Essay

What I learned photographing #12: PortconMaine 2021

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What I learned photographing PortconMaine 2021

I’ve had a long gestating idea to go document anime conventions and the folks that go to them. I’m not strictly speaking about the cosplayers, either -- ideally I’d document everyone that went, regardless of costume or status, etc. I feel that the community as a whole is large, diverse, and has never really been seriously documented - though the cosplay has by Elena Dorfman (Aperture) As a teenager, I used to be a hardcore weeb -- I’ve subsequently fallen out/aged into different interests -- but I’ll never not have a fondness for anime and the people that watch it; which is what inspired me to revisit the subject as an adult, fifteen years later.

Unfortunately (but sensibly enough), most or all cons were cancelled in 2020, for reasons that should be immediately honest to everyone. So I was stuck waiting for 2021. I actually first attended Portcon back in 2007 as a surly teen -- and I was curious to see “what had changed?” and honestly, cutting just a bit to the end, the general answer is: not that much.

The first re-exposure I had to anime conventions as an adult was actually back in Los Angeles - I lived downtown, and during Anime Expo I’d often find a lot of spillover out from the staples center into the rest of downtown, often flooding my favorite neighborhood places. That said, Anime Expo always seemed larger than life, wild, packed, and like too much; by contrast, one con-goer and vendor described Portcon as: “The most boring con you’ve ever been to, but in a good way.” 

If you’re here from Portcon, and see yourself in one of the photos, don’t hesitate to reach out! I’d be happy to send you a copy, or a print, or something, and remove/give you full credit as need be.

So here’s what I learned photographing Portcon and it’s con-goers -- I’ll break down what I learned into three sections: Technical, Artistic, Social. — Skip to the bottom of the page if you want to see my favorite images from the weekend.

TECHNICAL:

I shot exclusively 35mm Ilford HP5+ @ 400 iso, then pushed to 1600 in Kodak Xtol 1:1 - I learned next to nothing here, this is about as reliable/firmament of film/recipe as it comes. Give film enough light, and push it for contrast, you’re more or less in the clear - especially if you’re scanning. I only ended up with eight rolls over the three days, so I was able to develop all eight rolls in one go in my paterson tank.

In the last year, I picked up a Minolta CLE - an entire kit (ie the Minolta CLE body, the Rokkor-M 28mm 2.8 [of course with schneideritis], Rokkor-M 40mm 2.0, Rokkor-M 90mm 4.0; minus a working on camera flash.) Following in a long, long tradition of documentary photogs using M-Mount rangefinders, I elected to use the CLE, along with an off camera flash, actually built for that specific era of Minolta 35mm Cameras, so there’d be minimal cause for error - minimal being the key word here. I’m not hyper familiar with the CLE like I am with my Minolta XD-11, or even my Pentax 6x7 - but overall, it wasn’t too clunky to use in practice, day in day out. My particular 40mm lens seems to want to focus beyond infinity, which is strange, but again, it works out most of the time.

My biggest issue technically was getting the flash to sync well with the camera - the flash I used has a long recycle time, and I’m not super experienced using a flash - so my results vary a lot - on the final day my connector cable seemed to shit the bed, at which point I just called it for the weekend -- Ideally, the wisdom is to test your equipment heavily before going out to a shoot date, but while I was in the “research and development” phase of the project, I deemed it OK for a bit of jank or fiddliness.

The other issue I ran into was that one of my rolls snapped in half mid-shoot. I bought my rolls (which were all bulk loaded) off of an acquaintance who shall remain nameless, because I thought I was going to be shooting a ton more than I ended up shooting and wanted to get all the film in one sweep - I’ve had two or three of them snap since that day, and it’s pretty frustrating. I dislike bulk rolls because they always seem to have issues -- even if they’re not using the method of taping the ends of rolls onto recycled canisters/leaders. 

TL;DR: I dunno, don’t bulk load film - there’s no real savings (the new canisters go bad after two loads, so they’re not cheap -- and especially don’t do the recycled canister method - even if the canisters are free.)

My final note is that my scanner (an epson v600, natch) is just fucked. I got a particularly bad copy of the epson v600 when I moved back to Maine, and I still can’t get 35mm right, like I did on the old v600 I had when I lived in LA.

I think my key takeaways for gear are: I shot the first 2 days on the 40mm - to middling success - there are some good photos taken with it, but I think for me - the key turn is when I swapped to the 90mm on the final day of the show -- the closer cropped portraits are much more what I had in mind back before I even started shooting. flash is hard, especially when you’re starting at zero - the cables can get clogged/or not work quite right - close cropped portraits work much better. I need to do something about my scanner, be it find a way to shim the focus, or buy/rent a better-newer model scanner. 

Also, I don’t know if rangefinders, or 35mm is really “for me” anymore in my main project work. For my big project that I’m working on off-screen, I now only shoot original Fuji Acros 100 in medium format, and I’m generally much happier with the results than I am when I shoot 35mm. I also would consider swapping to something with a bellows (like a Mamiya c-330, or even RZ67) or close focus to shoot the portraits on so that I could get a closer crop.

ARTISTIC:

Portraiture is hard. Especially portraiture where you’re attempting to portray people honestly, and make them the star of the photo, with little accompaniment or background to balance the subject with.

Add on to that I’m somewhat disinclined to work with people on the whole -- or it’s a foreign concept to me (mostly). My interest sort of clicked into place when I started making just headshots or face photos with the Minolta M-Rokkor 90mm F/4.0 over the Minolta CLE Rokkor-M 40mm f/2.0, as an almost topographic approach to faces, rather than a purely documentary look at cosplayers.

Mark Steinmetz topographies with Diane Arbus rendering was kind of my starting idea for a look, and I’d say I got intermittent success - but at the same time none of the photos really add up to be “more” than maybe a few fun portraits, and a neat sort of catalog of cosplayers - again, not their fault the photos didn’t meet my expectations - the cosplayers and attendees were nothing if not game and helpful, I’m just wildly terrible at getting folks to perform street portraiture or whatever this constitutes.

