On Wednesday I shared a pastel gel shot with you. That image was shot on my Nikon d850 and I'll be sharing more images from that set soon. These 3 images here however, are shot on my Pentax 67 film camera and I think some of you may find it interesting to compare the two sets of shots.
For those of you still interested and still reading, here's the nerd-speak: Portra 400 film, 1/30th second (but all strobe, no ambient light), f2.4. I will also admit that I had too much light in this setup, so I was also using a 2 stop ND on my lens.
The lens was the 105mm 2.4.
Here's that Nikon D850 image I posted on Wednesday. 1/125th, f2.8, ISO 100. 24-70 lens.
To be clear, I have no reason to compare the two sets of images. Comparing the Pentax 67 film to the Nikon digital is like comparing apples to oranges. It's simply an exercise that you may have no interest in.... but I do think it's interesting to see where we've come from in our industry.
It wasn't too long ago that a 120 medium format film camera was the holy grail of quality (especially these 6x7 ones), so let's explore that.
First off, yes this is 400 ISO so we have some grain (which I personally like). That grain actually helps the very dark areas of the hair to have some detail. These deep black areas in our images is something I know many of you struggle with a LOT in your digital files. Film does away with those vast expanses of jet black data immediately. Secondly, we have the very muted tones and colours. This is a product of the film stock yes, Portra is known for its flat colours, but the colours are also synonymous with film in general. Especially C41 (colour neg) over E6 (colour transparency).
Lastly we can compare the depth of field. These shots are all f2.4 and the image I posted on Wednesday from the Nikon is f2.8. Yes this is a slightly longer lens, but the depth of field is unmistakably more prominent here.
So what do you guys think? Do you like this softer, slightly more organic look? Can you handle all of that grain? Can you see the differences in depth of fields?
Lastly, would you have known this was film had I not told you?
Of course it goes without saying, but feel free to scroll back to Wednesday to see the shot (and if I remember, I'll try and pop the Nikon shot in the comments here too).
But whatever camera you're shooting with over the weekend, have fun and good luck😎
Model: Valencia Germain