Identity Crisis

Team Building Exercises

The jamesgreenoff.com team got away from home twice this summer. The first was a trip to Italy, and the second was a brief trip to Cornwall. Travelling with the interns can be challenging and finding the time to make the most of the cameras I’ve brought along can be tricky.

I know that I don’t want to be the photographer that doesn’t take a camera, similarly I don’t want to be the dad lagging behind his family as he drags a roller bag down a sandy beach. I’ve been trying to find the sweet spot between these two extremes for the last ten years.

Italy

Packing for the Italian trip was tough. Taking the drone was a given because flying it is fun and none of my other cameras can fly, beyond that I got quartermaster’s block.

There have been Italian trips where I’ve limited myself to just film cameras, (aside from a phone), and I’ve also tried only taking digital cameras. Tempted as I was to go pure analog again, I was too aware of how good and useful it was to have an R5 with me when I was offered a trip on a hot air balloon.

Eventually I packed an R5 with a lightweight 28mm f/2.8 and a 50mm f/1.8 for just such an emergency. This set up saw almost no action. I packed my Olympus MJU II, because it’s small, and also so I could finish a roll of film that had been in the camera for over a year. Then I packed my Fujinon GW690III. 

Fujinon GW690III

The GW690III has been in the relegation zone for a little while. It hasn’t seen much action since it became a member of the menagerie during covid. It’s a lovely camera, but I haven’t been using it to its potential. It’s also been on loan of recent, so I haven’t made anything of note with it for about two years.

The Hasselblad made the trips to Italy and Australia last year, now with the Fujinon back in my possession it felt like time to give it another chance. (If only to confirm my suspicions that it is surplus to requirements.)

If a half-frame camera is an efficient little runaround with a 1 litre engine, and my large format camera is a muscle car with an 8 litre V10, then the GW690III sits in the middle. It’s an SUV with a turbocharged 3 litre engine, it’s too thirsty to use as a daily driver, doesn’t have the event feeling of the Tachihara, and essentially delivers massive versions of images I could make with any of my 35mm cameras. 

It’s lighter than the Hasselblad, and given its non-interchangeable lens, doesn’t get heavier as you add accessories, there aren’t any to add, (aside from a cold-shoe light meter).

It’s 1/500th second shutter limit means that I tend to have quite a deep depth of field especially when paired with my favoured film stock, Portra 400. This depth, combined with the 3×2 aspect ratio and 90mm f3.5 lens (roughly a 40mm equivalent in 35mm terms) means that the images it produces don’t stand out as MF images, (they might if I printed them). 

The scans I get from the lab mean that while the negatives are huge, the scans are only marginally bigger (35Megapixel versus 30 Megapixel) than the images I get back from 35mm film.

It isn’t immediately clear what the advantages of using this camera are aside from the pleasure of using it.

Back when I had the GW690 MkI, I rejoiced in the short roll length, but that was ten years ago. An eight frame roll conservatively purchased, developed and scanned will now cost £29.50, that’s £3.69 per photo. This is as opposed to £25 or £0.72p/picture for 35mm film in the Leica, a camera that offers a similar shooting experience. That kind of expenditure does affect the way I shoot it, limiting spontaneity right up until I start shooting stuff just to get a roll finished. My keep rate suffers, and that adds to the use cost, if it were higher  I’d probably mind less.

When I got back to the UK I sent four rolls of 120 film to the lab or a total of 32 frames, at a cost of £82.50.

As a set there were a few I liked, but overall the images weren’t great. My keep rate wasn’t aided by the roll of Alienfilm Aeronega, which is fine but not a look I liked.

I’m further resolved to stick to ‘normal’ films in future, and to avoid niche/re-spooled film stocks for a bit. I may just be a luddite and a fool, but I like new, in date colour film, shot as the manufacturer intended.

Cornwall

Packing for Cornwall was easier. Unhindered by luggage limits I threw the whole roller bag into the boot of the car. I’d just taken delivery of the new RF 85mm f/1.2 and thought it would be nice to have a full digital load-out on holiday for a change. I didn’t use it.