To my eye the best portraits tended to either be: 

Favorite posed non-crop

Favorite posed non-crop

One: The photos where folks really went in on posing for them - check to your left.

Or Two: the super zoomed in photos -- Check right, below

With honorable mention (or perhaps the stealthy “best” category) going to the few photos where I managed to get approval, then shoot a quasi candid photo -- I think there’s money on the table on this one, and I hope to explore it more.

(personal favorite closeup)

(personal favorite closeup)

Black and White is definitely the right choice over color - I’m not aiming to document the costumes - again, a lot of really great ones -  but I’m more interested in the cosplayers than their costumes. The BNW helps remove some of the punchiness or baseline “oddity” of the costumes, and lets me (maybe y’all) jump past the costumes and look closer at the people.

I dunno, I’m not wild about most of my results to be honest - like I think the photos are honest, and show the subjects in a favorable light (most important thing to me), but a lot of them fall short of being truly successful portraits that transcend the subject matter.

SOCIAL:

“pseudo” candid shot - would like more of these.

“pseudo” candid shot - would like more of these.

First and foremost, I’d like to thank everyone for being so accepting of me going and photographing them, alongside the convention for allowing me to do so - thanks again to Julie specifically, for approving my request. I really appreciate that everyone - or close to it -- I think out of whatever 150-160 people I photographed I only got turned down five odd times. 

The only real stipulation of me being allowed to photograph the con was that I had to ask everyone for permission first - which led to some mixed results - I definitely would’ve like to have gotten more candid photos - though as someone later pointed out to me, I could likely have asked permission, come back later, and made a sort of “pseudo-candid” photo.

I wish I’d done more rapport with folks -- I’m sure the base level awkwardness of a random outsider with a camera doesn’t help, but I found that a lot of the interactions photographing people went down as follows:

ME: “Can I take your photo?”

COSPLAYER/VENDOR/CONGOER: “Sure!”

I take the photo, maybe a second one. 

ME: “Thanks so much ---”

COSPLAYER: walks away.

I guess my talk-no-jutsu was too weak.

Occasionally, I’d try to follow up with a question, but I often found that most folks were on their way to something - I really would’ve liked to have gotten more “man on the street” data, or personal stories -- maybe next year. 

Back in 2007, Portcon was sort of the state fair for weebs and nerds, I don’t think that’s changed much since then - though I think on the whole, it’s become (maybe it was this in 2007?) a sort of first foray into a more public queer life for a lot of the teens in attendance. I’d also wager that the overall attendance actually skewed more female, or female and non-binary, than male.

Baseball folks

Baseball folks

HP5PC192.jpg

In almost perfect diametrical opposition, a baseball tournament was also being held nearby this year, and a lot of the teams were staying in the same hotel  as the convention. I photographed a few folks from that for contrast. I found that the adults were frequently game to be photographed and bore little malice towards the conventioneers - likewise with the middle-schoolers. But the highschoolers, the older ones - needed a serious attitude adjustment.

Anime has definitely changed a lot in the last 15 odd years -- My Hero Academia was by far the most commonly cosplayed series (though, that should surprise absolutely nobody), and outside of a few boomer anime costumes - like the woman cosplaying Misato, or a few Pokemon folks - I had trouble recognizing much of anything or anyone.

I don’t know if it was just covid that slowed the convention down - I found that it was fairly limited -- all the panels moved online, again, sensible given you’d have like 20-30-40 people in a conference room before -- and the main attraction was a couple of vendor rooms, along with a substantial cosplay pavilion - though even that shut down at 7pm -- all that being said, it didn’t keep the attendees down, they definitely seemed glad to be there. 

So, that’s what I learned and saw photographing PortCon 2021. Again, Thanks to the con, and everyone who let me take their photograph -- with a little luck, I’ll be back at it again next summer.

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Boston, LA, Back to Maine - Agfapan APX 400 - Late 2019, Early 2020

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Boston, LA, New Orleans, Back to Maine - Agfapan APX 400 - Early 2020

There’s nothing quite like exploring a (relatively) unfamiliar city.

Boston should be more familiar to me -- I grew up two hours away from it. For about six months I’d go down every saturday to an extracurricular at MIT, then do Boston School of Rock. A couple years later I spent three weeks learning to make a guitar there — It’s a shit guitar. I mean I love it but it’s kinda shit. At any rate I stopped through the city on my way back to LA this year I think I did last year? Maybe it was two years ago. I can’t remember -- admittedly my brain/sense of time has kinda gone to shit (NB: I wrote this bit pre-covid -- my sense of time’s just gotten worse since then).

I got to the city fairly early on the Tuesday to basically just wander and shoot while I waited for a friend - the same friend who I visited last time I stopped through Boston - Shout out Andy - hopefully we’ll get to go do beers again soon.

At this point I’m working on my eventual giant stupid lab report or “what I learned shooting” on Agfapan APX 400 (original, german made, not the Harman/Kentmere stuff) -- I developed all of this in their/all the fucking stupid old mens’ forum’s favorite for it - Rodinal Spezial, which I will refer to as “spezial” from here on out to avoid confusion with Rodinal (which I also tried). They’re actually very different developers - the branding/naming is wildly unhelpful. I’m not enamoured of it, even though it has like a six minute development time at 20ºC. If you bother to read the safety sheet, it looks pretty similar to the modern Rollei RPX developer (which kinda tracks when theoretically RPX is the modern successor to APX), and HC-110 which I’ve never seen straight prints/scans from that I’ve particularly liked - setting aside Brendon Holt’s work on film -- also I’ve come round a bit more - HC-110 does also tend to look really good with kodak 400tx/Kodak Tri-x.

