The College’s Library is the largest library in Ireland. The main chamber of the old library, the Long Room which you can see in the photographs, was built between 1712 and 1732 and houses the library’s oldest books. By the 1850′s the room needed to be expanded as the shelves were filled, and so the roof was raised to accommodate an upper gallery.

My wife Rebecca and I had planned to visit this library for a long time, but were never able to make time for it when we went to Dublin. Last week we were finally able to go and take pictures at Trinity College. I shot my Hasselblad outside and then switched to the X-Pro1 inside the library. Rebecca shot this entirely on film with her Contax 645 and I am very excited to see her results as soon as we get the scans back.

I made one Lightroom preset for color and one for black and white – and that was it. They work consistently on every single image I take with the Fuji – unless I want a different look. No more tweaking tones and endless hours of post processing, no more frustration over white balance or clipped highlights. I decided I was finally there.
Looking back through my work with the D700 made me regret not to have made that decision any earlier and I realized I would never touch my Nikon again ever in my life.

But shooting the X-Pro1 also made me realize how much I really love film. For two very simple reasons: light and color. The most central element in my pictures always was natural light.

No matter how much you tweak a digital picture, even the ones from the X-Pro1, you simply cannot get the tonal response of film. That means digital images look somewhat flatter and artificial. Film gives an image more texture and the results look more pleasing and natural to the eye. These are subtle differences but they are noticeable. Not to speak of the obvious differences in color. I ended up selling all of my digital Nikon gear and buying a Hasselblad 503CW.

For me personally, the images a Hasselblad produces in combination with the Carl Zeiss Planar T* 2.8/80 are the most beautiful you can achieve with a medium format camera. I just love how the lens renders, with such beautiful tones, so much clarity and the most wonderful bokeh I have ever seen.

When I first got the Hasselblad, I was terrified. Everything about this camera was different. It’s a dinosaur and a tank. Loading a roll of film feels like it takes about 5 minutes, for 12 frames. Everything is manual and requires work. When you compose a picture, you look down at your waist level finder and everything is reversed – even the image. The shutter sounds completely different to anything I’ve ever heard before. It took me quite a bit to get used to all of that.

I had no external light meter and for the first two rolls I had to guess my exposure, which was slightly unsettling. After I got my first scans back, I was relieved. My guesswork turned out ok. The beauty of film is that your exposure doesn’t need to be spot on. It’s usually good enough if you don’t underexpose.

This was the fifth picture I ever took with the Hasselblad. I liked how the color and light turned out:

Since the first day I shot with the Hasselblad, it is growing on me like no other camera ever did. Everything about it just clicks with me and I love to shoot it. It took me a bit to realize what it is that makes this camera feel so special to me, besides the image quality of medium format film.

It’s the fact that I never felt so connected with my photography before. I don’t simply hold a technical device and press a button. I really have to create an image. I have to do everything by myself and I have to do it right with every single frame. I have to load the film manually, I have to meter and think about the meter reading for a moment. Then I take the dark slide out, open the waist level finder and look down at this almost three dimensional looking image. I have to compose thoroughly, manual focus and finally, after everything looks and feels right, I press the shutter.

Shooting the Hasselblad means so much more work than any other camera I’ve used before. And that’s the beauty of the manual process. It feels like craftsmanship to me.

Here are a couple of more images, all shot with the Hasselblad 503CW and the Carl Zeiss Planar T* 2.8/80 on Kodak Portra 160:

Rebecca and I moved houses recently. From a pretty modern and specious house into something we were always dreaming of, a little old farmhouse close to the sea. This has been a very exciting step for us. Our new house is a lot smaller and a lot more simple. But with all its quirks it is so endearing and a place where we really feel home.

All the shots below were taken with the Fuji X-Pro1 and the Fujinon 35mm 1.4 lens:

Ingredients
1 cup flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 egg
1-1/8 c. buttermilk
2 T. butter, melted
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. fresh blueberries

Directions
1. Preheat and lightly grease a large skillet or griddle.
2. Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add egg, buttermilk, butter, vanilla and blueberries. Stir lightly, but keep it lumpy. The batter should look thick and spongy.
3. Drop 1/3 c. batter onto the cooking surface. Cook until lightly brown, about 2 minutes per side.

