Saturday 19 March 2011

Or, Rollei Saturday

On Saturday 19 March I took my beautiful Rolleiflex 2.8F Twin Lens Reflex medium format camera to work.

It was such a sunny Saturday I took it to the roof and shot a few exposures with the new Kodak Portra 400 iso film.

Above, a tree.

This was the first time I used the new Portra 400. I realised when I got the negatives back, and scanned them, that this film really is sweet. You can see me rave about it on my Hanoi Interlude, below.

The film, although 400 iso, has such fine grain it looks more like a 100 iso film. Especially, of course, when used in medium format. Must try this in large format...

The Rollei is one of my favourite cameras. So well made and beautiful to use. But it also produces great photos. I have explained before I include it within my Rangefinder Chronicles because, although not a rangefinder at all but a TLR, I use it more like a rangefinder than an SLR. That's mainly because it has no mirror, and so you can easily shoot at 1/15 or 1/8 of a second and get razor sharp images.

As I did in these colour pics. No tripod necessary. 400 iso and slow shutter speeds meant, on such a bright day I could shoot f16 hand held and the images are as sharp as a 100 iso film on a tripod with, say, my Hasselblad. Or, for that matter, a Canon 5D Mk II. Except, of course, the images and colour are, in my opinion, far more beautiful than you get with a DSLR.

Finally, this was one from a black and white film I took after work in Islington. I think it was Fuji Neopan 400 (my favourite black and white in 35mm and 120 film). I developed the film at home and managed to pour a bucket of dust over it somehow, so most of the pics are not publishable. But this one, of a shop in Upper Street, worked.