A shared vision, wardrobe styling and experienced model are such key ingredients to a successful shoot... it's such a joy when a shooting works out this good!
This is definitely your best behind the scenes video. While the shots are on par technically with your previous work the model in this one was more open and into the shoot than your previous models and gave the shots a relaxed and natural look. Jules did a great job with the videography.
Max/Jules, I’m embarrassed to say, i love this episode. I have commented before & watched this in particular more than a dozen times. It has a uber comforting feel to it. A bit like sitting in front of a fireplace. With no disrespect to the other episodes. This one really brings it home on so many levels. The architecture (both b&W shots, colour, and the silky smooth videography by Jules), the fashion styling, fransizka’s contribution and not discount the contribution by the make up artist. It’s all so uplifting. I know how tough it is to bring multiple talents together (and you are shooting in analog!) getting 70 keepers is no easy task. So bravo to all of you. Your talent is incomparable. Please don’t stop and keep inspiring. Also do pass my compliments & appreciation to all that have collaborated, i don’t wish to discount their contributions. Love your choice of architectural locations blended with the fashion sophistication in your shoots. A heart felt thank you. Look forward to more. Thank you.
I love this video. I have seen it already several times and most importantly it caught me so much, that I convinced my wife to go out and shoot some portraits of her in a same fashion and I love those pictures. So thanks guys for pushing/inspiring me to capture pictures of someone I love and have them now for myself and our kids for forever :)
Oh wow! Thank you so much for your lovely comment. We both really appreciate it. Glad to hear we could inspire you to take some great portraits of your wife in a similar fashion. :)
Max - I've only just discovered this series and I've enjoyed them very much. I love this work in particular and enjoy your explanations during the shoot as to choices made for equipment and films, light readings etc. I am not surprised you are so excited at showing these photographs as they have such spontaneous style and real energy to them. The model has a breezy confidence that comes through in the shots and the decision to overexpose by 2 stops adds to the success of these shots. Bravo Max and thankyou.
Wow,. what a great episode, the chemistry between both of you shines through your photographs, you have found a new muse, i think we will see this beautiful and bubbly model again.
This is an excellent video. I really enjoyed your narrative. It made your video stand out from the other BTS I've seen on TH-cam. Your photos are absolutely fantastic!
Dear Max, this is yet another wonderful exposition of the great work you do. I really enjoyed watching the video. And yes please! More videos like this. I do enjoy gear reviews too, but one can only learn so much about cameras. But you can never learn enough about ceating good images!
Needless to say, you are a great/passionate photographer. This episode was fabulous. It brought together all my passions medium format, architecture and fashion. To top it up, Franziska. Omg! Apart from being stunning & is a near look alike to an ex of mine who happens to be from Munich too (I know, stupid me), I love franziska’s entrepreneurial creativity added with her spontaneous nature thinking on the spot. You can see from your face during and in vlog how effortless this collaboration was. You look smittened lol I watched it 3 times to makes sure I didn’t miss a thing. I would love to see further collaborations between the two of you and also from Franziska and her point of view. Thank you for your ever so interesting vlogs. Keep clicking keep inspiring. Thank you.
Thanks a lot for your lovely comment, Hugo! I really, really appreciate your words and will pass them on to Franziska as well. I really had a wonderful time shooting with her. :) Jules and I will try to keep the videos coming. :)
fantastic work! I think this is the best shoot yet. I really enjoy seeing the thought that went into camera / film selection. Keep up the great videos!
Really great work here Max, I am blown away how well done this was. The photography was fantastic, not to mention both the videography and model / makeup work. Cheers!
Amazing shots and an amazing story, everything was perfect. Absolutely beautiful video and as usual you generously gave credit to those around you, but it was you who took the shots and that was your talent. I'm not in anyway playing down the important roles your model, make up artist and Jules played, they were all important, but I'm giving you credit for your role which you often play down. Unfortunately I'm old enough to remember 1972, it was nice to see the village in such good light. By that I mean positive rather than the good light we photographers talk about.
Great feature, thank you so much. Seeing as you often seem to like to work on the ground, kneeling: one of the most useful accessories I added to my portrait sessions a couple of years ago were a pair of knee protectors (from volleyball when I‘m wearing wide trousers, or the ones used by stage hands and easily put on and removed again via velcro). Just a thought. The knees definitely will love it.
