I can't put my finger on it, but there's a look to medium format that's different that 35mm or digital. I'm sure it has to do with the size of the format, but since my experience is limited on the subject I cannot put it into words. All I know is, I like it.
These shots were made with my Super Ricohflex TLR of 1950s vintage, metered with a 1940s GE selenium light meter. Both shots are wide open at f/3.5, hence the vignetting. The film is Arista EDU 100 from Freestyle photo (widely rumored to be Fomapan). It's not my favorite film, but the price is right and I really dig these photos.
I like this one the more I look at it. It's frame 37, and since my Printfile negative sleeves hold only 36 frames, it's just part of a two-frame strip that I store behind the sixth full strip. Just goes to show, you can never have enough film. This one was shot with my Ricoh 35 ZF camera.
Any camera you have that winds manually should yield you 37-40 frames. You get the extra frames at the beginning of the roll, not the end — in fact, the last frame is pretty damn close to the spool (when you're loading in the dark, you need to cut right up against the tape that holds the film on the reel). Load the film carefully, shut the back of the camera, wind one frame, and blast away. What's labeled 36 on the film will be 37, 38, 39...even 40 if you're real lucky.
I've been doing a lot of scanning this year, and I have found it frustrating that I couldn't add camera, lens, and other shooting info to the resulting jpegs (Lightroom lets you add all kinds of metadata, but no meat-and-potatoes EXIF data). After much digging I discovered Filmtagger, a free program for Mac and Windows that lets you do just that. Cool.
Canon Elan IIe, Arista 400 at 28mm.A couple of painters were set up in an alley recently. Seemed like a lovely scene, and for some reason I like the way bricks look in B&W.
Canon Elan IIe, Arista 400 at 135mm.In the one above, I like that the little girl appears to be holding a camera. Good for her! The farmers' market is a great place to snap photos.I've never done a lot of "street photography," but I am starting to understand the appeal. You look at some pictures a second, third time...you start to see all kinds of new details.
Canon Elan IIe, Arista 400 film, Canon 28-135mm lens.
