Bye Bye Dakota

For the last post of the year, I will show you pictures of a small walk I did at Dakota Crescent estate in Singapore.

Like Rochor Centre, Dakota is supposed to be demolished at the end of this year (so pretty soon). The estate belongs to the public housing administration (HDB), it was built in 1959 during the British area.

The blocks have some interesting feature, some inherited form modernist lines. The most well known feature is the “dove” play ground.

The estate is made of 17 blocks, some high rise, some lower rise, located closed between Old Airport Road and the Kaland river. Old airport road s the road that was leading to the airport that was used prior to the opening of Changi in the 1990’s I think.

As this time the buildings are more or less empty, ready to leave way for a new development (I ignore which). There will be more pictures of Dakota as I  went there again last week. But that will be for 2017.

Color shots done with Leica M262 and Summaron 35mmF2.8; Back and white with leica M4 with Voightlander Color Skopar 21mmF4 or Summitar 50mmF2 on odak TMY 400 film.

 

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THE SECOND FILM WITH THE LOMO KONSTRUKTOR.

This has been more than two years since I was offered the Lomo Konstruktor kit by my wife and my son. It took me 2 month to complete and shoot the first roll and actually it took another two years for me to shoot a second roll.

(See my first post here)

There are a couple of reasons for this none might be very good nor definitive, but here they are.

I first found the Konstruktor very flimsy.  The winding is very hard (hence the frames overlapping, or extra spacing), the shutter mechanism is quite hard to press causing camera shake more often than not.

The F10 lens and 1/80s speed are only allow well lit scenes; my first roll for 400 ISO and a few of the pictures were underexposed. I had a try this time with a 800 ISO Fuji Extra, and some shots are over exposed but all in all that’s not too bad.

I found the framing and focusing difficult, ok focusing a F10 lens is not that critical after all.

Finally I have enough sh*t cameras a home and the Lomo does not bring anything really new. It’s back on the shelf now, it may stay there for a little while.

 

FilmNeverDie.com – Shirokuro 400 film

Give me a hand – Wide Open, a bit OOF, quite smooth

One of the pleasures of shooting film is trying different films when you come across some. When I was last in Melbourne, I stumbled by complete chance upon the shop / gallery of FilmNeverDie.com.

Thai Smile – very grainy probably under exposed

These are die shard film fans, with a collection of vintage cams on display, a fridge well stocked with various emulsions but I was also told by Gary, who looks to be the guy in charge, that they will soon launch their own film. Soon being very soon, Gary sold me two rolls and here are the results of the first one. I also bough a JapanCameraHunter JCH StreetPan roll, that will be for another day.

Sungei Road Golden hour

 

Apart from the label saying C41 and the indication “made in Belgium” the label of the lab and myself were not able to decipher what film it is. I am not aware of C41 films made by Agfa, the only Belgium factory, so this is news for me. But I am just an amateur so who knows.

Stacking up – Sungei Road

The film turns out quite grainy and the negatives show low contrast (I mean there are no white areas, the lighter areas being 30% grey), the scans are looking quite ok though and maybe the exposition was not so great. I used the Nikon F with one of my prisms that does not meter and an old Goosen meter. I will shot my second film more carefully.

Standard Ti Shaw

Trishaw handle bar close up. Grainy but quite pleasing

The result is quite interesting and will probably appeal to the crowd of street photographers that  like grain and “gritty” look.

IAmCeno2 mural on Funan destruction site. Nice rendering to my taste

Shirokuro 400 – Black and White chromogenic film c-41 process 35mm 27 exposure film

FilmneverDie.com: 2/640 Bourke Street, Melbourne CBD, 3000