Really amazing photos Max, really seems like the personality of the model came through the images. Please keep em coming, your videos are a nice, if sometimes uncomfortable, reminder of how much there is to learn!
Great photos as always. You actually inspired me to shoot film! This location also looks a great urban photo shoot location! Didn’t know about it even after staying in Munich for 3 years! 😁
Amazing photos! Funny thing, I started watching the intro and my first thought was "boy those are some really clean sunglasses". Five minutes later when you mentioned them, I giggled :-D Anyway. I absolutely love these pictures. The colours, the sharpness, the poses, this was a really great photo shoot. Looking forward for your next project. Cheers,
Excellent, great images and a great team effort :) Hopefully you might give Jules a wee shot of the camera on the next model shoot. It would be interesting to see a shoot with both your approaches to the same model.
Max, Great location, makeup was flawless. The B&W image at 9: 29 sweet model!! You pulled your film two stops to 100 interesting. Did I see some Delta ? Big thumbs-up, say hello to Jewels.
Yes, I forgot to mention that I shot two rolls of Ilford Delta 100, but it is listed in the video description. Just one note: I didn't pull the color negative film but rated it at ISO 100, so deliberately overexposing it. Pulling would be a development technique meaning the film is developed for a shorter period of time after also rating it at ISO 100. In my case, I had just developed it normally. These two color negative films can easily be overexposed by one or two stops to bring out a special, bright look and nicer colors. And thanks for the wonderful new nickname for Jules. I'll call him Jewels from now on. :)
Yes Max, that's what I was referring to. Just a slip of the mind - exposing the film at 100 and processing normally. I do the same with HP5, I rate it at 200. I will definitely give the Fuji 400H another go. The lab (love) I'm using do a really great job on black and white but their color just seems to be a little inconsistent. I've been using the Kodak ektar 100 and rating it at 80 or 64 ISO. It's nice but I miss E6 film. Anyway, keep up the good work and I'll be in touch with you over on IG. Be sure to say hello to Jewels for me! ps. Are you enjoying your Gossen meter? I use a Minolta III, absolutely love it.
Another beautiful Video and Photoshoot. I especially love the pics at 11m45s while sitting on this stairs, thats just great. Esp in combination with the 50mm angle! 👍 Was wondering why so few people are around in the Oly-Dorf? Normally you have there thousand of students?
Florian Thanks so much for your comment. ;) The shoot took place on a Saturday evening, during the first sunny week in Munich this summer, and maybe even some holidays. That's why there were relatively few people around. :)
Great video you got some incredible Shots it must be nice to have a model that understands and also has been able to help you with with getting contacts into brands too absolutely incredible. Keep up this inspiring work
Some really solid work here and you're right it's great how the model came up with some ideas, and good ones! I'm a first time viewer and look forward to seeing what else you have.
Thanks for your kind words and glad to see that you're new around here. I hope you enjoy some of our other videos as well. :) Really appreciate your feedback.
hi max! the photo on 11:24, to get proper exposure did you meter under her chin out towards the camera? Reason i am asking is because its right on, and the colors are amazing. F/4 at 1/250th? And between fuji 400H and portra 400 whats the biggest difference you see? Thanks again max!
Yes, that's exactly what I did. I cannot recall the exact shutter speed but as mentioned in the video, these films were both rated at ISO 100 to bring out the colors differently and ensure enough exposure. Both films can handle quite a lot of light, especially the Fuji needs a bit more light in general. Furthermore, the Fuji has a slightly reddish tone in it and renders blues and greens differently. I'm also talking about that a bit in my video about "My favorite films for analog portraits". Hope this helps. :)
I know I'm a tad late here, but I'm still experiencing with film exposure and the zone system. When you say you expose for the shadows under the chin, you basically set that to zone 5? Do you then maybe expose down a stop to make those shadows in zone 4 and create a tad bit more contrast? It just seems to me that make those at 5 and overexposing 2 stops on top makes for very overexposed highlights... But maybe that's just me coming from digital and not knowing. In any case. Lots of good content in you vids mate. Keep the good work going!
