A recent family event was a great excuse to try out a brand new film and practice some portrait photography. Here is how Bergger Pancro 400 faired with my first attempt at portraits with a Hasselblad.
With the arrival of a new member to my brother's family (welcome to the world Patrick Kashishian - sorry no Facebook profile to link to yet!) and a planned Baptism, I knew this would be a great time to practice shooting some portraits with my Hasselblad. After all, that is what these cameras are famous for.
Equipped with copious amounts of black & white and colour film, I ended up shooting a whole 7 rolls. This week though we focus on the 4 black & white rolls of the French company Bergger, with their newly added Bergger Pancro 400. The company has been around for 100 years and it is great to see them continuing to innovate and release new products to the market. This film also has a very reasonable price, so even better.
I chose this film as it is new in the market in the 120mm format, and its ISO 400 profile would deal with changeable London weather (although funnily enough in the end it was really bright and sunny outside!).
Here's the technical lowdown from Bergger themselves:
Bergger Pancro 400 is a special, black and a white premium film. Composed of a dual layer emulsion, made from both silver bromide and silver iodide, the resultant effect is that these different sizes of grain give it a wide exposure latitude that makes it incomparable to any other sheet film. We have found that it offers natural tonal gradations with both fine grain and high-resolution and comes into its own when low or difficult lighting conditions are experienced.
I didn't really have any plan in mind with regards to the shooting, I just figured I would go out and practice (and that I sure did!). It is just aswell it was family members I was taking shots of, as setting up a precise shot on a Hasselblad can take, well, ages. What, between getting the viewfinder right, then the focus, not to mention the right shutter speed and aperture combination (remember this is a fully manual camera, no light mete, no gimmicks), suddenly people start getting pains in their faces from holding their smiles so long!
But, as with anything, practice makes perfect...and I can definitely say it was well worth it. Film is great not only for the suspense of how things turned out, but each shot is treated in such a special way (compared to digital where we just say "oh that looks nice" and go off to the next thing that gives us instant gratification).
Anyways, enough rambling and more photographs. As usual all available for full screen viewing. Impressions of the film as usual at the end.
Many thanks to my very patient models:
Jim Kashishian, Katharina Kashishian, Aisling Bolsover, Eimear O'Neill, Ronan Sheridan, Danielle Bojanini, Jackie Bojanini, Joseph Bojanini, and the man of the hour: Mr. Tony Bojanini.
Overall impressions
I must say, I was thrilled these came out as well as they did. It is hard to get the right exposure with the Hasselblad, especially when under the pressure of shooting portraits. I suppose the high exposure range of this film helps too. I now know why they call this a high resolution film, those last two shots are cropped and as such zoomed in. It looks like they increase in resolution from zooming, really quite incredible. I have only seen such high resolution from the recent Kodak TMax 400 I shot in Weeks 20+21 - check out the swan photograph here.
There is also something very 'old school' about this film, which is interesting given it has such high resolution I think it could easily be mistaken for digital. However, if looked at on a proper sized computer monitor you will see the wonderful randomness of the subtle grain it produces (that sounded too much like a film nerd statement, my apologies). It just has that aged look to it, as if the photos are just timeless.
From the results so far, I highly recommend this film. It's high resolution is fantastic. I cannot wait to try this film again during low light and night situations to see how it comes out.
I have Weeks 28 and 29 being developed, as I continually think about new and interesting subjects to shoot. Week 28 will be up soon and I am unofficially callIng it "Frankfurt in the dead of the night" given the early hours it was shot at. Shot on the tungsten balanced and really wonderful Cinestill 800...not to be missed!
'Til next time....now get back out there and take some photographs!
Cheers,
Neil.