I pushed everything to 800 for safety. It’s alright? Like overall it’s okay and the photos are still solid but I’ve gone on to shoot more of the film and process in xtol 1:1 -- and frankly - it’s preferable by a long shot - the film bows way less than it normally does in the Spezial, less grainy, has a sharper edge to it - likewise if or when I run the film in standard Rodinal I’d expect quite a bit of grain - (it’s an old tech film) - but general sharper or edgier results (look for that further down).

Anyway, I decided to run all around Boston, Boston proper mind you -- for those unfamiliar with the area, the “city” of Boston is really made up of like 100 (exaggerating) smaller cities. I basically made a giant loop through the north end, and met up with Andy at the end of the day near Boston College. There wasn’t much light at that point so I don’t have too many photos from there on.

As much as Boston is an Old Colonial city, I honestly find that I tend towards shooting the skyscrapers and the brutalist public structures that crowd the main business district. I definitely shot less than I thought I would on this trip/visit, even given a whole day - in fairness I’ve gotten a lot choosier about the shots that I take.

Also in the spirit of changing stuff up, I tried to employ a looser/faster shooting style and more hipshooting to continue to push my previsualization skills -- also to try and feel out what shooting more like Moriyama feels like. I think I got mixed results. It felt okay at first, and there’s a bunch of stuff I do like, but I’m not 100% how I feel about the whole thing -- I think if I’d picked a developer or a contrast ratio that was a bit punchier and gave the photos a harder edge that might’ve helped some. Food for thought.

In other notes this is still a fairly early outing for me with the Minolta Rokkor-x w 35mm f/1.8 - though still equipped to the ever-constant Minolta XD-11. Some of the compositions are a little awkward, I’m still kind of wrapping my brain around the lens - I haven’t or hadn’t really gotten it under my fingers or in my brain all the way, but overall the look or angle of view has grown a lot on me. That said, I think I’d prefer the 1.4 of my 50mm than the 1.8 of the 35mm - I know that’s like ⅓ stop distinction but when it gets dark that ⅓ seems to make a world of difference - or like you’d be shocked at that difference.

I shot the film at 1600 and 3200. Not much better — take a look above and below for examples.

I’ve later come around and decided to merge this with my review overall of APX 400, and my return to maine photoblog - because it hasn’t really been all that long, and it’d be a really short post otherwise.

I think if I learned anything shooting the APX it’s that some film is just straight up dogshit awful - like theoretically there are good photos but like whatever. I feel like it’s worth noting that even the kenmere/harman (Agfaphoto APX 400) version of the emulsion is also terrible - and wildly expensive.

I basically packed all my shit up in about a week before lockdowns went into full/heavy effect in LA and then fucked off home back to Maine because, believe it or not, before covid, I was actually pretty tired of LA - no disrespect to anyone currently living there or from there - I just couldn’t hack it there anymore for my own personal reasons - it’s nobody’s fault but my own. I’ve wrapped up a few projects - which may or may not see the light of day.

Pretty quick after getting back to maine (and quarantining indoors for two weeks) - I scored up a camera kit containing a Minolta Rokkor MC-II 58mm f 1.2 (and some other bits) - to sell - which had some issues, but overall has performed fine - but I used that along with some of the APX 400 to finish testing it - I’m still definitely going to be selling it - I still prefer the MC PG Rokkor 50mm f/1.4 - for a 50ish lens length if for no other reason than familiarity, and that I personally believe my copy is magic - even though I seem to have really switched to 35mm in a big way. 

The final variable is that the last three rolls I did of APX 400 were in Renatto Repetto’s Coldinal Method - stand at 2hrs 1:50 +/- 40ºF --- and quite frankly that’s probably the best in terms of tonality that the film does. That said, it’s a medium/high speed film, in rodinal, and that just ruins any kind of reproducibility at any size bigger than 3x5 or 5x7 if you’re being really generous. And I’m not usually a stickler for technical capability in film - though I did love acros (original acros, not acros II - It doesn’t look the same no matter what anyone tells me - the tonal scale is distinctly different), when it was still alive and available. Honestly, there’s nothing I do with the original agfapan apx 400 that isn’t basically garbage - Will Hopkins (who’s got a travelogue in the works for us) seems to have had great results - so I dunno, but personally, between the flat and strange (strange bad) tonality, and the fucking miserable bowing that the film does, making it flat out soulcrushing to scan, I will never buy another roll of it to shoot myself, even if I can get it for cheap. Actually, if I were going to shoot another “budget” option it’d probably be a fomapan. They look nice, and dry flat - which makes it a clear pick if you want to buy a lot of film cheap - and you employ a scanning/hybrid method.

APXSpezial20200415_0661.jpg

Anyway. Thanks for giving this a read - really the words (and gear talk) is just here to push my seo ranking, so thanks, and sorry for any bloviation. If you like the content, subscribe to our patreon, throw me a donation, or pick up a zine - if you subscribe or donate all the funds go towards hosting content, rather than help me recoup from projects. 

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What I Learned … Scanning #007: Epson V600

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What I Learned ... Scanning: #007 Epson V600

AKA: Andrew D. McClees slowly goes insane.

When shooting film, in 2019, printing and sharing photos in person is dead. Sometimes we do still print photos (or sets of photos), but largely most of photography has migrated to being consumed on screens, either Mobile via instagram, or on Computer, probably also on instagram -- I feel like Flickr is dead, I’m sure there’s a bunch of people who disagree -- but really, IG is the premiere online platform for photography in 2019 (Given, instagram isn’t really aimed at, nor is it actually for photographers -- that’s another essay though).

Anyway, circling back, when shooting film there are really only two ways to get your film images off the negative and into a computer: 1. You (or your lab) use a scanner, to scan your negatives into your computer. 2. You use a DSLR/Mirrorless Rig to take pictures of the negatives, then subsequently process/invert them in photoshop. I think collectively, most of us who scan/digitize negatives can all agree this is probably the biggest, most obnoxious bottleneck in our workflows, regardless of how we go about doing our scanning.