Thanks for your interesting comment. Well, it is a bit tricky and hard to explain. There is a major difference between analog and digital photography. A digital sensor lets in light and records with the sensor how much light fell onto which area of the sensor and hence the image. If there's too much light at a certain spot, you have overexposed that part and risk losing detail in this section and get completely white areas. With a DNG file, there is still wiggle room but as a rule of thumb, digital photographers try to rather underexpose than overexpose. But then you probably know that. With analog photography, you generally do the exact opposite and have quite some freedom specifically with C41 color film. First and foremost, when you let in light on the film, it creates a chemical reaction which can span several layers of the film and thus affect the overall density of your negative. If you'd like to ensure that dark/shadowy areas appear on your negative (so that the information is recorded), then it can be recommended to meter for the shadows. Now something special comes in. Photographic film can only be optimized to react to an increase of light with a proportional increase of density on the negative for a specific amount of light. In other words, instead of a linear curve, you rather have a gradation curve that softens with more light. So with more light coming in, the density does not necessarily increase proportionally. This effect is particularly striking when you do night photography on film where this so-called reciprocity failure and the "Schwarzschild effect" set it. I recommend you watch our night photography video for more details. To keep things simple, as a rule of thumb you can remember that it is okay to slightly overexpose black and white film and no problem at all to overexpose C41 films such as Kodak Portra by one or two stops. Some photographers even shoot Kodak Portra 400 at ISO 50 or 25 to get extremely soft, pastel colors and soft, glowing highlights. All this is made possible by the chemical properties of film and what happens if it gets "too much" light. I hope this rather bad explanation helped anyways. I recommend you look up film gradation, reciprocity failure and the Schwarzschild effect. :)
Best reply ever. Thank you so much for taking the time to read, consider and then reply so nicely. Your answer explains everything I wanted to know and wasn't sure about. Your night photography video is also very informative on the Schwarzchild effect and I will need to consider this for long exposures in the future. Thank you so much again and keep them awesome videos coming. For new comers to film like myself they're a gold mine for critical information; to the selection of film to exposure all the way to composition and gear. Keep it up! Cheers from snowy Canada!
Great shots! Especially the overexposed Portra, it gives a very fresh look. It would be interesting to see how you work on them in post. Just curious, how many rolls do you use at this kind of shoot? Thanks for the great channel, its really inspiring!
Thanks for your feedback. I quickly checked for you. I shot two rolls of Ilford Delta 100, four rolls of Fuji Pro 400H, and five rolls of Kodak Portra 400 on that evening. So eleven rolls total resulting in 100 images that made it in the finer selection I passed on to the model and around 70 images that I passed on to the cooperation partners. Hope this helps. :)
Great pictures! I like them a lot. And if it was a great teamwork I'm sure that the shoot was a lot of fun for everyone and this is the best way to get great pictures. But I have a question about the film stock you used for this shooting. But not about the overexposing because I think this is a common practice for Portra and 400H Color negative films, as you already said in a previous comment. But do you see any noticeable difference between the Fuji and the Kodak Film Stock? Which one looked better? I know the Fuji is a little bit more into green but I think it is difficult to find some examples which compares the too films side by side. There are some examples but not a lot.
Alexander Kirsch Thanks a lot for your nice comment. We really appreciate it. With respect to the two film stocks: In this case my trusted lab wizard and I decided to make them look a bit more similar than they would usually do while retaining some details. The Fuji usually brings about a rather strong red channel which I typically specifically ask my lab to turn down as much as reasonably possible. I haven't made a proper side by side comparison of the two films. As the fine tuning during the scanning process plays such an important role with color negative film, I find it a bit hard to do so.
Fantastic work Max! I really love the look you achieved. I normally rate Portra 400 at 200 and have the lab process normally. When rating at 100 does your lab process normally or is there pushing in the development?
Glenn Haggis Thanks a lot. Normal development. I've seen some wonderful images on Portra 400 rated at ISO 50 and then developed normally. I prefer to go for ISO 200 or 100.
This is an absolutely fantastic TH-cam video. I think it's my favorite one of yours. I'm a professional photographer in Naples Florida please let me know if you're ever heading this way.
Thanks a lot for your videos! It motivates me to do more portrait shootings with my medium format camera. I have one question: do you make some post-processing or those are pictures straight from the camera? What are your tools? Thank you.
