Dear readers!
I am finally back from my journey. I had a job to do in Australia and China. First of all I would like to thank all Australian and Chinese people I met during those two months. The whole trip was an incredible experience and I never had any difficulty at all working in both countries. People were extremely friendly and I came back to Europe with many many many good memories. Thanks!
My work:
I made one documentary and three photoreportages. In the next days I will show you some of the photos I made. As you may remember I had the Mamiya 7
The photo shows you a 60 year old miner in Lightning Ridge (Australia). I always took one photo with the mamiya (6×7 positive film) and one with the Olympus (in RAW). The positive film has been scanned at 3200 dpi with the flextight professional drumscanner (16bit, tiff format, gives me a 60Megapixel resolution photo which weighs 320 MegaByte!!!)
The first photo you see has been taken with the Olympus E-P1 and 17mm lens (Raw converted in jpg with Photoshop and downsized).
The Mamiya 7 photo (mamiya 65mm lens, fuji velvia 100, downsized):
The 65mm mamiya lens is the equivalent of 32mm in 35mm format.
I cropped and downsized both pictures:
The difference in sharpness is huge. The E-P1 performs well but nothing beats medium format film.
Next photo, very difficult situation. Only one strong light!
First the E-P1 and 17mm lens (Raw converted in jpg with Photoshop and downsized)…
….and the mamiya 7 (mamiya 65mm lens, fuji velvia 100, downsized)
As you see there is a difference in white balance. I haven’t made a white balance on the mamiya photo. I used a film for natural light where there was artificial light (I had no other film with me).
Now I am going to show you the a crop from the head and this time in real size…no downsizing!!!
The E-P1 is overexposed and burns part of the head. My fault! With the spot metering inside the mamiya7 I measured the head of the man and this saved the photo.
Finally I am going to tell a little more about his story. His name is Vittorio. Since 1969 he lives in the middle of the australian nowhere. He owns a mine. And on top of the mine he has built a castle!
You can enter the mine from his living room…(photo taken with the E-P1)
and believe me…he really has built a castle (taken with mamiya7)!!!
I will post more pictures and comparisons in the next days…
cheers
Alejandro
8 Responses
I’m an Aussie and I’m proud that you explore some of the country which is a little different from the touristy places like Sydney, etc. Thanks for the pictures and the descriptions. 🙂
omg- amazing pictures!
Welcome back Alejandro! Nice documentary photos you took there. Post some B&W images later, thanks.
This post is so long that it’s really difficult to look at the site on mobile phone. Would you please change this entry so that on the home page there is only a short preview and to view all the pictures you have to click on the post.
Thanks
what iso setting did you use for the EP-1 in the first shot?
ISO 800. I knows it is high.
Thanks for adding the excerpt. Now it loads fine on the phone 🙂
I spent two years reviewing medium format cameras. I was sure I wanted a Bronica or a nice working Rollei, however all my research kept pointing me towards this hideous plastic beast called the Mamiya 7. I have had my Mamiya 7 now for over 5 years with no complaints, no regrets, and I am still amazed by the detail and quality. I love the focusing, the shutter, the lenses, everything but the plastic housing (mine is thoroughly wrapped in duct and electrical tape to ward off breakage and potential muggers). In my very amateur opinion, I feel there is no finer camera on the planet and it is a wonderful weapon to fight off the brainless zombie hordes who seriously believe digital looks good. Film #1. (nice photos, thanks for all the hard work)