For all intents and purposes many people will argue that using a DSLR setup is “easier” and “faster” than owning and operating a scanner. And while I definitely can believe it is faster, and produces a better result for the owners of quality DSLR’s who also have a good understanding of Macro Lenses, light tables, and setting things up, the combined price of all those things kind of blows the price of the scanner out of the water. Given, most people own a digital camera, but factoring in a good dedicated macro lens (I mean, how many non-product/non-macro photographers, regardless of digital vs. film use a macro lens, or have one just sitting around?), a light table, a decent tripod, and enough space to build a setup, this to me is not a largely feasible solution for most shooters, or most of us with limited time/space/budget requirements.

So let’s talk scanners. If you’ve ever gotten film commercially developed (and if you’re reading this you probably definitely have), you’ve probably gotten scans back from whatever lab you sent your film to. Those scans were probably at least fairly decent, if a little expensive. The color correction is good, and the general scan quality is pretty okay, and definitely good enough to share on instagram or even make 3x5 to 5x7 prints. On top of that you didn’t have to work that hard at getting the scans, and you probably got your film turned around really quickly. Lab quality scanners are great, they can process a bunch of film really fast. Unfortunately they’re really expensive (remember they used to be an industrial good that everyone actually *needed* rather than wanted), and rapidly either dying off due to age, OR lack of compatibility with modern computer drivers, and connections -- making them almost a non-solution. In the bottom of the film collapse you could buy a pakon 135+ for maybe  -- I’ll link a Matt Day video here about it -- 300-400 dollars -- pakons now retail for 900+ dollars easy (go look at the Pakon user group on facebook), and that’s for a basic, “low-res” model. And that’s if you want to own a scanner like that at home -- the price of scanning will inevitably bleed you dry if you keep sending both your color and your BNW to the lab. Honestly, any good lab should still save you time and money if you’re scanning color -- but the cost of entry at a given time, or just the sheer size of your backlog may stop you from sending your color or slide film to a lab (this has definitely been me, and is me right now -- Buy a t shirt?)

I’m sure some seasoned professionals will chime in here about paying for quality, or that “the only real way to print or do photography is hand printing” or “what about drum scanners, or flextights.” And yeah, those are all great options, but as feasible everyday solutions, they’re not really viable options. Besides, do you have like 10k minimum sitting around? Didn’t think so.

So now we’re down in the realm of consumer-grade (not that the average “consumer” is really using any of these) film scanners. Let’s say this market caps out at 2k. Let’s do a quick rundown of the options/archetypes over on B+H: you have the crazy expensive plustek -- which usually can only do 35mm film (lest you want to pay another 1k for 120 capabilities) -- but gives really great results. You have the Flatbeds (read Epson V600+V800/V850) which are in the exact right price pockets, but aren’t really hyper specialized to scanning film like the plustek designs. And then you have the non-photographer style scanners, which seem to be okay, but otherwise are pretty weak, and pretty small with no real option to scan or accommodate 120/medium format film.

Looking at the options, by the statistics -- the Epson scanners are the right buy, unless you know you’re only going to shoot 35mm film, in which case you should buy a plustek and be happy. Epson has a basic model for getting into scanning (the v600) for about 200 dollars that can theoretically get you scans big enough for pretty much any kind of display you’d need to do, and a more upmarket one (the epson v800) with better resolution, and a larger scanning area if you’re so inclined to shoot large format, up to 8x10 for like 600 dollars. And then an even more premium one than that -- the epson v850, which is (to the best of my knowledge) basically the same, but with 100-200 dollars worth of nicer features. Given that -- it sounds like the V600 is a great deal.

The Epson V600 is a great deal. But, it’s the only so-called deal in town. The epson v600 “works.” It delivers adequate scans at an adequate size, and the software supplied (epson scan) is easy enough to use, and at 200 dollars, maximum, it's a stomachable purchase. And that’s about the end of the nice things I can and will say about it.

If you’re reading this, and shoot film, there’s a pretty good chance you own, have owned, or have friends who own an epson v600, and while opinions may vary, I think to some extent we’ll all agree on this:

The Epson v600 sucks. It sucks a giant bag of dicks.

If you know, you know.

If you know, you know.

but it’s the only affordable, relatively versatile (meaning it can do both 35mm and 120) scanner available, so it still gets bought, sold, recommended, and used.

Here are my main three complaints, in order of frustration.

  1. The software has a learning curve, and color is a massive pain in the ass.

  2. It’s slow.

  3. It’s a jank piece of shit in terms of engineering and coding.

I’m not typically the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to learning technical procedures, or doing finicky bullshit.

I think that qualifies me extremely well to deliver my first criticism. The Epson V600 has a really annoying learning curve, and getting good colors out of it is finicky. I’ve shot and scanned mostly, if not entirely fujifilm -- apparently kodak scans better -- and while I’ll take some of the blame for the faulty scans/negatives, being too blue due to home processing -- the amount of time it took just to kinda scoop and shape the negatives into an acceptable color-correct version was steep. Again, I’ll admit I’m a beginner to color scanning, but the fact that it took me a good chunk of time to even get mildly palatable results using the auto-correct as a baseline is telling.

When scanning color, the scanner is even slower than it is when scanning black and white; and it usually takes me an hour to scan a roll of black and white film.

120, 35mm, whatever, it takes a fucking hour. That’s fucking bullshit. I’ve gotten into this argument repeatedly with people who “like scanning” but do you really want to sit there while you wait for your negatives to appear on your computer? Like it’s barely even grindwork, it’s just sitting there, waiting for your negatives to process. And while I know the flatbeds can be slow because of their design, it’s extremely frustrating to have to sit there and do next to nothing while the stupid thing loads. And that’s if you’re lucky. If you’re like me, and your scanner has the driver error where you need to constantly click the software icon to make it scan your negative move on from each individual scan, it can easily take even more than hour if you forget you’re scanning, or that your scanner’s automatic batch scan doesn’t work, or that it just randomly decides to stop working.

