Seeing the woods for the trees – some medium format shots

I love being in the woods. But for the live of me, most of the time I can’t shoot anything worth a damn in there. Too chaotic, I suppose. And medium format is something I also don’t do much of. So yesterday, I decided to combine both and shoot some Portra 160 in my Bronica SQAi in the woods.

What can I say? I processed the film and scanned it. Not sure if I’ll print any of this. Scans are made with the trusty old Epson 4990, scanned as positive and then manually inverted. I then fine-tuned the curves to taste on each individual image.

I admit I f-ed up exposure on the first shot because I didn’t notice my handheld meter was set to f/8 while I was shooting at f/4. I salvaged the shot in GIMP. Contrast remains low, but this is to be expected (and desirable IMO) due to a little flare.

Oh yeah, one reason this worked out reasonably OK (they’re not necessarily keepers, of course) is because I used the 150/4 instead of the 80/2.8 I usually have mounted on the Bronica. Using a longer lens helps me to isolate, and because I need to isolate, I also look more consciously. I think.

Still, it’s a marginal affair. But a decent way to exercise the camera, to use up some expired film – and of course to spend some time outdoors on a pleasant October afternoon.

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