I took my Contax 645 film camera to a recent corporate event photography assignment. I wasn’t planning on using it much, but I wanted to get a little more practice using the camera in dark indoor lighting. (I do my corporate event photographer in Washington DC through my other brand, White Ribbon Studios.)
I asked Maki to put on a kimono that her mother purchased for her. It’s not every day that I get to see this kind of traditional Japanese attire, so it was a privilege for me.
Am I really getting 35 megapixel scans from Kodak Portra 160 film with my Mamiya RZ67 camera, on an Epson V750? Maybe, maybe not, but the scans hold a lot of detail.
I’ve been shooting more film than digital lately, mostly because I want to learn what the differences are between the two. I’m not talking about trying to decide which one is "better," because that’s too much like trying to debate between religions or political parties. I’m just trying to find out what makes them different and why. Here are a few comments about a comparison between a film photograph and a digital photograph of approximately the same scene, almost a year apart.
I took a set of photos at Walden Pond, near Boston, Massachusetts last year, and set them aside because I didn’t think there were any images worth keeping. I looked at that set of images today and found a couple that I like.
Title: Empire State Building Ascending
Media: Tinted black and white digital c-print
Year: 2011
In my last blog post, I showed some sample photos from a portrait session shot with Kodak Portra 160 and Portra 400 film using a Mamiya RZ67 Pro II camera. I’m posting another shot from that session to show the detail possible with this combination.
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A couple of weeks ago I shot a portrait session of Ania, a friend of mine, using my RZ67 Pro II camera and only film. In the past, I have also used this camera with a digital back (Hasselblad H3D with a Leaf adapter plate), which produced spectacular results, but I wanted to try my hand at doing an entire photo session using only film. I’m very pleased with the results. In fact, I think I may not be exaggerating much if I claim that the RZ67 is the world’s greatest portrait camera.
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