I’m excited as I can now switch back and forth between the three major formats, 35mm, medium format, and large format.  I tend to take Mr. Natural’s approach to photography in that I like to use the right tool for the job.  There are however often grey areas where the right tool is not immediately appearent.  I recently shot the NYC Pride Parade with a Hasselblad.  Most would have used a 35mm to capture a rapidly moving street parade and afterparty but my personal approach is to focus on individuals so I feel that using the medium format allows me to work in my preferred 6×6 format as I’m okay with taking my time with each shot.  My reasoning for using the Hasselblad has nothing to do with the image “quality” (although the lens has the best “look and feel” out of any lens I’ve ever used) or the ability to print BIG (if I wanted that I wouldn’t be developing with rodinal now would I?), its based on purely qualitative feelings.   The trouble is the advent of the 15+ megapixell full frame sensor has spawned the dread “quality” wars.

The quality wars ask if the new Canon or Nikon top of the line cameras can compete with medium format.  The conventional wisdom that a 35mm sized sensor could never meet or exceed the quality of a medium format sensor.  More area is more area and more area means higher quality.   Yet the numbers  thrown around by manufacturers often present a confusing series of contradictions.   If Nikon and Canon have more megapixels and reported higher dynamic range than the medium format backs offered by Leaf or PhaseOne does that mean those stuck up pro photographers are a bunch of dummies for investing $20,000 in a digital back when they can get similar peformance from a $2600 35mm body?   Are those snotty film people finally going to sit down to a steaming dish of crow?  Will those 4×5 people loose their claim to “ultimate image quality”.  And yeah, if the numbers say that 35mm is better, why hasn’t Leaf and PhaseOne started waving the white flag?     Why are we even shooting film if the quality of digital equals or surpasses it?

I lament the continued lack of scientific education among the general populace.  The point of learning chemistry in high school is not to prepare you for a career as a crystal meth on-demand producer but to introduce you to the concepts of approaching a problem and finding a solution through a logical, repeatable, and easily communicated process.   Its about looking at available data and drawing conlusions.

This would be perfect for questions like, “how does the Canon 5D compare to Velvia 50 shot through a Mamiya RB67″.    This is a very real problem for the photographer in the quest for maximum performance per purchasing dollar.   The Canon 5D does feature an extremely high quality sensor which may provide equal results with slide film being shot through a medium format camera.   There’s a huge price differential.  A factor of 10 if you’re talking about picking up a L series lens or two for the Canon along with the body against the average $400 cost for a used RB67 setup.   How are we to stack up the two in terms of image quality?

Except Ultimate Image Quality is not important.  One of the most important steps in approaching a complex problem is to reduce variables by eliminating the unimportant ones.  If one is on the market for a car based on fuel efficiency and safety standards, the available range of colors is not a concern.  It can be bright pink and it will not get any more or less miles per gallon.

Ultimate Image Quality is important if you’re printing at 30×40 inches and plan on viewing the print from 10 inches.   Most 30×40 prints are placed so that you won’t get within 5 feet of them even if you’re feeling nosy.   Not very many people will ever be called upon to produce a print of that size yet I see countless electrons being expended in bickering over which format has the ultimate in image quality.   If you’re a landscape photographer who gains income from making extremely large prints then there is a compelling interest in knowing if its time to hang up your film camera.  Chances are you’re not going to give up the view camera because the 35mm or medium format doesn’t offer the same perspective control.   Other professional photographers are less worried about ultimate image quality as about the ability to rapidly turn around a job which makes digital a no brainer.   More factors which would outweight image quality are weight, availability of services (labs that can do E-6), cost of ownership, existing equipment, and shooting style.  Even reviews by professional landscape photographers who do reguarly print at 30×40 will cite the ease of use and low cost of ownership (but extreme cost of entry) before launching into an in-depth review of pixel peeping image quality.  For the rest of us, we just have to worry about cutting the mustard, not smiting it.

My pentax K100D produced some very nice 8×10 images with its 6 megapixel sensor and my ancient Canon 300D produced images which were spread acrossdouble pages in a magazine.    I’ve never run across a photo editor who expects to see 16×20 images except at a portfolio review, and that’s only so they can review your work within 60 seconds or less without putting on their glasses.   Gallery owners do ask for large prints but the vast majority of photographs are not sold in galleries and the vast majority of photographers will never be shown in a gallery.

The majority of photographers will never sell a print. Ever.  Why? Because no one cares about their children except themselves.  To them, their photographs are invaluable.  They’re memories.  Memories are not printed out at 30×40 inches subject to intense scrutiny.   They’re carried in wallets, placed next to monitors in the office, and clutter up the living room.  Even professional photographers will see their work printed more often on an 8×10 magazine page or on a website than on a the side of a bus.  If you closely inspect many poster sized advertisements you’ll notice that they really were not meant to be enlarged to that size.

What’s the difference between a Canon 5D and a 6×7 slide?   Who cares?   Instead of worrying about the far edge of image quality people should be more concerned about how they actually use their camera on a day-to-day basis, not how they would use their camera in a wet dream.  The largest print I’ve ever made was 16×20 and felt that its was quite frankly, excessive.   It would have been just as nice at 11×14 and it was a landscape.

Apples and oranges are meant to be enjoyed on their own terms, not forced into confrontation with each other.  Apples won’t cure scurvy and oranges make for lousy pie (but great tarts).  Asking which one tastes better is pointless.  You can compare their fiber content or their Vitamin C content but that ignores the point of consuming either of them.  You will not exclude one from your diet by choosing the other.

Personally, if pushed for an answer I will say that I will always prefer my ’57-69 vintage Hasselblad 500c over any Canon 5D Mark II on the grounds that the 5D has too goddamn many buttons.   For my purposes, I just prefer the simplicity and look and feel of Fuji Acros or Tri-X developed in Rodinal.   That’s what matters to me.

