The first time I hooked up the Hasselblad with flash sync in studio, was to shoot some portraits of the rapper Ivan Ave. Shooting on film in daylight is one thing. Controlling flash exposures in a studio, quite another.
I had finally gotten my hands on an old, 500-series Hasselblad, back in the spring of ‘18. For those who don’t know, it’s a mechanical, elegant beast of a camera. The sound it makes is a heavy, beautiful slap every time you snap a picture, and it used to be the pinnacle of professional photography up until digital came along, outcompeting it on pure cost-efficiency.
Important note: Shooting film is not something you do to save money.
(though it doesn’t have to be expensive – something for a later post)
Before I even considered bringing the Hasselblad to the studio, a few film rolls had gone through it already; trial and error, learning the mechanics, trying to remember taking the dark slide out before your finger butts towards a button that just won’t budge.
That feeling when…
Shooting on film changes the process. Every shot costs you a given amount of money. With digital, I just start with light and camera set to the ballpark I’m used to, and shoot a few testshots
You have to consider all major and minor details before you release the shutter. You don’t have the opportunity as with digital, to take the first shot, look at it and say “yeah, ok, looks good” and know that the rest of the roll will be on point and correctly exposed.
Before you can review your blunders, you have to shoot through the whole roll (whether it’s 12, 16 or 36, depending on the camera). Then get it developed, print or scan the negatives, and only then you can rejoice or tear your hair out. Of course, artists or models don’t have time to hang around and wait for you to develop film, so this is where light meters, polaroids or (beginner level) digital cameras comes in to save the day, checking light and settings.
My main goal for the shoot was to get a feel for flash lighting on film, and to make the stakes a bit higher than just wasting film on random objects, I asked my friend Eivind, a.k.a. Ivan Ave to come over, as it might end up being some OK+ portraits in it for him as well.
I was, of course, a prime level newbie, checking settings with my Canon 5DIII, doing all the blunders, e.g.:
Trying to shoot with the dark slide in
Shooting without the flash sync connected
without readjusting exposure on the camera
with my head in front of the flash
while Eivind was moving because I had fiddled too long with some settings
without any more shots on the roll…
…etc.
Luckily for me, Eivind had a ton of patience.
…when you casually forget to reattach the sync-cable after changing lenses.
We rigged up some stuff to control the light, and set up a Profoto lamp bare bulb on a stand to play with hard, harsh light. (When it works, it works.)
Every adjustment was tested with the 5D, and then settings was – ideally – applied to the lens presently on the Hasselblad, sync cable moved from the 5D to the Hasselblad-lens. After the dark slide was yet again removed, I was ready to compose a picture and find something resembling focus.
For this being a first time, I was not disappointed.
I shot Ilford XP2 Super for the black and white, and Portra 400 for colour. As both are 400 ISO and C41-films, I didn’t have to remember what ISO the current film had, and the C41 means both films could be delivered to a lab for quick colour chemistry developing. (Nowadays I choose films with an ISO of 100 for BW and 100/160 for colour, and develop the BW at home.)
After I burned through enough frames on something I had no idea if would come out at all, we headed outside and shot some colour in the neighbourhood, to make sure I had something to show for, but maybe most of all to let his yellow jacket shine.
So this was it for a first post. If I figure out how to turn comments on, please feel free to leave one, or ask a question. Requests/themes for upcoming posts are most welcome!