Its not a particularly good shot but if you look at second shot you can pretty easily see that he is reading Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere (which is one of my favorite books… I have signed first edition 🙂 )
Mamiya RZ67, 180mm f4.5 Lens, Fuji Neopan 400 (expired 09), CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Cemetery Ringflash
Some more practice shots with the ring-flash…
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Nikon Sb24 Speedlite, Ringflash Attachment, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner
Portraits With Rolleiflex And Ringflash
Some more shots from the Rollei/Ringflash duo… Yes the last one is me 🙂
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, Nikon SB24 Speedlite, Falcon O-Flash Ring Adapter, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Fort Buckley At Night
Last night Fergus (Cunningvision) and I revisited Fort Buckley for a bit of night shooting. Aside from camera malfunctions (D70 is definitely on its last legs losing about 10 shots and having to have the battery removed a couple of times to make it work again) it was a pretty good shoot. Although none of the images are spectacular, they definitely have promise and with a bit more planning could be pretty cool.
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens, ISO 200
Rollei/Ringflash Test 2
This is the second attempt with a ring flash on the Rollei.
I’m still trying to make this work to apply to street portraiture but even at f22 @1/500th of a second the background is still pretty bright.
In the second shot the flash didn’t fire so you get an idea of the difference….
Today’s test subject is Heather (her blog HERE)
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Rolleinar 1, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, Nikon SB80DX Speedlite, Ringflash adapter, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Rollei/Ringflash Test 1
I was playing around with a ring flash adapter the other day (one that you put a normal speedlite into) when I realized that it would work with the Rollei… The light fall off was pretty extreme so I had to use the Rolleinar 1 close-up adapter and then used my light meter to get the correct exposure.
I wanted it to darken down the background so shot at something like f16 @ 1/250th of a second.
Alex (his blog HERE) was nice enough to let me try a few practice shots in different light conditions…
I don’t think I nailed it but there is definitely something there to work with and the last one against the wall probably turned out the best although it would have been good to get a bit of separation between Alex and the wall. The catch-lights in the eyes are pretty cool… I’m also thinking that this could be a good project to shoot in colour… I can hear your gasps from here 🙂
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Rolleinar 1, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, Nikon SB80DX Speedlite, Ringflash adapter, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Fatherhood Um… Wednesday: Rolleinar And Rolleipar
Quite some time ago Wellington street photographer Julian Ward lent me a Rolleinar 1 and a Rolleipar for use with my Rollei. The Rolleinar 1 acts as a close up lens meaning you can get much closer than the Rollei’s 3.5 feet close focusing range. The problem with this is that since you are looking through the “viewing” lens which sits above the “taking” lens you get parallax which means the image you are seeing doesn’t correspond to what the camera sees. Thats where the Rolleipar come in. The Rolleipar bends the light so that both lenses see the same thing.
Anyway I finally managed to find an occasion to test this out when the girls had their faces painted at a writers week event in Civic Square a couple of weeks back.
Next step is to take it to the street now I know how it works 🙂
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Rolleinar 1 close up filter, Rolleipar paralax correction Lens, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Fatherhood Friday 33: Testing Olympus XA3
So I bought a new camera off TradeMe (NZ’s equivalent of Ebay) last week and it turned up on Monday. It is an Olympus XA3, which is a 35mm fixed 30mm lens and fully automatic but really small and super sharp, that was bought out around 1985. It was described as non-working so it only cost $30NZ and the research did before I bought it seemed to suggest that it was probably a contact problem which would be easy to fix.
It arrived in the middle of the Snow storm on Monday and I was surprised when I put new batteries in it worked fine 🙂
This is the kind of small camera that means you can really always have a camera on you and still shoot film… Sometimes the Rollei is just a bit big to always carry around when you also have a 2-year-old with you.
These are some shots, mostly of kids due to the fact we were pretty much housebound due to the Snow and copious amounts of rain we have had all week, from the first roll I put through it.