Example of dramatic use of wide angle lenses for everyday activities.

Originally I picked up the Russian made Zenitar 16mm lens for my Pentax K100D as a way to get a very wide angle lens without shelling out a great deal of money.   The K100D has a 1.5 crop factor which gets you an approximate 24mm lens.  As I refuse to buy digital only lenses my only other options were the Sigma 20mm which is a dissapointing 30mm with the crop factor or pick up Sigma’s 15mm Fisheye.  The Zenitar is available for $175 through Kiev USA while the Sigma fisheye is $750 through B&H.  There was no question which one I was going to pick up.

After reading a number of reviews I decided that the distortion would be minimized by the crop factor on the lens when used with a digital camera. I also read about a number of quality control issues which lead me to a decision not to purchase a lens through a Russian dealer.  This proved to be an excellent choice on my part as the well known infinity focus problem is not the only issue that can arise from these lenses.   A day after I placed my order a gentleman from Kiev USA called to let me know that the lens would be a few days late in arriving.  They had inspected the lens and discovered that it was missing an element which they needed to pull off another lens.   Without that element the camera would never focus.   That alone was worth the $50 price differential between ordering the lens from the US dealer.

The use of a 24mm lens are fairly straightforward.  Architecture.  Landscapes. Group portraiture.  Environmental portraiture (when you’re planning on a large print so the subject isn’t lost in the details).  Please note that I said environmental and group portraiture as wide angle lenses, rectalinear or not, are extremely unflattering to one’s subject.   Portraits with the Zentiar are at best good for a giggle as the lens will make it look like the subject is bulging out from the center of the frame.  The only setting I’ve seen this used in an acceptable way is with rock and hip hop band portraits.   The Zenitar settles rather easily into the “acceptable” uses but it should be emphasized that it is not a rectralinear lens and there is visible distortion even with the crop factor. The distortion can be minimized through compositional choices as seen below.

Elk View, West Virginia

Here using a portrait format and placing the subject in the outside 1/3rd of the frame minimized the distortion.   Experimentation showed that horizontal lines just above and below the center axis showed the most distortion.   Creating a line that runs the length of the frame and is parallel to the frame’s edge will emphasize the curvature of the lens.  By avoiding straight lines you can usually ignore the fisheye effect.  As the usual use of a wide angle lens, namely landscapes, often involve straight lines this may be unavoidable at times.   If you’re disturbed by this then you should have shelled the bread out for the rectalinear lens and not mucked around with cheap former soviet block optics.   On the other side, if one uses a little care the curvature can  used to emphasize distance or height as with the trees arching upwards in the below photo.

Property Line, West Virginia

I have since sold my Pentax K100D and now only possess a Pentax Super ME which is a little gem of a walking around camera.  As this is a traditional 35mm camera there is no crop factor and the majesty of the fisheye effects comes into blossom.   No  amount of twisting the camera, kneeling in front of your subjects, or pushing an element to the edge of the frame will get around the curvature.  You will need to learn how to roll with it.

Chinatown Parking

There’s really no advice that one can give for how to work with a fisheye lens.  Cropping can remove the worst of the distortion as you mimic the crop factor of the digital sensor but that’s about it.   When using the lens on a full frame sensor or on a film body there are a few little points that one should be aware of.  The main one is fingers.  If you grip the lens around the hood there’s a good chance that your fingers will end up in the frame.  So one should be careful and grip the lens will behind the shade.   The lens is so wide that even wide open at f/2.8 anything further than a meter or two will be in focus.  There’s really no need to focus, just set it at infinity, set the f-stop to a comfortable f/8 and click away.   The lens is not the sharpest on the planet and shooting wide open will be relatively soft.  I have a tendency to develop my film in Rodinal which obscures fine detail through increased grain so I can’t speak to the absolute resolving power of the lens.  Just assume it sucks and don’t worry about it.   If you’re worried about the resolution of fine details you should not be shopping for cheap, novelty lenses.  Go get an 8×10 and stop bothering us.  Demanding performance out of a sub-$300 35mm lens is a waste of everyone’s time.

To wrap up this review, the Zentiar is a fine way for people using a camera with a significant crop factor as in the bottom tier of DSLR’s to get a taste for wide angle photography.   Its a taste and only a taste.   If you want to get serious about landscapes or architectural photography I’d strongly suggest saving money and investing in more expensive equipment.  Landscapes are not a subject for the faint hearted or those on a tight budget.   I will strongly encourage anyone interested in the lens to purchase their lens from a vendor in their country with a return policy.  The quality control on these products is lacking so getting a maladjusted lens is a strong possibility.

Its a fun addition to your lens collection.  Its up to you to decide how much fun is worth.

As a backdrop, I’d like to discuss the following photo:

Boating, Central Park

Using the qualities of this photograph I hope to explain why you must carefully choose your equipment when shopping on the lower end of the price scale for equipment.  I am the owner of two tripods, one useful and one which has proven itself absolutely useless. 

I needed a tripod that could handle my Mamiya RB67 which is a monster.  As I was primarily expecting to use the tripod for performances or in the studio where I was already lugging a bunch of crap around the entire concept of portability was thrown out in favor of stability and low-cost.   The Slik is indeed stable.  Outstandingly so.  I feel comfortable loading my 8 pound camera onto the tripod and swinging it around.  It doesn’t wobble, it doesn’t tip, and its easily adjustable.  You get the feeling that you could beat a bear into submission with this tripod if called upon to perform that duty.  And if you can tote the damn thing out into the wilderness where the bears are known to roam you probably have the raw strength to give a bear a sound dubbing.

The tripod is six pounds and it doesn’t fit into a backpack nor could you reasonably strap it into the carrier provided on photo backpacks..   The complimentary tripod bag is invaluable (and you can fit several light stands and umbrellas into it as well) as its absolutely unwieldy to carry around.  In purchasing a computer there’s the old saying, “better, faster, cheaper: pick two”.  With tripods its “stronger, more compact, cheaper”.   The problem is that I like to bike out to locations and the tripod is uncomfortable to carry around and awkward on a bicycle.   Clearly I needed something smaller.

