Every Street Fashion Shoot I Am Improving With My Rangefinder

After a first set of good results with my Fuji GSWiii, from the shoot with Anna, I organised a group shoot with Luise back in Central London.

I hadn’t seen these togs for quite some time so it was a great opportunity to catch up and enjoy some photography together.

I chose to shoot some Ektachrome and Kodak Gold in today's outing and we started off outside Bank.

When I turned up, I found a commercial shoot going on which looked pretty intense and another tog with her makeup artist taking shots on the steps.

Luckily the commercial group were wrapping up and they were on their way out. Perfect time for us to swoop in and start taking shots!

With only 8 frames to each roll of film, the 6 by 9 film size is incredible to view, especially on colour positive film.

I was confident that Ektachrome would perform well today given the lighting conditions. There would not be a need for off camera flash today.

How to Shoot with Rangefinders in Bright Sunny Conditions

First shot, super overexposed, unfortunately something to carefully consider for next time. In the broad strong sunlight perhaps underexposing by a stop or two may help to resolve this issue.

The second shot performed better although there appears to be a blue tinny cast to the image. I’m not exactly sure why this is. If you know or have a hypothesis I would love to hear it in the comments below.

The sunlight was exceptionally strong today and at times difficult to keep your eyes open without some sunnies on.

In this shot, I asked Luise to close her eyes and imagine something longingly while resting on the stairs.

The whites have come out brilliantly white and probably has been compounded by the whitish reflection off the stairs too.

Key takeaway here is to avoid bright white clothing in bright sunny daylight conditions!

A momentary shade and this image was captured spot on. I like the way Luise is looking down the barrel of the camera but also how arms and legs are creating triangular shapes which adds to the compositional balance of this image!

It’s also good to see the highlights not being blown out and the colours in this frame have come out remarkably accurately!

How to Posing Tall Subjects and why your positioning and lens choice matters

A quick side note here, be careful when posing tall subjects. Shooting from a low angle will accentuate the profile of your subject whereas shooting from a higher angle will exaggerate the torso and shorten the legs.

If your focus is on the head and chest of the subject then shooting from above would be recommended but for full length shots this should be avoided. This is mainly because your shot will compress the subject’s profile creating unflattering results.

To get the best results, use an appropriate lens which flatters the subject. In my case, I was working with a fixed 65mm lens, which is equivalent to a 28mm lens on a 35mm camera.

That is a relatively wide angle lens. Perfect for street photography but one to carefully use if shooting portraits.

Ultimately, a great pose is captured in camera with the combination of the right camera angle, body position, and focal length!

Got Luise to lay back for the next shot and you can see immediately the sun was back out in full force. Slide film scanning is proving to be quite a challenge, but with practice this will improve further.

We finished off at the steps with this shot. A reflector or an translucent umbrella would have helped reduce the amount of light falling on Luise but I like the pose again as is, the use of triangles but also the columns in the background accentuating the height or sense of scale in the image.

We decided to move away from the stairs and took some on this bench. This image has come out almost tack sharp and the image looks fantastic on this slide.

Working with large rangefinders can be tricky, however, you may have noticed the image has been a bit cropped off at the bottom.

To avoid such errors with these cameras give yourself a little bit more space within the frame in your visor. The more you shoot with this camera or similar ones, the more skilled you will become. It’s all about continually mastering your craft!

A follow up shot with Luise sat down looking into the distance. Again the colour reproduction here is absolutely spot on with the general tones of the outfit and setting creating a fitting vibe.

We changed it up a little again trying to get some more shade going down into the underground however, it was a little tricky here and whilst the colour reproduction was good I was working on f5.6 with shutter speed of 1/30sec which has added a little motion blur to the image.

The final shot was taken with Luise resting her arm on the railing, a slight miscalculation of the distance has given this image a bit of a defocused look.

I found Kodak Gold 120 to be very reliable

I switched up to shoot some Kodak Gold, colour negative film, which tends to be a little more forgiving. Be sure to check out my previous videos on Kodak Gold.

I have found it to be very reliable and brought some along as a substitute just in case I had completely blown the first set on Ektachrome

Luise was a superstar and switched up her outfits in no time. We got to shoot with her in this bold yellow outfit which was spot on!

I really like this image of Luise standing in the middle of the road. Don’t be deceived by the white lines, that is the bike lane in this extremely narrow road.

It was a case of darting in and out to shoot here but we got the shot! Don’t do this unless you have someone watching your back! Thank you Marcus!

Next time, I would move in much closer because the focus of the image is Luise and not the surroundings.

Moved back to the tiny sidewalk and took this full body portrait. Kodak Gold does have a tendency to leave this warmer tone, which in this case added to a late afternoon feel.

With time pressing, I took these two quick shots again focusing on full body composition and then moving in for a closer shot before finishing off with a relaxed pose on the wall.

