samira meets the sony a7r

the portrait session with samira was going to be a film-only session, and I indeed shot it on medium format film, which I much prefer to any digital camera. I did, however, carry the sony a7r with me, so I got some test shots in the beginning and some extra shots after I ran out of film. this camera is extremely potent, easily paired to any kind of lens, and takes virtually no space in your camera bag.
the first five images were shot with the native carl zeiss fe 35mm/f2.8 lens. the rest of the images were shot with a 40-year-old minolta md 50mm/f1.4 lens (manual focusing, focus peaking, etc). the post-process included brightening, contrast, etc. - I did not change the colours, apply any noise reduction or sharpening. I've left the exif data on the photos.

fiona meets the sony a7

A pre-production model of the new full frame mirrorless NEX-style camera, Sony A7, came into my hands a couple of days ago, courtesy of the wonderful people at Sony Greece. I also got the new Carl Zeiss 55mm/f1.8, as well as the kit 28-70/f3.5-5.6 Sony G kit lens. I will be keeping the set for a couple of weeks, testing it in various environments. What I immediately liked in this camera is, well, its size and weight... I mean, compared to my Sony A99 (which is maybe the smallest & lightest full frame dSLR camera), the Sony A7 is a feather. It's not so light that it feels cheap, but not heavy enough to become a nuisance. It is also ergonomic, fast and responsive. What remains to be seen is the quality of its autofocus system, which I will test on a later date, on a real AF-taxing situation (a rock concert, what else?).

I asked Fiona for some fast night portraits, and she happily agreed. We went out last night in Athens, and shot the following photos.

All of the photos were shot at ISO 12.800, with the CZ 55mm/f1.8 and the Minolta MD 50mm/f1.4 (manual focus, of course). I then opened the RAW files with Sony's Image Data Converter, which really is a quite counter-intuitive and slow RAW editing software, but I finally got the images out of it. The White Balance tool sucks, and the Noise Reduction tool leaves a lot to be desired. I am sure I could get a lot more out of these photos if I could edit them with Adobe Camera RAW.
Disclaimers:

• Both the camera and the lenses are pre-production models.
• all images are ISO 12.800 - a couple of them have been pushed by 0.25-0.75 stops during RAW conversion.
• Autofocus was used in the first three images. The rest of them were focused manually.
• The white balance is not what is should be, because I grew frustrated with the Sony Image Data Converter software and just went for colour continuity.
• I am not at all familiar with Sony Image Data Converter and I hope a ACR update comes out soon.

[carl zeiss 55mm/f1.8 | f2.2, 1/40, ISO 12.800]

[carl zeiss 55mm/f1.8 | f1.8, 1/30, ISO 12.800]

[carl zeiss 55mm/f1.8 | f2.2, 1/20, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f1.4, 1/80, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f1.4, 1/200, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f2.0, 1/125, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f2.8, 1/80, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f1.4, 1/400, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f1.4, 1/500, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f2, 1/60, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f1.4, 1/125, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f1.4, 1/60, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f4, 1/320, ISO 12.800]

...and yes, I did shoot some large format - I only had ISO 100 film with me (fuji instant film as well a couple of slide film sheets I will cross-process) and an available maximum aperture of f2.5 (thank god for the Aero Ektar 178mm/f2.5) - the light was so low I needed a 10 second exposure to get a proper exposure...

time machine

...don't you just love it when you develop a roll of film months after it was shot and you see images that you had forgotten all about..? in may 2011 I was after an image for the lomography turns on time machine exhibition. the submission deadline was coming up fast and I had nothing that would fit the bill, so I decided to take the holga out for a session - I hadn't used the holga for some months. I asked dear Kalli to pose for some portraits, and she agreed.

of course, I can never do a photo session without carrying at least three cameras (I have to find a cure for this), so I brought along the minolta xd-7 fitted with the 50mm/f1.4 lens as well as a medium format pinhole camera.

we shot two medium format films and maybe half a roll of the polypan f 50 which was loaded in the minolta - I never seem to be able to finish a 36-frame roll in a single session. I developed the two medium format films in the following days, but the 35mm film wasn't finished - when I did finish it, a couple of weeks later, I was too bored to develop it by itself (small developing tanks can fit two 35mm films) so I left it in the cupboard, waiting to do for another roll of the same film - which, of course, I didn't do until October.

...we arrived at a beach near Rafina with a couple of hours until sunset - the low sensitivity of the film (50 ASA) meant that if I stopped down the aperture I would get nice blurry images...

...it was a glorious day (although not quite summer yet), quite windy, and the beach was totally empty. Kalli set out to get some seashells and I just followed her around with the camera...

...then I started setting up the scene I wanted - I had re-used the clock in a close up image a couple of years ago and now I wanted a scene with the clock in the foreground and Kalli fading away in the foreground...

...but since this was a lomography exhibition, I needed to make this image with the holga - this is the resulting medium format image, shot on fuji acros 100 - quite different because of the holga's bigger depth of field, the softness of its lens and the inherent low contrast of the film (fuji acros is a magnificent "slow" film)...

...the holga went back in the bag, its job done, and I continued fooling around with the shallow depth of field of the 50mm/f1.4 - the small 35mm format and this high-contrast, high-grain film make a nice combination against the setting sun.

I tried printing the last photo in the darkroom and it came out pretty nice - this film is a pleasant surprise, especially when you consider that it is a movie film, sold in 90 meter reels, quite thin (it has a polyester base) and costing something like 22€ for the 90m reel on ebay, resulting in a price of less than half a euro for a 36-frame roll.