Sean Esopenko

Sick, Tired, Yearning

October 21, 2010

I’ve been ill for a while now and this weekend I should finally have my health back in order.  I tried to develop a roll of film a week ago but I was so groggy from the medication the doctor prescribed that I screwed up the entire roll of film and even burnt myself on the propane heater in the shack where I do my darkroom work.

Lately I’ve been salivating over various medium/large-format range-finder cameras.  I really like the idea of shooting with a symmetrical lens and the improved sharpness and over-all quality it provides.  I also like the idea of shooting on roll film at times where convenience and size is important.  I looked at the Mamiya 6′s and 7′s and also the Fuji GSW690 6×9 rangefinder.  The Fuji lacks a light meter so it wouldn’t be much of a speed improvement over the technical field camera and the Mamiya’s don’t shoot quite large enough for my tastes.  I think I’ll instead put the money towards a 75mm or 65mm lens and bag bellows and continue shooting with the Wista 4×5.  I really like the camera, I just don’t like the field of view the 180mm lens has.  I ditched my 50mm for my canon a while ago and the 180mm gives about the same FOV as a 45mm.

So I’m toying with the idea of shooting more colour roll film with the technical field camera.  There’s a major light leak on the sliding roll-film back but I think I can solve it by coming up with a sort of cloth elastic band to wrap around it the one section where it leaks.  I’ll visit a sewing store this afternoon.  I spent some time looking at the only 4×5 shot I have on Fuji Velvia and I’d like to do more.  I also found a printing company that can do dye-sub prints for a great price so I want to run some prints off to help subsidize the photography.

Coming up with a price list for digital prints of images on the blog would also be a good idea.  I might put together a little “gallery” with prices for various sizes with thumbnails of the various images.  Who knows, even if I make $100 every 6 months from selling prints online it would be great.  It would pay for film.  Well… some of it.

Anyways, I’ve recognized I need to ramp my energy back up and get back to producing images full time on the weekends.  Saturday is shooting day, Sunday is process & print day.  I just gotta gettatter.

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