Every so often it’s good to do a studio shoot using a few flash heads. I’ve nothing grand – a cobbled collection of eBay-sourced Interfit units with cheap backdrops and stands. It’s a basic setup with a soft-box facing the sitter and two units at 45 degrees on to the white cloth, then using a black backdrop with a soft-box and brolly two-light arrangement.
To make things interesting, the session with my good friend and singer/songwriter/guitarist Thomas, was to be captured on full-frame digital ( Canon 6D) and on 35mm black and white film (Kentmere 100) using mid 70’s basic manual camera, the Ricoh KR-5. Without a flash meter, the plan was to get a setting on the 6D that looked ok, then set something similar on the Ricoh. So 1/125 at f8 – then play about with the lights.
First up – some low key against the black backdrop,
Then a white backdrop with the softbox straight on.
Next up was a repeat of this lighting with the Ricoh. It’s a very basic but solidly built mechanical SLR. And it did ok
As is often the case, scanning a low key image is a bit tricky – the real test will be darkroom print – but the high keys portraits on the Ricoh were near the mark with the full frame Canon digital.
So a quick photo shoot to compare digital and 35mm black and white film. Next will be to compare negative scanning with a darkroom print scan as well as an indepth look at using the Ricoh.
Late Developer 