Re: Chama Steam 2007

Thank you so much for the feedback. I have many more pictures. To answer your question, yes these were taken with my medium format camera. I have a Hasselblad 501cm, which is a manual camera. The lenses are/were made by Carl Zeiss. On a side note, I think the Zeiss lenses give you the most beautiful picture; the downside is that they will cost you an arm and a leg. I got around this price barrier by purchasing pre-owned manual lenses. The first set of pictures were taken with a 40mm lens which is equivalent to a 28mm lens in 35mm format. In my kit I have 40mm, 80mm and 250mm lenses and 4 interchangeable film backs. The negatives were scanned in using an Epson 4990 pro scanner at 2400dpi which gives you a 5000x5000 scan. I would like to purchase a Nikon Coolscan 9000 someday to get sharper scans as you loose A LOT of sharpness in the scan. The film I used was Kodak Portra (the new stuff) 160/400/800.

You might find your self asking the question, "Why the heck do you still shoot with a manual film camera?" At least my friends ask me that a lot! Well, first of all, most of the subjects I shoot don't require very fast exposure and focus adjustments. For example, since these trains move slowly, at least relative to other things like sports games, I have never had trouble setting my camera to the proper exposure in time to capture the shot I wanted. Additionally I love the Zeiss lenses and the cheapest way to use them is to use a manual camera. I use film because it is far cheaper for me, given the amount of film I shoot, than buying a $8,000 to $16,000 digital back. For example last year I shot at most 30 rolls of film which equals to spending $180 to buy and process the film. At that rate, it would take me a long time for a digital back to pay off. Also I love black and white pictures, and black and white pictures taken with digital cameras have to be printed on an ink printer which cannot produce a picture equal to film B&W pictures printed on Fiber paper. Trust me, I worked with my brother, who at the time worked in HP's inkjet R&D department, for a year trying to meet or beat a chemically made B&W print and we could not do it. This is due to the differences in dye/pigment inks vs. silver, but I am confident the technology will get there someday.

That is my very long winded answer to you question and probably more information than you wanted to know. : ) Please write back if you have any other questions!

James