So I picked up one of those $25 ultra-compact tripods.  The tripod fits easily within my shoulder bag and weights next to nothing.  It features three spindly telescoping legs and handles like a drunken spider when deployed.  The maximum weight allowance is less than three pounds which fits most compact digital cameras and more importantly for me, anything that is comprised of plastic and empty space such as the Holga 120WPC pinhole camera which I’ve discussed at length.

I figured it was a match made in heaven.  The Holga fits in the shoulder bag, the tripod fits in the shoulder bag, everyone’s a winner.   Even with both tripod and camera shoved into the shoulder bag copious space remains for film and the light meter.  I was free to hop on my bicycle or comfortably take the train without a second thought.

There’s really no such thing as a free lunch.  While ultra-compact and ultra-light the new tripod lacked two essential qualities, inertia and rigidity.  There simply isn’t enough mass to withstand bumps and even breezes.   The spindly legs flex at the lightest touch and then spring back.  The end result is a tripod that’s in constant motion.  For a camera such as the Holga 120WPC which requires long exposures even a slight shake or shudder from the wind will show up during the several seconds that the shutter remains open.  Even opening the shutter can set the tripod into motion.

I included the above photo taken in Central Park as it lacks any sharpness.  Even the rocks are in soft focus.  The wind may move the water and shake the trees over the duration of a second long exposure but the rocks should not move.   The below photo taken with the heavier Slik tripod in the Botanical Garden shows that with a sturdy tripod certain elements in a photo can be expected to remain in sharp focus.

Brooklyn Botanical Garden

So I’m stuck with a $25 tripod that can’t be relied upon to hold a camera steady for a long exposure.   I’m somewhat unsure as to the practical use of the tripod that isn’t sturdy enough to hold a camera still for a long exposure.  Unless you’re indoors and using a wireless remote to trigger the shutter on a compact digital camera you might as well hand hold the camera.   Its great for self-portraits, still lifes, amateur pornography, and other indoor settings but you don’t need an ultra-compact tripod if you’re just going to stay home.

The solution is most likely to take a plunge and spend more on a tripod than I did on my last three cameras.   The Slik provides me with the rigidity and sheer mass that I require for performance photography but lacks any reasonable portability.   Attempting to cure the portability problem by sacrificing the essential qualities of a tripod was just a waste of money.

Brooklyn Botanical Garden

Now we’ll turn out attention to how the Holga 120WPC performs in the field.

I took the Holga out into the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and Prospect Park, two areas which I’m very familiar with.   I brought a couple of rolls of Fuji Acros 100 and a single roll of Fuji Astia 100F, a slide film which I have used a few times in the past.  Its the start of cherry blossom season so I wanted to see how the pinhole would render color (and we’ll have to wait on the lab for the answer to that question I’m afraid).

For this review I’ll cover:

1. How to compose with the Holga 120WPC
2. Exposure and Considerations
3. Problems

Composition

First, let’s look at how to compose with the Holga.   The camera lacks a viewfinder and relies instead on 4 knobs that are situated on the top of the camera’s body.  These knobs are set up in a triangular pattern and represent the angle for the 6×12 format.  The 6×9 format rests slightly within that span and as this is a holga its customary to guess.  To compose you simply bend down and line up the middle two knobs in your field of vision.  The knobs on the left and right then describe the rough edges of your frame.  This leaves the vertical composition.   That you’re going to have to wing.  If someone has a method for determining where the vertical frame lines for the camera are, please share your technique.

The bubble level is fairly useful to getting your shots level.  Unlike the Horizon Perfekt which will distort due to the rotating lens when taken off either axis you can feel free to tilt the frame as desired.  Even if you’re changing the pitch of the lens its nice to have the horizon level and the bubble is useful for this purpose.

Holga wasn’t kidding when they said Wide Angle.  The angle of view is about 120 degrees when using the 6×12 format.  I’m not sure what the 35mm equivalent would be for the pinhole would be but its a bit wider than a normal lens.   Its actually a bit wider than I expected and my next jaunt out will try to compensate for this.

Exposure and Considerations

I covered exposure calculations in the first section of this review so I’ll just briefly mention that the key to pinhole exposures is to create a table that you can use to relate your exposure at a f-stop your light meter can handle to the corrected exposure for the pinhole’s f-stop and then add the additional factor of the reciprocity failure for your specific film.

From a practical standpoint its best to use at least a one second exposure.  You’ll want to be able to count “one mississippi” as judging a fraction of a second exposure is going to be extremely difficult.   Even using a kitchen timer or stopwatch would rely too much on your reflexes to get the proper exposure.  I would strongly suggest shooting a slow film, 100 ASA at the maximum to ensure that most of your exposures will be of at least a second, even in bright sunlight.  For a one second exposure using Fuji Acros (which doesn’t have reciprocity failure for exposures under 2 minutes) this translates to 1/30 of a second at f/22 which is fairly doable even in bright sunlight.   Dim conditions or night photography may require the use of a high speed film unless you enjoy standing around for a several minute exposure.  I’m not an astrophotographer so I don’t know why someone would get down with waiting on a 5 hour exposure.

One second is a long time.  Lots can happen in a single second.  Especially if the wind is blowing hard.   The soft focus in the top photo is not due to any property of the lens.  It was a 3 second exposure and only the wooden rail held still during that time.  The wind shook the trees in the distance and the water did what water does.  Time will be an element in your compositions.

Making People Dissapear

This can have some interesting effects.  For one thing, on a multi-second exposure anything moving through your frame will most likely dissapear or only leave a ghost of an image on the film.   The photo above is a nine second exposure during which a couple walked into my frame.  They’re only visible as a very wisp of an image along the path, their approach through the right side of the frame is entirely invisible.