How to setup your rangefinder to get the best images every time

Overall, this was the second time out shooting fashion with my Fuji GSWiii. Biggest learning from this shoot was that I needed to carefully consider the settings in strong sunlight.

Even with light metering you will need to carefully consider the type of film you are shooting with. Moving into a little more shaded location would perhaps have resulted in more reliable outcomes on this slide film.

I am sure you have lots of your own photos, how often do you spend reviewing them? You have seen that I make lots of mistakes too but the key here is to go back and reflect on your work.

By doing this, you will be able to make those incremental improvements.

With time, your images will become even better, so when you come back to look at your first photographic work, you’ll look back to see how far you have come!

If you are new to shooting with the Fuji GSWiii or similar cameras then it takes some practice to get your distances spot on too. It can be a little tricky using the rangefinder to focus accurately.

Try not to put too much pressure on yourself with time limitations. This is so you can be more considerate with your actual distances between you and your subject. Therefore making sure you get the sharpest image possible every time.

This particular Fuji comes with a fixed 65mm lens and if you enjoy shooting street photography it could be a fun companion with its 28mm, 35mm camera equivalent lens. I’m curious how an actual Leica would feel like shooting with, perhaps one day!

Although primarily known for landscape photography, the Fuji GSWiii has the potential to give photographers new creative opportunities in portrait photography.

I think in future shoots I’m going to try and get in more closer shots to see how the image reproduces.

Overall, once again I feel the closer I was shooting to Luise, the richer the details in each of the frames. Next time, avoid bare sunlight too!

With more shoots I will slowly find my preference, Let’s see where this takes me next!

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Why You Need To Shoot Provia With Flash Outdoors

I shot these on Provia 100F, as a continuation of the shoot I did with Evie at the Mansion. Stick around and I’ll show you how I got these amazing shots.

I shot both with my trusted Bronica Zenza ETRS with the 75mm f2.8 lens. As I shot with and without flash, each shot was carefully metered, with apertures and shutter speeds adjusted accordingly.

Let’s dive right in, the garden was perfectly manicured with this beautiful chair/bowl style golden hammock which was not going to be left out this shoot.Luckily Evie's friend Sammie had turned up and I wasn’t going to pass up on an opportunity to take some duo shots!

I setup a beauty dish with a single Profoto light angled 45 degree angle and then took some time choreographing the shot. In these situations having some knowledge and experience with light shaping tools certainly helps. An assistant would be an additional benefit but alas this was not the case today.

You can almost feel the detail in the images. This is the real benefit of shooting with slower films, the extremely fine detail and clarity of the image is unrivalled. The lights and shadows are perfectly balanced, one criticism could be the flowers have been heavily darkened. However it fits in with the mood and atmosphere of the image itself. In a sense of suspense and waiting, the darker rendition of the vegetation certainly adds to the textured drama of these shots.

Question for you, if you were in my place, how would you have shot this scene with Evie and Sammie or Evie alone? How would you have created this shot differently? Let me know in the comments below!

Thank you Sammie for jumping in a few of these shots! Sammie disappeared off to sort out a few things and Evie and I continued working in the garden as the light started to diminish more rapidly.

I wanted to get in a couple of more sets while we still had some time left. I wanted to see how this film would perform under lower natural light conditions. These two image images show that the images come out with a much cooler palette and tones. The isn't that burst of energy or color that you may get with off camera flash.

The natural light was disappearing too quickly and I reverted back to using the beauty dish and profoto light. In these images you can see that perhaps the touch of light was too strong and I could certainly bring that down a little in lightroom.

Purely for demonstration purposes it has done its thing. For me the light is quite overpowering, if there was a little light on mansion in the background then perhaps it would add a little more depth to the image.Or perhaps even in the foreground, there needs to be something going on just to add to the story and texture of the image itself.

Apart from the technical elements, clarity and detail, you can see, what really makes this image is the composition, pose, textures provided by the foreground and background create much more to the narrative of this image.

You have seen a couple of different setups here all using a single light source throughout. How would you have done things differently? What type of light would you have used? Would you have added in a second light? If so, where? What was missing that could have made these images be even more impactful? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Seeing it in film strip itself is another thing all together. The runner up shot for me was Evie resting he arms on her right knee wearing the pink dress near the end. With or without flash, be mindful of the foreground and background. What are you using to separate your subject and what narrative are you creating with your image.

I am loving shooting with slide film, its not just the detail and depth but also seeing your image in your hand. It's something else altogether. Get out and shoot some!

Thank you for watching all my videos, do go ahead and comment below. Have you shot with the Bronica Zenza ETRS or similar 6by45 camera or with Provia or any other slide film stocks?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this shoot, the images, how you have shot with Provia? What are your likes and dislikes about them? What do you recommend I shoot next with it?

You can grab a copy of the book here