xTRA WIDE II Street Photography taken on film with the Hasselblad XPan by TheRealSirRobin

With digital cameras getting, faster, lighter, smarter every year, it is refreshing to see many people also start to incline to film photography. Today I would like to show you a Zine created by one of my favourite X-Pan photographer. Let's check out the xTRA WIDE II.

I am going to be giving this zine and one more photography magazine away. You will find out more about it at this end of the article. If you like my videos please consider subscribing and sharing with your friends, it really helps producing more videos like this one.

Robin Schimko is a photographer and Youtuber based in Germany. On his Channel „the_real_sir_robin“ he uploads a lot of videos about street photography, which is a great passion of him. He mainly uses Leica cameras and besides his Leica M6 he also shoots a lot with his Leica Q, Another camera he features a lot is the Hasselblad XPan.

In this race where many camera companies try to compete with lower price and more frames per second, Hasselblad seems to be running in the opposite direction. HASSELBLAD XPAN introduced in 1998 in partnership with Fuji is heavy and expensive film camera with only 3 lenses. And yet, when you check the second hand market the camera is getting more and more expensive as well as loved amount film photographers.

It is a 35mm range finder that by the way, can also shoot panoramic photos. You can actually switch between 35mm frame and panorama even mid-roll. Even thought it is a film camera it runs on batteries and is full of electronics. The way the camera works is that it lets photograph on regular 35mm film basically taking two exposure side by side. And this zine takes and advantage of that. I think it is worth mentioning that this is actually the second zine Robin produced with XPan. As the first one has been sold out for quite some time rather than reprint the same zine again Robin decided to produce a new one.

Now, camera like this also presents a lot of challenges. The challenge for Robin with the zine was actually the lens. He prefers to shoot 28mm on a regular 35mm frame and the 45mm on his XPan is too narrow in terms of height. He wanted to get the 30mm lens but unfortunately it is hard to get and also crazy expensive.

When you check Robin's youtube channel you can also watch his process and see how he actually takes his images. The other challenge I personally see is the manual focus. Being Leica M shooter I know manual focus can be tricky, especially when you want to make a fast shot. What I like about the photographs in this zine is that they are nicely recomposed even though the initial focus had to be in the centre of the frame.

The aspect ration is the selling point of the camera but also what stands out in this zine. What I like most about this zine is actually the form factor and how it is used to make a use of the wide photographs like for example in this shot (see above). What this aspect ration of the photographs, combined with the format of the zine lets you to make is a beautiful spread and you can print one photograph on both pages or connect two photos that they look like one long photograph (see below).

One thing that you also notice is that, except for a few photographs at the end of the zine, most of them were taken during the day time. The reason is probably because the fastest lens you can get for the xPan is F4.

Let's talk about some "technical" details. The book has 64 pages, 39 images. What I found interesting is that the black and white photos were actually shot on black and white film rather than converted later. Apart from the street photography theme there seems to be no other connection of the photographs.

“This year has been horrible for many people and for street photography it has been pretty bad so far. However, it is important to remember that in every crisis lays a chance. I’ve tried and I am still trying to make the best out of it. Very soon I’ll be back with a bunch of new video, including XPan episodes! “

For more photographs check out Robin's Instagram and if you would like to buy the zine. Link is in the description.

I am going to be giving away this Zine and it will be on my Instagram and new facebook in 14 days. All you need to do to participate is to let me know in the comments on YouTube what is your favourite photograph from the zine. I also realised I still need to finish the giveaway of the Eyeshot magazine, so if you want to participate in that giveaway check out that video as well.

Also thank you for your support on my channel. I have recently switched my style a little bit and it seems like a lot of you actually like it. I know this is gonna sound like a cliched but if you like this content consider subscribing to my YouTube channel and if you really want to get notified use the bell icon. I am not posting too often so I promise it will not bother you too much. Consider sharing the videos with your friends it really helps to small channels like mine.

Thank you!