I had the opportunity to shoot with the Pentax 645D medium format digital camera last week. So I captured a variety of subjects — hand held shots around town plus still lifes, products and this abstract in the studio. The shot shown here was taken with an old favorite technique — dual polarization of light to show stress in plastic and produce surreal colors.

The subject is a plastic soap dish, the bottom view of the openings that let the water out of the holder. I took off the suction cups that hold it to the wall.

The set up is a gel polarizing filter on a light box — place the plastic subject on top of the gel — turn on light box — frame the subject with your camera — add the polarizer filter on your lens — now eliminate the light with the polarizer on your lens. The light is eliminated and the light coming through the plastic gives you the magic swirls of color. This image is cropped out of the original. With all the resolution available from the full image (118 mb file), this 1/3 portion still yields a 30 mb file. Not too shabby!

The lens used was the 90mm Macro. I also used the Mirror Up feature on the camera body as the light source was a continuous source and I didn’t want any camera shake from the mirror action. And I like the weather resistant buttons that control all the major settings without scrolling through the menu maze.

I can say, I am now hooked on the high resolution of medium format. Using this camera reminds me of my annual report / corporate photography days with the Hasselblad system.

And Pentax has their new 645Z model coming out soon — 50.1 MP — plus many upgrades.

Stay tuned…