Hi guys, I hope everyone is doing great! Anyway, so I was developing
Earlier some film from Chicago. I was scanning some more film from
Some shootings around here in Indiana, and I was also working on the video from San Francisco
That is coming very soon, but I thought that it would be nice for both you and me
to take a little break from all this kind of videos about me shooting outside
and what not, and talk a little bit about gear. so of course when I say gear, I mean my camera the bronica SQ-Ai
As you already know, I got this camera a few months ago, I think it was
It was last June, so eight months ago, but since then I've brought it with me pretty much everywhere. I've gone to the deserts
I've gone to the coast mountains
I've shot it in snow, in sand, in cold weather, in hot weather
It's been my main camera for all my landscape photography. I'm loving it, and I'm pretty sure
I will love it for a long time. I pretty much just realized that
I've already shot some 160 rolls of film with this camera
That's like around 2000 photos. I know that quantity doesn't really matter. It's all about the quality of your photos, but
after shooting two thousand photos with this camera
I think I'm at a point where I know how to use it
I got to know this camera a little bit more than eight months ago. I
Thought that I would talk and I would share with you guys those things that I've been learning
In the in the last few months. of course if you have any questions about this camera or any other camera
I don't know, any question that you think I might be able to answer, please
Leave a comment below, and I'll do my best. OK, so the first one on the list is this one
This is the shutter button of the camera. I don't know if you can see an L
Symbol there. That means locked so the shutter can be in locked
Position and unlocked so when it's locked the shutter button just doesn't work
Unlocked, you can take a photo
It's not taking a photo now because if the dark slide is
In and this is such a nice feature of this camera because I know that there are some other medium format cameras like
some Mamiyas at least, that they'll still try to take the photo when you press the shutter
even if the dark slide is in
So you get just black shots this doesn't happen with this camera
That's very nice, but I'll still recommend you to have the shutter button locked as much as you can
For one reason. You can see here these are
pins electronic
Connectors and there are more here from the film back
you have some more there in the lens oops some more there in the lens and here on the camera body
So all these connectors are there for a reason and it's that this camera
Supports some finders with a light meter built in so that finder looks like this one
I don't have one
But this is very similar to those ones so you look through it and the camera will give you a reading
It will use all those connectors that you just saw. so when the shutter button is locked as you can see nothing happens
But when it's unlocked
You can see the red light
Well, the red light means that the camera is telling you that it can't take a photo for
Some reason in this case the reason is that the dark slide is in
But that red light also means that the camera is taking a reading
using the settings on the lens and using the settings on the
ISO from the film back, and it's trying to give the finder
But the finder with the light meter built in
The reading that is taking from all these elements so that means that if you put this camera in a backpack or your camera bag
And for some reason this shutter button gets depressed like all the time like something gets stuck here
It's gonna be trying to meter all the time and that will
drain your battery so
While it might not be a big deal because you're not gonna waste any shots, as long as you have the dark slide in
you should try to keep the shutter button in
Locked position as much as you can so you avoid draining your battery. Talking about the battery, I got this camera off
eBay, as I said eight months ago, and I haven't changed the batteries yet
So it's still running, and I've shot like two thousand photos
I don't know if the batteries were like brand-new or they were used
For two years, for two months... I have no idea, but they are still going. It's pretty great battery life
Okay, tip number two this other switch here. I hope you can see it
That's the mirror lock-up switch as you can see it has three positions. I hope you can see it
N, S and C so when you turn this to S or C what that will do is
move the mirror up and lock it there in position
So this is a feature that many cameras have, just imagine you are on the tripod composing your photo you have
the camera in the right position, right settings... so what you do
Then when everything is ready to take the photo
you move the mirror up and you lock it. that way when you take the photo, when you press the shutter button, the mirror
doesn't move, it doesn't hit the camera so the camera doesn't shake, so it doesn't create like blurry or soft images
So this is a very useful feature that I use all the time when I take long exposures
So if you're gonna have the camera like for I don't know one second or two seconds
You don't want that slight, or small vibration to ruin your long exposure
So you wanna lock your mirror up using this
But you wanna be very careful with this switch
Why? Because it has happened to me many times like at least between five and ten times already that I'm trying to put this
camera in the bag and something gets stuck here
And it moves the mirror or it moves the switch to S or C and that causes the mirror to to move up
And then... I don't know, maybe it's possible, but I haven't found a way to
To move the mirror back down so you can still take the photo
But you can't see what you are taking because the mirror is up
So it's not reflecting the light from the lens, so you can't really see anything from the finder
What you have to do in that case: you have to wind the film and you waste a shot
That's what happened to me 5 or 10 times. if you guys know a way to
To put the mirror back down without wasting a shot, please let me know I've read the manual
It doesn't say anything about that
I don't know, maybe I'll tape the switch, so it doesn't move, but I'm still using it so I don't know what to do about it
number three oh, yeah, if you don't have one
Please buy a waist level finder if you don't have one
Please buy a prism finder. what I'm trying to say is: have both types of
Finder. you see, they are very useful in very different scenarios. as you might already know