Imagine getting a 50 or 25 speed film and shooting in a crowded area over the course of 10-60 seconds.  Using a pinhole takes away elements of control in terms of focus and exposure.  Take control of the ones you do have.

Problems

As I mentioned before there’s no way to determine the vertical frame lines for your composition.   As we say in the software business, this isn’t a bug, its a feature.  The holga was never meant to be especially accurate with the framing so you’ll want to move your most important subjects well within the framelines.

Mild example of "lens flare"

One key issue with composition is flare.   Shooting into the sun without a shade can produce flare in the best of lenses and this camera is especially susceptible to it.  A common hack for holgas in general is to flock the inside of the camera using matte black spray paint.  This procedure is detailed on the Holga Hacks website.  The masks inside is a matte surface but the camera back remains bright and shiny which will cause internal reflection and lower your contrast.

Again, more of a feature than a bug is the low-impact plastic that the camera is manufactured out of.  This might survive a fall and if it doesn’t you might be able to fix it but don’t assume that this camera is in any way sturdy.  The 120WPC is especially long and as a result feels a bit flimsier than the traditional holga’s squat frame.  Be careful.

Conclusion

Approaching pinhole photography as someone who generally works with wide apertures and sharp lenses has required me to think about how I approach a shot differently.  I typically use a narrow depth of field to isolate my subject out of the scene and now I’m forced to compose with everything in sharp(ish) focus.  Its frustrating but interesting.

The one thing I will do before going out again is to flock the inside of my camera’s mask and back plate.  The low contrast images bug the hell out of me and I’d like to do as much as I can to sharpen them up.   Others prefer the dreamy, low contrast quality but I guess I’m a zone kinda guy and I like my tones to go from 0 to X.

You can find more examples of what the Holga 120WPC can do on the Dark Corners flickr group.

I became aware of the Holga 120WPC camera through a Freestyle Photo flyer.  I’ve never done any pinhole photography and for $50 it undercut the Zero Image line of beautiful pinhole cameras by at least $150 so the cost of entering the field seemed very reasonable.  This review will cover the physical build of the holga and provide some background information on what’s needed to get up and running with pinhole photography.  As this was my first run with pinholes I’ll walk you through the steps needed to turn out a successful roll of negatives for yourself.

The Holga 120 WPC wide angle pinhole is a fairly new product from the holga family.  It has the same no-frills design strategy and plastic less-than-fantastic build quality.   The camera will be immediately familiar to anyone who has owned a holga previously.

The 120 WPC uses the same locking mechanism as the normal 120 holga to hold the back on.  You have two sliding thin metal brackets on either end of the camera with holes for a neck strap.  I don’t see the value of a neck strap as you will be using this camera on a tripod unless you fancy wasting a lot of film.  Opening up the back reveals the familiar holga interior.  The 120 WPC comes with two masks, a 6×12 and a 6×9 mask.  I don’t believe that its designed to be used without one of the two masks installed so if you’re familiar with the 120 holga and always pop out the mask to get 6×6 format, don’t do so. Decide which format you want to shoot in (I selected 6×9 as I don’t believe my scanner can handle 6×12)

The back has the red tinted window with two settings, 16 and 12.  This allows you to wind your film to either the 6×12 or 6×9 settings.  One very important tip is that you should only shoot ODD FRAME NUMBERS.   Setting the window slider to 16 will give you the 6×4.5 numbers so you’ll shoot odds and get 6×9 format.  Setting the window slider to 12 will give you the 6×6 numbers so you’ll shoot odds and get 6×12 format.  I mention this as I was a dummy and didn’t think about this until I was halfway through my first roll.  That was $3.00 down the drain.

The winder is not designed to keep the film taut and the roll wiggles on both the source and takeup rolls as there’s only a peg on the top for both sides to keep it in place.  If you wanted film flatness you should have invested in a more expensive camera.   The Zero Image cameras are advertised as using a spring back to ensure flatness.  Again, if you’ve used a holga before, you’ll know how this works.

The shutter can be tripped in two ways.  First, there’s a button which slides the entire shutter assembly over to open up the pinhole.  Pushing the button with your finger is not suggested as with long exposure times you’ll shake the camera badly as its spring loaded and requires a firm touch and for you to hold it open.  The shutter does have a metal threaded socket for a cable release.  I was expecting a plastic socket so seeing metal here for greater durability was a nice touch.   Once you get the cable release in there its just a simple matter of pressing on the cable and holding for your desired exposure.

That’s really all there is to the camera.  So let’s talk about what you need to make pinhole exposures. The only real challenge to pinholes once you have a camera is determining exposure.

1. Find the correct exposure for your f-stop
2. Correct for reciprocity failure.

Pinholes are literally pinholes so they have a small f-stop.  In the case of the Holga 120WPC you’re dealing with f/135.

The problem is that most light meters don’t handle up to f/135.   The easiest way to determine your exposure is to simply use a chart that relates a smaller f-stop value to the one for your camera.  There are a number of online charts such as the one at Mr. Pinhole which will give you a table of related exposures.  For example a 1/30 of a second exposure at f/16 which is well within the range of all light meters corresponds to a 2 second exposure at f/135.  There is a rather well done program for windows called Pinhole Designer which provides you with a chart that you can export out to excel.

As you can see most pinhole exposures will be very long, even in bright sunlight.  If we need to think about long exposures we need to think about reciprocity failure.

Reciprocity failure is a characteristic of film.  Generally film is designed to respond to exposures between about 1/2000 of a second and about a second.   For exposures of longer than a minute the film get “lazy” and extra extra exposure is required to make up for the lassitude of the film.  In more technical terms, film works by exposing silver hallide compounds to photos of light.  You need a certain amount of energy to cause the change in the hallide that will result in an image on the film.  If you have a very dim light hitting the film there’s not enough energy being transmitted to the film in order to affect that change.  The only way to direct more energy onto the film is to increase the amount of time that light is allowed to pour through the small opening.

