Kiran Bhat Photography

I wanted to have a basement photo studio for a while now. This winter made it clear to me that I needed  to set it up so that I won't go the whole winter without doing photography. That would have been depressing. Initially I thought I'd have just one setup with black background but since I owned two different setups I decided to go with one white and one black background. They are not fancy but they do the job well. I hope I can do studio portraits till it gets nice outside! Here are the setup pictures. The Infinite black background with White Lightning X1600s The White background with Nikon SB28 and Olympus FL50R These are simple setups anyone can do in their basement/spare room. My basement is unfinished so there is no heat so I had to use the space heater to keep the area warm (not very effective unfortunately). I moved most of studio stuff downstairs so I have ready access to various light modifiers, reflectors etc. A few things that I ne

I have to admit, I'm an addict for lenses that produce quality bokeh. Those who are not familiar with the term bokeh, check out this Wiki article. Typically the lenses that produce very nice bokeh have large apertures - f/2 or lower in aperture number. When shot wide open (although not required) the circles of confusion these lenses produce in out of focus areas are a joy to look at. It creates that "dreamy" look at least that's how people with non photographic backgrounds have described it to me. There are some favorite lenses that I have in each format that I shoot with and I call them Bokeh Machines. Small Format - Typically 135mm film size or smaller. It's also known as "full frame" or "cropped frame" in digital world depending on the size of the sensor. Hexanon 57mm f/1.2 -  This lens is amazing and truly affordable compared to some of the other lenses that I own. It can be adopted to 4/3rds or micro 4/3rds format but it's t

I finally finished processing all the film shots from my shoot with MJ. All pictures are shot with Aero Ektar + Speed Graphic combo. First two are shot on Arista EDU 100 and the rest are on Ilford Delta 100. Arista is nice and cheap but the emulsion is not so good. When zoomed in at 100% the scans have spots. Ilford on the other hand is simply amazing.  All the negatives are self developed and scanned using Epson V700. I'm happy with the overall results and love the bokeh. PS:Blogspot is adding some type of tint to all the pictures uploaded for some reason. None of the pictures have the coffee tint.

Probably the last outdoor shoot of this year. It was great working with MJ, I love working with creative individuals like her. Here some of the digital pictures. Yet to process the film sheets.

Velvia is special for me. Of all the color slides I have shot with, the result Velvia produces amazes me everytime. In Velvia blues, reds and greens especially stand out. It can be a little too contrasty for portraits but for landscapes it is perfect. The results are very consistent even with the home development of E-6 using rapid kits. I develop all my E-6s with using my Jobo CPE-2 either with Tetenal or Arista rapid kits (pictured below). I'll post a detailed development process soon. I don't print from my slides so I just scan them with Epson V700 and digitize. Although scanning doesn't do justice to the richness of the slides but it is acceptable, given my small investment in equipments. I feel every film photographer should experience Velvia goodness at least once!   Velvia development in progress using Jobo CPE-2 Sinar F 4x5, Horseman 6x12, Velvia 50 Mamiya RZ67 ProII, Velvia 50 Hasselblad 500C, Velvia 50 Mamiya RZ67 ProII, Velvia 50 Calumet 4x5