Film portraits with the dropped Fujica GW690

sometimes weird things happen … or not

I dropped my Fujica GW690 a year ago it smacked to the ground and as a result the front lens element got all skewed. I was in quite a shock.

I still shoot with it though and it keeps producing excellent shots. I would have expected some kind of tilt effect happening but I see no faults in sharpness or anything like it. I shot a film of Kodak T-Max recently and all shots came out flawlessly. The film has been developed in Bellini Eco Developer and camera-scanned, edited in Adobe Lightroom. Thank you for watching!

A little bit of fashion … the sequel

Analog, beauty, location, people, photo gear, portrait, street, Uncategorized

remember these: … A little bit of fashion ? Those were all taken a couple of years ago in Brussels, when I met Erika Albonetti for a morning session. They were shot on film with the Rolleiflex twin lens reflex I have been cherishing for a couple of years now.

Time for a new ‘working collectible’, (although you’ve seen some results before with this camera here). The Fujica GW690ii, with a fixed 90mm f3.5 lens. Nicknamed the Texas Leica, it handles more or less like a Leica, but then one for big hands 😉

See the comparison with my Fuji X100f here, a big chuck of camera:

It is a viewfinder camera, but then in the medium format class, the negatives are with their size of 6×9 cm also huge in comparison with the X100f sensor size. (14.66 times bigger area)

This large format gives a narrower depth of film, so even with relatively closed apertures you still get narrow sharpness and softer backgrounds.

Like a lot of analog camera’s of older age, the Fujica has the shutter built into the lens, not in the camera. The shutter is a leaf shutter, a bit similar like an aperture, so opening from the center of the lens. The shutter speed is to be set on the lens as well as the aperture. focusing is manual and the viewfinder proves to be a lot more accurate than the matte screen on the Rolleiflex.

The camera itself is very simple in operation, there’s only a switch to be set to the right type of film 120 or 220, two shutter release buttons (one on top, one on the front side) and a film advancing lever (which you need to crank one and a half turn for a complete transport). There’s no built in light meter and no electronics at all, despite its rather modern looks and recent built year(1985), that’s rare. It has a built in frame counter (counts one unit per 10 frames) on the bottom of the camera. If the counter says 10 it has shot 100 frames. It also came in 6×7 (GW670) and 6×8 (GW680) film formats. These camera’s are well known for their robustness, with a fixed lens and so little things that can break, that seems logical. It weighs 1440 grams. It is frequently sold on Ebay, for prices ranging from €400 – €700.

As said before, focussing is a lot easier on this camera than on the Rolleiflex or for what its worth with the Voightlander Bessa I also have and which has the same film size but only a metering scale on the lens. With the Fujica I get every frame to be sharp (if I pay attention)!

Altough I still like the square format more, I’m ok with this 2×3 aspect ratio which we all know from current digital reflex camera’s. The number of shots per roll gets more limited though (8 in stead of 12) and thus you even need to be more attentive for each shot.

The images were made in Brussels, with Sofi ka, an Ukrainian model traveling Europe on a regular basis. We had a walk in Brussels in the morning, enjoying beautiful light in the city.

I shot this film in colour (Kodak Portra 160) and then another film in Black and white (see below). One film, alle shots: Sofi Ka in Brussels.

All negatives are ‘DSLR-scanned’ and converted to positives with Negative Lab Pro in Lightroom.

I also shot another film, which apparently was a gift from someone, and after further investigation by Ilford, the film turned out to be from 1992 … it came out all mottled and speckled, including the backpaper frame numbers in the negatives 🙁 bummer, although some people seem to appreciate the artistic qualities of it. …

Mjeah, maybe with a little bit of sepia colouring and some vignetting 😀 let me know what you thing

that’ll be all for today, thanks for reading!

Ludwig

Sahri at the swimming pool – film

Analog, beauty, location, people, portrait

always fun to combine digital and film photography, and get my ‘working collectables’ off the shelf again. This time I shot a roll on the Rolleiflex, and one roll on the Voigtländer Bessa 6×9 folding camera. The latter is even more difficult, as it has no matte screen to focus on, and a very tiny visor that ‘remotely’ gives you an idea of the framing of the shot. You might find a dust spot here and there, oops. I have the films developed in a standard photo lab, and then scan them just the way I scan my B&X films, with the Canon 5Ds and 100mm macro lens. I use Negative Lab Pro for converting them to positive, but I need to find my way around in that program. It’s good but I don’t feel I have everything in control yet. Rolleiflex images first, the square ones, then the Voigtländer images.

