Shooting Medium Format Film |Film Friday – September 18, 2015

One of my business goals this year is to try to shoot one roll of medium format film at every wedding. I’m enjoying this process so far, focusing on using the camera for portraits alongside of my amazing digital camera.

Your can follow along with my results on Film Fridays.

Portra 800
Pentax 645
75mm f/2.8
Indie Film Lab

One of the great things about medium format film is the way it handles light.  Color film, especially film like Fuji 400H, LOVES light and you get the best results by overexposing quite a bit in camera.  If you underexpose, your colors get muddy and grainy, and unlike digital, you can’t correct for exposure post-processing, so its important to get it right in the first place.

I recently experienced how well film handles light at the Big Fake Wedding.  At this event I took a couple of rolls of Portra 800 because I knew the inspiration board would lend itself to rich, vibrant colors and I wanted a film stock that would make the most of it.

During my time with the bridal party and couple, I took them to an awesome little grove of trees down a side street by the venue.  I started shooting with the sun behind me (rather than behind my couple) and while it looked pretty to my eye, it was producing quite a bit of dappled lighting.  I worked with it for a few shots before turning them around to get some backlighting, but I managed to take photos in both film and digital, and let me tell you–the light in the film photos turned out so much more even.  While the dappled lighting still isn’t the best, its not as distracting as the digital version for the simple fact that the highlights aren’t as bright in the film photos.

See below:

Film:

Digital:

I happen to be in love with the film photos from this event and I’ll be sharing in upcoming Film Fridays.