In October 2015 something miraculous happened to me.
Something that I had dreamed of finally came true. After shooting for nearly ten years digitally, I got my hands on my first film camera. Not just any camera, but the famed medium format Hasselblad 500c/m! It was under very special circumstances that I acquired the camera, and I started shooting on it immediately. It has helped me get back to the spirit of photography, shooting with a completely manual camera.
No batteries, no auto-focus, no light meter, and real analog medium format film. A new challenge for me, and it sparked new interest in photography for me.
Originally, I wanted to shoot Black & White film for a long time, because I felt that with a digital camera, it’s never really a true B&W photo when the raw data from the photo will always be in color. However, my first roll of film on this beautiful camera was color, and I have fallen in love with the tones of my Kodak Ektar 100 and Kodak Portra 400 films.
It has been a unique challenge for me to use medium format film.
Fortunately for me, I already challenged myself to shoot my digital cameras in manual mode. It has been through using an affordable light meter that I have been able to go out with just my film camera on several occasions and capture beautiful photos of landscapes and people.
One of the challenges I have yet to face is to develop my film. I now take my film to a local shop in my neighborhood but I bought the scanner so I can share these photos in high quality without breaking the bank. Each high-quality scan was $44 from the shop, but the scanner was only $200. It was a no-brainer.
I will soon embark on an adventure of shooting some high ISO black and white medium format film. I love low light while still being handheld, indoor portraits and can’t wait to get some real film grain.
Hope you enjoy my first batch of medium format film photos!
