Pushing Fomapan Film To The Limit

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A few months back I made a last minute booking to a studio space after my plans to work outdoors fell threw due to some very cold, wet, and dark weather. Sometimes that is just the simple reality of being a photographer in the Pacific Northwest. You just never know what the weather is going to be from one day to the next. It keeps you on your toes to say the least!

In order to access the studio one has to walk through an alley that has a real “old city” vibe to it, right out of classic Hollywood noir thrillers. Long strings of ivy running up brick walls and the space lit only by small lanterns built in the building structure. It felt like walking through a haunted space and I desperately wanted to make some images there. The trouble was, I was prepared to work outdoors and only had slower speed Fomapan 100 film with me. Not exactly ideal for a dimly lit scene.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Fomapan 100 pushed to ISO 400.

Still, I was incredibly determined to give a try anyway. The absolute worst thing that could happen is the photographs wouldn’t turn out well and in such an event I would lose nothing. After all, I was there to work in a studio, not necessarily the alleyway leading up to the studio. It was worth the risk to expose a quick roll right here and cross my fingers for the best.

The challenge of course was the fact that I needed to expose my 100 speed film to at least ISO 400 in order to get a shutter speed with the Hasselblad that I could hand hold. Even pushing the film two stops I was still exposing the scene at f/2.8 and 1/15th of a second. Any slower on the shutter speed and the resulting images would be guaranteed to exhibit a lot of blur. A tripod would have solved this issue of course, but the space was very small and exposed to the public street so working swiftly was also a significant factor. It was hand hold the camera or bust.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Fomapan 100 pushed to ISO 400.

As much as I like the classic look of Fomapan 100 black and white film, I’ve never had a lot of luck pushing the film beyond ISO 100. If anything, the film benefits from pulling it a little. I’m sure a lot of this has to do with the fact that my preferred developer is Rodinal, which is not exactly a developer known for it’s solid high ISO characteristics. But hey, rules and trends are made to be broken and there is nothing to gain if you don’t give it a go. I souped up the developer at a ratio of 1:25 and developed for a solid ten minutes, which is several minutes longer than the Massive Development Chart recommends.

The negatives still came out pretty thin, but there was enough there to get a pretty decent scan of my three favorite frames.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Fomapan 100 pushed to ISO 400.

All-in-all I wouldn’t say these are my most successful images ever, but I’m still proud of the fact that I took the risk and didn’t let the technical challenges deter me from giving it all a go. Sometimes that is the biggest obstacle to overcome when it comes to photography, or any other creative process for that matter. It is so easy to find a reason not to make an image and far more difficult to talk yourself into taking a risk.

...more with the Panon Widelux F8

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It’s been a long time since I’ve fallen so hard for a “new” camera as I have for the Panon Widelux F8. The unique design of the swivel lens has really opened up my creative eye to seeing the world in a slightly different way and over the last several months I’ve become addicted to the experience. I’ve written a couple of blog posts on this camera already which you can find HERE and HERE. I also recommend checking out the web page actor Jeff Bridges has made dedicated to his own work with the Widelux, which is incredibly well done.

Recently I sent the camera off to get a good CLA from a knowledgable repair person who knows far more than I do. I could tell the shutter speeds were a bit off and I’m already waiting anxiously for the camera to return to my possession so I can run more film through it. Still, I managed to do several photo sessions with it, most of which I have yet to even develop, so I should have plenty of images to work on the meantime.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Ilford HP5 35mm film.

I’ll fully admit that about 90% of the images I’ve made with the Widelux aren’t particularly great. One of the Widelux’s greatest strengths is its ability to photograph an incredibly wide field of view. This is also one of its greatest challenges as well. Most of the images I’ve made with the Widelux just feel incredibly “busy”. There is just so much going on the frame that the composition is no longer pleasing to the eye. I don’t fault the camera for this as much as I fault my own lack of experience. My photographic failures with the Widelux are part of the fun and every bad image makes the good ones feel that much sweeter and more satisfying.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Ilford HP5 35mm film.

With this collection of images, you can clearly see what an image looks like if you don’t set the camera level with the landscape. All of these images were done hand held without paying attention to the bubble level on the top of the camera at all. The result is a “warping” effect which in a lot of cases doesn’t look all that great, but occasionally looks interesting when done with some purposeful intent. If there wasn’t a model in these frames I’d probably dismiss these frames entirely, but when there is a figure to draw the eye into the center of the frame, the semi-circle of the landscape actually looks interesting.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Ilford HP5 35mm film.

This session was also the first time I attempted to load film into the Widelux while outdoors. More importantly, I was loading the film outdoors with some incredibly intense wind and temperatures that made my fingers a little bit numb. Threading the film through several gears with barely working hands and a model patiently waiting in the wings proved difficult to say the least.

All part of the learning curve….

Panon Widelux Portraits

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I made a quick blog post last month about my early experiences with the Panon Widelux F8. It should come as no surprise at all to anyone that I brought the camera along with me to a session with a live model at my earliest opportunity. I’ll be the first to admit that the Widelux is a camera that didn’t have portraiture in mind when it was designed. It is definitely more suited to landscape work or even street photography. However, the unique design of the swivel lens can yield some incredibly interesting results.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Ilford FP4 35mm black and white film.