Manufacturers typically provide sheets for reciprocity failure of their films.  You’ll have to take the base exposure for your specific f-stop and either apply a formula or use the manufacturer’s chart to add additional time to your exposure.  In the case of older emulsions such as Tri-X this can be a considerable amount of time.   Newer emulsions such as Fuji Acros claim to follow normal exposures up to 120 seconds and only a half stop additional exposure up to 1000 seconds.  According to some tests the Fuji Acros emulsion does live up to its claim.

You will need to do your own tests and consult the manufactuer (or google) to build your own exposure charts.

Once you have your exposure charts drawn up its time to grab your tripod and head out into the field for some shooting.  I’ll pick up on my own experience shooting my first two rolls in another post.

You point, you point, you shoot, you get a print.  The digital revolution has made it even easier, you point, you shoot, you email your shots to your friend or post it to your blog.  If you want to kick it old school, fire off 36 frames of color negative film, and drop it off at the drug store you can still do that in many places.   For those older than 30 an increasingly affordable line of film scanners has allowed us to drag those wax paper envelopes out of our closets and show the world what kind of poor fashion choices we made during the 80′s.

In any group of soccer moms happy snapping away  Forest and Ashley on the fields every Saturday there will be one or two who desire better composition, more dramatic skies (and why not, a soccer field is FLAT, get some cloud action in there), and cleaner colors.  And why not?  An art degree isn’t required to get bitten by a creative impulse.  Nor do you have to be batshit insane in order to produce art.

One of the key elements in any creative enterprise is craft.  This is the actual nuts and bolts of getting what you want.   For photography this is a matter of learning exposure, some rules of composition, editing, and finally printing.  As a self-taught photographer (who initially tried learning from FAQ’s) I’ll include the books I found most helpful in untangling the knobs and levers on your average camera.

Black and White Photography: A Basic Manual

Since this blog is at least in theory about silver based photography we’ll start off with a book that you can find new or used very easily.  The later editions have replaced some of the older hand drawn diagrams with more professional (and easier to understand) illustrations so you might want to get the 4th edition if you don’t mind paying for a new book.   Horenstein covers the basics needed to shoot,  develop, and print in black and white.   If you’re throwing a digital process in there (scanning your film over printing for example) you can just skip that part of the book.   Even if you prefer to drop off your film at the lab (if you do DON’T LET THEM CUT YOUR NEGATIVES… painful personal experience…) you can benefit from knowing what goes into that process and the first part concerns exposure which everyone needs to know.

Understanding Exposure

If you just picked up a dusty Pentax K1000 out of your dad’s attic or are gazing at the settings dial on your new Canon D50 going from a fully automatic camera to setting your exposure manually can be a frightening prospect.  What’s ISO, what’s meant by “correct exposure”, what’s this reflective meter thing, so my aperture went from f/4 to f/5.6 now what, 18% grey card, why are you waving that strange device around, WTF?  This book gently takes you through the essential concepts of exposure and helps you understand why things work the way they do.   Horenstein’s book covers exposure but after assisting a few B&W classes I’ve found that this is where most people need additional help.  I did.  This is useful for any camera and later editions of the book cover digital photography.

Black and White Photography Magazine

A British publication that is a bit pricy in the US (I pay around $12 an issue at the newstand) but I find very useful.   The magazine features portfolios and a number of monthly columns including one which takes you through the process that two photographers take with the same negative.  This is almost worth picking up the magazine for alone as it covers darkroom technique, scanning, photoshop, and how you can use each tool to solve problematic negatives.   The portfolios are always good and most of the articles are interesting and range from biographies to overviews of equipment or techniques you may or may not have heard of.

The Negative.

This is a biggie.  St. Ansel as he’s sometimes known wrote three books which “should” be on every “serious” photographer’s shelf.   I would agree with this for the same reason that I went out to see the William Eggleston retrospective at the Whitney despite really loathing his work.   Like it or not Adams (and Eggleston) had a major impact on the way we think about photography.   The Negative is his second book and its not for beginners but once you get comfortable with the basics its a great book to dive into.  If you’ve heard about the zone system, this would be drinking from the source.   The zone system is meant for large format photographers but once you grasp the fundamentals you can apply it to roll film as well, especially medium format as you’re more likely to be shooting an entire roll of 8-16 shots in a single lighting situation than all 36 frames of a roll of 35mm.

Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Winter

After dishing out the harshness I went out to the Botanical Garden in the below freezing temperatures to give my battered and beaten Lubitel a spin.   I remembered a seminar I took my last year in college which was taught by a recent Yale grad in the religion department.  She said one of the most difficult things she had to do as a PhD candidate was praise works she was reviewing.  Critical thinking generally teaches us to find the flaws in something but perhaps our own innate mean spiritedness makes it much more challenging to find the good.

I’d like to take some time to point out where the Lubitel 166U can give you a satisfying photo.

The most important point I hope I made in my last article was that focusing is a guessing game.  The Lubitel offers some reliable controls for exposure but focusing is extremely problematic.  The lack of quality control in manufacturing the Lubitel does account for a certain amount of variation between individual models (and as they are typically purchased used wear and tear must be accounted for as well).

I come from the school of thought that there’s nothing wrong with out of focus areas.  Selective focus is a great compositional tool that can help the photographer guide the viewer’s eye where you want it to go on the print.   The eye is drawn to light areas, contrast, and areas of sharp focus before it wanders off to your out of focus areas.  The key word in “selective focus” is selective.   The Lubitel does not give you the capacity to accurately select where you will place your focal point.

According to the handy dandy Depth of Field Calculator your field of focus at 10 feet for the lens wide open (f/4.5) is 2 feet.   At 6 feet which would be more reasonable for a portrait you only have a single foot of focal depth.    Even at f/22 your focal range is 4.5 feet to about 9 feet.  There is just not a large margin for error in close focusing ranges and with.

