I am a hobbyist, a wandering nomad who's passion is
travelling. Be it physical or mental. The latter form is where the film cameras
(and also analog-audio) comes into play for me.
I shot digital in my baby steps stage till I saw wall sized enlarged b&w photos taken with a 8x10" large format camera by one Estonian photographer who's name unfortunately I can't rember. I was stunned by how much character the photos had down to the grain level without having seen any Photoshop - it was fully analog bred stuff. My other hobby has been motorcycling, being unable to afford carrying a bulky LF camera (although I do have a 5x7" LF camera I shoot with time-to-time), there are too few 35mm film shots I've seen that inspired me, so the only way to go was medium format - to have that raw sensor size yet to be able to pack it with me on my motorcycle and travel the distance.
I started with Kiev 60 - a relatively unreliable soviet 6x6 medium format camera that had many mechanical problems. But through pain it taught me many valuable lessons about photography and the artistic side of it - it's often the defect that becomes an effect in analog photography. The main thing is that this camera has superbly artistic Zeiss Jena lenses that I still can't find equals for in 6x7 format I currently shoot with - the 180mm f2.8 Jena is the best portrait lens ever made in my book. With constant mechanical hassles and hoping I can keep my lenses I upgraded the body to Arax 60, which is an improved version of the Kiev 60 body, but although slightly better, it also gave me problems till I switched to Pentax 67 format which I have been shooting with many years till today. As of now, Pentax 67 is a proven battle tank, it's has endured over 200 000 kilometers of different journeys on a motorcycle - rain, dust, sand, heat, cold and vibrations and I'm amazed it still keeps going, even works at down to -30C degrees. I use 400mm f4, 200mm f4, 105mm f2.4 and 35mm f4.5 fisheye for the P67 system. Time-to-time I also shoot with my friend's Linhof Technica 6x9 with superb Schneider lenses.
In choice of a film I've been a complete multitasker. I do not have any favourite film I can name since I find the analog photography word so fascinating in all levels. I think I've tried almost every film currently sold, even the very little known film brands which I love to test. It's not just about b&w, infrared, colour slide or negative world, but also the alternative enlargement processes to get it on the paper - I've given up scanning the enlarged work since unlike film scanning no digital representation can bring forth the feel of seeing a photo done by an actual enlarger or a contact print onto a photographic paper. From its depth, texture to varying surface reflection, you just can't smell it from the computer monitor :). I became a big fan of the Lith-process that worked especially well with my infrared negatives. Pity I sold my decent darkroom to finance my long dream: to circumnavigate our planet on a motorcycle. This recent undertaking made me homeless, I sold everything I've had except my vinyl collection, turntable, tube amplifier, speakers and my analog camera gear. It has made me more horny about analog photography (and audio) than ever before since I couldn't really practice it to full being more than 3 years on the road. I did shoot over 150 rolls of film that still wait for digitalizing or enlarging. This will have to wait since I'm currently in a process of building myself up from zero again and I'm glad I've kept all my analog gear, hopefully some day I can acquire some proper analog darkroom again too!
As said before, I'm by no means a proffessional photographer, thus like me also my work has no home in the real world nor on the internet. Flickr never had any serious attention, but some stuff is found there. For more straightforward viewing of my recent doings in English language, you can explore the following link:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=480532
I shot digital in my baby steps stage till I saw wall sized enlarged b&w photos taken with a 8x10" large format camera by one Estonian photographer who's name unfortunately I can't rember. I was stunned by how much character the photos had down to the grain level without having seen any Photoshop - it was fully analog bred stuff. My other hobby has been motorcycling, being unable to afford carrying a bulky LF camera (although I do have a 5x7" LF camera I shoot with time-to-time), there are too few 35mm film shots I've seen that inspired me, so the only way to go was medium format - to have that raw sensor size yet to be able to pack it with me on my motorcycle and travel the distance.
I started with Kiev 60 - a relatively unreliable soviet 6x6 medium format camera that had many mechanical problems. But through pain it taught me many valuable lessons about photography and the artistic side of it - it's often the defect that becomes an effect in analog photography. The main thing is that this camera has superbly artistic Zeiss Jena lenses that I still can't find equals for in 6x7 format I currently shoot with - the 180mm f2.8 Jena is the best portrait lens ever made in my book. With constant mechanical hassles and hoping I can keep my lenses I upgraded the body to Arax 60, which is an improved version of the Kiev 60 body, but although slightly better, it also gave me problems till I switched to Pentax 67 format which I have been shooting with many years till today. As of now, Pentax 67 is a proven battle tank, it's has endured over 200 000 kilometers of different journeys on a motorcycle - rain, dust, sand, heat, cold and vibrations and I'm amazed it still keeps going, even works at down to -30C degrees. I use 400mm f4, 200mm f4, 105mm f2.4 and 35mm f4.5 fisheye for the P67 system. Time-to-time I also shoot with my friend's Linhof Technica 6x9 with superb Schneider lenses.
In choice of a film I've been a complete multitasker. I do not have any favourite film I can name since I find the analog photography word so fascinating in all levels. I think I've tried almost every film currently sold, even the very little known film brands which I love to test. It's not just about b&w, infrared, colour slide or negative world, but also the alternative enlargement processes to get it on the paper - I've given up scanning the enlarged work since unlike film scanning no digital representation can bring forth the feel of seeing a photo done by an actual enlarger or a contact print onto a photographic paper. From its depth, texture to varying surface reflection, you just can't smell it from the computer monitor :). I became a big fan of the Lith-process that worked especially well with my infrared negatives. Pity I sold my decent darkroom to finance my long dream: to circumnavigate our planet on a motorcycle. This recent undertaking made me homeless, I sold everything I've had except my vinyl collection, turntable, tube amplifier, speakers and my analog camera gear. It has made me more horny about analog photography (and audio) than ever before since I couldn't really practice it to full being more than 3 years on the road. I did shoot over 150 rolls of film that still wait for digitalizing or enlarging. This will have to wait since I'm currently in a process of building myself up from zero again and I'm glad I've kept all my analog gear, hopefully some day I can acquire some proper analog darkroom again too!
As said before, I'm by no means a proffessional photographer, thus like me also my work has no home in the real world nor on the internet. Flickr never had any serious attention, but some stuff is found there. For more straightforward viewing of my recent doings in English language, you can explore the following link:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=480532
Margus Sootla
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