Both films Kodak Portra 160, enjoy!

Julia on film

Analog, beauty, erotic, location, Nude, portrait

when I met Julia in Brussels, the weather was really dull, but I shot some film images anyway. Dull weather is technically less challenging than the harsh sun, at least if there is sufficient light. I had no excess light but could manage to shoot the film at box speed, with the widest aperture of the Rolleiflex, f/3.5 … rather tricky on the focussing, but some of the images came out really well. Hope you like them. Shot on Ilford HP5 Plus

Julia Yaroshenko on the balcony, in the series of hidden gems 2019

thank you for watching and be sure to check out this blog next week, I might have more interesting images coming up

Ludwig

Deux heures cinq

Analog, location, Nude

5 minutes past 2

Shot in a beautiful house somewhere in Belgium.

Model: Sahri Nimi model

Camera: Rolleiflex tlr 3.5

Film: Ilford HP5 plus 400 – developed in Ilfotech LC29

and a couple of minutes earlier it was exactly 2 O’clock and the behind the scene’s cameraman was looking at what I was about to be doing 😉

sorry it took me so long to post again, I have been working on a lot of different things lately, and I’m having my first ‘available light’ workshop in about a week now, so things have been busy.

see you again soon, I have some wonderful images on the shelf.

Ludwig

two for the price of one …

Analog, location, Nude

well yes, sometimes things don’t go as expected, certainly when shooting with an old camera and film, you are having no instant feedback and surprises occur 🙂

there is no automatic film advance stop, so you have to look for film frame numbers in the dark red window at the back of the camera. Clearly I saw something that wasn’t there.

shot with a Voightländer Bessa I 6×9 film camera, with Kodak TMax400 film, in a small roof flat in Leuven (Belgium)

Model Yana Mood, click for bigger version

the camera:

The birdkeeper

beauty, location, Nude

• The birdkeeper •

Summer is long gone it seems, but this shoot was taking place on one of those hot summer days, when models do not hesitate to pose in lingerie or nude, sun will keep them warm.

The image was taken in a little castle near my hometown, on a shady terrace. The owner had opened the door and then vanished. Eva was in a good mood, the birds were singing all around.

Shot with my old Rolleiflex TLR, on Kodak TMax 400 film. Shooting on film is a strange thing, it is slow, expensive, delicate, cumbersome … but I love it. It makes the experience more real, and the waiting for the negatives makes you take some distance from your own work. It is always exciting to see the images coming, 3, 4 weeks after you’ve shot them.

have a nice Sunday afternoon,

ludwig

The last ray

Analog, beauty, erotic, location

• The last ray •

shot with Rolleiflex 3,5 on Ilford Delta Pro 100 film

model and make up: Eva Evian

thank you for watching, I scanned about 170 negatives this week, so there’s much more images coming (Scotland analog, and several beauty shoots analog)

see you soon,

Ludwig

Strolling trough Paris part II – shooting with the Rolleiflex

Analog, street

this is from a while ago.

Visiting Paris is something I love a lot. I have been there many times now, and I feel no real urge anymore in visiting particular places or monuments, and I enjoy more and more just being there, and observing people, looking at things happening, or seeing things being just things.

Documenting with the old Rolleiflex helps me being a more attentive observer. Trying to shoot whatever presents itself is a challenge, but is also fun and maybe a bit contradictory, a very relaxing thing to me. It is a mixture of being an observer, and in a certain way being part of the city life.

Next to this, it is also a way to get socially engaged in a certain way. I get many conversations when shooting with this old camera, from people interested in what camera it is, how it works, if it is still able to find film etcetera etcetera. I try to go unnoticed, but that is difficult sometimes, and I don’t mind.

All shot on Rolleiflex 3.5 and Kodak TMax 400/100 film.

thank you for passing by.

Ludwig

Strolling trough Antwerp with the Rolleiflex

Analog, street

sometimes you find a roll of film you didn’t remember anymore taking it.

I found one a couple of weeks ago, in a corner of my desk … I had no clue of what was on it. I’m still missing a roll of Paris, (must have been lost in luggage somewhere) but this was not it. This is Antwerp. I remember having dropped of Nathalie for an appointment, near Antwerp train station, an ideal opportunity to shoot a roll of film with the Rolleiflex, just to learn to observe, have fun, enjoy slow shooting.