Serve with maple or berry syrup & enjoy! Makes about 12 delicious pancakes.

Shot with the Nikon F100 and the Nikkor 50mm ƒ/1.4 G lens on Portra 400 NC (expired):

The last time Rebecca and I went to Baltimore was in August 2012. This time it was completely quiet. No tourists around, only a couple of locals and some fishermen. I liked the atmosphere a lot.

All the shots below were taken with the Fuji X-Pro1 and the Fujinon 35mm 1.4 lens:

Here are my first results from our most recent trip to France. This was shot with the Contax 645, Carl Zeiss 80mm f2.0, Fujifilm 400H Pro (rated @ ISO 200), scanned and processed by RPL:

You bought it for a second – didn’t you?

Of course that’s not true. But wait a minute, two steps back… in case you don’t know José Villa, which I doubt, please go check out his incredible work first. It’s really worth it.

José Villa is one of the best and probably the most copied imitated inspiring wedding photographer in the world. His excellent eye, unique style and beautiful bright pastel color palette define the term Fine Art Wedding Photography. He is also the reason why it seems half the photographers that are featured on Style Me Pretty have sold their digital gear on Ebay and switched to Contax 645 medium format film cameras. He was one of the first wedding photographers who re-discovered film and had a tremendously huge influence on the whole wedding industry and the general revival of film photography.

Photographers around the world are raving about the airy feel in José’s photographs and are trying to replicate his look for their own images and clients. José kindly shares his magic recipe in interviews, in his book and workshops.

So how does José achieve this distinct look?

I don’t want to dive too deep into his technique (if you would like to learn more you have to ask him directly, buy his book or attend one of his workshops), but the essentials are:

1. Good light

The non-plus ultra is good light. José Villa lives and primarily shoots in Southern California and makes extensive use of good light. Back lit subjects and warm directional light help a lot with a good picture.

2. Film on a Contax 645 with a Carl Zeiss 80mm f2.0 lens

Medium format relates to the 35mm format about how 35mm (full frame) relates to APC-C (crop). Film on a medium format camera gives you a wonderful latitude for exposure. The lens equals a 50mm f1.2 on a full frame camera. Shot wide open, this produces a extremely shallow depth of field. The Carl Zeiss 80mm f2.0 also has a wonderful bokeh and a great color rendition.

3. Overexposure

José usually shoots Fujifilm Pro 400H and rates his film at ISO 200. This means he overexposes by one full stop per default. He then exposes for the shadows which results in another one to two stops. In total, he overexposes by at least two full stops. If you try that with a digital camera you will very likely blow out all of your images. With film, it adds contrast and saturation and, depending on the light, colors get a brighter pastel look.

4. Good lab

Richard Photo Lab is one of the best labs available in the US and does scanning and processing for most well-known film photographers. A good lab is essential, not only for processing and scanning but especially for color work.

Do you need these magic ingredients to achieve this look?

No, certainly not.

I love and shoot both, film and digital. And as you might know, I am very interested in replicating the look of film in digital photography (here you can find my experiments with emulating Portra 400 NC).

The above image was shot with a Nikon D700 and the Nikkor 50mm 1.4 G lens. Here is how it looks straight out of camera:

How does José’s look translate into digital photography?

First of all: Good light is essential, no matter if you are shooting film or digital. If you are into a soft dreamy look for your images, you have to shoot a fast prime lens wide open (for example a 50mm f1.2 or f1.4). You need to be very careful with your exposure. Different than film, a digital sensor is not very forgiving. If you overexpose too much, you will blow out your highlights and lose a lot of detail.

You can see in the above example that I didn’t overexpose the original image. To get this bright look with pastel colors you only push your exposure by around 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop and work with curves and levels instead. Try lifting your mid-tones and slightly clip your highlights. You also have to add a little bit of color to the highlights. You can distinctly see in José’s images that his highlights normally look light caramel or pink. Then you add back contrast and saturation for the shadows and lower mid-tones.