The epson v600 is a janky scanner.

It’s made of cheap plastic which, I’m sure, helps keep the cost down, and it comes with crappy plastic film holders for scanning, which again, do their job fine, but don’t feel good to use. Those complaints pale in comparison to the fact that you have to A. patch the scanner driver so that the batch scanning function (ie scanning multiple negatives at the same time) works properly, B. hope to god that the patch works, because otherwise it’s the same business as usual and you’re stuck clicking the button to make the scanner advance, and C. Fanatically clean the scanner, or else you end up being stuck with weird bands of black or gray or color running through the middle of your images (which don’t appear until after you’ve finished scanning), forcing you to have to stop, clean the calibration area, and hope that the banding will go away. I have one friend who had to essentially get rid of his V600 because the calibration area couldn’t be cleaned and the banding just wouldn’t go away. By my Standards, items B and C make it a clear failure of a product.

So those are my complaints with the Epson V600. I don’t think I’m alone in them. I don’t think epson will do jack shit to fix their product or make a better scanner. I don’t think epson is out to get film shooters, nor are they indifferent to us, but I do believe we/the scanner market is such a small portion of their income, they’re probably not going to bother to make a newer better scanner -- if anything they’ll rehash the same exact scanner they have for the past two generations or fifteen years (yeah, seriously, the epson v500/v550 is more or less the exact same scanner as the v600), and we’ll all keep buying it.

Usually I write about positive things I’ve learned in these articles, but really all I’ve learned how to do is push a button and tweak things the same way I would in any other photo-editing program. I haven’t learned anything about photography here, except that the scanner market is incredibly poorly served. I’d prefer not to end this on too sour of a note, so let me fire off one last hot take:

I don’t care what film Kodak brings back next, or even that they bring any film back at all. Ektachrome and an overspecialized 3200 speed bnw film mean absolutely nothing to me.

Kodak should bring back the Pakon.

But bring it back with USB-C/3.0 Mac OS/Windows 10 (that’s the current OS right?) software and drivers. Most people shoot mostly 35mm if they shoot film. Personally I think lowering the bar (and the costs) to entry of efficient and good home scanning/and shooting would go a lot further towards keeping film alive than paywalling it behind obsolete products. The original pakon’s had great quality reasonable scans, and they had Kodak’s proprietary color science/scanning technology which enabled some really great color interpolation, easily. But above all that the Pakons are fast, and don’t seem to need a whole lot of handholding to do their scans. If they could make a new model capable of doing 120 film, even better, but I’d take just 35mm.

Anyway, all food for thought. If you liked the article and also hate your v600, share this article. If you hated it, and think I’m an idiot fight me in the comments.

If you’re feeling generous, or you liked this content, go pick up a zine or shirt in the shop.

Thanks for reading!

What I learned shooting #005: Pentax 6x7 (MLU)

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What I learned Shooting #005: Pentax 6x7 (MLU)

I deeply resent that I have to write this article. I deeply resent the fact that I paid 200 dollars for a broken Pentax 6x7, and then had to throw another 100 bucks to get it to work. I resent the fact that the Pentax 6x7 is the it-girl camera (or at least, it sure seems like it) in medium format right now, alongside the Mamiya 7ii, the evergreen favorite.

I know your first instinct as a reader will be to ask “why bother writing it if you hate doing it, or that you have to do it” -- and to that my response is simple: reviews, specifically camera reviews for in-demand cameras get website traffic. Likewise with film reviews for permanent favorite emulsions, ie your HP5+, your Portra 400, your Ektar, your Fuji Pro400h Reviews. I’m not above a little commercialism, I’d even argue it’s healthy.

That aside, The Pentax 6x7 (MLU) or non MLU is a great camera, and I do really like it, a lot. Some of the images I’ve gotten from it, like the glassy more-than-real, but still organic images it produces when I’m shooting at the heights of my abilities (not trying to be egocentric, it just seems like the highs that come out of this camera are really, really really high). I’m probably never going to sell it, if for no other reason, than I could probably never afford to buy the dumb thing back.

To save you the trouble of reading *another* fawning. Pentax 6x7 review:

The Pentax 6x7 is a big clunky steel machine with no frills. The lenses are my favorite general look of all the medium format systems that I’ve seen, or had access to so far. It’s capable of taking some really amazing photos that would be very very hard to replicate in 35mm. I think the best examples currently posted up on my website are the photos in Feature #4: Apocalypse Gulch. I think my (current) flagship Editorial Homecoming (Mourning) is great, and it shows off the optics, but not quite as clearly as the Salton Sea photos.

For a slightly different perspective, I think this review by Daniel J. Schneider is probably more helpful to an actual potential buyer than my post/review/essay this is going to be.

My Best/Worst about the camera, with brief explanations:

Here’s my top five favorite things about the camera:

  1. The Lenses, and their rendering. I know in terms of pure sharpness the Zeiss lenses on the Hasselblad probably blow the Pentax 6x7’s to shit, as well as the painfully sharp Mamiya RB/RZ or Mamiya 7 series glass; but I think the Pentax lenses have tend to have a certain (still super sharp/high resolving power, if that’s your bag) human look that suits my own particular need/style of photography really well.

  2. The Viewfinder is kinda magic. Not like it makes you better, but just having a giant bright image makes it really nice to compose and shoot on. I guess I have some (minor) complaints about the focusing because the depth of field tends to be super thin, but overall, the viewfinder (ground glass) just shines. I haven’t had a chance to use a dedicated waist level finder or chimney on the Pentax 6x7, but when I’ve just stared down through the ground glass it’s pretty amazing.