These images where captured in a natural light studio with me sitting about four feet back from the model. I didn’t even bother using the viewfinder on the camera as it is highly inaccurate at close distances and instead opted to just aim the camera in the right direction as best I could. You can see I accidentally caught a bit of the studio window in the right side of the frame. The ultimately field of view with the Widelux is always just a little longer than I expect it to be; which is kind of cool to be honest.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Ilford FP4 35mm black and white film.

The reason the model appears twice in each frame is because about halfway through the camera’s lens travel from one side to the other I moved the Widelux on the tripod to follow the track of the lens with the subject. You can see Jeff Bridges employ this technique in the following YouTube video when he appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show using his own Widelux camera. It’s a fun way to experiment with the camera and it resulted in more failures than it did usable images for me, but that is perfectly fine. Photography has never been about getting an entire roll of perfect exposures.

Photography Really Is Painting With Light

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One of the first things any photography student learns is that the word Photography literally means 'drawing with light', which derives from the Greek photo, meaning light and graph, meaning to draw. I think it is important sometimes as an artist to remember that. We can often get caught up with the technical details of the craft, thinking about megapixels and camera specs, but really the most important part of an image is what is in front of us in the scene, not the tool we hold in our hand. It’s all about the characteristics of the light.

Photographed with a Mamiya C330 TLR and Ilford HP5 120 film.

The light was really something special when this series of photographs was made. In fact, I had no plans to even make photographs on this particular day. The model and I were planning on going outdoors the following day and she was using my spare bedroom as a landing pad while passing through town. When we both noticed this incredibly intense, yet somehow soft and ethereal light coming through my living room windows during the final minutes before the sun dipped below the mountains west of Portland, we both jumped to attention and decided to harness it on film.

Photographed with a Mamiya C330 TLR and Ilford HP5 120 film.

The scene looked more like a mermaid swimming through the ocean than it did playing with the light of a westward facing window. A golden transparent ocean full of warmth and dancing waves. I exposed twelve frames in a matter of about ten minutes without thinking too hard about it. There wasn’t time. The light was changing too rapidly to worry about complicated exposure measurements. I exposed a roll of Ilford HP5 at box speed (ISO 400) and just crossed my fingers that the contrast wouldn’t be so high as to wash out all the lovely details.

Photographed with a Mamiya C330 TLR and Ilford HP5 120 film.

Sometimes these are my favorite kind of photo sessions. The ones that you don’t plan at all. They just happen at a moments notice like a firecracker and before you even have time to think about it they’re over. Little miracles that result in a short series like this feel like pure instinct and there is something great about that.

Panon Widelux F8 - First Roll

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The Panon Widelux camera is a machine I’ve long been interested in checking out. For those reading this who have never heard of the Widelux, in a nutshell it is a 35mm camera with a rotating front lens that gives a mind blowing 140 degree viewing angle and a negative that is roughly twice the width of a standard 35mm frame. It’s one of those cameras that truly transforms the world around you when you look through the viewfinder. The images are so wide when using the Widelux the photographer has to hold the camera at the top and bottom, not the sides, otherwise you’ll get your own fingers in the frame. I had quite a few bad images on my first test roll because I instinctively gripped the Widelux with my right hand like I would any other camera.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Fomapan 100 35mm film.

Famous actor Jeff Bridges is well known in the photographic community for using a Widelux. You can check out his website here and it is worth a look if you’re thinking about buying a Widelux for yourself. He has a lot more experience with the Widelux than I do and his photographs are quite good. He’s also got some great tips and tricks on his website worth considering if you want to buy a Widelux for yourself.

I first encountered the Widelux in my college days when I saw a series of work one of my Professors was working on with the camera. I thought it was insanely cool but I was also hesitant to pick one up for myself for nearly two decades. The Widelux is notorious for being a little unreliable and incredibly difficult to work on. A lot of repair shops won’t even touch the thing.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Fomapan 100 35mm film.

The camera I purchased from eBay clearly has a shutter swing that is running on the slow side. Given the cameras age and the amount of gearing it takes for the Widelux to work I’m not totally surprised. I compensated for that when I made the images on my first test roll so the images turned out more or less fine. I had to do some post production work when scanning my negatives because they were clearly a big “overcooked” but nothing I wouldn’t be able to do in an analogue darkroom.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Fomapan 100 35mm film.

However, if I’m going to dive into this strange world of Widelux photography I’d rather have a camera that is in tip-top shape. So I’ve immediately sent the camera off for a tune-up and I’m eagerly awaiting its return. I waited nearly two decades to buy a Widelux so I can certainly wait a few more months to have a sample that works perfectly. Hopefully, like most mechanical 35mm cameras, once it goes through a good CLA (Clean, Lubricate, and Adjust) it’ll work nicely for the foreseeable future.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Fomapan 35mm film.

The unique “swivel” of the lens allows for some very unique creative opportunities, especially at slow shutter speeds. At 1/15th of a second the lens takes a few seconds to swing from one side to the other. Moving the camera or moving the subject (in the last image on this post, that subject is myself) along with the movement of the lens can be really fun. When I get the camera back from repair I’ll probably do a lot of experimenting with this. It’ll be a unique way to approach figure studies on film.

Even though I’ve only dabbled with the Widelux F8 so far I can already tell I’m going to enjoy this camera a lot.