Portrait

Hasselblad 150mm f/4 "Portrait" Lens

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I’ve been using the Hasselblad 500c/m for most of my work the past six or seven years now. As a complete camera system it checks most boxes for me. The camera itself is relatively light (for a medium format camera), the ergonomics feel intuitive, and the the overall system itself is capable of doing just about every subject I have an interest in exploring. Maybe best of all, the available lenses on the “V System” are all rather excellent. All the samples I have tried of every focal length have had a performance level that far exceeds my own skills as a photographer.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford HP5 120 film.

Like most people who buy a Hassselblad 500c/m (or any other camera in the V S System lineup) my copy came with the standard 80mm f/2.8. This is the lens I’ve used for about 85% of the work I’ve done with the camera. It’s one of those lenses that sets the benchmark for all the others. It’s sharp, contrasty, has really nice bokeh, and is so common that picking one up isn’t a huge financial flex. The focal length is considered “normal”, i.e. it has a field of view relatively close to the human eye. If want to work with a Hasselblad, this is probably the place to start and I wouldn’t be surprised if it lived on your camera body most of the time.

That being said, over the years I’ve acquired a few other lenses for my Hasselblad kit. Typically I’ve only pulled out my wallet when I’ve come across good deals that are hard to pass up. There is a lot of used Hasselblad gear floating around out there and with some patience deals can be found. For example, I picked up the 150mm f/4 lens for about $250 from a seller on Facebook who was just looking to dump his gear in favor of the latest and greatest Fuji digital point and shoot. Ok cool, at that price it is worth a try right?

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford FP4 120 film.

At 150mm this is a focal length with medium format that is considered a portrait lens. It’s a short tele-photo that makes it easy to fill a frame with someone’s head and shoulders while also getting a good amount of background blur. Normally I like to get a bit more of the environment into my photographs so this lens doesn’t get a huge amount of use, but sometimes its healthy to put a lens on my camera that is a bit outside of my wheelhouse just to see the world from a new perspective. Besides, it can also be nice to photograph a portrait of a person while also standing more than a few feet away from them. A bit of distance between yourself and your subject isn’t a bad thing. I’ve noticed people tend to relax a bit more and have an easier time looking straight at the camera when the lens isn’t right in their face.

Like every other Hasselblad lens that I’ve worked with the performance is well…. nothing short of excellent. It’s incredibly sharp even when wide open at f/4. Heck, it might even be too sharp. Sometimes I like when portraits are a bit soft to hide blemishes and give the overall look of the image more of a lo-fi character. So yeah, take that complaint with a grain of salt. I’m aware of how silly it seems to complain about a lens being too sharp. I could always soften this up with a filter if I really wanted to.

Last Frames With Fuji FP-100c Instant Film

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I woke up this morning thinking about how much I really miss Fuji FP-100c instant film. It is such a shame that Fuji decided this film stock wasn’t profitable any longer because as far as I’m concerned it was the best instant film ever made by a wide margin. Fantastic colors, consistent performance, and a reasonable price always made it a go-to film stock for me.

Photographed with a Mamiya RZ67 and Fuji FP-100c Instant Film

One of my favorite things to do with Fuji FP-100c was to rescue the negative side of the image. Instant film was always designed to give the photographer an immediate positive print, but with Fuji it was easy to keep the negative side as well. All it took was a dab of bleach, a cheap paint brush, and a bit of patience. Simple. In many ways this quality made Fuji FP-100c the cheapest color film on the market because you didn’t have to pay any developing costs to get a negative. How cool was that? Fuji truly had a magical product on their hands and it is such a shame it no longer exists.

Photographed with a Mamiya RZ67 and Fuji FP-100c Instant Film

These images represent some frames from the last pack of Fuji FP-100c I ever exposed. By the time I got around to using it the film was significantly expired so there are a lot of color shifts going on here. I probably shouldn’t have waited so long to expose this pack of film, but once Fuji announced FP-100c was discontinued I became afraid to expose my last few packs on hand. Even with the color shifts, I still like the resulting images. Color shifts have always been part of the fun with any instant film as far as I’m concerned. It’s not about complete accuracy to the original scene.

Photographed with a Mamiya RZ67 and Fuji FP-100c Instant Film

Camera used was my Mamiya RZ67 with an instant film back. I still have the back in the vein hope that someone will pick up where Fuji left off and create a peel part instant film again. I know there is a snowball’s chance in hell that will happen, but hey, I suppose you never know. After all, Polaroid came back from the dead and seems to be going strong and I never thought that would happen either.

Large Format 4x5 Film In The Studio

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It feels like it has been quite a while since I’ve worked with 4x5 film. After a recent photo session in the studio I think I intend to change that habit. For anyone who has ever worked with large format film you know that it is a slow moving process. Very slow. Like sloth climbing up a tree slow. But as I get older and the meaning and purpose behind photography changes for me over time, the slow methodical nature of large format film appeals to me more and more.

Photographed with a Calumet 4x5 Camera and Ilford HP5 Large Format Black and White Film.

From a technical perspective this image has a lot of failures. I think there is a bit of a light leak in the 4x5 film back I was using which was made all the worse by the fact that my studio lights were very close to the camera and the model. Either that or there is a light leak in my developing tank. I’m going to have to do some experimenting to figure out which of those two potential problems is true. In addition, when I developed the film my temperatures were a bit high making the final results a bit too contrasty for my taste.

However, for some reason i’m more forgiving of technical errors when it comes to large format photography. The slow methodical nature of the process makes everything feel more organic, including mistakes. I don’t feel as compelled to have perfect results like I normally would with 35mm, digital, or even medium format film.

Golden Hour and Portraits

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It’s no secret that the final minutes of light right before sunset are often the best moments to make photographs. You have to be swift and decisive because you don’t have a lot of time before the sun dips below the horizon, but if you have your scene set up and get you get a little bit lucky with your exposures, great things can happen.

Photographed with a Sony A7c and Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 lens.

When COVID was in full swing and everyone was being incredibly cautious about where we went and who we worked with I did quite a few photo sessions in my living room. I have west facing windows that tend to get very dramatic light in the final minutes of the day. Sometimes the light is just way too harsh to work with, but on this particular day it was perfect. Probably because it was the fall season when the light tends to be a bit more subdued, yet full of color.

Imperfection With a Paper Negative in the Darkroom

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I’ve mentioned on this blog before that I sometimes like to work with Paper Negatives. When using the Large Format 4x5 camera, paper negatives can be a great way to make images in a very economical way. A sheet of darkoom paper is still pennies on the dollar when compared to the traditional film one would typically load in a camera.

Photographed with a 4x5 View Camera and Ilford RC 4x5 Darkroom Paper

Paper negatives come with two challenges in particular. First, the effective ISO of paper is very slow. I typically expose at ISO 2 or 3 depending on how harsh the light is. This means very very slow shudder speeds at times. Part of the reason most of my portraits using paper negatives are so soft is because it is nearly impossible for the vast majority of people to hold completely still over the course of one or two full seconds. Second, paper negatives tend to have a lot of contrast in the final results. I find this is alleviated to a great extend by simply diluting my paper developer far more than I typically would when making a print from a negative. This tends to result in a more muted effect.

A third challenge with paper negatives can be illustrated in the image that comes with this post. When a lazy photographer such as myself isn’t paying much attention during development paper can get stuck together in the tray. This will result in uneven development as not enough chemistry reaches the paper emulsion. I’m considering this example to be a happy accident. I like the way the top of the model is brighter than the lower half. It’s an interesting segmentation.

That’s what I’m telling myself anyway.