fashion meets vinylio club meets the pentax 67.
makeup: Emmanouil Apostolakis for Makeup Forever hair: Roula Marinopoulou models: Nelly B, Elena, Apostolis, Isidoros (Fashion Cult) fashion director: Konstantinos Koutsomichos designer: RATT (Rita Attala)
a couple of weeks ago I was asked by the wonderful miss tina sardelas to photograph her fashion video shoot at vinylio club. I told her I would only be shooting with my analog cameras, and she liked the idea. I wanted to use my latest baby, the pentax 67, but I also brought the faithful bronica sq-a along.
I loaded up the pentax with the new kodak portra 400 and fitted it with the takumar 105mm/f2.4, a truly great portrait lens. the club was quite dark (well, it's supposed to be this way) and I had to put the pentax on a tripod, shoot at really slow speeds (1/15-1/60) and wide open apertures, and rely on the film's wide latitude. I shot a total of 24 frames (two and a half rolls) with the pentax, before switching to the bronica.
pentax 67 | 105mm/2.4 | kodak portra 400 6x7
pentax 67 | 105mm/2.4 | kodak portra 400 6x7
pentax 67 | 105mm/2.4 | kodak portra 400 6x7
pentax 67 | 105mm/2.4 | kodak portra 400 6x7
pentax 67 | 105mm/2.4 | kodak portra 400 6x7
pentax 67 | 105mm/2.4 | kodak portra 400 6x7
pentax 67 | 55mm/4 | kodak portra 400 6x7
using the pentax 67 was a joy, as I have grown accustomed to the 6x7 format for portraiture (very close to the 4x5 of large format cameras), but the slow speeds and the need to use the camera on a tripod (it really is not a camera you want to handhold at speeds below 1/125) were tiresome, so after Ι did a number of pre-imagined shots, I switched to the bronica and kodak tri-x 400. black and white meant that I could stop worrying about color rendition and combination, and kodak tri-x meant that I could push it a bit and achieve 1/60-1/125, which are handholdable speeds with the bronica sq-a. with the tripod gone, I was able to move freely, get tighter framing and different angles. two rolls of film went through the bronica although, to be honest, I had grown weary and repetitive by the first roll.
bronica sq-a | 80mm/f2.8 | kodak tri-x 400
bronica sq-a | 80mm/f2.8 | kodak tri-x 400
bronica sq-a | 80mm/f2.8 | kodak tri-x 400
bronica sq-a | 80mm/f2.8 | kodak tri-x 400
bronica sq-a | 80mm/f2.8 | kodak tri-x 400
bronica sq-a | 80mm/f2.8 | kodak tri-x 400
some of the presented images (both from the pentax and the bronica) are quite alike but I didn't want to throw any of them away. in total I shot 48 frames in a space of a couple of hours. the bronica sq-a I have grown to love and knew what it would deliver, but the pentax 67 is a new acquaintance to me, and I was quite pleased with its handling and the resulting images. the takumar 105mm/f2.4 lived up to its reputation: it is a magnificent portrait lens, small, normal-to-kinda-wide focal length, fast, not too sharp but not too soft either. instant love.