Alexey Chernikov As mentioned somewhere else, scanning film always involves some degree of post-processing as well and you'll find some videos on TH-cam dedicated to that topic (there's a great one by Matt Day). I have most of my portfolio work developed and scanned by my lab (www.meinfilmlab.de) which does only slight adjustments but overall tries to retain the look of the film and the selected exposure.
Thanks for your comment. Well, there's not really a way to describe the type of light you need. Just give it a try and collect your own experiences. You can certainly not go wrong overexposing Kodak Portra 400 a bit. :)
yes for sure! will do. Thank you for replying back i appreciate it! Also, have you overexposed portra 160? rating it at ISO of 100, or 50? if so, how did it come out?
An absolutely amazing video! About the pictures, was there any editing done in post? Sorry, if it is a stupid question. The pictures look absolutely stunning and they certainly do look very natural. As a B&W shooter it is still difficult for me to tell though! Anyway, keep up the brilliant work!
Thanks for your kind comment and sorry about my late response. There is always some slight editing involved when scanning film but my lab usually tries to retain the original film look as much as possible. In this case, the look is largely derived from the overexposed film and beautiful evening sun that we were lucky to have. The rest is setting contrast, saturation, and so forth correctly while scanning. But no additional retouching or "Photoshop magic". Hope this helps!
Max, you indicate you rated the color films at 100 instead of box speed 400. Did you then do a normal development for 400? Do you usually rate portra at 100?
Overexposing these two color negative films brings out a special, bright look and nicer colors. You should give it a try. For the Fuji Pro 400H, it is common practice among wedding photographers for instance.
I have a question for you: when you said you rated the film at 100ASA, did you also developed at 100 (pulling the film), or shoot at 100 and develop at 400? Thank you
Thanks for your comment and question. Somebody else already asked this question (s. below). I had the films developed normally but rated them at ISO 100. This is a very common practice for these two color negative films. There are a lot of wedding photographers who use Fuji 400H Pro like this.
Fantastic Work ! I have a doubt; if the develope is normal ... then I can make 18 shoots rated at ISO 100 and 18 shoots at ISO 400 on a reel of 36 exposures ?Thanks.
Thanks for your kind comment. Yes, you can certainly do that and will see the difference. But be aware that the real pastel effect is also related to the kind of light that you have available. :)
I want to ask something about metering. In the video it is said that the camera is/are arted at iso 100 for Portra 400/Pro 400H. Did you take the metering value of the face of the model or of the generall scene? Danke sehr!
Thanks for your comment and question. I did not simply set the camera to ISO 100 but metered manually for each scene with my Gossen Starlite 2 light meter (which you can see in the video occasionally). I usually spot meter on the shadows underneath a model's chin in order to get enough detail in the shadows. Overexposing these two color negative films brings out a special, bright look and nicer colors. You should give it a try. :)
thanks. just dipping into film and shooting everything at its given exposure right now. will have to remember to shoot both of these overexposed. the colors here are really nice
A shared vision, wardrobe styling and experienced model are such key ingredients to a successful shoot... it's such a joy when a shooting works out this good!
bwvids Yes, so true. :)
This is definitely your best behind the scenes video. While the shots are on par technically with your previous work the model in this one was more open and into the shoot than your previous models and gave the shots a relaxed and natural look. Jules did a great job with the videography.
Max/Jules,
I’m embarrassed to say, i love this episode. I have commented before & watched this in particular more than a dozen times. It has a uber comforting feel to it. A bit like sitting in front of a fireplace. With no disrespect to the other episodes. This one really brings it home on so many levels. The architecture (both b&W shots, colour, and the silky smooth videography by Jules), the fashion styling, fransizka’s contribution and not discount the contribution by the make up artist. It’s all so uplifting. I know how tough it is to bring multiple talents together (and you are shooting in analog!) getting 70 keepers is no easy task. So bravo to all of you.
Your talent is incomparable. Please don’t stop and keep inspiring. Also do pass my compliments & appreciation to all that have collaborated, i don’t wish to discount their contributions. Love your choice of architectural locations blended with the fashion sophistication in your shoots. A heart felt thank you. Look forward to more. Thank you.
