A Botanical Garden, Hasselblad, and Roll of Velvia

Image Critiques Flora Critiques
1

Velvia50_05.jpg
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Velvia50_09.jpg
Velvia50_09.jpg1600×1600 224 KB

Thorns

Velvia50_10.jpg
Velvia50_10.jpg1600×1600 399 KB

Barrel Cactus

Velvia50_04.jpg
Velvia50_04.jpg1600×1600 289 KB

Agave

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

I decided to (finally) dive into film photography! I bought a Hasselblad 503CX, 80mm lens, and extension tubes a few weeks ago. I mainly want to do black and white film, but couldn’t resist the urge to shoot Fuji Velvia 50 color reversal film out of curiosity.

While my black & white film looks decent, these color photographs really speak to me. The overcast lighting was excellent for flower photography. The location of this photoshoot was the Huntington Gardens in Los Angeles. I intended to spend just a quick hour or two, but ended up staying almost five hours! I completely lost track of time, not only losing track of what time it was, but I lost all concept of time itself during my walk through the gardens. Film photography has really slowed me down, and becoming a part of the environment, versus just run & gun with a digital camera resulting in 1,000 pics I will never look at.

My intent with these photos is for you to feel the same emotion I felt as I strolled through the gardens.

Specific Feedback

I am brand new to film photography, medium format, and developing film at home. As such, I am open to any feedback you have regarding light metering and color rendition of these photographs.
For the first outings with my new camera, I brought my Canon R5 to help judge my exposure and to help me “see” in black and white. These photos were of my second outing WITHOUT the crutch of my digital camera, so I had to understand my light metering and really study each subject and the way the light interacted with it.

Furthermore, I developed all the images at home. I have black & white, and infrared images from the same trip, but these Velvia shots really stood out to me. I told myself to start with the basics and build up once comfortable, but I ignored all that and dove in head first!

Technical Details

Hasselblad 503CX
80mm
32 & 55mm Extension Tubes
Sekonic L-558

Film developed at home, scanned with my Canon R5, and edited in Capture One.

2

Holy cow!! How do you manage the temperature stability?

The Huntington is an amazing place, and Velvia is something special, and demanding of the right light. As much as people complain about LA smog, when fog is just clearing with a blanket of smog it is light from heaven.

All these are wonderful but I’m partial to the second and third. Hope we get to see the results of your B/W and IR explorations. And the R5 might yield some worthy stuff, too…

3

Huntington is a great place to make photographs and the lighting couldn’t have been better for your choice of film. Velvia 50 was my film of choice for almost 20 years. The greens in your images and the contrast take me back. It’s a very unforgiving film but if you learn to work with it by creating very graphically strong and simple images in which the contrast is naturally heavy, you can do wonders with it.

For instance, in the Barrel Cactus image, those shadows are quite dark with this film that would never be this dark with your R5, which you may have noticed. But that’s not necessarily a negative - you just need to work with that high degree of contrast to take advantage of it. In direct sun, that contrast is even greater.

When I used Velvia slide film, I would spot meter off the very brightest part of the composition at +2 off middle exposure to make sure I didn’t blow those out (since the film only has about 4-5 stops of latitude). The shadows sometimes would go black as a result, but in overcast ambient light or soft sunrise light, I’d still have shadow detail. Try that and see how it goes. With practice and a lot of $$ on developing, you’ll get the hang of it.

4

@Diane_Miller - I managed temperatures with a sous vide. I put the bottles of chemicals in a bath of water in a plastic bin, set the sous vide to the correct temp, and waited for everything to stabilize.

The 2nd & 3rd are also my favorite. I liked the 1st initially because of the color, but closeups of agaves/cacti are images I love to look at. I’ll go through my IR stuff later, but may have to wait for another shoot for something worthy of posting!

@Matt_Lancaster - I definitely noticed how slide film handles shadows differently than color negative. I actually boosted the shadows in Capture One and it is still that dark! I like how it looks in this instance though, contrasting with the brightness of the spikes.

Thanks for the metering suggestion, I will try that on my next outing!

1 Like
5

Sous vide… A darkroom tool for the New Age. Brilliant!!