The drone did make it out of the boot and I flew it a bunch, shooting footage rather than stills. After a while I could see a narrative coming together and decided to put some effort into the edit. Not bad for a machine that mostly wins at B-roll.

I shot my stills on my phone and my Canon EOS 1, which was loaded with Canon Proimage 100.

It felt odd to have the roller bag just sat there being all expensive and my livelihood, and not using it. The me from the past would have killed to have that much firepower on hand on a holiday, but that was a me that didn’t have young children. It’s starting to dawn on me that this is not what these team building exercises are about.

Making work while I’m on holiday with the interns might just be something I have to stop trying to do. Being with them is conducive to making nice pictures, but not conducive to making interesting work. The pressure I feel when I go out looking for photographs while they’re having fun without me also isn’t conducive to making interesting work. 

Drone and phone

I’m tempted to just call it quits and give the heavy bag a rest. I’m convinced there would be a freedom to be found in just rolling with a phone and a drone. Chuck in some mics and my Osmo stabiliser and… hang on…

I could absolutely afford to go on more holidays if I shot less film, and could have more fun playing and building the team if I wasn’t looking over people’s shoulders or scarpering up hills for a picture, but that’s about me, not the cameras. 

An Expensive Solution

One idea that does intrigue me is the addition of the newly announced Leica Q3 43 to the menagerie. It’s the camera I’ve been hoping someone would make for the longest time.

A full frame camera, with a viewfinder, plenty of resolution, a bright wide aperture lens at a 43mm equivalent. It’s perfect. It’s a smaller, digital GW690III, but also a larger more controllable Olympus MJU. A newer and more versatile 5D Classic and a cheaper to run version of my EOS 1 and M4-P.

I had a brief play with the Q2 earlier this year and really really liked it. The thing that saved me from adding it to my list of unicorn cameras was that the lens too wide at its default focal length of 28mm. A 43mm version, wow…

I’m on a hiding to nothing. I even did the sums to check if I could call it a cost saving. If I sold my Canon f1 Classic, Canon 5D Classic, their associated lenses with my Olympus MJU II and GW690II, it would still take me 80 rolls of film to make back the difference. Given that I’d still have the Hasselblad, Leica and Tachihara which would all still need feeding, it would be a while before I could say (pretend) that I’d saved money.

Surplus to requirements

As to whether I’m going to keep the GW690III I’m in a bind. It’s a lovely camera. I could absolutely keep it and use it every now and again.

Alongside the Rollei 35AF, the Plaubel Makina and my new unicorn, the Leica Q3 43, I’ve had a bee in my bonnet for a while now about shooting 6×17. The bee has taken me on quite a journey, and has done at least one intricate dance. 

In October last year I was seconds away from buying one of Steve’s lovely 6×17 Chroma Cameras at the Analog Spotlight event in Nottingham. I then spent three days working out how much trouble I’d be in if I bought a used Fujinon G617 at TPS in March, (it would have been a lot, both of money and trouble). I’ve winced at the prices of new Technorama’s on the Linhof website, (a Q3 43 seems almost affordable in comparison). I’ve even considered borrowing something to get this nectar obsessed monster off my back, or out of my bonnet…

(A good friend of mine was all set to lend me a Graflok back that would have allowed me to shoot 6×17 on the Tachihara, if the Tachihara could accommodate such a thing, but it can’t.) 

My current solution is to buy dedicated Shen Hao 6×17 camera. This would mean that I could have movements, (rise, fall, tilt and swing) and cross-roll use of a focusing screen, while using my Tachihara lenses on their Linhof boards… I know what you’re thinking, all that convenience for just £2500? Where do I sign?

Joking aside, while I might be running out of unicorns, there will always be at least one, and something like the Shen Hao, the Rollei 35AF, the Plaubel Makina or maybe even the Q3 43 is going to usurp the GW690III at some point, it’s going to happen, it’s just a question of when, and how much I miss it when it’s gone.

Rockwell Moment

I don’t have affiliate relationships but it might be useful to know that I get my cameras (& drones) from London Camera Exchange, my film comes from Analog Wonderland, and they did a lovely job of the development and scanning too. (This was my first batch from them since the sad demise of Silver Pan Lab).