They are quite contrasty mostly since I was using 400 ISO Film pushed to 1600 and then developed at 1/9 dilution rather than the 1/19 dilution I would usually use (I was in a bit of a rush to Develop).
All in all I quite like them. I currently have a roll of 800 ISO colour negative film loaded but unless it is really cool I think I will go back to 400 pushed to 1600.
Olympus XA3 Camera, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film pushed to 1600 and developed with Ilford LC29 at 1/9 Dilution, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Storm and Expired Pan F+
These are some shot taken on the same day as the other storm shots I posted.
These one were taken on my Nikon F5 with a Tokina 19-35mm lens and some Ilford Pan F+ 50 ISO film which expired in 2006 and a red filter.
There was some seriously funky things happening with the film including mold on a couple of shots so most of these under went a fair bit of Photoshop retouching.
I really like how old they feel… I still have about 10 metres left on a bulk roll so might have to try this again next storm 🙂
While I was out shooting I had a woman come up to me aghast that I was taking photos in the middle of a full on storm to which I replied “but its a great day for photography” I think the images speak for themselves… I really need to look into getting a Nikonus 5 underwater camera for this sort of stuff though…
Nikon F5, Tokina 19-35mm Lens, Pan F+ 50 ISO Film (Expired 2006), Cokin Red Filter, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Half Frame Night Pano
A 4 shot pano from a couple of weeks ago when I went out with some friends to shoot stuff at night.
I like the simplicity of creating panos this way without all the high tech stitching programs…
Canon Demi S Half Frame Camera, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner (Scanned as one image)
Depression Does Funny Things To My Mind…But Im Better Now
I wrote this post around the 26th of January during a bout of depression and its been sitting round gathering dust as a draft since then… It didn’t help that this was when Rollei was having issues and before it went away for repairs, but I didn’t know that at the time and really that was only part of what was going wrong…
Sometimes you have to just give yourself a break… I’m better now…Most of the time 🙂
The project mentioned below is still on the back-burner.
Ramblings of a Frustrated Wellington Street Photographer… And Some Bad Pics To Make my Point.
OK… It’s a new year..time to make some changes and try to take things to the next level right?
Sounds like a plan doesn’t it?
Set some goals in photography for the year…think up some good projects…maybe finally get round to having an exhibition…
Yeah that sounds great! (this is starting to sound like an internal dialogue… I thought so too… Me too… Just get to the damn point!)
So I have thought up a great project that could be done on the street as well as having a studio component to it as well… Unfortunately it requires talking to people on the street as well as approaching people to come and do some studio shots. I’m not the most confident person when it come to approaching people and asking them to take their photo (I usually go ninja styles with the Rollei) and this has manifested in me putting so much pressure on myself that I am having problems even taking the normal street shots that you may have become accustomed to seeing here.
What is the best way to approach someone on the street? Anyone got some advice that they would like to impart?
I keep making excuses in my head why not to start this project (Too bright, Too dark, Wrong film etc…) but essentially I need to JFDI (Just Freaking Do It!) Whats the worst that could happen? They could say no… Is that so bad in the scheme of things? I’m sure I would survive physically if not with a little mental scarring.
Here goes a collection from the last film I shot which illustrates how far this is throwing me off my game ( I usually get 1 or 2 of these type of shots a roll but this is seriously a new record low for 1 roll of film. At least the exposures were all pretty good). 🙂
Maybe I should give up and take up something like synchronized swimming.
Camera Shake at its worst
Nice Wall
Repeat after me “I must not walk and Shoot at the same time”
Blur at 1/250th of second
I admit that I re-shot this one and the shot was OK 🙂
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Post Zombie Apocalypse Wellington Part 2
This series was shot at the same time as yesterdays Rollei shots but with a 19-35mm on my Nikon F5. A much wider angle of view than the Rollei but somehow I like the square images better.
Nikon F5, Tokina 18-35mm Lens, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Darkhalide Photography 
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