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Hello friends,

It's been a while since my last blogpost. In internet time, you have probably forgotten about me 😅. And it's ok. It's my fault, really.

I've gotten lazy. Too lazy to write down my thoughts. I thought making those youtube videos would be my excuse, but there's no excuse, really. Writing used to be the ritual for myself. Sharing these words on the internet are just a bonus. But I stopped writing, and I think my creativity did suffer a bit.

Anyways, I've started writing for myself again. And this new camera I'm getting seemed to be exciting enough that I decided to put these thoughts into this newsletter. I guess it's a very convoluted way to say that I'm back, maybe 😅.

Catching up.

At the start of this year I switched completely to film photography…

I've been dreaming about doing that for a good while, and getting frustrated with my digital work, I decided that I'm done with digital forever.

But obviously that doesn't last, as I seemed to have picked up something about myself. Anytime I think that this is the last piece of gear or camera I'll ever buy, I inevitably ended up switching to another camera in no time.

Around 6 months into the film photography journey, I kinda got some frustrations about the small things.

Like how I can't really shoot anything at night without a tripod. Or how flying anywhere just suck now (there's no such thing called a handchecking film in Vietnam). Or having needed to run my photos through some people from a lab. Or trying to scan my own film because the lab results are just not really up to par with what I want. (my OCD can’t really handle losing control I guess).

… And I’m also kinda frustrated by the unavailability and price of the film stocks I want to shoot (color reversal stocks like Ektachrome and Provia are just not here at all)

… So I decided to dabble in digital photography again.

My gateway drug camera is the Leica M8 (which I made a video about here). I thought the photos from this camera has a great look (they do), and the rangefinder experience would provide a similar, satisfying shooting experience as shooting film (that's true also). Getting to shoot infrared photos is also a bonus.

But there's still something missing for me. I crave this "positive film" looks and colors from the likes of Provia, really. Everytime I see photos from that film stock, there's just this magical feeling stirring inside of me somehow.

Plus, the M8 is also a high maintenance biatch (excuse my language). 

Perks of an aged digital camera I guess. The rangefinder gets out of alignment very easily. The right framelines sometimes don't come up. And everytime something scratches, there's a piece of me that die inside somehow, as if this thing might break any seconds.

And so, I jumped back to a "full" digital workflow…

I have this Sony a7r2 that I got for quite cheap (around 500$, used camera prices are very good in Vietnam for some reasons) for scanning film, and I thought it was a very capable camera to take out and shoot normal photos. So that's what I did.

I'm making a video about some of my journey with this camera as well, but that's something for another day I guess.

Anyways, I thought I was going to use my vintage lenses on this, but it turns out that’s not very enjoyable experience. I’ll explain a bit later down below.

And so I got the Sony 24-50mm f2.8 to go with this camera, and I do quite like the results I get...

All things considered, this combo is very capable of producing high quality photos. I also have grown a new found appreciation for photos from a full frame sensor. The tonalities and light transitions and immersion and "pop" is just so much better when you go up in sensor size.

And it's really not about depth of field even. I can feel the depth in the photos even if I'm shooting at f8 and most things are in focus. A small preview of a photo between a small sensor and a large sensor might look pretty close, but when I examine the photos, I can feel the difference.

And I guess you are the only one that matters when it comes to judging your own art.

I also found this Cobalt image profiles, which helps a lot with the sucky standard Sony color science (no affiliation here). I like that I can transform my sony files to Canon 5d classic colors, or Fujifilm colors (yeaahhh...), or some very nice film profiles that are not too overpowering like how they usually are.

This setup is very capable and in reality would be all I ever need. It would also be very cheap, at least the body is, so I can be a bit more reckless with my camera for once.

But… something is still missing.

It's the sex appeal, really. I just don't really get excited about shooting the damn thing. The viewfinder is kinda dim, especially if I wear sunglasses. The camera is quite finicky often times. The auto white balance is way too cold and green and I always spend a bunch of time fixing that (guess that's half the reasons for the "alien Sony colors" reputation).

Most importantly, I crave some cameras that actually have good manual focusing aids so I can enjoy my vintage lenses again.

The classic peaking/punch in magnification is just… usable and passable, really. There’s nothing special that makes for faster operations. The viewfinder and screen of this camera is not very bright and high resolution. Peaking is quite inaccurate as usual, as you close the lens down to f5.6-f8. Punching in really slows things down. That’s the culprit for me. This led me to get the AF zoom for Sony in the first place.

So... yeah. That led to today. I sold my Leica M8 with the few Voigtlander lenses I have (which I’m sure are not going to cover the 44×33 medium format sensor), and that is enough for me to afford a barely used GFX 50s ii on Facebook marketplace for around $1700, which I think is an amazing deal all things considered. Again, used camera gear prices are pretty amazing in my country somehow.

 It’s the same price as a MSRP Fuji X-E5 funnily enough.

My expectations…

The first thing I want from my next camera is just...

Shoot with vintage manual focus lenses. I don’t even plan to get any first party lenses on this camera, except for the 35-70mm kit someday for the weather sealed capabilities.

The GFX series (and the pro xt/xpro series for that matter) has this feature in which you can display a dual screen on your screen/evf. And this feels perfect for manual lenses.

It’s also something that no one else is doing, still. Nikon has some interesting manual focus aids in their recent cameras, but Fujifilm is really the top dog in this category imo.

