Hey there, happy Tuesday. 👋

I was in the Catskills over the weekend and the leaves are really starting to turn. 🍂 I was hoping to break out the Phoenix 🎞️, but the weather was not very cooperative. I still managed to get some moody, rainy shots on Portra 160 with the Yashica Mat 124G.

Here’s what I got for you today:

• 📷 Fun with a camera from the 50’s

• 📕 A Gregory Crewdson Photo Book

• 📐 The different sizes of medium format

📷 Fun with a camera from the 50’s

Antique stores are fun, but for a film photographer it’s like playing the slots. 🎰 Every corner, every nook and cranny is one more pull of the wheel. What’s the jackpot? For many it would be a Leica in good condition that doesn’t cost thousands. 💸

On my latest visit to an antique store I didn’t hit the jackpot but I did find this cool camera in good condition for $35. It’s an Ansco Speedex 4.5 Special. What makes this camera special is that it uses regular, everyday, 120 film. Many of these older cameras use some obscure film sizes that are impossible to find. If you have such a camera, take a look at the Film Photography Project. They sell several adapters that can help.

For a medium format camera, it is very compact. When folded up it fits in your pocket! It also features a very satisfying spring-loaded button to reveal the lens.

Overall, it’s a fairly easy camera to use, but there are some quirks 🧐. You load the film like most cameras, but there isn’t an exposure counter. Instead you have to rely on this red window to read the number printed on the back of the film paper 😮. The camera doesn’t stop you from over-advancing the film, so you have to really pay attention.

If you’ve used a large format lens before, it’s very similar. You set your aperture and shutter speed on the lens, and you cock if before each exposure.

The real tricky part is focusing. The viewfinder is just a window to help with framing. There is no looking through the lens to focus. Instead, the lens has measurements in feet on it which you set to be the distance from your subject. The camera has a handy dial with a scale showing you the min and max distance the image will be in focus at different apertures. This is zone focusing, a technique street photographers are very familiar with. I however really struggle to estimate distances, as you can see in some of these photos. 😵‍💫

Here are some images taken with this camera on Kodak Tri-X 400

It’s not an everyday camera, but it is fun to try out. Keep a look out at your next antique store visit, maybe you’ll get lucky. 👀🍀

📕 A Gregory Crewdson photo book

If you haven’t seen Gregory Crewdson’s work before I highly recommend you take a look. A great place to start is this latest book on his work. It’s a collection of his work throughout his career, neatly packaged in one affordable book. It covers:

1. Early work - 1986 - 88

2. “Natural Wonder” - 1991 - 97

3. “Hover” - 1996 - 97

4. “Twilight” - 1998 - 2002

5. “Beneath the Roses” - 2003 - 8

6. “Sanctuary” - 2009

7. “Cathedral of the Pines” - 2013 - 14

8. “An Eclipse of Moths” - 2018 - 19

9. “Eveningside” - 2021 - 22

Crewdson’s work, which are mostly shot in a small town in western Massachusetts, are massive productions. Shot on 8×10 large format, every detail is meticulously placed. And when you go through his work, you’ll start to notice these little repeating details. Doors are often open. Traffic lights are always on yellow (the crew must reprogram them for the shoot). I find his work beautifully sad. There is always so much going on, every time you come back a photo you’ll notice something new.

📐 The different sizes of medium format

If you’re looking to make the jump to medium format film, it’s helpful to take a minute to understand the various sizes that exist. Unlike 35mm film, 120 film is a continuous roll of film. The height is always 6cm but the width varies depending on the camera. In addition to the sizes having different looks, it also determines how many exposures you will get. The most popular sizes are:

• 645 - 6cm x 4.5cm ~ 14 exposures

• 6×6 - 6cm x 6cm ~ 12 exposures

• 6×7 - 6cm x 7cm ~ 10 exposures

There are others, like a panoramic size, 6cm x 19cm, but these 3 are what you’ll find most often. A medium format camera only creates one size, so take that into consideration when picking one.

That’s all for today everyone. I’ll see you on Thursday 🥃

Go turn a negative into a positive.

Ben Henschel

📷 Yashica Mat 124G / 🎞️ Harman Phoenix 200