To make your digital images look more organic you can also add a little bit of grain. It shouldn’t be too obvious, only enough to get some texture into the picture. You can also crop your pictures to the aspect ration of 6×4,5 (like I did with my first picture above to show off my imaginary Contax) but that would mean you lose information as that’s not the native ratio of most digital cameras.

Here are a couple of more examples:

Of course this look isn’t exactly identical to José’s. But it looks a lot closer to me than what a lot of photographers get out of their Contax 645. And that is what I wanted to demonstrate here: Color work is very important in both mediums.

This technique works especially well if you are shooting a Fuji X-Pro1/X-E1 as these cameras give you a very distinct Fuji color palette already. You can also push this a little further if you are into pastel colors. In the example below, the image on the left is straight out of camera, the one in the middle would be the technically correct one and the one on the very right shows an extremely bright and poppy result:

One of the most common misconceptions about film is that it doesn’t need to be post-processed. The opposite is the case. Film very often requires extensive color work, but different to digital, that is usually done by a lab and not by the photographer. A lot of good film photographers nevertheless invest a significant amount of time in their color work after they get their film back from the lab or work with the lab to get their colors right.

This is the very reason why Richard Photo Lab offers custom made color profiles. They help professional film photographers to find and reproduce their own personal look (even though they’re very often shooting the very same film as many others). A good lab also does exposure and color correction for each single frame.

Whenever you hear that film doesn’t require as much work as digital, keep in mind that that’s only half the story. In fact, someone has to do the work – whether it’s film or digital. If you shoot film, you simply pay someone else to do your post-processing and color work for you (which adds significant costs if you’re shooting professionally).

What’s the conclusion?

I think a couple of things are very important to understand and acknowledge. First of all it’s not necessary to shoot the exact equipment José Villa shoots to get colors that are somewhat comparable. It’s possible to get colors like that in digital photography as well. In my opinion it is worth spending time trying to understand colors and light. Not to copy someone else’s look but to be able to visualize what you see with your own eye when you are taking a picture.

José Villa’s work looks amazing because he is an amazingly talented photographer, not because he shoots a Contax 645 and has his own color profile with Richard Photo Lab. Your work will never in the world look like any other photographer’s work – because it’s not about film, the gear they’re using or their colors, it’s about their eye – and you can’t copy that.

I think it’s good to have people that you look up to and it’s ok to get inspiration from other photographers from time to time. But it’s important to find your own unique style that is an reflection of your personality – not a copy of someone else’s.
 
 
 
Update, 25.03.2013

Thank you all very much for your feedback on this post.

I received a lot of comments and emails from photographers who don’t agree that film does need to be post-processed and that it’s possible to get results like that directly from a lab, without any retouching.

To make my write-up a little more plausible I asked my wife to borrow her Contax 645 (no joke this time) and shot a roll of Fuji 400H with an exposure bracket of five stops. The results below show normal exposure (“0″) to four stops overexposure (“+4″).

These shots are uncorrected scans from a Fuji Frontier. You can see how film gets more contrasty and saturated the more you overexpose where a digital file would just get brighter and finally blow out.

The following image is a good example of what film can handle because of its superior tonal response curve and where you would need additional color work. The picture was shot with my Hasselblad on Portra 160, rated at 100 and exposed for the shadows:

I also promised to share my workflow as a short tutorial.
Here are four simple steps that you can reproduce in any software. I personally use Lightroom 4.

1. The most important thing to get right in this workflow is the in-camera exposure. With digital it’s important to not expose too bright so that you have enough highlight-information in the picture while you brighten it up in post-processing.

2. The second step shows basic corrections for Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks. I also adjusted Clarity, Vibrance and Saturation.

3. In step three I apply a special RGB-Curve to the picture. It lifts the mid-tones, softens the blacks and gently clips the highlights.

4. The last step is color work to give the final image more accurate film-inspired colors.

I share my exact settings for the series above and it shouldn’t be difficult for anyone to re-create the general look in Lightroom. If you shoot a Fuji X-Pro1, X-E1 or X100s, you won’t need step 4 as the Fuji color palette is great to work with.

