Workshop New York results

I love New York and it’s always fun to be back.
Originally this trip was planned as a 100% relax time trip, but things chance when you’re doing what I’m doing 😀
So we ended up teaching 2 different workshops in New York, the first one was for Mamiya/Leaf which you can find here and the second one was a workshop I organized in the studio of a buddy of ours Hector Martinez from 5thFloorstudios in long island.

Nicole May 3 2014 NY (125 of 170)-Edit

I’ve known Hector for many years and when he told me about his new project I really could not wait to test out the studio so because we were in New York anyway Annewiek and I decided to organize a workshop there, and man am I glad I did, the studio is awesome. There is plenty of room inside but the rooftops really got my creative juices flowing, actually I was planning on shooting the whole workshop with my Sony A7r but I decided that there was so much detail in the background I asked our friends from mamiya/Leaf (digital transitions) to lend me a Credo80 (80MP) which they did (thanks guys), because in all honestly…. the A7r is an awesome camera, and it actually is the camera I do almost all my workshops on location with, but shooting this kind of setups with a medium format camera… well it just brings a whole new dimension to the shots.

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Some more film from NY

Last week I showed some BW material from the Yashica Mat 124, today it’s time for some color images I shot during our visit in New York.

New York April Mei 2014 E6 Yashica (2 of 18)

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Mamiya Leaf workshop New York

During our stay in New York I taught 2 different workshops.
The first one was for our friends from Mamiya/Leaf.
As you all probably know I’m a huge fan of shooting Medium Format, the image quality is “something else”.
I’ve started shooting medium format digital a few years ago and started out with a Mamiya digital back which, to put it mildly, actually didn’t life up to it’s expectations, my second back was much better, a Leaf Aptus 22. A 22MP back which at that time was a bump in resolution from my Canon 5D, but it was not the resolution I fell in love with, it was the dynamic range and most of all the look of the images, now this is very hard to explain but the images just look more 3D.

Leaf Mamiya workshop 3086-Edit

My very first experience with a medium format camera was during a professional imaging tradeshow some years ago when one of the Hasselblad representatives handed me one of their H2D bodies with back, at that point I thought I would never ever shoot medium format because of the price difference between a DSLR and medium format, however… when I retouched the files back home my mind changed and before I knew it I bought my first system.

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New York in BW

During our stay in Atlanta I bought a new camera for myself.
As you all know I love analogue photography and vintage cameras, I don’t call myself a collector but if I see something cool I will try to grab it, if it’s not too expensive. Most of the cameras I have in the studio are bought on flea markets and can still shoot but ….. well they are not great cameras. I will often shoot the RZ67ProII and 645 with film backs (normally digital) but let’s be honest you don’t take those on the streets during a trip. So I wanted something small but still medium format and it had to have a meter (I don’t want to bother with a meter on the street). During a visit to a camera store in Atlanta (the camera doctor) I found a mint Yashica Mat 124 and fell in love with the camera. I did shoot 2 rolls of films with it during a visit to the Old car city in Atlanta but New York was the real testing ground.

 

The images I share today are still in the testing phase, I have to work up the speed to get the more interesting shots, but it’s cool to see what a camera like this still gives you in terms of resolution and detail. I’m scanning the film with a Reflecta MF5000 which gives you a pretty good resolution, it’s the next best thing to the Nikon Coolscan (which are sold for ridiculous prices). When scanning the resolution of the 6×6 film is app 13000×13000 pixels which seems pretty high, but always remember that the usable resolution is NOT what you scan with, although (especially with BW film) the images come out incredibly sharp for film. In lightroom I always use the 1:3 setting to judge the sharpness of my scans and I can honestly say that the Yashica stunned me, for such a small camera it’s amazing what you get, I guess that the 6×6 film renders something comparable to 40-50mp in digital which is not too shabby 😀

 

But enough of the technical mojo, let’s show the images.
Film : Kodak 400YMT
Scanner : Reflecta MF5000
Camera : Yashica Mat 124

New York April Mei 2014 BW Yashica (1 of 12)

 

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