the waist level finder opens that way, so you can compose the photo looking from above
so you have your camera lower and you can look through here it has even has a
Magnifier here, and this is very very useful. I take 90% of my photos using this finder
It's very useful when you have the your camera on the tripod, or you are trying to compose a lower shot
As I said, 90% of my shots are taken with this finder. the only problem with this finder
Is that they are really expensive! I bought this one from eBay like for around 100 bucks
And I think that they are going now for like
150 or even more than that. That is crazy, that is crazy, because it's nothing. it's just a piece of
Plastic and some metal it doesn't have anything special to it
So I don't really know why, maybe there are not too many of them, but I still don't regret it
I regret not getting it earlier than I did
But I still recommend having this finder, the prism finder, because it will give you or it will be useful to you in
Many other scenarios like for example if you place your tripod on a higher place
Or you have to, I don't know
you have like a fence or something that you're trying to avoid so your camera is higher
You need this, because if you have the waist-level finder
It's gonna be really hard to get above the camera to compose your photo. also to shoot like from
I don't know, say trains or a car
if you want to shoot through the window you need a finder like this. it's not gonna work with the
waist level finder. while I don't use it as often as the other one
I still use it, and I think it's very useful to have. and these are cheaper, too
I think that you should be able to find them for like fifty or sixty bucks
they make the camera a little bit bulkier as you can see, it's bigger and heavier, but
Not very terrible. Alright, I think this is the fourth tip and
This is an important one: so if you shoot black and white, you should.... no, you must
Get some color filters. as you can see I have an orange filter right now on this lens
I have it there almost all the time now because I just realized how much of a difference this filter makes in my photos
But I have more than just that orange filter. I bought I bought this set from Amazon
I believe they are like 25 bucks or 30 bucks. They are a bunch of them they have
oops
They have many colors like this one yellow. I don't use them
I just use the orange and sometimes the red one, but they have like blue, green, brown
grey, many colors that you can play with and
experiment if you want
But I use the orange and the red filter because they are the ones that
Give me the results I want. I also have these ones the box is kind of falling apart, but
These filters are from Lee they are only four of them
These colors here that you can see. Again, I only use the orange and the red ones
These are a little bit more expensive
I think there are 60 bucks for the four of them
But as you can see they are bigger
and they are square so they fit in my Lee mount so I can use them with my
ND filters when I'm taking a long exposure. I'm still learning how to use these filters
But you can play, you can use your digital camera as I said in earlier
Videos and play with them. The effect is not going to be a hundred percent accurate, but it will give you
95% of it
And it will give you a very good idea of what they do to your
film photos - I will be making videos about this kind of stuff from very very soon because
it's something that I'm very interested in and I
Have many videos in mind that are coming soon
but for now let me give you a very quick example of
What a photo with and without the orange filter looks like. so I took this shot a few weeks ago in Monument Valley
Awesome place by the way - totally recommended to go there - but yet you can't tell from here because it's a black-and-white photo
But the rock was red
red-ish
Brownish some kind of orange
Tones going on there and the sky was blue
So as you can see the photo kinda reflects that the rock was a little bit darker
The sky was pretty bright, and yeah, this is what the photo looks like without any kind of filters
compare that to this other one that I took like 30 seconds after the other one
Using an orange filter as you can see now the orange filter let
All the red and brown and orange light coming from the rock pass
But as you can see the blue from the sky got partially, at least partially, blocked by the orange filter
Making it much darker than it was in reality. so as you can see these two photos
And one of them was taken right after the other one
They look like they were taken at very different lighting conditions very different times of the day
And they were not, so this is an example of what you can do with filters
It doesn't mean that the filter is gonna make the photo better
But it's another tool that you can have to be creative with your photography
Maybe you don't like the sky darker. That's totally fine
Maybe you can use some blue filter, so you can make the sky even brighter if you want
you can play with your filters and be creative with them and
Yeah, black and white photography is pretty awesome. I love it
I know that people are in love with color because that's the way we see life every day
But that's the reason why I love black-and-white photography. I need to talk about this too. but anyway, black-and-white photography and these kind of filters
Let you be
Very very creative with your photography, so I recommend you to get these cheap filters from amazon or anywhere
It doesn't really matter and just play with them. You don't have to take photos with them with film
These are pretty cheap so the build quality is not the best, the image quality might suffer a little bit
But you know, I don't really care too much about that
I care more about the effect that they create
and the story they can tell or they can help me to tell, and you can play with them with a
Digital camera even with your phone, it will work
Just set your phone or digital camera to take photos in black and white and you'll see a preview of those effects in real time
All right, so I've been talking for a while and I still have three more tips to give you guys
I'm gonna speed up just a little bit if you have any questions, please ask
And I'm gonna be making more videos about this, and I'm gonna be talking about more
in detail about
Some of these things for example this thing that I'm going to talk about now. one of the reasons why I got the SQ-Ai
model
Over the SQ-A model. Well, it's lighter.
