Yesterday started out beautifully. It was almost 80°F in the sun, which was a welcome change from the cold New York winter, and I went to Peach Hill Park, which is an old apple orchard. I haven’t fixed the light leak in my one particular copy of a Spartus that’s my favorite landscape camera (it’s not the cool kind of leak, it washes out the whole frame), and I didn’t have time to load film holders, so 4×5 was out, too. Instead, I reached for my Hasselblad 501C/M and noticed the 350mm lens that I’d only ever shot maybe 3 frames with. (For the record, I inherited both from my father; I’m not in the habit of buying Hasselblad lenses only to leave them in the closet for years.)
I’m not a big fan of long lenses. Not that I hate them or anything, but they don’t do much for me unless I physically can’t get close enough to what I want to shoot, like at a show or a wedding. I tend to go for normal to moderately wide, even finding the standard "normal" 50mm on 35mm film to be a touch long. 350mm is generally outside of my visual consciousness. I figured I’d give myself a challenge and took only the one camera and lens to see what I could learn.
I walked around and shot for about an hour and half and packed it in when it started raining. I took my time, shooting only 24 exposures, framing probably five shots for every one I took, really trying to get a feel for what this thing lends itself to. I think I failed. Other than being unweidly—the camera, lens, and hood together are longer than my forearm—I had no grand epiphanies. I don’t feel like I even got my foot in the door, but I’ll keep at it for a bit longer. For better or worse, it sure is different.
UPDATE: photos are here.
Well? Can we see ’em
I went out today and took my 4×5 on its first outing, doing some architectural stuff to learn about camera movements (I have zero experience with that). Not developed them yet, but I still get a cool feeling when I see that image on the ground glass, filthy as it is.
Long lenses work well for portrait work. You can create some beautiful bokeh with them. Outside of that, I never really use anything longer than 24mm.
Paul, to top it off, it looks like the shutter in that lens is messed up. I shot one roll of Tri-X and one of colour. Haven’t seen the colour yet, but the B&W is WAAAAY under. So I don’t know if there’s anything to see!
WTG on the 4×5! How did you find working with it?
Chris, yeah, that’s the only thing I really feel them for, too. Stick it on a tripod and I’m good to go. But I don’t do much premediated portaiture.