Today’s Post by Joe Farace
While today’s post isn’t strictly about film photography, it does provide some background on my evolution from film photography to digital (and back?) that was covered in my last #filmfriday post.
A little while ago, I wrote a post called Glamour Photography with Entry Level SLRs explaining that the camera you use for glamour or boudoir portraits is not as important as the attitude, vision and talent that a photographer brings to the session.
As a point of information, the cameras that I currently own and use for boudoir and glamour photography are mostly Olympus and Panasonic mirrorless camera and occasionally some Canon EOS DSLR models. You can see the specific models and details on all of the digital cameras that I currently use on the Gear page. Look for an update on the film equipment I use real soon now. Yet, only one of these camera brands were part of the group of original SLRs I used when starting my photographic career, including my first foray into glamour photography.
My first film-based SLR was the Minolta SR-1, not the SRT-101 that came later and had through-the-lens metering, which was considered a big deal at the time. The SR-1 had an external meter that was perched atop the shutter speed dial. It worked most of the time. Next, I used Nikon SLRs throughout most of my early career, later switching to Contax because I wanted to be able to shoot with the same kind of Carl Zeiss lenses I used with my medium format Hasselblads. Somewhere along the line and because of the influence of my friend Rick Sammon, I began shooting Canon SLRs too.
How I made this portrait: The photograph of my former muse Tia Stoneman was made on the walkway in the bird sanctuary portion at Barr Lake State Park with an Olympus E-300 and a 40-150mm lens with an exposure of 1/320 sec at f/4 and ISO 200.
When DSLRs came along I waited for a while trying not to be an early adopter, finally settling on Canon DSLRs and still own a couple of EOS bodies along with a bunch of lenses. Later and thanks to my friend Mark Toal I realized all of the advantages that mirrorless cameras brought to the table and most of the time, except when reviewing a specific camera, that’s what I prefer to shoot. Lately I have been shooting videos with Canon’s mirrorless EOS M6 Mark II and you can see the results on my YouTube channel. Recently with an assist from my friend Cliff Lawson I improved the lighting on these videos and if you compare my most recent video, with the others you will see how much difference lighting can improve image quality. Since last November, I’ve managed to acquire a sextet of Canon A-series 35mm film-based SLRs, although for reasons that Ive written about before, I have yet to do any model shoots* using film during my recent interest (re-interest?) in film photography.
I am only mentioning all of this as a point of information. If you’re a happy Nikon, Pentax, Sony or Fuji user it’s not my intention to convince you to switch systems. If it works for you and you’re happy, keep on truckin’. Because I have often said, it’s not the camera, it’s the photographer.
for a long time, my wife shot with Olympus Four-thirds system DSLRs before later switching to Nikon (it’s a long story) and over the years I borrowed some of her cameras to make glamour photographs like the above portrait of Tia Stoneman. The Olympus E-300 aka Olympus Evolt E-300 in North America was an eight-megapixel DSLR that was announced at photokina 2004. It was the second camera, after Oly’s flagship E-1, to use the now defunct Four-Thirds System sensor, now living on in the Micro Four-Thirds system and the first of this series that was intended for consumers. Recently, I saw a nice one on eBay (from Japan) with a 14-45mm lens with a Buy it Now price of $169.
You can learn all of my tips, tools and techniques for shooting available light glamour photography in my book surprisingly titled Available Light Glamour Photography. New copies of the book are available from Amazon for $29.95 with used copies starting around twenty bucks. Kindle copies are $28.45, if you prefer a digital edition.