Mamiya Medium Format Film Bridal

This past summer we had the pleasure of shooting the beautiful Kelsey, after much digging we agreed on shooting at this abandoned greenhouse in the outskirts of Sarasota Florida. Kelsey was magnificent in front of the lens (Mamiya 80mm f1.9) she really immersed herself into her setting and the photography gods graced us some amazing golden hour light. It felt like everything lined up and when this happens I get goosebumps, so much so that I ended up shooting twice as much as I had anticipated. The plan was to shoot 3 rolls of Kodak Portra 400 and I believe when we left I had 7 or 8 exposed rolls.

Many of you might be wondering what the equipment we used here so I’ll lay it out here: Camera was a Mamiya 645AF combined with the beautiful Mamiya Sekor C 80mm f/1.9 C Lens and the Mamiya 150mm F/3.5. Something else you might notice if you have a keen eye is these photographs do not quite match up with the Kodak Portra tones in which you would be correct. I have actually done a little bit of post processing to the photos once I got them back from the lab (TheFindLab). In order to match my aesthetic with digital I have toned down the greens.

I will admit it was quite difficult to manually focus on an auto focus film body, hence why I highly recommend you get a split prism if you ever plan on purchasing this lens/camera body combo. I had a hit rate of about 75% in focus shots which could get very expensive very quickly since each shot is over $2 to produce. I also highly recommend that you always expose for the shadows if you are using film and depending on the look you want to achieve I usually overexpose +2 stops from there. Film is the complete opposite of digital it loves overexposed frames and soaks in a lot of light while still maintaining details.