Angel, 2008

This is about as close as you’re going to get.

The lack of precise focusing controls (unless you have an infaliable ability to judge distance and use scale focusing) discourages you from taking close up portraits, compositions where an object must be precisely placed in a narrow focal range, and of course, any thing closer than 3 feet.  The Lubitel is perfectly usable for portraits as long as you place the subject about 10 feet away from the camera and choose situations where a you can get a small enough f/stop to scale focus with confidence.   The Lubitel has an odd way of rendering out of focus areas which can b e quite attractice.  As long as you’re confident that your subject will be in focus (or decided you don’t care if they are) its perfectly usable for portraiture.

Where the Lubitel excels are in two areas, lo-fi landscapes and street photography.

The most common approach to landscape photography follows in Ansel Adams’ steps.  Maximum depth of field for maximum detail.  Complete tonal range from Zone I to X.  Previsualization.  That kinda stuff.   Most landscape photographer believe in the Big Negative as it captures as much detail as your poor eyes can bear.  And why not?  Nature is a complex creature and demands that we allow the viewer to appreciate the full range of tones and detail that any scene has to offer.

Or not.

Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Spring

There’s something to be said about the power of suggestion.  Give an impression of a scene rather than the details.  A wisp of what’s there.  Offer blur, haze, and out of focus areas.  The lens of the Lubitel can’t resolve detail very well most of the time but it can surprise you from time to time. This was a very lucky close focus situation taken under a bush of a thin stalk of a flower just poking out of the ground.  I took a few others of the same scene but moving just a bit one way or another threw it out of focus.   There’s some great bokeh here and you can really see the strange swirling pattern than the Lubitel’s lens gives to your out of focus areas which can be quite lovely.

The above photo of Brighton Beach during the off season is an excellent example of what the Lubitel can do for street photography.  Its a very discrete camera and most people don’t know what a Twin Lens Reflex looks like anymore.   More often than not if people do notice its a great way to start a conversation rather than get into an arguement.  Its best for wide angle scenes which with the very slightly wider than normal 75mm lens (80mm is normal on a 6×6 format) you’ll need to stand back from the scene a bit.   This works to your advantage as we’ve discussed the poor close focusing ability of the Lubitel.   Keeping your subject 10-20 feet away is just going to make getting what you want in focus that much easier as your margin of error will be much larger.

In the end the problem with cheap cameras is that they require more work.  They do the same thing as expensive cameras at the cost of reliability and resolution.   Still, its a light tight box with a hole in one end and a piece of film at the other.  You point it what you want to take a picture of, twirl some dials, and hit the shutter.  Wind, repeat, develop.

Your negatives will require more care in scanning or printing.  Your exposures will be uncertain.  Your development will need to take into account more variables.  Your framing needs to respect certain tricks of the light and lens.  A better made camera will allow you to frame, focus, and exposure confidently knowing that the camera will do what you tell it to do (and any problems are your own damn fault).   They can also cost you a pretty penny and for the amateur just dipping their toes into the wonderful world of film this can be more of a commitment than you might like to make.  For a more experienced photographer they can be annoying but managable.  If you have a few tricks up your sleeve for dealing with flat negatives, out of focus subjects, and flare then you’ll find the shortcomings easier to handle with and possibly even charming at times.

Just play the strengths of the camera, avoid the weaknesses, and you’ll have a great working relationship.

I haven’t thrown mine under the subway yet after all.

Chinatown Parade NYC

It was also that Superdull thing but if I wanted to watch a bunch of brawny guys going at each other I have a copy of Querelle at home.   More importantly to this blog it was the first time I really got to take my new (to me) Voigtlander Bessa R3A with the Nokton 40mm f/1.4 single coated lens out for an extended spin.  That Sunday I walked from Chinatown to the former Fulton Fish Market back up through Soho to the East Village and then back down Broadway to the Staten Island Ferry after nightfall.   I still have to finish developing and scanning the 6 or so rolls of Fuji Neopan 400 I shot but I will mention a few thoughts on shooting and feedback on the few frames I did get.

The first thing I noticed on pulling my negatives off the reel is that the 40mm is surprisingly wide.   I’ve worked with several 28mm lenses, I have a 24mm for my Canon T-90, and a 16mm russian fish eye with a Pentax mount that I’ve used on both a Pentax digital (with the 1.5 crop factor its a 24mm with some distortion) which are actually much wider than the 40mm but I never felt that my frame was cramped.  The 1:1 viewfinder might have a lot of to do with this as its nice, bright, and quite roomy.   Even with the 16mm fisheye the small viewfinder on my Pentax K100D felt claustraphobic at times.

There are two important elements to street shooting, feeling comfortable enough taking pictures of strangers and feeling comfortable dealing with strangers being unhappy about you taking their picture and saying something about it.   Everyone has their own strategy for dealing with these two core issues and your choice of equipment does have a great deal to do with it.   After shooting in public spaces like Union Square for a number of years with a SLR I felt much more comfortable shooting.  The smaller size of the rangefinder and more importantly, the compact lens made me feel much less like I was sticking a huge phallic mask in front of my face every time I raised the camera to my eye.

Now we’ll turn to the lens itself and make a few comments about image quality.   I still have to develop some and scan the rest of my images but I did learn very quickly that with a single coated lens a shade is mandatory.

Cops, Chinatown New Year's Parade

Shooting into the sun gave me a lot of glare which killed this photo.   I liked the framing and the subject but I had to fight in photoshop to put some contrast into the scene and crop out of the blown out areas.

