Sean Esopenko

Tool for the Job

January 6, 2011

I’m starting to get a feel for what I should bring along for certain situations when I’m shooting photographs in the field. There are various factors that affect my decision for what to shoot with, depending on the situation in the field and the final product desired. For colour photography, I’ve decided that my Canon 5D gets better results than 6×7 film scanned with my V700 and working with the 5D in the field is much easier. The viewfinder doesn’t provide the massive view of my Mamiya RB67 but there’s no worries about having the right film on hand when the lighting changes and similar situations.

It’s a little tempting to have a series of colour prints, separate from the body of b&w silver prints I’ve been working on. For 16×20 and larger prints I think the results from 4×5 colour print film will be amazing. Working with 80 megapixel files in photoshop is exquisite because there is so much I can do to the image. The final product of a 12MP digital capture doesn’t have the same appeal as a 30 inch, sharply defined print from 4×5 film. It’s a lot of work to shoot 4×5 in the field but the tonal range and sharpness are well worth it.

This weekend I’ll planning on producing some 8×10 editions of new work. I have 11×14 and 16×20 trays on the way and I plan on phasing out 8×10 prints and printing 11×14 at the minimum. I also want to stop using resin coated (RC) paper and strictly use fibre paper because the lack of water in the darkroom actually makes it easier to work it. The tonal quality of fibre paper has proven to be much richer than RC paper, too.

So I almost have my ducks in a row to make some more physical prints of my work.

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