Superb shots and a lovely model! Thanks for sharing :)
Thanks for your kind feedback. :)
I love this video. I have seen it already several times and most importantly it caught me so much, that I convinced my wife to go out and shoot some portraits of her in a same fashion and I love those pictures. So thanks guys for pushing/inspiring me to capture pictures of someone I love and have them now for myself and our kids for forever :)
Oh wow! Thank you so much for your lovely comment. We both really appreciate it. Glad to hear we could inspire you to take some great portraits of your wife in a similar fashion. :)
Beautiful model, Amazing photos, great video !
Max - I've only just discovered this series and I've enjoyed them very much. I love this work in particular and enjoy your explanations during the shoot as to choices made for equipment and films, light readings etc. I am not surprised you are so excited at showing these photographs as they have such spontaneous style and real energy to them. The model has a breezy confidence that comes through in the shots and the decision to overexpose by 2 stops adds to the success of these shots. Bravo Max and thankyou.
Wow,. what a great episode, the chemistry between both of you shines through your photographs, you have found a new muse, i think we will see this beautiful and bubbly model again.
wow, the photos are absolutely stunning! I love this, the location, the model, everything is perfect, good job!!
donmarco567 Thanks a lot for your kind words. Glad you like this video so much. :)
Beautiful photos and model!
Lovely model and sound technique equals top class pictures. Well doe, Max.
This is an excellent video. I really enjoyed your narrative. It made your video stand out from the other BTS I've seen on TH-cam. Your photos are absolutely fantastic!
Steve L Oh wow! Thanks for your incredibly kind comment. Makes me happy to see that you like it so much.
Really great work. Loved the first b&w with sunglasses especially. Good contrast and moody.
Thumbs up, authentic and great work all in natural light! Keep it up, look forward to the next episode!
Dear Max, this is yet another wonderful exposition of the great work you do. I really enjoyed watching the video. And yes please! More videos like this. I do enjoy gear reviews too, but one can only learn so much about cameras. But you can never learn enough about ceating good images!
Franziska is beautiful and Evgenia too!!
Needless to say, you are a great/passionate photographer. This episode was fabulous. It brought together all my passions medium format, architecture and fashion. To top it up, Franziska. Omg! Apart from being stunning & is a near look alike to an ex of mine who happens to be from Munich too (I know, stupid me), I love franziska’s entrepreneurial creativity added with her spontaneous nature thinking on the spot.
You can see from your face during and in vlog how effortless this collaboration was. You look smittened lol I watched it 3 times to makes sure I didn’t miss a thing. I would love to see further collaborations between the two of you and also from Franziska and her point of view. Thank you for your ever so interesting vlogs. Keep clicking keep inspiring. Thank you.
Thanks a lot for your lovely comment, Hugo! I really, really appreciate your words and will pass them on to Franziska as well. I really had a wonderful time shooting with her. :) Jules and I will try to keep the videos coming. :)
fantastic work! I think this is the best shoot yet. I really enjoy seeing the thought that went into camera / film selection.
Keep up the great videos!
Really great work here Max, I am blown away how well done this was. The photography was fantastic, not to mention both the videography and model / makeup work. Cheers!
Amazing shots and an amazing story, everything was perfect. Absolutely beautiful video and as usual you generously gave credit to those around you, but it was you who took the shots and that was your talent. I'm not in anyway playing down the important roles your model, make up artist and Jules played, they were all important, but I'm giving you credit for your role which you often play down.
Unfortunately I'm old enough to remember 1972, it was nice to see the village in such good light. By that I mean positive rather than the good light we photographers talk about.
Great feature, thank you so much. Seeing as you often seem to like to work on the ground, kneeling: one of the most useful accessories I added to my portrait sessions a couple of years ago were a pair of knee protectors (from volleyball when I‘m wearing wide trousers, or the ones used by stage hands and easily put on and removed again via velcro). Just a thought. The knees definitely will love it.
Thank you for sharing ！I really like the photos you take and your attitude towards photography .
Really amazing photos Max, really seems like the personality of the model came through the images. Please keep em coming, your videos are a nice, if sometimes uncomfortable, reminder of how much there is to learn!
YES!!...keep this good work up Max.
