Re: [Leica] shutter speed synch on med format experience

[Mark Rabiner <mrabiner@concentric.net>]

Gary Klein wrote:
> 
> dmorton@journalist.co.uk said: about the new Contax rollfilm AF slr,
> 
> " Good fast AF, Zeiss lenses and medium format. Once those leaf lenses are
> 
> there it has to be on the wedding snapper's list of systems to look at."
> 
> As one who spent two years in the trenches shooting weddings at a portraits
> during a phase in my photography career,  we did not use the maximum shutter
> synch speed as much as one would think.
> 
> For one we used Kodak's Vericolor III type S for much of our weddings on the
> Hassleblad system.  To cover a modest wedding, we could would use 1 70mm
> back of VPS and 1 120 back of VPH (400 color neg).
> 
> Much of our inside the church wedding groups after the ceremony (and before
> the ceremony btw) were done with the blad on a tripod.  The prerelease was
> our best friend btw.  We would shoot many photos where the subject would be
> stationary with strobe, but use either a 1/8th of a second or 1/15th to get
> that wonderful warm glow that the ambient incandescent lighting would
> provide.  We would use two strobes, both vivitar 283 believe it or not.  One
> on a light stand with a slave, the other on the camera, mounted on a custom
> modified blad bracket.
> 
> It worked wonderfully.  Boy I wished we had the AF stuff then.  The older
> 500c blad system I was issued was a bear to focus with (old style screen).
> The point is of course the highest synch speed we ever traveled to for the
> most part was 1/125.
> 
> gck

I shot about 40 weddings with a Hasselblad using 125th as a sync speed
for most of it as well. The new screen gives you a whole new camera
unlike anything I can think of. My earlier numerous Nikon weddings I
shot with the 283 Vivitar but I got a Norman when I went Blad. The 70
back I owned I was too scared to use for a wedding. You could never
really tell if the film was going through or not. And I've always hated
VPS. Hated it when it was 60, hated when it was 80 hated it when it was
125, 160 and was glad when they got smart and came up with a new name
for some film with some snap. I used 220 Fuji for all that stuff.
Mark Rabiner