Medium Format Black & White With The Mamiya RZ67 Pro II
While rummaging through my toolbox at home some time ago, I stumbled on a set of chisels that once belonged to my dad who passed away in 2010. When my family and I still lived in the Netherlands, my dad helped on several occasions to make alterations to the subsequent houses we lived in and he always left some tools behind: chisels, a tile cutter, bricklayer's tools, and so on. When finding these chisels and remembering him using them, I thought it would be a nice idea to make some pictures in remembrance of him.
Once this idea came up, I had to decide how to make the images. I decided to capture them on film: although the chisels are not antique, I wanted to capture the feeling of craftsmanship. After selecting film as the medium of choice, the next question was: what camera? Since I wanted a lot of detail and a limited depth of field I decided on using the medium format Mamiya RZ67 Pro II. Those of you who know this camera are aware that this is a large beast, capable of taking beautiful images. It can be hand held, but it usually is used on a sturdy tripod. I will dedicate a future post to discuss this camera in more detail.
So here is my set up: I had an old, wooden table that had weathered nicely. I put the Mamiya on a tripod and for some of the pictures placed the tripod on the table with the film plane horizontally aligned to the table top. For the other pictures I placed the tripod at a slight angle next to the table. A heavy camera, on a tripod, on a wooden table is quite sensitive to vibrations. To prevent these as much as possible I used the camera's mirror-up feature by attaching a remote cable to the lens, and first using the camera's release button to move the mirror in the up position before releasing the shutter with the remote. The Mamiya uses lenses that all have leaf shutters build into the lens.
For developing, scanning and proof printing I sent the film to Dalmatian Black & White in Greensboro, NC. Prior to printing I only did some minimal post processing in Lightroom 4.
The final results are nice graphic fine art images with a lot of detail and just the amount of depth of field I was looking for. These pictures are great to make a big interior design statement in a room when printed really large and displayed as single images. They however also look beautiful when printed and framed individually at a smaller size (about 8"x10"), and displayed as a group. I found some great wooden frames that match the texture of the wooden table in the images. The pictures turned out great in these frames, and every time I look at them they bring back fond memories of my dad.