  3. The Aspect Ratio. The Pentax 6x7 has a nearly perfect 4:3 ratio, which, for what it’s worth makes it pretty perfect for darkroom printing on the common sizes, ie 8x10, 11x14, 20*24. Beyond that I think the the boxy, relatively even aspect ratio also lends itself to a more thoughtful, slow composition style, as opposed to the more dynamic ratio of 3:2 (ie 35mm). I know cropping is always an option, but usually the way the box or viewfinder

  4. It’s Imposing. I know I typically tout the Minolta XD-11’s nice compact feel in hand, and the form factor is small, so this may come as a surprise. But I like that the Pentax 6x7 is a big, gnarly, imposing camera, that makes a loud-ish, clack, when the shutter fires. It makes you, and to some extent, the subject (if you’re doing portraiture) take the camera seriously. It feels like an event, when you shoot and work with the camera, but maybe not as involved or static as one would when shooting and setting up a large format.

  5. (hypocritically) Flex Value. I’ve pissed and moaned a lot about price here (or if you keep reading I will), but there’s something kinda nice about owning an expensive piece of gear, and one that seems to be retaining it’s value, or even increasing it. I typically scoff at the Leica community, more for the idolatry of the red dot and the flex around it, but it’s kinda nice to brag that you got a deal on your (now expensive) camera, and show it off some. But not too much, nobody likes a rich prick.

Here’s some stuff I don’t love about the camera:

  1. It’s heavy. Not so heavy that it’ll break your back, or do permanent damage right off the bat, but the thing is definitely very heavy, and after a long day of hiking with the thing, you’re not going to feel great. I don’t actually care that the camera’s big or (relatively) loud -- I’m not really a street photographer, or at least what I do in street photography is so irrelevant to disturbing people that the noise and physical size/threatening look of the Pentax 6x7 don’t really matter that much.

  2. It’s expensive, and the price of replacement is just going to keep going up. A big reason why I’ve never even bothered to experiment with another system is that I don’t think I’d get enough money back selling whatever else I tried to buy back my original equipment if I didn’t like it -- and the camera’s good enough for what I use it for that I guess it doesn’t matter, but I still don’t like the thought of paying another 500 dollars to shoot the camera.

  3. The Eye level finder only covers 90% of the frame. It’s a perfectly nice finder/prism, but missing 10% of your image can be kinda tough, or like easy to forget about. Usually the image is pretty much exactly what I shoot, but that extra 10% has definitely snuck up on me before, requiring me to go back and crop back in, which overall is fine, but definitely a little demoralizing or frustrating.

  4. The flash sync speed kinda sucks. There’s no real good way to shoot flash with the camera, handheld, even with the specialized leaf shutter lenses, it’s still a pain and a lot of button clicks to get everything right, and not really anything you’d want to do handheld. I’m not a huge flash shooter or anything but this is admittedly, a significant border to entry for me.

  5. I’m now part of the medium format community, or like, if I want to share something (like this or one of my features/editorials) on facebook to a group to kinda get more eyes on it, I have to wade through the sea of shit that is the group of dumb, stubborn, fucks with no discernable taste who see fit to constantly criticize anything they neither understand nor like for not meeting their narrow, boring, and tasteless criteria of good photography, that seems to reek of being a professional hobbyist who approaches photography as an engineering question than an art. On top of that, the belief that they could be wrong is so foreign to them, that they refuse to try to see anything in a light that doesn’t favor them. There are plenty of perfectly nice people in the groups, but I get burnt out pretty quickly from the constant trolling, or dickish “criticism” which contains no palpable or helpful criticism that tends to hang over the board. (If this is you, you can kindly fuck right off my website, thanks.)

That brings me to, the eponymous section of the review/column:

So, what did I/have I learned shooting the Pentax 6x7:

  1. It’s probably way overpriced for what it should be, or like, I remember looking into buying one three to five years ago (I wasn’t ready for one) and it was like 200 bucks, maybe 300-400 with a lens. Tops. I know the whole film market has grown, and I should be happy, but as someone who’s been a (relatively) long-term film shooter, it kinda chaps my ass that all these johnny come lately kids are (un-intentionally) jacking the price of gear way the fuck up. I guess I should just be glad I don’t give a fuck about premium point and shoots.For a point of comparison, and SEO ranking, even the price of my beloved Minolta XD series cameras, have shot through the roof. Five years ago, when I got my first one, it was basically in mint condition, and I paid maybe 50 bucks for it. To get one of a decent quality, now, it’s something like $150 -- and even then the internal guts of the thing are a crapshoot. Additionally, it’s not like there’s a lot on the US used market either -- so you’re stuck gambling on Japanese eBay, which isn’t totally unreasonably priced, considering convenience of being able to just order the camera, but it’s always 30-40% over whatever budget I have for a camera or lens. Paralleled to the Pentax 6*7, even when I was buying mine, I remember the market being about 400 for a body only, with an unmetered prism, if you’re lucky. All this should probably be couched in “Andrew is an aggressively cheap bastard when  any purchase over $100 dollars is involved -- and his sense of value is way way stunted.”

  2. I like the camera and love the images it produces but I have yet to really bond with the camera in a meaningful way, or build a real relationship aside from “this camera is a tool, a really good tool.” My only real hypotheses are that 1. I haven’t gotten Stockholm syndrome’d by the camera yet -- it’s only been a year and some change, which leads into 2. The weight and expense of the camera, ie the price of 120 film (development and scanning, too), having repairs and CLA’s done (the big name Pentax guy charges $300 bucks for just a CLA -- I’m sure it’s basically a rebuild, but still, it doesn’t sit well with me -- see “I am a cheap bastard” above.), and just the dead weight of lugging the Pentax 6x7 (with lenses) around is prohibitive to me shooting enough with it to really gel with it beyond “camera make photo.”

  3. Right now, I really only take the camera out when I do “serious project work” -- and even then, because I seem to have a nasty habit of accumulating (and shooting) 100 foot rolls of 35mm film, I still seem to end up using the Minolta XD-11 for a good chunk of my projects. That being said I do lug the Pentax 6x7 with me to do landscape photography when I travel -- and it’s definitely been good or great for that -- I have some stuff coming up to show that off, I’m almost done re-scanning all my photos from one specific trip to show that off.