Great photos as always. You actually inspired me to shoot film! This location also looks a great urban photo shoot location! Didn’t know about it even after staying in Munich for 3 years! 😁
Solid work Maxx
Amazing photos! Funny thing, I started watching the intro and my first thought was "boy those are some really clean sunglasses". Five minutes later when you mentioned them, I giggled :-D
Anyway. I absolutely love these pictures. The colours, the sharpness, the poses, this was a really great photo shoot. Looking forward for your next project.
Cheers,
Congratulations. Really beautiful work!
Excellent, great images and a great team effort :) Hopefully you might give Jules a wee shot of the camera on the next model shoot. It would be interesting to see a shoot with both your approaches to the same model.
Great shoot, thanks for sharing. Also, I have the same bag (in dark truffle).
Another great video,which inspires me.Keep up a good work and save film photography!all of us darkroomers:-)thank you Max
Max, Great location, makeup was flawless. The B&W image at 9: 29 sweet model!! You pulled your film two stops to 100 interesting. Did I see some Delta ? Big thumbs-up, say hello to Jewels.
Yes, I forgot to mention that I shot two rolls of Ilford Delta 100, but it is listed in the video description. Just one note: I didn't pull the color negative film but rated it at ISO 100, so deliberately overexposing it. Pulling would be a development technique meaning the film is developed for a shorter period of time after also rating it at ISO 100. In my case, I had just developed it normally. These two color negative films can easily be overexposed by one or two stops to bring out a special, bright look and nicer colors.
And thanks for the wonderful new nickname for Jules. I'll call him Jewels from now on. :)
Yes Max, that's what I was referring to. Just a slip of the mind - exposing the film at 100 and processing normally. I do the same with HP5, I rate it at 200. I will definitely give the Fuji 400H another go. The lab (love) I'm using do a really great job on black and white but their color just seems to be a little inconsistent. I've been using the Kodak ektar 100 and rating it at 80 or 64 ISO. It's nice but I miss E6 film.
Anyway, keep up the good work and I'll be in touch with you over on IG. Be sure to say hello to Jewels for me!
ps. Are you enjoying your Gossen meter? I use a Minolta III, absolutely love it.
Another beautiful Video and Photoshoot. I especially love the pics at 11m45s while sitting on this stairs, thats just great. Esp in combination with the 50mm angle! 👍 Was wondering why so few people are around in the Oly-Dorf? Normally you have there thousand of students?
Florian Thanks so much for your comment. ;)
The shoot took place on a Saturday evening, during the first sunny week in Munich this summer, and maybe even some holidays. That's why there were relatively few people around. :)
nice work! your best yet!
Great video you got some incredible Shots it must be nice to have a model that understands and also has been able to help you with with getting contacts into brands too absolutely incredible. Keep up this inspiring work
Murphys Film Thanks so much! Glad to see you like my vids as well. I really enjoy yours. :)
amazing！good job and i love it！
韩彦飞 Thanks so much! :)
Some really solid work here and you're right it's great how the model came up with some ideas, and good ones! I'm a first time viewer and look forward to seeing what else you have.
Thanks for your kind words and glad to see that you're new around here. I hope you enjoy some of our other videos as well. :) Really appreciate your feedback.
you still have a little bit around the mouth
Superb work, thanks for sharing !
Beautiful images. kudos!
Love the photos!
Love the channel - keep it up. the quality is amazing and I'm sure its just a matter of time before this channel becomes super popular
Stuart Knott Thank you sooo much. We really appreciate it and hope you're right. ;)
hi max! the photo on 11:24, to get proper exposure did you meter under her chin out towards the camera? Reason i am asking is because its right on, and the colors are amazing. F/4 at 1/250th?
And between fuji 400H and portra 400 whats the biggest difference you see?
Thanks again max!
Yes, that's exactly what I did. I cannot recall the exact shutter speed but as mentioned in the video, these films were both rated at ISO 100 to bring out the colors differently and ensure enough exposure. Both films can handle quite a lot of light, especially the Fuji needs a bit more light in general. Furthermore, the Fuji has a slightly reddish tone in it and renders blues and greens differently. I'm also talking about that a bit in my video about "My favorite films for analog portraits". Hope this helps. :)
Nailed it!! 👏
I know I'm a tad late here, but I'm still experiencing with film exposure and the zone system. When you say you expose for the shadows under the chin, you basically set that to zone 5? Do you then maybe expose down a stop to make those shadows in zone 4 and create a tad bit more contrast? It just seems to me that make those at 5 and overexposing 2 stops on top makes for very overexposed highlights... But maybe that's just me coming from digital and not knowing. In any case. Lots of good content in you vids mate. Keep the good work going!