This week we finally had two days off work and sun. Rebecca got the X-E1 meanwhile and we took both Fujis with us and went to Kinsale for a day (you can find her pictures here). This was the first real outing with the X-Pro1 and I have to say that I’m really impressed. It does almost everything better than my Nikon. The level of details, the colors and the dynamic range are so much fun to work with. The only thing I am still adjusting to are the different field of view (crop sensor vs. full frame) and the depth of field (50mm f1.4 vs. the equivalent of a 50mm f2.0).

All the shots below were taken with the Fuji X-Pro1 and the Fujinon 35mm 1.4 lens:

One thing that always annoyed me about Nikon were the SOOC colors. For me everything looks too yellow and skin tones with the default settings are a disaster. Yes, I know – if you want accurate colors you can use the ColorChecker Passport and calibrate. But I don’t want accurate colors, I want aesthetic colors that look natural.

I never felt home with that and my Nikon. But the build quality and the fact that everything about the Nikon always just works outweigh the frustration I had with the SOOC colors. It took months, countless work, experiments and a lot of trial and error in post work to finally get a result that I like without tweaking every picture endlessly.

I wrote about my experiments with emulating Porta 400 NC a while back. I finally ended up with special self made color presets and camera profiles for my Nikon to be able to emulate certain colors of specific films.

Here is an example:

From left to right: Nikon SOOC, JP Fuji 400H, JP Portra 400 NC

Even these results look close to me and I am happily working with them, I always wanted a digital camera that could reproduce authentic film colors and, even more importantly, the dynamic range of film without having to tweak anything major in my post processing. Shooting film professionally doesn’t work for me – even though I like it a lot for my personal work (I wrote an article about this topic for Kwerfeldein if you are interested).

After loving Fuji 400H, having read about Fuji’s new sensor design and being thrilled about my little Fuji X10 point-and-shoot camera, I was very tempted to purchase the Fuji X-Pro1. Just like Zack Arias, I expected this to be the DSLR-Killer. Not for everyone, but at least for myself.

I started reading more reviews and the bottom line really threw me off. Too many people were complaining about the obvious downs of the X-Pro1: Slow speed, no responsiveness, unusable autofocus and manual focus. That wasn’t enough to make up for the expected build and image quality. I thought I would rather wait a little until Fuji would hopefully fix the firmware for the X-Pro1 which was obviously still beta when they first released the camera.

With the release of the new firmware (version 2.0) all my concerns were addressed and I went ahead and ordered the camera. I got my X-Pro1 about a week ago and the camera grows on me quickly. If you switch over from a DSLR I suggest you give it time. Don’t expect this to be some sort of DSLR replacement, it’s not. It’s not a rangefinder either and not a point-and-shoot. Try to approach the X-Pro1 with a clean mindset and you will be amazed. Especially if you like to shoot film or with a slower pace and more awareness.

The image quality of the Fuji X-Pro1 is seriously mind blowing and outperforms most cameras I have used so far, including my D700. The dynamic range is better than film, highlights roll off beautifully and smooth and the colors are stunning straight out of camera. I love the compact size, the build quality, the quiet shutter that sounds like a shutter and not like a machine gun. It’s discreet and not show-off-y which I love as well. The quality of the Fujinon 35mm 1.4 lens (which is the equivalent of 50mm ƒ/2.0 on a full frame) is stunning. It’s tack sharp wide open.

This camera is a gem and I cannot remember being so excited about anything new I have tried, seen or read about for years. The only thing that I don’t like is the fact that I have to take it out of the OEM leather case every single time I want to either download the images from the memory card or replace the battery. But I have the same problem with the X10 and got used to it by now.

Here are a couple of images shot with the X-Pro1 and the 35mm 1.4 (more to follow soon):

Many thanks to Thomas Menk for featuring this review on Scoop.It.

These shots are from a little outing to Owenahincha Beach with Rebecca. We were there for about two hours and the weather changed constantly as you can see in the pictures. When we arrived it was cloudy, then it turned stormy and rainy for about 20 minutes and afterwards the sun came out and we enjoyed a wonderful golden hour. For me it was very challenging to capture these different moods – and lot of fun!