Multi format: shooting film, digital, Instax and video in LA
Canon 5D mk IV and 50mm f/1.2 L at f/2.8 ISO 800
Although I shoot on film for most of my personal projects and all of my social photography, I’ve never had the chance to do so on an actual client shoot. The kind of lifestyle work I get commissioned for by clients usually requires autofocus and high frame rates to grab those little moments when everything comes together. Not only that, the art director wants to see the shots right away to check they’re telling the story he or she needs. This means I’m always shooting on a modern DLSR with a card or cable taking the pictures straight into a computer.
However, I also shoot a lot of portraiture for my personal work, usually on film cameras, and I’ve been trying to marry the two styles together for some time. So I was keen to shoot some great lifestyle portraits on film as part of a larger digital shoot.
Not only that, but my clients increasingly want video as well as stills. “Combined production” is a phrase photographers have come to dread, as it often involves being tagged onto a TV commercial and getting 5 minutes between sets to shoot. But more and more I am being asked to direct video content alongside the stills I am shooting so they have a similar look and feel, so having my own showreel is important.
At the end of last year my wife and I were organising a 5 day shoot in southern California. I was out in LA for a client shoot and we tacked on an extra week for me to shoot my own work and refresh our portfolios. One scenario we came up with was a rooftop party scene to create some work that might appeal to drinks brands. We’d make use of LA’s beautiful sunsets and spectacular skyline to create shots that had a fun vibe.
As this shoot was just for us, I was determined to bring it all together: shoot on both film and digital and make a short film at the same time. So as well as my Canon DSLRs I also packed my trusty Pentax 67 II and a bunch of Portra 160 as well as my wife’s Instax Square. I also hired a DOP, Sayer Danforth, to film alongside me on his RED camera and Zeiss CP2 lenses.
Let’s see how it all worked out!
“One of the challenges on shooting on multiple formats like this is making the time to do it.”
One of the challenges on shooting on multiple formats like this is making the time on the shoot to do it. When you’ve got the viewfinder glued to your face and shooting away it’s hard to break the flow and pick up another camera with a very different pace and way of working. Having Emma art direct the shoot was a great help in keeping me on track and ensuring I made the time to shoot the quieter moments with the Pentax before getting back into the action with the Canons. It also helped me ensure I got the range of shots that I wanted and had planned out on the moodboard.
We’d hired the use of a warehouse rooftop in downtown LA for the afternoon. Arriving at 2pm, we started setting up all the props and rigging the party lights on the rooftop, while the models changed into wardrobe and got made up downstairs. One by one they came up to the roof as they were ready and we soon started shooting. As the sun went down the light got more and more gorgeous. We shot right through until blue hour and finally stopped shooting when even ISO 3200 wasn’t enough.
So how did it look? First up, some of the shots on digital, all shot on Canon 5D mk IV and the 50mm f/1.2 and 85mm f/1.4, mostly at f/2.8:
Next up, some portraits shot on the Pentax 67 II and Portra 160, wide open at f/2.4:
Top explain why I often like to shoot on film, here’s a side by side of Canon 5D IV on an 85mm at f/2.8 (left) and Pentax 67 on a 105mm at f/2.4 (right). They’ve both been cropped to a 4:3 aspect ratio to make them more comparable:
These were shot on similar lenses (85mm v 105mm) and similar apertures (2.8 vs 2.4) but you can clearly see the difference in fall off of the larger format, and the wider angle of view for the same focal length. A 6x7 negative has 4.5 times the area of a full frame sensor, and this is one of the things I love about shooting medium format film cameras. The other advantage is the lack of grading needed on the pictures. In order to hold the highlights on the model’s face I had to massively underexpose the digital file whereas Portra 160 held the highlights and shadows effortlessly. Here’s what these two pictures looked like straight out of camera (or straight out of the lab in the case of the Pentax 67):
As you can see the file from the 5D had to be significantly lightened and the colours tweaked to look similar to the lovely colours and tones that came straight back from the lab with the Pentax. Note how the Portra holds a lovely colour in the sky while maintaining good shadow detail. The digital file the sky is grey and washed out in order to hold the highlights on the side of the models face and shirt, while the rest of the picture is then plunged into shadow.
While all this was going on, Sayer was filming on the RED. Shooting video alongside stills can be problematic when there’s lighting involved as video cameras need very different shutter speeds to stills. But as we were shooting all natural light there was no problem. I’d taken Sayer through a brief storyboard so he understood what I was looking for and then I let him just get on with it. There was the odd moment where we stepped into each others shot but it actually went really smoothly. And here it is, the final video:
And here are a few Instax photos we took along the way. I’m starting to like mixing up the formats on my personal shoots, I think it adds a bit of fun.
Overall I was really pleased with what we created on this shoot. Over the space of 4 hours from arrival to breakdown we came away with a great set of lifestyle stills, some fashion portraits and a minute long promo film. If I cold do anything differently it would have been shooting a bit more on the Pentax.
Finally, a big thanks to the whole team who made the shoot such a success:
Casting, Art Direction and Styling: Emma Wharton-Love @whartson.studio
Filming: Sayer Danforth @sayerdan4th
Film Editing and Grading: Chris Mosey at The Forge
Hair and Makeup: Brittany Leslie @brittanykleslie
Production: Ian Cush @iancush
Casting: Wilhelmina Models LA
Location hire: Concrete LA
