Shooting Panoramics in York with Candido 800 & a Bronica SQ-A
A great feature of a modular system like the Bronica SQ-A is its interchangeable film backs. Not only do you not need to finish the previous roll before you shoot something else, but you can also switch formats to suit your needs. I don’t own a 6x4.5 film back but I do own a 135W panoramic back which I’ve talked about in previous blogs. It’s extra handy being able to shoot with 35mm film given there are many more options than 120 roll film. Last year saw the British company Candido come to the market as an alternative to CineStill for re-rolled Kodak motion picture films. Initially available in only 24 exposure rolls like the one shot in this blog, you can now purchase them in full sized 36 exposure cannisters.
In addition to the photos I took in 6x6 which you can see in last week’s blog I loaded up a roll of Candido 800 in my 135W film back to have another go at shooting either in low light on a tripod or handheld in daylight. It wasn’t a format that suited shooting inside buildings, so I reserved this for street scenes and for the cars I was photographing as part of my work trip. A good test of both the set-up and the film given the diverse scenarios and lighting conditions. Interestingly there doesn’t seem to be any information on the website or the box about the colour balance, but it does seem to be shifted more to the cool end similar to CineStill 800T.
I’ll admit that I was a little disappointed with the results. Being an ISO 800 film I wasn’t expecting there to be oodles of detail but I did feel the final images were a bit lacking in comparison to the rolls of CineStill 800T I’d photographed in the past. However, that’s almost certainly due to the difference in lenses and not due to the film. One thing to be aware of is that 35mm lenses tend to have the most resolving power given that they are to be used with the smallest (ordinary) format of film. As you get up into medium and then large format there is less need for lenses to be comparatively sharp as you gain resolution from the film size alone. I’d shot CineStill 800T using my more modern Nikon lenses on my F100 and as good as my Bronica glass is, these lenses from the 1980s and early 1990s probably don’t stack up against glass from the late 2000s and early 2010s with better coatings to boot.
Still, it was enjoyable coming up with composition ideas with this format, that I am still not that used to using. I don’t think I captured anything really spectacular on this roll, and I certainly wasn’t help by the ever-dull conditions, but at least I got some more experience shooting panoramas. I think my favourite shot is the one of Clifford’s Tower. This image works better than the 6x6 image from the previous blog, the framing here giving it a greater sense of its position on top of the hill with the people for scale. Another favoured image is of the two old cars by a canal, though it’s a pity the new car was parked so close and there was no way to crop it out.
I definitely won’t be rushing back to shoot this film again for panoramas, though I would certainly be tempted in trying about Portra 800. Though perhaps certain shots with lots of bright artificial light at night could really bring this set-up to life. At the time I did also buy a couple of rolls of Candido 200 and perhaps loading up one of those to see how a lower ISO film performs could be a good idea. Generally, this is something you want to use on a tripod in any case so using a slower film is not much more of a hassle. Yes, you can handhold it like I did for a few of these shots, but as getting straight horizons is even more critical, it’s best to take the time and get it right. In the meantime, I just need to get out and use it more.
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