Two Medium Format Rolls

As I mentioned in a couple recent posts, the nicer, fall weather has meant getting out for more photo walks.

One morning, I took a walk before work which meant really nice early light.

I started and finished a roll of Kodak Ektar in my Yashica Mat 124G. In the past, I had a couple of instances where the Yashica jammed, but, more often, it has worked fine. I didn’t have any issues on this outing but had a bit of a scare when the lab I dropped my film off at sent me only 4 scans. I thought there must have been a problem with the other 8 shots which was distressing since everything seemed to work fine. Luckily, it turned out to be a problem on their end with sharing the scans. All 12 frames turned out and most of them look pretty good.

I really enjoy shooting with the Yashica Mat 124G as it is one of my easier to use medium format cameras. Both the shutter speed and aperture are easy to see since they align with the viewfinder. It also has a light meter which my other medium format cameras do not have. Needless to say, I’m glad that it has been working more reliably.

That same morning, I also brought along my Flexaret Automat VII, which is another camera I’ve had some issues with in the past but has been working reliably more recently. Although it is not as easy to use as the Yashica Mat 124G, I still enjoy using it. Unlike the Yashica where I can easily see the aperture and shutter speed settings while composing, the Flexaret has its settings on the front of the camera so you have to set it before focusing and composing which is a little more challenging. It also does not have a light meter so I need to use a phone app.

I shot 7 frames that morning on a roll of Rollei Retro 400.

I finished the roll a few days later.

I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the results of this roll. I had never shot the Rollei Retro before but have had some decent luck with other Rollei films. The highlights seemed to blow out easily, and I had to correct for that in Lightroom. Even so, there was only so much I could do.

I have been working through a backlog of film and still have a few more rolls of 120 film to shoot. Now that film is getting so expensive, I’ll be facing some tough decisions as to whether or not I want to shoot medium format film. Given that there are only 12 frames per roll, it is significantly more expensive than shooting 35mm, although that is also getting ridiculously expensive as well.