  4. Bracketing is for chumps. Admittedly I haven’t fully incorporated this lesson into daily practice all the time, but typically, the amount I bracket shots has radically decreased way down. Typically (with limited exception) I tend to fall into the category or thought pattern of “first shot, best shot” and it’s borderline madness for me to re-shoot something better the second time when I’m overthinking it, but traditionally I still do or have a lot. Having only ten frames on a roll definitely cuts way down on the amount that I’m tempted to re-do something, if for no other reason than budget.

  5. Having a bigger/better camera doesn’t make your work better. I know this is something I say a lot, but I definitely have gotten some better shots out of the Minolta XD-11 than the Pentax 6x7, on the same day, just because I wasn’t working hard enough at getting the Pentax 6X7 framing right, or I just flat out didn’t have the right/wide enough lens for it. You can’t always make your new fancy toy work out for everything, as much as you want it to.

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Test Your Goddamn Film.

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Test Your Goddamn Film

Until early 2018,

I never took properly testing my film or developer too seriously. I picked a developer, cycled in between basically anything I could find and shoot, mostly just to shoot whatever I could find, and just stuck with whatever recipe the massive dev chart suggested, and hoped for the best. Honestly, it worked -- most of the time. That being said, over time, I’ve begun to desire more consistent results, to build a codified aesthetic, or voice if you will. I had a long period shooting Delta 100, in Kodak Xtol 1:1, but even then I’d go off and get distracted shooting Fomapan 100 for a week, or some bizarro expired neopan, without really digging into testing best practices for that core of Delta 100. While I may not have finally settled into a consistent aesthetic -- I’m still settling on my daily shooter/singular film stock -- I have learned or at least gained an appreciation for good testing and consistency. I think thorough testing is a necessity to the craft of black and white analogue photography, and to a lesser extent -- color photography.

Traditional Silver Black and White Negative film, and its developers, is the only film which requires extensive testing. There’s only one true “correct” developer for color negative still film, which is C-41 or whatever the company making it is calling it. Any color negative development, outside of that is cross-processing. Once you learn what an individual emulsion does, and how it reacts to light, and what it does when pushed or pulled or whatever other idiot processing decisions you want to subject it to it’s not going to deviate from that -- but even then, with rare exception, almost all C-41 film behaves the same way. As of writing this, there are over 100 different developers listed on the Massive Dev Chart. Given some (most) of them may not be in wide use. But even then, let’s say there are 10 “standard developers” (Rodinal, HC-110 or Ilfotec HC, D-76 or ID-11, DD-X, Xtol, Sprint, the Pyro Family, Ilfosol S, and Diafine), that’s still 9 more developers that are standard process than color film has. And each one of them has different dilutions which do different things, and act differently based on the relative temperature one develops at.

For my primary case study, I’d like to use Rodinal, because it’s such a universal developer. Let’s go over some standard assumptions -- Rodinal has three standard dilutions, 1:25, 1:50 -- the “standard” , 1:100 -- which sometimes is performed as a semi-stand development, and sometimes as a full stand for at least one hour. Rodinal does *not* play nicely at higher temperatures than the given 20ºC/68ºF, and tends to create heavy, heavy grain, as it is an Acutance developer, and most of its developing action comes from making grain larger rather than cutting away at the grain -- ie a solvent developer -- I’ll get to that soon. On top of that, because rodinal works at high dilutions, 1:50, 1:100, and those dilutions can take so much time, you can get compensation. Compensation is a bizarre phenomena which seems to allow one to get a more even rendition, along with sharper edges on their image subjects, but within certain limits, and only with certain developers. On top of that rodinal can be used to push, but because of the way the developer works, it’s typically not used as a push developer. Or at the very least, from my personal experience, one should not use additional time to push the film itself, to “gain” a stop, so much as they should use it to increase the negative thickness or the amount of contrast on the negatives. (NB: most of my info is pulled from Massive Dev, or Unblinking Eye -- they have a page specifically on Rodinal).

I don’t know if you’ve been keeping tally of all the variables and considerations in that last block of text, but that’s a lot of variables, with a lot of finicky and personal/preferential answers -- That’s three separate dilution choices, temperature volatility, speed volatility (ie how much grain the developer creates given the speed of the film, then also how much nominal speed the film loses in the developer), what kind of contrast you need, how much extra time you should be developing to compensate for a particularly dark or light scene. And those are just the developer variables, that’s not even taking into account how you rated the film you’re developing, or the water quality/mineral content of the water that you’re using for your dilutions.

That being said: most film, or at least any film made by a decently large manufacturer, or of “professional quality,” typically comes with its own datasheet, which should either be right on the film’s own box, or available from the manufacturer, online. Kodak is really great about this, as is Ilford, given the number of different films they manufacture. I even have a data sheet from the now defunct AGFA, for the batch of APX100 I shot (which actually confirms their loose recommendation of 17 minutes, in Rodinal 1:50.) These sheets typically give best practice for the film, and the best possible starting point. That being said, they’re not long on examples, just pure data on “how much contrast do you want vs. how thick your negative will be (gamma), and this is what the light response curve is.” Which is great, but not really a good substitute for figuring out what you actually need out of a film, which, unless you can perfectly read all those charts, and intuitively know what the film will look like, you still have to go and shoot film yourself to find out what the compensation is like, the amount of grain is in a given developer, or even how a developer will render the film given the scene. And this isn’t even taking into account all the variables that go along with developing, aside from time. All of this is a good starting point, but at the end of the day, you should still conduct your own tests.