Supposedly. And the other reason is because it has BULB mode.
but it says B here, so you already know what BULB mode is but
that means that the camera is gonna take the photo for as long as you have the shutter button pressed the
problem with the BULB mode in this camera though
Is that it will use your battery and that might be fine if you are taking exposures of
Just one to even four seconds or even a little bit longer
But if you're taking exposures like I do sometimes up to 40 minutes or four hours or whatever
That will drain your battery in no time so you can imagine how disappointed
I was when I first got this camera and I find out about
That flaw or that weakness
I mean, I switched to film and now I have to deal with these kind of
electronic stuff when other cameras like the Hasselblad, they are purely
Mechanical so you can just leave them open as long as you want
and it doesn't use battery because they don't have battery but
Thankfully there is a way to fix this. the lenses I have they are Zenzanon PS
So I don't know if the older lenses, they are just regular S
Have this mode or not I have no idea. I'm sorry, but my lenses have this mode that is called T
Mode I don't know if you can see it
It says A, so if you pull this down
and
You move this switch
Here it says T
Now so when you press the shutter button while you have this mode on on your lens
You don't have to keep pressing your shutter button just have to press it once and the lens will stay open until you move this switch
Back like that. meaning it will not be using your battery, so I can have the lens or the shutter open for
4 hours, 40 hours,
40 years, it doesn't really matter because the camera will not be using your battery
When you have the T mode on so the downside to this
is of course that you have to touch the lens it will move the camera so if your
exposure is gonna be say between 2, 4
Even 16 seconds use the shutter speed here
Just use battery the camera will do it for you
but if you are taking longer exposures, say 7 minutes or even 2 or 3 minutes a little vibration at the end of the
exposure just
Putting this switch back to A mode it will not matter so yeah
Once again if you are taking long exposures use the T mode on your lens if your lens has it
Please let me know if the older Zenzanon S lenses have that mode
I'm not really sure, I'm sorry about that, but if your lens has that mode and you are taking long exposures
use it. I strongly suggest you to buy
two film backs, to have two film backs. at least two. I have two and they are more than enough for me
But you might need more depending on your use case. It's been very handy to have 2 backs because sometimes I'm out
There and it's very cold or even
It's snowing or raining or whatever and you are out of film here
you have to load more film have to take the roll out of here and put another one, a new one in and
You can't do that all the time if it's so cold that you can't even feel your fingers
Or it's snowing and raining
You don't want to deal with that stuff because it's gonna get wet
So that's when the second film back comes in play, you already have
Film here loaded so switching them is just
very easy. and the last one is pretty silly but
Just use this other switch here on the lens. I think that every lens has this even in digital
SLRs, but, this is the
Depth of field preview like this Minolta camera has the same button here
Yeah, the Rolleiflex doesn't have it so yeah. It's pretty common and I'm pretty sure that most of you already know what this is about and
You already use it, but for me, and maybe other people like me coming from a mirrorless camera
I was shooting an a7ii - when I switched to this
back to film so I didn't know that this lens was going to have this depth of field preview
and it's been pretty awesome
So what this does is that it closes the aperture of the lens, the blades
To whatever aperture you have here, like for example here. It would close it to f/8 so you can preview
How your exposure is gonna look, the depth of your photo, meaning
you can see how blurry the background is gonna be or
Whatever these lenses use the widest aperture in this case 2.8 to focus so it's more accurate
But that doesn't mean that what you are seeing is what you're gonna get when you press the shutter button
because the depth of field is gonna change when it
It closes the lens down to whatever aperture you have here. pretty handy
Switch is a pretty silly tip but coming from a Sony camera this has been very useful
And that's it. I hope this doesn't end up being a super long video, and I hope that it helped
Someone if I helped one person I would be very happy, and yeah, I'll be making more videos like this,
because you know it's fun to talk about the camera gear that I use pretty much every day and
To share the things that I've learned with you guys. I hope that if you have any other tips
About this camera or film in general you can give them to me too, so we all can learn from each other
That's all I have for today
Please let me know if you have any questions or please let me know if you hate this kind of content
You don't wanna hear me talking about the camera. You only want to see photos and videos that's totally fine
Just let me know what you think and yeah, thanks for watching and see you in the next one
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