Fujifilm’s dual screen implementation is basically the best of both world for manual focusing, and it's only rivaled by Leica rangefinders in my opinion. Fujifilm also have other manual focus aid implementations that mimick film cameras that I haven't even mentioned, albeit not available on the GFX50sII. (Even the newly released Leica M-EV1 doesn't have these features, which is mildly funny to me).

It's a bit annoying really since I'd prefer a full frame camera for more lenses selection. But I'm pleasantly surprised that many of my vintage lenses (mostly Canon FDs, but also M42 and Minolta MD) already cover the GFX sensors really well (maybe a topic for another day). And the thrill of finding more vintage lenses are pretty fun too.

The "medium format" look.

This is probably always going to be a hotly debated topic whether someone thinks it's real or not.

I have shot with a lot of cameras with different sensor size, and I'm just going to say, from my experience, every time the sensor size goes up, the image "feels" a bit more "immersive" to me, even when I shoot at smaller apertures and everything is in focus. The transition between colors and light gradients is more pleasant. The detail looks more "real" and less like a photo. And the transitions between in and out of focus areas are just that much smoother and “pop-py”.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBro1o3Ejsc&t=678s

When I went back to the Sony, I'm surprised how much more I like the photos just because of this. And so I'm expecting the same jump of quality from the GFX system. And while some say, most people will never see or feel it, and they might be correct, I'm the only audience to my photo that matters, and I do like it, so that's all that matter I guess.

Color depth, bit depth, dynamic range, long lenses characteristics, etc might be the words to describe why this "phenomenon" of sort happens, but honestly, I don’t care that much how the sausage actually gets made.

Aspect ratio preview

The Fujifilm GFX100RF sparks some interesting conversations with its aspect ratio dial, which is good because I've found out that aspect ratio is one of the more important and underrated aspect of a photo. Being able to frame the photos with the aspect ratio built in is just a different experience.

I have had fascinations with digital cameras that can display the xpan aspect ratio in camera for a long time now (even have a little affair with the Sigma FpL before I trade it in for the Leica M8), and I'm happy to have the many built in aspect ratios display feature back with the 50sII.

Other capabilities

I'm going up from the A7RII, which is hard to beat honestly, tech wise. Having a $500 camera with a 42mp full frame and 5 stop IBIS is still crazy to me to this day. Of all the cameras I’ve bought and sold this year, this camera just produces the most keepers in a very short amount of time, really. It’s that good. It’s just the experience is not very inspiring.

I'm happy that the 50sII will have IBIS as well, 6.5 stops even. I still hate tripods, and it would be quite annoying if my “upgraded camera” don’t have IBIS. It's one of the reason I didn't pick up the more popular GFX50R (besides it costing just as much these days for some reason and out of stock everywhere in my country)

Color science, with an asterisk

Going back to Fuji color profiles are quite comforting, really. I have grown to love Classic Neg and Eterna, which is pretty well documented on this newsletter.

With that said, I don’t think I’m going to use them that much though (except Acros probably, which is just perfect imo). Since my last digital foray, time and time again, I’ve grown to become fond of a few "looks" which I have saved as presets, and they Fujifilm profiles won't get me there.

I also still love tweaking my photos too, so I think the days of using recipes are probably still over. But at least it’s comforting to know that the baseline is nicer than the Sony. I’ve also recently switched to Capture One after 10 years of Lightroom for the grain (Capture One’s grain is top notch imo. It actually behaved how real film grain behaves, unlike Lightroom’s, which after a while I just see a layer of disgusting noise). Fuji files seem to edit nicer on Capture One from internet conjecture, so it’s all coming together!

Some downsides

The biggest one for me is... well, weight.

Lighter cameras are more fun, no doubt. I had wrist injuries in the past as well, and shooting with heavy cameras for extended periods of time just makes my right wrist very strained. But the lenses will probably be lighter at least, as I’m using vintage primes mostly.

Lenses selection can be a big deal. But I'm hoping to treat this camera like a medium format film camera, with just a few primes. I already mostly shoot my photos with a 40-50mm focal length, so it's fine in that department, as vintage lenses in this category (50 to 58mm full frame) are very plentiful and very capable, usually with great coverage on the 44×33mm sensor.

I already have a few lenses I'm waiting to try out for the GFX. The Sony setup with the 24-50mm f2.8 is so lightweight and versatile and perfect for me though (in theory anyways), that it's taking me a bit of time to accept that I'm going back to primes and swapping lenses around.

With that said, I've always found the modern lenses kinda… boring. I rarely feel any passion from the photos I made with these clinical, sharp lenses. So maybe forcing myself to not just have a modern AF zoom just for the sake of convenience will be a blessing in disguise.

I already have a relatively slow style of shooting anyways. I’ve slowly been converted to this camp of taking the time shooting a fewer photos, but try to make them really good. And so medium format with manual lenses just make sense.

And... that's it.

I should be getting the camera in my hands some time today, so there's probably going to be a follow up soon. I'm already fallen down to the rabbit hole of more vintage lenses to adapt to the GFX mount... so that's not great for the wallet, but I guess it is what it is 🤷.

Until next time,
Peter.

P/S: I got the camera, and here’s one of the few photos I just made testing my Canon FD lenses, and yeah, I’m hooked.

As always, subscribe to the newsletter to see more mediocre photos. Check out my Youtube channel if you haven’t yet for more photos and more rambling :).

Some of the photos are available on the print shop

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