Thanks for your interesting comment. Well, it is a bit tricky and hard to explain. There is a major difference between analog and digital photography. A digital sensor lets in light and records with the sensor how much light fell onto which area of the sensor and hence the image. If there's too much light at a certain spot, you have overexposed that part and risk losing detail in this section and get completely white areas. With a DNG file, there is still wiggle room but as a rule of thumb, digital photographers try to rather underexpose than overexpose. But then you probably know that.
With analog photography, you generally do the exact opposite and have quite some freedom specifically with C41 color film. First and foremost, when you let in light on the film, it creates a chemical reaction which can span several layers of the film and thus affect the overall density of your negative. If you'd like to ensure that dark/shadowy areas appear on your negative (so that the information is recorded), then it can be recommended to meter for the shadows. Now something special comes in. Photographic film can only be optimized to react to an increase of light with a proportional increase of density on the negative for a specific amount of light. In other words, instead of a linear curve, you rather have a gradation curve that softens with more light. So with more light coming in, the density does not necessarily increase proportionally. This effect is particularly striking when you do night photography on film where this so-called reciprocity failure and the "Schwarzschild effect" set it. I recommend you watch our night photography video for more details.
To keep things simple, as a rule of thumb you can remember that it is okay to slightly overexpose black and white film and no problem at all to overexpose C41 films such as Kodak Portra by one or two stops. Some photographers even shoot Kodak Portra 400 at ISO 50 or 25 to get extremely soft, pastel colors and soft, glowing highlights. All this is made possible by the chemical properties of film and what happens if it gets "too much" light.
I hope this rather bad explanation helped anyways. I recommend you look up film gradation, reciprocity failure and the Schwarzschild effect. :)
Best reply ever. Thank you so much for taking the time to read, consider and then reply so nicely. Your answer explains everything I wanted to know and wasn't sure about. Your night photography video is also very informative on the Schwarzchild effect and I will need to consider this for long exposures in the future. Thank you so much again and keep them awesome videos coming. For new comers to film like myself they're a gold mine for critical information; to the selection of film to exposure all the way to composition and gear. Keep it up! Cheers from snowy Canada!
Thanks so much for your kind words. Glad to hear this helped. Greetings to my beloved Canada. :)
Great shots! Especially the overexposed Portra, it gives a very fresh look. It would be interesting to see how you work on them in post. Just curious, how many rolls do you use at this kind of shoot? Thanks for the great channel, its really inspiring!
Thanks for your feedback. I quickly checked for you. I shot two rolls of Ilford Delta 100, four rolls of Fuji Pro 400H, and five rolls of Kodak Portra 400 on that evening. So eleven rolls total resulting in 100 images that made it in the finer selection I passed on to the model and around 70 images that I passed on to the cooperation partners. Hope this helps. :)
Great pictures! I like them a lot. And if it was a great teamwork I'm sure that the shoot was a lot of fun for everyone and this is the best way to get great pictures. But I have a question about the film stock you used for this shooting. But not about the overexposing because I think this is a common practice for Portra and 400H Color negative films, as you already said in a previous comment. But do you see any noticeable difference between the Fuji and the Kodak Film Stock? Which one looked better? I know the Fuji is a little bit more into green but I think it is difficult to find some examples which compares the too films side by side. There are some examples but not a lot.
Alexander Kirsch Thanks a lot for your nice comment. We really appreciate it. With respect to the two film stocks: In this case my trusted lab wizard and I decided to make them look a bit more similar than they would usually do while retaining some details. The Fuji usually brings about a rather strong red channel which I typically specifically ask my lab to turn down as much as reasonably possible.
I haven't made a proper side by side comparison of the two films. As the fine tuning during the scanning process plays such an important role with color negative film, I find it a bit hard to do so.
Fantastic work Max! I really love the look you achieved. I normally rate Portra 400 at 200 and have the lab process normally. When rating at 100 does your lab process normally or is there pushing in the development?
Glenn Haggis Thanks a lot. Normal development. I've seen some wonderful images on Portra 400 rated at ISO 50 and then developed normally. I prefer to go for ISO 200 or 100.
