Fish

Hungry for air.

It has been 4 months since I bought my Bronica ETRS, which I've been using regularly. In fact, the first few rolls of film shot with it has already been developed and scanned- I have them in my harddisk now. However, I forgot to note the film types for each of the rolls, so due to logistical & archiving reasons I will not process it until the end of the year..

That aside, the main point I want to write in today's post is after all these months of ownership, I still haven't do this camera justice by shooting what it really is intended for: portraits & landscapes. So, over the last few weeks I've been bringing it out for some landscape shootings, the most recent one was shooting at Cradle Mountain national park.

Looking at the scans from previous rolls, I've learned the limitations of shooting with medium format SLRs- many of my shots were motion blurred, mostly due to the low shutter speed and unstable platform/base. I've grossly overestimated the ability of my hand as a tripod substitute, and by doing so I crossed the line. When I was planning for landscape shootings this time, I thought that if I were to get serious and shoot landscape using a medium format SLR with a slappy mirror without mirror lock-up, I might as well do it right. Well, I did it right... almost, except for 2 things.

Firstly, I don't have a tripod. As a uni student studying in a town in Tasmania, my contacts are limited but I still managed to borrow a tripod from my friend. I'm grateful for it, however the tripod's stability proved to be way less than adequate for my pig (camera). In fact, I could see the whole partially extended centre column swaying sometimes, not just when I release the shutter (with cable, of course), but under moderate wind as well! This has really got me into thinking of investing in a heavy, stable tripod.

The second issue is relatively minor compared to the first, but I think it'll be more important as I get more serious about landscape (if it happens): the lack of filter accessories. I only thought of this in retrospect- I have not used many filters before but from what I saw from most serious shooters, filters are a must in shooting landscape.

These issues aside, I enjoyed shooting landscape with the Bronica a lot. I really loved the process of shooting slowly, it's a relaxed, unrushed way of shooting and makes me think more for each shot as I have so much time to shoot (the light was flat and stayed the same when I was at Cradle Mountain). Ansel Adams must have felt similar too when he was preparing to capture The Tetons and Snake River...





Thanks for reading.



Film | Fish
Yashica Electro 35 CCN, Ilford FP4