I’ve shot with Fuji Neopan 400 and developed it in Rodinal diluted 1:50 many times.   I have a tendency to get overly contrasty negatives which are a pain in the ass to print in the darkroom so I’ve added a few steps in the development process to ease this issue.  I use a lower dilution of Rodinal, agitate every minute rather than every 30 seconds, and then use a 3 minute water bath instead of an acid stop after the development time is finished.   I may need to cut back on the water bath or agitate a little more often as the negatives looked a bit flatter than I’m used to.   The single coating does appear to give less contrast.   I’ll have to experiment more as the VueScan software I use to pull in my images does have a tendency to deliver flat scans.

I won’t say this is a problem, just a characteristic.

So today’s lesson is Use A Lens Shade.   I’ll have more to add as more photos come rolling in off the scanner.   With a little luck I’ll have access to a darkroom again later this week and we’ll have some real fun.

Domino Sugar Factory, Williamsburg Brooklyn

I’ve owned a Lubitel 166U for a number of years and while I’ve enjoyed our time together there are a number of issues that grates on my nerves.  Any relationship that brings you into a close working situation with someone for any amount of time is liable to expose both their good and bad qualities.   My time with the Lubitel has brought me some limited delight and much heartbreak.  Like a lover who occasionally once in a while gets drunk and does this fantastic thing with her… um… you get the idea…  anyway… I have a lot of bad negatives but there’s a few that I’m very fond of.

The reason I picked up the Lubitel from a Ukranian dealer off of ebay for $20 (with $30 shipping and mishandling) in 2004 or so was that I had been working with 35mm for a while and had heard of this great stuff called 120 film and wanted to try my hand at a Twin Lens Reflex.

Bigger Negative! Retro Appeal! Sexy Styling! Big Prints!

I’m not very bright and I really didn’t have anyone to talk to about this sort of thing so I ended up purchasing a Soviet era plastic-less-than-fantastic brick with decent exposure control, a really horrible lens, and a focusing system that was legendary in its inability to do what it claimed to do which was FOCUS.   At the time I thought it was a much smarter buy than a Holga.  After all, the holga had two exposure settings while the Lubitel offered a full range of f-stops from f/4.5 to f/22 as well as shutter speeds from B to 1/250.  On top of that the Lubitel could actually focus.  It had a pop up magnifier to assist you with critical focusing after all.

Lies, all lies.

In the defense of the Lubitel, it does indeed have a pop up magnifier to assist you with critial focusing.   It just doesn’t work as you can see from the below photo.  I got the steps in sharp, beautiful focus but that’s not what I was trying to get into focus…

Central Park, NYC

My problems with the camera can be summarized as:

• The focusing screen only offers 80% coverage of the actual scene.
• The little focusing spot? The one that looks like a bird shat in your viewfinder? Purely cosmetic.
• Using a knob for film advance is a bit painful for someone whose profession often leads to carpal tunnel syndrome.
• While the focusing lens does provide distance markings, they’re approximate at best
• That little red window on the back of the camera that you use to ensure that you’ve wound to the next frame is difficult to see through and becomes completely opaque by twilight.
• The close focusing distance is about 1.3 to 1.7 meters.

To be fair it was a $20 so the knob winding and the little red window that goes along with that winding system might be asking for a little much out of such a cheap camera.

The advantages of the camera are that it does offer a full range of exposures, its easy to load, its proved to be extremely durable, it has a PC socket (disguised as a little metal rod instead of the recessed socket we’re used to), it takes a cable release, and it weights next to nothing.   The one thing I ask out of a camera is that it does what I tell it to do.  In the case of the Lubitel it succeeds in the exposure realm but fails in focusing.

Focusing a Lubitel could be called an artform.  Its more a matter of throwing darts while blindfolded.  The smaller the f-stop, the bigger the dartboard.   So when stopped down to f/16 or f/22 you can rely on nearly everything being in focus.   Putting a roll of 400 ISO film and walking around in bright daylight will allow you to use these small apertures if desired.   As the Lubitel 166U offers a PC socket it can be used in the studio if you’d like to experiment with low quality lenses that offer you plenty of vignetting without having to mess around in photoshop.  The drawback of using the Lubitel in the studio is the close focusing distance of 1.7 meters.  Even cranking your lights up all the way to get a small aperture to get more depth of field will not allow you to get that close to the subject if you want a tightly composed frame.

Angel.

With an 75mm lens you’re limited to head and half-torso portraits as seen above.  This was taken about a meter away at around f/13 using a single light.  I wanted to be close to crop out a cluttered background but as you can see the backdrop is in sharp focus but the model is blurry.   She’s pretty damn cute anyway but I would have liked to have gotten her in sharper focus.

Cleopatra's Needle, Central Park

For landscapes this is obviously not a problem.

Now let’s return to the new Lubitel 166U+ recently released by the Lomo Society.   The promised features include an improved viewfinder, the promise of accurate zone focusing (doing away with the little pop up magnifier), and a closer focusing distance of .8 meters (about 2 1/2 feet or so).   They also offer the ability to use 35mm film to do a panoramic shot and replace the PC socket with a hotshoe.   Personally I would have preferred the PC socket but most people use hotshoe flashes these days, especially with little toy cameras like this one.

And finally the reason why I’m less than sanguine about this: the price point.

THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FUCKING DOLLARS.

I’d say pardon my French but I don’t know how to say fuck in French.  I’d say it in Spanish but I can’t remember how to conjugate chingar these days.

I realize that the Lomo Society is a boutique but that’s absurd.  Even with a redesigned camera that addresses the major flaws in the original that’s way off.  Seagull puts out a TLR with better features, better glass, and the same crappy build quality for about that price.  New.   More importantly, you can pick up a much loved Yashica Mat 124 for about a hundred dollars less in extremely good condition.   The Yashica has great build quality and delivers extremely good optics and performance for its price.   A friend of Angel’s raved about how much he loved his Yashica until someone mistook it for an ashtry during a party.  Or turned it into a bong.  Or something.  These things happen.

