Tuesday, October 30, 2012

A leap. And some help.

I seem to have lost my senses. Or what little sense I had left. I know I've wanted to move more into film. I also knew that, although less expensive, and lighter, and easier to deal with in general, 35mm film would only take me so far in my "seeing."


To that end, I picked up a 645. A used Mamiya AF, in this case. I can't afford Hasselblad, where I am not sure where I am going to be with MF film thing. Went looking for a Contax, but they seem to be hard to get; something about some famous photographer using it. Oh, and Ken Rockwell mentioned it was his preferred of the 645s, so I guess that makes it gold. So I "settled" on this. But Mamiya is no slouch.

The metering is iffy, literally. The only thing I see on the viewfinder display is the focus indicator. But I had planned to use a handheld meter, anyway, so not an issue. The focusing is slow. And NOISY!!! Sounds like a tank turret coming around to bring its weapon to bear on a squirrel.

 
The important thing here is AF; I have a Mamiya C330 TLR. Works pretty well, even in the hands of a klutz like me. But it's manual focus. Manual focus. In the hands of an old, blind guy. Even with the split-prism, spend too long focusing; the subject falls asleep. But the focus is quiet, and then you trip the shutter...ka-CHUNK! Hehe...

I know. Gear shouldn't matter. But I seem to be stuck. Not only on my butt, but also in my head. I "see" things the same way. Yes, more crutches. I is broken.

So. The thought is, get something that, in MY head, is purpose-built for, say, portrait work. (I know, you can use it for nature/landscape, too! Just don't tell that to my head; it's a S.E.C.R.E.T.). Maybe I'll start to "see" like a portrait photographer. Yeah, keep saying that, haha.

Adventures in camera-owning... onward.

1 comment:

  1. Ou, how exciting! I've thought about going this route, but have made the leap. Funny how so many us go back to film or think about it after a couple of years using digital film.

    Where are you posting your film stuffs? Interesting that you want to "see" like a portrait photographer. I know I don't "see" that way.
    Street photography interests me though. Do you want to do more portrait work?

    I'm looking forward to following your journey.

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