kerry ould

Rolleiflex roll #1 - not bad for an antique

It's been a while since I've found the time to blog.  It's been a busy couple of months, but hopefully things are getting back on track.

After a successful bidding war on eBay, I finally received my Rolleiflex. Since it came from Germany, it took FOREVER to arrive, and without an English manual.  Google is a wonderful thing, and within a couple of minutes of searching I was able to download a PDF of the original manual in English.

I recently shot my first roll and I have to say that I miss film!  Part of the fun of photography is the anticipation of seeing what you got after it's developed.  Digital is great, but because it's so immediate, and the number of shots you can take are virtually unlimited, I have found myself falling out of love with it as it's becoming almost too much about the technology and less about the art.

Shooting just 12 frames of 120 film with my Rolleiflex easily took me over an hour as I was much more deliberate knowing I only had a few shots to work with.  I feel like there's a stronger connection to the artistic process for me with my new friend and that is making me very happy.

I have to admit that I was very afraid that the film would come back all black, but it didn't.  And in fact, the meter is bang on - I would even argue that it exposes better than my very fancy Canon. And there is a buttery richness to the images that just doesn't happen with film.

Here are a few of the test images I took using Kodak Ektar 100.  Other than converting the high resolution scan to B&W in Photoshop, I did not adjust them.  I am pretty impressed with the Rollei...can't wait to get out there and do some more shooting.  I bought a bunch of different types of film to try.  This could get expensive (which is about the only downside to film I can think of!).

 

Jake - a very uncooperative Golden Retriever

Cricket - getting into the catnip

Daisy - doing what she does best...plotting world domination.

My love affair with film

As anyone who follows me on facebook knows, I have been yearning to get back into shooting photography the old fashioned way - with film.  I was traditionally taught photography - darkroom style.  Including developing and printing my own images.  Despite how far digital has come, I still think there's something romantic about film.

Unfortunately, my old Minolta isn't up to the task so I began to research film cameras to find a camera that will give me the vintage feel I am looking for.  I knew I wanted to shoot medium format - which uses a much larger negative than 35mm, and in a square format. This helped narrow it down.

I have also been very moved by the work of Vivian Maier, and upon reading more about her, learned that she shot with Rolleiflex cameras.  She certainly wasn't the first to use these cameras.  In fact, Rolleis were used by a who's who of brilliant photographers such as Karsh, Robert Doisneau and Richard Avedon.  And even my dad knew what a Rollei was when I asked if anyone in the family might have one forgotten in an attic somewhere (he laughed at me).  I think my family was more of the Kodak Brownie type.

My mind made up, I turned to eBay.  And got confused.  Really confused.  Not only had I never used eBay, but I had no idea there were so many iterations of Rolleis.  And the more I read and researched them, the more confused I became.  And then there was the small issue with the prices.  A minty Rollei that was a favourable model was easily going for as much, and often more, than it would cost me to upgrade my Canon 5D to a 5D Mark II. 

After A LOT of reading, I finally narrowed it down to wanting a 2.8 E or 2.8 F - ideally with a Zeiss Planar lens.  Of course, so does everyone else it seems.

I bid on a few cameras, and kept getting outbid.  I have to say, eBay is a very stressful place.  I don't like losing.  And I was seriously getting obsessed watching and waiting for just the right camera.  And don't even get me started on the sellers who don't allow bids from people with 0 feedback...what's a girl to do?  I have to start somewhere.

This week, I finally found my Rollei.  It went into a hardcore, down to the wire bidding war.  Luckily I had figured out that maximum bid thing as I ended up winning by just $2 at the very last second.  Makes me wonder if the whole thing is a scam, but either way, my camera should be on it's way here from Germany as we speak.  I even picked up a couple of rolls of film today so I am ready when it gets here.

Next will be to figure out how to use it...