Portraits with TLR

Cholentpot said:

Working with flash or available light? f/4 with available light and trying to keep the shutter speed up is not an easy feat.

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Both. Of course, I was closer to what I understand to be your age when I did most of this
Usually using Vericololor II or III @ an EI of 160.
Some on a tripod, but just as many handheld with a short neckstrap and the left hand trigger grip.
Weddings are great crucibles of technique!

Pieter12 said:

C'mon guys. I haven't read this much BS and speculation in a long time. Does anyone here actually take pictures?

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I take many photos but most are of a personal nature and I don't like posting them online. And I'm not going to post my clients photos without permission either so that puts most portraits off line for me.

I just developed by hand 45 rolls of 110, 135, 127 and 120 color film over the past two days. It's going to take a while to scan them all...

MattKing said:

Both. Of course, I was closer to what I understand to be your age when I did most of this
Usually using Vericololor II or III @ an EI of 160.
Some on a tripod, but just as many handheld with a short neckstrap and the left hand trigger grip.
Weddings are great crucibles of technique!

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Right. So if I was walking around at an event with a potato masher and the lens stopped down to f/8 or more I can see the setup being more useful.

Cholentpot said:

Right. So if I was walking around at an event with a potato masher and the lens stopped down to f/8 or more I can see the setup being more useful.

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Most of my weddings involved both available light and some flash. Thinking back to it, I didn't have nearly as many clients who got married at night than during the day, and a lot of them took place, in whole or in part, outside or in very well lit rooms.

MattKing said:

Most of my weddings involved both available light and some flash. Thinking back to it, I didn't have nearly as many clients who got married at night than during the day, and a lot of them took place, in whole or in part, outside or in very well lit rooms.

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Copy that. It tracks.

I've only used that lens on full bright days. I don't have particularly fast film, shooting around 100 so I'm generally near full open. Hold still please. Hold still please. Oh look, the nose is in focus but the eyes aren't. Again.

I admit that I also became very expert at finding locations where bounce flash and my big Metz 60CT flashes worked well.

Artificial light at indoor events is rarely flattering, some flash improves things a bit.

koraks said:

I think someone got hold of a bone and isn't about to release it.

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I wonder if this person has ever used one or is it only anecdotes (unhelpful ones) being related.

Parallax is only really a problem with close ups, once you get past a certain distance it fades into insignificance. Possibly around 3.5 feet which was the usual closest focus with a 'standard tlr' using a 75 or 80mm lens. Even then, with close up pictures using close up lenses, there are/were parallax adapters that could eliminate or significantly reduce the problem if the camera was on a tripod.

On the Mamiya series of TLR's (At least on the later ones, C330 onwards) there were markers visible in the focussing screen which moved the closer you got to a subject it indicated the point where parallax would present a problem and allowed you to make corrections to eliminate it.

MattKing said:

80mm equipped TLRs are superb tools that many skilled users create great work with - including "for taking focus-sensitive photos of faces and upper torsos".
The type of camera barely matters, and should be the last thing that a current Rolleiflex owner worries about.

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100% agree

Pieter12 said:

A good portrait is not about the technology, as illustrated in the earlier Julia Margaret Cameron image. Among many things, it is about the photographer’s eye, the rapport between the photographer and sitter, the light and general mood of the situation.

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Photography was always about technology, wealth and privilege, especially in in the days of Julia Margaret Cameron.
Technology has democratised and levelled the playing field.

Vive le snap!

Let's just agree to disagree.

Pieter12 said:

C'mon guys. I haven't read this much BS and speculation in a long time. Does anyone here actually take pictures?

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People having 8 pages of strongly uninformed opinions is apparently cheaper than a Rolleinar 2.

It would seem that the kind of rather pleasingly visceral portraits that Rolleinars produce (owing to shortening the focal length) are apparently mortally offensive to the terribly delicate sensibilities of camera clubbing hobbyists.

Everyone knows the best camera for portraits is the Polaroid Big Shot.