m.sawyer photography

thoughts on switching to a 100% medium format workflow

It’s been a while since I posted actual written content of my own here (I wonder how many blog posts begin with this sentiment). My pace of life has taken on more of a Twitter consciousness than a Tumblr one. But this is not good, because the wheels have been turning again with the new year and my approach to photography.

For almost the last two years, I’ve been shooting film (with my RZ67) for most any kind of photography that I’m passionate about. And I have absolutely loved it, so much so, that it’s got me thinking again about my film/digital approach. But the seed that started this chain of thought came from when we attended a wedding in the fall of two of our good friends.

I can’t really attend a wedding anymore without doing a routine scan of the wedding photographer: technique, demeanor, and of course, the gear being used. But at this particular wedding I saw something I never thought I’d see. The guy was using a Mamiya. Also surprising was that he appeared to be less than 30 years old (I’d expect anyone using medium format film for a wedding would be a super old-school pro). At first I assumed he was using one of the new all-digital Mamiyas and whispered to my wife “that guy’s camera probably cost ten thousand dollars!”, but I was wrong after figuring out who he was and visiting his website. He uses only film for all the weddings he does.

And so this option has been simmering in the back of my head for a while now. Is this something I could pull off? It would certainly help differentiate me from the onslaught of the everyone-and-their-brother-who’s-now-a-photographer wedding photographers. And it would allow me to shoot the way I like to shoot — or at least closer to it — even in the context of a wedding. 

There are lots of challenges to be overcome to make wedding photography work using only medium format film: the added cost of film, processing, scanning; the fear that exposure is way off; the reloading of film every few shots, etc etc. To make it work both logistically and financially (i.e. I can’t afford a Hasselblad setup, and my RZ67 is too big and slow), I’d need to sell all my current gear — digital and film included — and find a system that works for all of the types of photography I currently work in. This idea sounds totally exciting to me. It would be like getting rid of all my CDs, the old victrola, and going 100% vinyl with a modern record player.

There seems to be one system emerging from the options that can make all of this possible, or at least minimize the compromises all around: the Mamiya AFD. By switching to the 645 format AFD from the RZ67 I’d lose resolution and arguably some tonality, but I’d gain faster lenses, the possibility of wider lenses, autofocus, lower cost, the option to shoot 220 film, metering and aperture priority, and the future possibility of putting a digital back on it(!). Of course, I can put a digital back on my RZ67 with an expensive adapter, but I’m wasting a significant portion of the 6x7 frame because there is no digital back big enough to fill a 6x7 frame (and I’m starting to doubt if there ever will be). By switching to the AFD from my Canon 30D, I’m losing all the advantages of digital photography, but I’m gaining a much bigger viewfinder with which to compose and check focus, huge amounts of resolution and better tonality, and all the other obvious advantages of film. And since my 30D’s maximum quality ISO is about 800, I’m not really losing low-light sensitivity since I can easily load up 800 film, or even 1600 black-and-white film.

I’m still not decided on this approach, as I have to consider the weddings I’ve already booked and whether I’d need to rent a digital camera/lens for those. But I probably jumped the gun by talking to the clients for my next wedding about it, and they got really excited about the possibility too. Decisions, decisions.

film: the Mamiya RZ67

I eventually pulled out the camera and started shooting with it. I was addicted after the first few snaps. Obviously the camera is huge and heavy as you’ll read anywhere. But I found handling it to be surprisingly easy. It took me almost no time to get used to handling it (maybe because it’s so simple?). The hard parts were using the waist-level viewfinder (where the picture is reversed from left-right) and using a dedicated light meter for the first time. I wasn’t really too happy about having to carry this extra device around, but that’s about the only way to get perfect exposures with this setup. (Speaking of perfect exposures or a lack thereof: I learned later that night that the first roll I shot was loaded in the wrong way, and so I’d wasted it completely. Oh well.)

As far as slow, pensive landscape shooting goes, this camera seemed to be well-suited. There was plenty of time to manually meter the scene, setup the camera on the tripod if necessary, adjust the exposure on the camera, compose, focus (which was almost always at infinity anyway) and click. Oh and there was often the added step of using a cable release to prevent mirror slap.

At some point I really want to shoot people with this camera. I’ll have to get a more portrait-friendly lens and I haven’t decided which one to get yet. Maybe by then I will be more proficient in metering/setting up on a tripod/exposing/composing/etc with this thing and portraits won’t have to be too tedious.

more details on the film experience coming soon…