This is an absolutely fantastic TH-cam video. I think it's my favorite one of yours. I'm a professional photographer in Naples Florida please let me know if you're ever heading this way.
Thanks a lot for your videos! It motivates me to do more portrait shootings with my medium format camera. I have one question: do you make some post-processing or those are pictures straight from the camera? What are your tools? Thank you.
Alexey Chernikov As mentioned somewhere else, scanning film always involves some degree of post-processing as well and you'll find some videos on TH-cam dedicated to that topic (there's a great one by Matt Day). I have most of my portfolio work developed and scanned by my lab (www.meinfilmlab.de) which does only slight adjustments but overall tries to retain the look of the film and the selected exposure.
thanks a lot!
Damn ! Max, your shots are awesome ! How would you describe the type of light needed to achieve this pastel effect? I must try this!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for your comment. Well, there's not really a way to describe the type of light you need. Just give it a try and collect your own experiences. You can certainly not go wrong overexposing Kodak Portra 400 a bit. :)
yes for sure! will do. Thank you for replying back i appreciate it! Also, have you overexposed portra 160? rating it at ISO of 100, or 50? if so, how did it come out?
Kevin Diaz I would recommend rating Portra 160 at ISO 100. But be aware that this film generally has different colors than Portra 400.
An absolutely amazing video! About the pictures, was there any editing done in post? Sorry, if it is a stupid question. The pictures look absolutely stunning and they certainly do look very natural. As a B&W shooter it is still difficult for me to tell though!
Anyway, keep up the brilliant work!
Thanks for your kind comment and sorry about my late response.
There is always some slight editing involved when scanning film but my lab usually tries to retain the original film look as much as possible. In this case, the look is largely derived from the overexposed film and beautiful evening sun that we were lucky to have. The rest is setting contrast, saturation, and so forth correctly while scanning. But no additional retouching or "Photoshop magic". Hope this helps!
All good but 5:22 is the best
Max, you indicate you rated the color films at 100 instead of box speed 400. Did you then do a normal development for 400? Do you usually rate portra at 100?
Max, why did you used your 400 ISO films at ISO 100?
Overexposing these two color negative films brings out a special, bright look and nicer colors. You should give it a try. For the Fuji Pro 400H, it is common practice among wedding photographers for instance.
MAX+ONE Portrait Photography great, I will try it out, thank you for the tip.
I have a question for you: when you said you rated the film at 100ASA, did you also developed at 100 (pulling the film), or shoot at 100 and develop at 400? Thank you
Thanks for your comment and question. Somebody else already asked this question (s. below). I had the films developed normally but rated them at ISO 100. This is a very common practice for these two color negative films. There are a lot of wedding photographers who use Fuji 400H Pro like this.
Oh sorry about that. I missed that. Thanks for the pointer, next time I'll try it like that.
Fantastic Work !
I have a doubt; if the develope is normal ... then I can make 18 shoots rated at ISO 100 and 18 shoots at ISO 400 on a reel of 36 exposures ?Thanks.
Thanks for your kind comment. Yes, you can certainly do that and will see the difference. But be aware that the real pastel effect is also related to the kind of light that you have available. :)
Of course, thank you very much for your help.
:53 Cool model. Cool shot. nice!
All of them are good, but the 5:22 is the best
I want to ask something about metering.
In the video it is said that the camera is/are arted at iso 100 for Portra 400/Pro 400H. Did you take the metering value of the face of the model or of the generall scene?
Danke sehr!
Thanks for your comment and question. I did not simply set the camera to ISO 100 but metered manually for each scene with my Gossen Starlite 2 light meter (which you can see in the video occasionally). I usually spot meter on the shadows underneath a model's chin in order to get enough detail in the shadows. Overexposing these two color negative films brings out a special, bright look and nicer colors. You should give it a try. :)
OK Thanks.
I can tell some of these photos are typcally the overexposed pro400h!
BTW, what kind of scanner do you use?
so did you develop them at box speed (2 stops overexposed) or at ISO 100 (pulled)?
mithrastemplar At box speed. This is a very common practice.
thanks. just dipping into film and shooting everything at its given exposure right now. will have to remember to shoot both of these overexposed. the colors here are really nice