…To Holga
Note that the title does not mean I’m giving up the Hasselblad in any way, shape, or form. You can have it when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. Moving on…
I bought a Holga from Randy over at Holgamods* a while back. I had been using it mainly to try out sprocket hole photography. (See my second review of Sharp Photo and Portrait.) I had shot a roll of cross-processed color film in it, with somewhat pleasing results, as shown in the post about cross-processing.
* – Extra modifications to the Holga included interior flocking, closer focusing, aperture modification, and the inclusion of both a cut 6×6 back and a factory 6×6 back.
Anyway, I finally decided to shoot some black and white film in the Holga. The camera manual (isn’t that cute? They come with instructions.) suggests using 400-speed film, but I did some calculations first. The shutter speed on the Holga is somewhere around 1/100 of a second, and the aperture is anywhere from f/8 to f/16. Sunny 16 tells me that on a sunny day I should really be using ISO 100 film, so I loaded my last 120 roll of Ilford Delta 100. Results are below:
Overall, I’m very happy, and I’m sure that these will make excellent prints in the darkroom. I’m surprised how much vignetting of focus there is. Note that I used the factory 6×6 mask, and apparently this results in less darkening in the corners, a claim that I’ll have to test out. Next on the agenda, I want to see what results look like when I use HP5+ and FP4+…
From Hasselblad…
First in a two-parter. I recently sent my faulty Hasselblad film magazine to David Odess for repair. Very not-cheap, but I sold a friend my Canon AE-1 to help pay for it. Why would I sell my AE-1 you ask? Well, when I bought it I had definitely NOT done my research and thought it was a mechanical camera. Turns out it needs a battery to function, and I’ve had a beef with it ever since I bought it. And I was sick of it sitting there asking me why I didn’t love it properly with it’s accusing eyes. Anyway.
The problem I was having was the occasional overlapping frame on whatever roll of film I’d put through the Hasselblad. I noticed that this happened once or twice, so I stopped using the camera until I had the cash (more than a hundred, but not quite two hundred) to get the magazine fixed. Fortunately, a call to David confirmed that the film back was all that I needed to send in – the problem is apparently never with the camera body.
Well, I got the magazine back on a Friday and shot a roll of film in it that night. It was a poker night in Stormstown, and I hadn’t had the pleasure of a poker night in a long time. Much to my dismay, however, the frames were still closely spaced. Not overlapping, but closely spaced. I even took the time to measure them, the average being 3.7 mm, translating to a 1.85-mm border for a roughly 60x60mm image. In my opinion, that’s too close for comfort. My latest camera, a Yashica Mat-124G, produces a much more comfortable frame spacing.
So I e-mailed David and he explained that he replaced some parts that ensured the frames wouldn’t overlap. But unlike the old Kiev camera I performed surgery on, there’s no adjustment for spacing the frames farther apart. You have to start replacing parts at that point, and it can get very expensive. Since the original frame overlap problem was fixed, I’m going to just consider the matter settled, even though I thought the frames were going to have a bit more of a buffer between them.
Of course, I’m going to keep my eye on the film that comes out of this camera, and hopefully there won’t be any problems.
Shots from the first test roll, for which I finally used my Unicolor C-41 kit:
Sharpness
A quick post to (hopefully) improve the sharpness of your film photos.
1. Use a tripod. This is probably the best thing you can do to make your photos sharp. Your hands are always moving, and that means your camera is always moving if you’re not using a tripod. Remember that a photograph always represents a “slice” of time, so you should do whatever you can to ensure that the camera is motionless during that time if you can. If a tripod is unfeasible, a monopod is also an improvement. Otherwise, hold your camera as steadily as you can while you shoot.
2. Use a cable release. More vibration is introduced when you use your finger to push the shutter button. With a shutter release cable, the button is pressed off the camera body and transferred either through a mechanical cable extension or electronically. Thus, there is virtually no additional movement when the shutter fires. An added bonus is that virtually all cable releases feature a lock in case you want to do very long exposures. (E.g., fire the shutter, go eat some pizza, come back, and end the exposure.)
3. Use f/8 or f/11. These are allegedly the sharpest apertures to use for lenses that narrow down to f/22. Sadly, I don’t know enough about optics to tell you why. I imagine it might have to do with diffraction being minimized. Anyway, assuming your subject is stationary, use a longer exposure time so you can use this optimal aperture. Note that a large format user once told me that f/22 is sharper for large format photography. I think both optima are toward the middle of the respective aperture scales for their particular lens.
4. Use the mirror lock-up. When you release the shutter, the mirror on an SLR camera flips up to let light pass through to the film. This introduces very small vibrations to the camera, and you’ll lose a small bit of sharpness. Most SLR cameras have a lock-up function that you can activate before opening the shutter so that you can alleviate the vibration before your image capture. The downside is that you can no longer use the viewfinder, so be sure to compose beforehand. Alternatively, you could use a TLR or rangefinder, neither of which use mobile mirrors.
5. Use medium format or better. Ok, this doesn’t improve sharpness as much as it does resolution. 35mm film can only capture so much detail due to its size and the size of the grain on the film. (35mm still offers way better resolution when scanned than most consumer-grade digital cameras.) Medium format or even large format has a much larger image area, thereby allowing more details to be recorded on the film. It’s sort of like upgrading from a 640×480 monitor to a 1600×1200 monitor. Slower film also improves resolution, as the grain is finer.
6. Use a super-sharp lens. I’ve seen sharpness tests using Rolleiflexes, Mamiyas and Hasselblads – all medium format cameras. The sharpness didn’t vary much at all. However, I can also say that my 50mm f/1.4 on my Canon EOS camera beats the living hell out of the kit lens that originally came with it. This, however, is the most expensive option I’ve mentioned in this list. (Assuming you already have a camera that shoots a larger format than 35mm, of course.)
Example photograph: This was shot on Kodak Portra 400 film. The camera was a Hasselblad 500 C/M with a Carl Zeiss 80mm Planar CF f/2.8 lens. I probably used f/11 or f/8 as the working aperture. The camera was on a relatively inexpensive Slik tripod. The mirror was locked up, and I used a mechanical shutter release cable. I’ve included the overall image, as well as one that shows a 100% zoom in to the 3200 dpi scan.
Clara, Tired – First Haselblad image
Camera: Hasselblad 500C/M
Film: Ilford Delta 100 developed in HC-110
My first Hasselblad image – or at least the first I bothered to scan to a final image. I traded in a telephoto zoom lens, a flash unit, and a battery grip to get half off a 500C/M outfit. I decided to shoot a test roll of Delta 100 around the house.
The Hasselblad (named after Swedish creator Victor Hasselblad) was arguably the premier medium-format camera of the film era. A version of the camera was taken to the moon. The most popular cameras were the members of the “V System,” which in included interchangeable bodies, lenses, viewfinders, winders, film magazines and holders, and other accessories. The first camera in this series was the 500C, followed by the 500C/M.
A downside to the camera is that new lenses are pretty expensive, especially when comparing the system to a Mamiya RZ67 or 645. What made me purchase the Hasselblad was the lighter body and the 6×6 square format. The Mamiyas (which I’ve tried) were heavier, and featured either 6×7 or 6×4.5 images. If you’re making prints, then these aspect ratios are probably more friendly for photo paper, requiring less of a crop. However, I usually only scan my photos. The Hasselblad system features a 6×4.5 back if you really want one, and 6×7 images are a pain to store in my plastic PrintFile negative carriers.
When looking for Hasselblad images, look for unparalleled sharpness, and the two signature notches in the left border.
Color negative and transparency film test shots will be coming soon!