There are also related products like Pentacon 6 which is a SLR with an optional waist level viewfinder.   For $370 you can pick up a kit which includes a rebuilt Pentacon 6 with a prism viewfinder as well as the waist level finder from a reputable German manufacturer.   If you’re interested in entering the medium format world, there are better options than the Lubitel 166U+ no matter how you define the word “better”.

If you’re in the market for a crap TLR that performs pretty well I’d recommend the Lubitel 166U (not the new lomo fashion accessory, the original craptastic one) with the reservations I described above.   Its around $99 or less on ebay from Russian dealers, some of which are prefectly reputable.   You can probably find dealers based in the US as well.   Dropping $350 for a plastic camera that has a reputation for being very difficult to focus is not a good investment.    At $150 or $200 I might consider it as it does appear to solve many of my problems with the original 166U.  But not at $350.

The attraction of lomo was always limited quality at a limited price.  When you price a product that only offers entry level quality (with a few gee-wizz features thrown in) above another product that actually works far better it shines a very uncomfortably bright light on its flaws.   The Holga is total crap but I can pick one up for $25.  At that price its charming.   For $100 its the start of a relationship destined to end with one party being thrown under the wheels of a truck.

Rather than delve into the specific reasons behind choosing the Bessa rangefinder I’d like to talk about the differences I’ve found between buying digital equipment and film equipment.   This is written for people like myself who started out using digital cameras but were curious about that film thing they keep hearing so much about.

Buying digital requires a simple strategy.   Get all the money you have and go buy the most expensive body you can afford.  $$ = quality.  Keep in mind that you’re looking at buying a sensor more than a camera.  The camera just lets you use the sensor more effectively but your image quality is going to depend entirely on that sensor (yes, lenses are a big deal but a great lens on a sensor that’s crap in low light will not reduce noise).    There are other concerns but when it comes down to it, a camera is a light tight box with a hole on one end and light sensitive material on the other.   For a digital camera that light sensitive material cannot be replaced so you’re stuck with it.  Get a good one.

My suggestion for getting into film takes the opposite tactic, start cheap and move up as necessary.

There are three factors encouraging you to start out cheap:

1) Digital broke the back of the film market so its all used equipment and its dirt cheap for the most part.

2) Film photography has evolved over the past 100 years so there’s been a great deal of both innovation and specialization.

3) Your image sensitive material is identical between cameras.  Film is film is film.   So your investment in image quality is all about your glass and that difference can be more about build quality and speed than a sharpness you’ll notice on an 8×10.

You can get exactly what you want and you can get it cheap.

The primary advantage that film equipment holds over digital is its wide variety of formats and shooting experiences.   The majority of digital cameras fall into one of two camps, the SLR and the compact.  There are some medium and large format backs but they’re ASTRONOMICALLY expensive for the non-professional.   Film on the other hand offers 3 major categories of camera based on film format.  35mm, medium format (roll film), and large format.   35mm is primarily covered by SLR and rangefinder cameras and large format primarily use view cameras in a variety of film sizes (4×5 and 8×10 being the most common).   Medium format is the most flexible format as it uses a roll of film with a standard width but each camera determines what the frame size is (most commonly 6×4.5, 6×6, and 6×7).

In addition to different film sizes you have a wide variety of types of cameras available.   These range from your traditional SLR’s to rangefinders to folders to Twin Lens Reflexes to component based cameras like the Hasselblad to view cameras and then there’s the wonderful world of lomography.    You can also build your own camera like the time honored Quaker Oats pinhole camera. Susan Burnstine makes her own cameras and produces absolutely enchanting images.

The number of options for getting into film photography are absolutely stunning.   The good news is that with a few exceptions film equipment is dirt cheap on the used market so the ability to experiment with a variety of formats and equipment types is relatively inexpensive.    Chances are you can simply ask your parents or a friend if they have an old beater that’s sitting in their closet which reduces your entry costs to zero.

For the $1350 it would cost to purchase a Canon 50D with a 50mm f/1.8 lens you could easily purchase:

• Canonet QL17 (rangefinder)
• Canon AE-1 with 50mm f/1.4 lens (SLR)
• Yashica 124G (6×6 TLR)
• Minox GT 35  (Miniature 35mm)
• Bronica SQ-A outfit (6×6 component based medium format)
• Holga or Diana (or both!)

And have enough for a box or two of film left over.

I suggest this array of equipment as it covers the bases for the most commonly available systems for film photography.   Its complete overkill for a single purchase but it shows how cheap and easy it is to experiment with a variety of formats.   These cameras aren’t crap (except for the holga, but that’s a special kind of crap) either.  The lenses are usually very sharp and these are generally reliable cameras if they’ve been well maintained.   Exploring each of these options (buying new lenses, accessories, upgrading to a more expensive model) will require more substantial investments but getting your foot in the door and seeing how a particular setup works for you is quite reasonable compared to the cost of a single mid-range digital SLR.

If you’re going to shoot film, shoot something that matches your style and your needs.  Street photographers are likely to favor rangefinders and compact TLR’s due to their discrete nature.  Portrait photographers are going to gravitate towards the monsterous Mamiya RB67 for a larger negative and high reliability due to mechanical simplicity.  Landscape photographers will want the big negative medium format offers but have to worry about weight and may pick a Hasselblad.  Sports photographers may opt for a modern Nikon F4 or F5 for metering and compatability with autofocus lenses.

Even among medium format systems like the Hasselblad, Mamiya, and Bronica the difference between 6×4.5, 6×6, and 6×7 is significant due to changes in composition depending on the format of each frame.

Experiment.  Find what you like on the used market.  Sell the rest.  Buy more of what you need.   Put off a serious investment in a high end system until you’re certain that’s what you want.   More expensive systems do give you more options and do have an edge on quality but its not the difference between a little point and shoot canon and the 5D Mark II.  After all, every roll of Tri-X is exactly the same so the potential to capture light is exactly the same.