So one of the things about shooting film, and this is both good and bad, is that you've got a finite number of shots that you can take. One reason is that each roll of film only has so many exposures, but the main reason is cost. Developing, scanning, and/or printing can get expensive. Those things are cheaper if you do them yourself, but if like me you work a 9 to 5, you probably don't have the time to develop, scan, or print film at home - I have my local camera store do most of the legwork. This ends up costing me about 50 cents per shot for 35mm photography, and about $1 per shot for medium format. No matter how you slice that, it's gonna be more expensive than shooting digital. Of course, digital photographs don't look anything like film photos (and vice versa), so if the look of film is something you want, you have to be a lot more selective about the shots that you take. I think this is a good thing. It's not convenient or easy, but it's good, and for those of us who began photography with a digital camera (self included), it makes us think much more critically about the shot before we take it. 95% of the time, that leads to better photos.
With these things in mind, my approach to photography with the hasselblad has be more focused than the way I approach digital photography, and so I've decided to pursue one project at a time. The plan is to begin by documenting Wash DC, and with that in mind, I've started with the obvious landmarks. Two weeks ago I took the hasselblad to Capitol Hill (see my last post), and last weekend, when I found myself with a few hours of free time last Sat. afternoon, I decided to see what kind of photos I could get at the Lincoln Memorial. To challenge myself (and to save $$!), I took just one roll of 220 film, which, on a hasselblad, gives 24 exposures. I also opted to bracket every other shot. This means that for each composition that I framed, I would try out two different exposures, two different f-stops (to vary the depth of field), or two different shutter speeds. In part, this is to better understand the camera and the film, but it's also to make sure that I get at least one properly focused and/or exposed shot for each composition. Remember that the hasselblad is entirely mechanical - there's no automatic exposure or autofocus, and there's no LCD on the back to tell you that you did or didn't nail the shot. That being said, the learning curve isn't so steep - a basic knowledge of photography and a little patience is all that's really needed.
Here are the shots that I got at the Lincoln Memorial...
The first shot of the day, which was taken around 3pm (click to see a bigger version). I misjudged the light and ended up overexposing the sky. Unfortunately though, there isn't much I could have done to prevent that. The difference in brightness between the sky and the shaded side of the Memorial was probably 10 or 12 stops of light. Your eyes and your brain can accommodate a dynamic range of about 20 stops, but most cameras, digital or film, can't do more than 5 or 6 stops very well (professional digital cameras use larger sensors that can handle more dynamic range - about 10 stops - but all that range isn't free, and most of us don't have 5 grand to drop on a camera body).
This is one of the reasons why the last 30 minutes of the day is so much better for photography. Not only are the colors nicer at the end of the day, but the dynamic range between the subject and the sky is a much more manageable 2 to 3 stops.
Here the exposure is much more balanced because the camera is facing toward the sunny side of the Memorial, and consequently, away from the brightest parts of the sky.
I really like this shot for two reasons: 1) the light is fantastic, and 2) the rendering of stone and marble on film is just amazing. As a general rule, the texture of your subject is going to render much more realistically on film than on digital. There are a number of reasons for this, but the long and short of it is that the light coming through the lens interacts directly with the film to make the image, whereas on digital, the image on the sensor (if you can call it that) is tweaked by a dozen different bits of software before it displays on the back of your camera. It's no wonder that digital ends up looking more synthetic - it is!
Again, the monuments just feel so much more real and tangible when shot on film, and if you think this rendering on kodak portra is good, try shooting the monuments (or anything else) with a classic B&W film like kodak TriX - the results will amaze you.
I don't know who said it, but there's a famous photography quote, and it goes something like this: "If you don't like the shot, you weren't close enough." The point is that a closer crop nearly always makes for a more interesting and involving photograph. One great thing about the hasselblad (and medium format in general) is that the photos can be cropped heavily and still retain a level of detail that's equal to or better than 35mm photos. This photo here is essentially the same picture as the one above, but the top and bottom of the image have been cropped off to give a more intimate perspective. As you can see, there's virtually no loss of detail or sharpness.
A grab shot to show the usual scene at the Lincoln Memorial. Having strangers in my shots used to bother me a lot, especially if they were facing the camera, but the more that I shoot the monuments, the more I realize how strange they would look if they weren't full of people.
Clearly an admirer of the the hasselblad :) Here I was actually hoping to frame the Washington Monument through the columns of the Lincoln Memorial (if you squint, you can just barely see the outline of "the toothpick" in the background), but in the end, the dynamic range of the scene was still too much. Even though this shot didn't turn out the way I had intended, I really like the mood and the character of all those silhouettes, and when I got the pictures back from the lab, I realized that I'd caught a funny moment where someone was actually taking a picture of me!
Of all my shots from the afternoon, this is the picture that I'm most proud of, not so much because it's an amazing or original photo, but because it was really difficult to nail the focus and keep the camera steady when shooting an ISO 100 film inside the dimly lit memorial. To do this, the lens had to be shot wide-open at f/2.8, and the shutter speed brought down to 1/30 of a second. I don't have the steadiest hands in the world, and I don't have all that much experience with manual focus, so it was really exciting to get this shot back and see that I'd nailed it.
One last photo from the day. This statue is just down the street from the Lincoln Memorial, and to be completely honest, I was so busy looking for shots, I didn't even notice who's monument this is. Nevertheless, it makes for a nice photo. I think I'll have to go back and shoot this one again when there's a more interesting backdrop, either some clouds in the sky or some more leaves on the trees.
So that's all I have of the Lincoln Memorial for now. I'll probably spend another day or two shooting there as part of my Wash DC project. When I think about it, I framed 12 different pictures that afternoon, and I walked away with 7 photos that are good enough to share in this blog. By contrast, I usually average about 10% keepers on digital. That's one of the reasons that film is so great - it forces the photographer to think much more critically about the photo before taking the snap. Hopefully this blog will inspire some of you to get out and there and shoot some film. It doesn't have to be medium format - all of the best things about shooting film are there with 35mm too.
Happy Holidays - may there be a hasselblad under every tree, and film in every stocking!
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