Testing your film is important. Thorough testing allows one to get exactly the look, feel, and density one requires out of their film, without having to worry too much, or spend an excess amount of time correcting or photoshopping, once a desired benchmark is set. Once you sets your benchmark, you end up saving much more time in the long run despite the initial timesink of having to do all the research and testing in the first place. To make this personally relevant, this process of testing, in detail, is why I won’t review a film, unless I can shoot at least 20 rolls of it (if not more), because without that thoroughness, or exposure to multiple developers, conditions, etc, I feel it paints a relatively incomplete picture of what a given film is capable of. Admittedly, I was inspired to do or start testing thoroughly or sticking with a single film (per usage) at a time by Johnny Patience’s Article on the death of the zone system, which is also definitely worth a read.

Anyway, to sum all of this up: If you want the best most consistent results, test your goddamn film.

If you’ve enjoyed this content, buy a zine in the shop, so I can continue to produce it, and host it here on the website. -- Thanks!

Sharpness Doesn't Matter.

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Sharpness doesn’t matter.

Or at the very least, it shouldn’t be the most important question.

Full disclosure:

I'm a functional illiterate when it comes to finite technical details in photography; but I have the basic visual faculties to see what’s in front of me. Every time I trawl any forum where lenses are discussed, evaluated and ranked, the discussion always drifts to “how sharp is it? Or which lens is sharpest?” I used to read these threads, get invested, argue, and fiend over finding the “right” equipment. With limited exception, I’ve given up caring much about sharpness. Sharpness is a dumb concern, most of the time, and rarely matters much for most photographers in practice.

The first question I always ask when talking about sharpness, resolution or negative size, is “how big are you printing or displaying?” Like my complaint in my “your cellphone is all the point and shoot you need article” I’m going to repeat it here, again, “are you really posting or presenting your work anywhere aside from Instagram, on a 6.5” at the largest?” and the answer is usually a flat “no.” So what’s the purpose of caring or getting caught up in how sharp or “correct” a lens is?

Failing the need question on the basis of print size, let’s move on to content. How often does one really consider or need a ultra-highly resolved image down to the finest details? Or how often does ultrafine detail play into your imaging? If you’re a commercial photographer, or you work a lot with finite texture, and need to render images a specific, highly controlled way, this is understandable. However, how many people do you know who work with film, or really even digital, that are working on subjects like this? There’s a handful, sure, but do you? Is that really what you care about in photography?

Some lenses are just duds. They are bad, they make inferior pictures, with little upside like amazing bokeh or some other unintended but amazing effect. Likewise, there are some magic lenses, but they’re becoming exorbitantly expensive. Outside the maybe fifty odd “vintage” lenses that are “legendary,” it doesn’t matter, provided you don’t get a dud; A 50mm, is a 50 is a 50; some have better maximum apertures, and their renditions may vary, but they all essentially take the same photo. I feel like the lenses that prove the rule for me, are modern autofocus lenses, which have no discernable character, and have profiles in Lightroom that can fix base defects in seconds, you can essentially “fix” any two cameras and lenses to look next to identical in seconds.

I do not understand the need for sharpness or why the need for scientific accuracy is so dominant, film or digital. If I might offer up alternatives to “is it sharp” -- “will this lens do what I need it to?” “does the lens’s rendering actively compliment the aesthetics and subjects I’m trying to get?” “will it fit the arcane or special/specific need I need to render my vision?” -- rather than ask the bland, superficial, and ultimately pointless question of “how sharp is this lens?” My concluding questions, are “Is sharpness important?” and “why is sharpness important to you?”

Anyway, if you’ve enjoyed this essay, or any of the content on my website, consider buying a zine in the shop.

Your Phone is All the Point-and-Shoot You Need.

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Shooting or taking pictures daily, or very frequently, is an essential habit for photographers of all stripes. Many of us who shoot film carry a dedicated film camera on us all the time, in addition to the camera that every living person carries: their cellphone. I believe that your phone camera is an equally useful, or better, point-and-shoot than any other stand-alone point-and-shoot camera (a compact film or digital program camera) for most uses, and that buying a true point-and-shoot is pointless.

Most point and shoot cameras were aimed at the average person who wanted to shoot photos wherever without having to worry too much, and take their camera with them easily. Likewise the premium point and shoots were supposed to enable pro photographers on the go to shoot a nice camera anywhere without having to lug their normal gear. The iPhone destroyed the camera market, and digital point and shoot sales aimed at the average person have largely been completely cannibalized by cellphone camera market.

On the premium end of the spectrum we have the Contaxes, Fuji’s, and Olympus Mju’s on the film side, and the Rx1 and assorted fixed lens Leicas/Panasonics. I could definitely understand if you didn’t want to take your studio camera, you’d take a lighter smaller camera with you for day-to-day shooting. Most film shooters, take their “premium” point-and-shoots with them in addition to some other interchangeable lens camera. Unless you’re lugging a medium format camera, or something else equivalently heavy, it all seems a bit redundant.

Realistically, how many of us regularly shoot or share for print? Even if one did print regularly how often would you really want to print a 35mm negative bigger than 11x14, (about 12 megapixels)? I know that 99% of what I shoot day-to-day on 35mm, goes to a 5.5-6” screen, max. I can’t imagine being far from the norm here. If one absolutely needs grain or a particular film look, you can fix that in 30 seconds or less, in VSCO.

The main argument, that I would accept is that: you know what focal length you want, the point and shoot camera provides a look and feel, that’s satisfactory to you, and it’s part of your artistic goals or statement, or you find that shooting a dedicated camera gives better results than taking your time with a phone, more power to you. But for those of you that use that camera in addition to a Leica or a Contax g2, or basically any 35mm SLR, why? It seems like pure collectorism, especially with the insane (and still rising) prices, and the diminishing or flat out non-existent ability to repair these cameras.

My phone is one of my favorite cameras. It does exactly what I need it to, which is take pictures that I don’t have to think too much about, or offhand as a reminder to go back and shoot something, or when I can’t be bothered to take a regular camera with me, which I’d argue is the whole point of a premium point and shoot, it’s supposed to be simple and quick for social use, which is exactly what modern technology has provided with in-phone cameras, and software.