Camera Day On The RMS Queen Mary
This past weekend was National Camera Day. The ocean liner-turned-hotel RMS Queen Mary permanently parked in Long Beach held an event. There where vendors, and I was able to snag a spot on a private tour with Nikon brand ambassador Vincent Versace. This was one of the hardest days in photography I’ve had so far.
I brought 4 rolls of film, two color and two black and white: Ilford HP5+ and Kodak Portra 400. I had no idea what to expect. Lighting conditions on the Queen Mary are rough, very rough. You go from hard sunlight to interior lighting from back in an era where indoor lights where a full 4-5 stops darker than modern lights. This isn’t reflected in most modern digital pictures and walk through. As such, 400 speed film at box speed is too slow for indoors on this ship. ISO 1600 is barely light enough being forced to work with F/2 and F/1.4 at 1/60 and 1/30th of a second. Down in the engine room/hold of the ship, that isn’t even close, that is about 4 EV below that as well. On top of that, the tour went from light to dark and ended with a model shoot. On top of everything Versace based his photo shoots around modern digital cameras with high speed sensors and auto focus, shutter and aperture cameras. I do regret not trying out a Nikon Zf that the folks at Nikon where allowing people to borrow for free.
Registration started at 3 PM, and my tour was at 5 PM, so I killed some time with some above deck and top deck shots. Portra 400 and HP5+ at box speed.
Next, we went below decks. It got really dark here. I burned half a roll of HP5+ and reloaded the second roll and set the meter to 1600, and attached my speedlight. Needless to say that even down here, finding a shot that you could meter at 1600 was difficult. Still, a few hits.
From the holds of the ship, we where shown three locations with studio lighting and models posing for us while Versace went over lighting. The lesson itself was worth the price of the VIP tour. Portra 400 is very versatile film designed for digital editing. I was able to bring out the background and really bring out the color of the models in post. Still: I wish I had some Portra 160 for this one.
Bottle of champagne that was set against a light. This was an easy one. A table with a plain tablecloth and flier with a bottle of champagne that was pre-arrange and lighting was pre-done. This was an easy one.
On the way out I ran into some of the models again. They where pretty chill about me snapping some extra shots. My forte is street photography, shooting ambient light. Back in my element, I do my best work.
NOTE: Two versions for the lady in the hall ways, changing the saturation to try and get the vibe of the 1920s and better capture the earth tones inside the ship. I am split on which ones I like more, saturated or de-saturated.
Supposedly the ship is haunted. They had a separate ghost tour, but the tour guides did in fact tell me that the passenger suite B340 is one of the haunted rooms. Its locked, but they have a light on, and you can look inside. Metering is intentional here. Portra 400 has really great dynamic range, but pushed HP5+ black and white is super spooky.
One last photo. I saw a fellow photog standing on the rocks outside the ship pointing his camera through a gap in the fence on some rocks. I decided to check it out. I’ll give this one as a freebie. If you are going to see the RMS Queen Mary to take pictures look for a chain running between two fences past the bow. Bring a 50mm lens, and get the camera between the gaps where the chain is. The 50mm focal length with 35mm/FX sensor is absolute perfect, and the gap will line you up close to perfect, just get the fence bits out of the photo. All I had left was 3 shots left of HP5+ at 1600. This looks fine as is, but really doesn’t do it justice.
