Twelve a dozen

And here is the second roll shot with the Hassie in London last month. Kodak Ektar 100 shot at 100, with Hassie 500CM.

Friendly climate activist (Aren’t they all?)

I use a handled Sekonic L-308X, that is overkill for the job, but I had to change my last one after 10 years of service, some soldering broke, and I though about finding it a new home and treating me to a new meter.

Unhappy campers

I am impressed by the 3D pop on this shot. The hassie is a great ice breaker. I really like these first two shots.

Market Magic

A bit of Easter spirit was still hanging around.

Hassie is for making friends

We bumped into Malaysian students around Borough Market, chit chat about Singapore and Malaysia and took a few pics and weefy.

The Cabbies café

I was quite intrigues when I arrive din London to see these street shops selling food for cabbies and probably the general public also. I never tried though.

A colourful block near Victoria station

Battersea station

Film processed and scanned by Analogue Lab in Shoreditch.

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ROLL 2021#14 COLORFUL JOO CHIAT

So after Roll15, here is Roll14. This one is a bit late as I had to bring it to the lab and it took me the whole week to do it. Well so here is a beautiful roll of Kodak Ektar, processed and scanned by Whampoa color. The roll was shot with the Hasselblad 500CM with the kit lens (Planar 80mmF2.8), as last Sunday I stick to the rule, one camera one lens.

So these are 12 shots done when I met Ez in Joo Chiat, you can see him in one of the shots.

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It was a beautiful morning, with a lot of light (and very hot), I shot the Ektar at 100 measure with the Sekonic 308x. As usual there was not a single AA battery in sight at home, so I started my photowalk by scouting for batteries.

ROLL 2021#15 FAREWELL, MY VERY LAST SINGAPOREAN ROLL

The uncle he is a busker

That’s public now , I am a quitter, after 14 years I am leaving Singapore. I am moving to new horizons but that’s a story for later. The recent tightened measures are not facilitating farewells and the mood is not to party.

Last Sunday, I wen out but my shooting buddy Ez, founder of the Hasselblad User Group Singapore (HUGS), for a last photo walk. We met in Joo Chiat and then walked to Kalang MRT along Geylang road. Quite a walk under the hot sun.

Camera of choice was the Hassie, loaded first with a roll of Ektar (Still to be processed) and here with my fav film : the Rollei Retro 80s, processed in Caffenol.

Its been a very satisfying morning, walking with my friend along the charming Joo Chait road, then turning into what used to be the last red district of Singapore (Still a bit seedy in 2021).

Geylang has a very rich architecture, remains of better days.

Why does the uncle cross the street

Eggs business

A rare close up shot, never really satisfactory to my taste.

The house with the Sikh guards on the pillars.

HUGS man.

A closer look at the HUGS man with a wrong T-shirt though.

I could not have dreamt of a more satisfying last roll and Ez promised I can keep posting on the HUGS groups even when overseas, so all is good; it just a goodbye.

CNY 2021 ON KODAK EKTAR

The Buddhist lodge on Kim Yam Road

So when I brought my last roll of Portra to the lab the uncle coaxed me into buying some Ektar 100, not wanting to look mean I bought not a roll but a box of 5 rolls. I must say this is a decent deal as it comes with five coupons of one dollar to be rebated of their processing. If I remember correctly this is 52 dollars for the 5 rolls and they do processing + super decent scanning at 11 dollars (Singapore Dollars).

Monkey God Temple in Tiong Bahru

I shot Ektar before, but mostly in 35mm, I must say it pays credit to the claim that it is the finest grain film. So I loaded the good old Hassie 500 CM with my first roll and hit the road to give it a try.

Chinese Lantern Tiong Bahru

12 shots on a 120 roll is not much, but walking through overshot areas on a Sunday afternoon, it can be quite a challenge to finish a full roll.

The ex-Majestic Hotel, now the Straight Clan asscoation

We walked from home to Tiong Bahru, then headed to Chinatown. The Straight Clan is where the Majestic hotel used to be. I spent 5 weeks in this hotel in 2006 and have some interesting shots from the construction site period, when it was converted. Maybe I’ll share this some time.

Buddha tooth relic temple

We moved to the Buddha tooth relic temple where I notice the Buddhist flags which where not there last week ( you can check the post) and I though it was a nice opportunity for color sampling and smooth grain demonstration.

A peanuts stand in Chintaown

In Chinatown every year temporary stands selling goods for the occasion the Chinese New Year appear and disappear in a mater of a few weeks. Generally they close late on the eve of the New Year day. This year everybody was masked, there were less stands as the people coming from other countries could not enter Singapore. If you want to ne picky, the focus is on the cage bars, not the seller.

Welcome to the year of the Ox

Exiting Chinatown, I took this shot of the Ox silk paper statue. This is not the best angle as it is quite busy with the traffic lights posts and cars. The best angle is diametrically opposite I think. But you can see here how nice and bright the colors are.

Substation on Armenian street

Nice mural on Substation, an art center on Armenian Street, close to the Peranakan museum. Substation used to host gigs and has a broad program, with what seems to be a focus on the street / youth culture.

Rendez-Vous Hotel

The last shot in order to finish the roll : a mundane view of the Rendez-Vous Hotel at the bottom of Orchard Road. Totally uninteresting but very nice blues.

I you missed the links in the text you can check the post CNY 2021 in Chinatown with the Hassie 500CM to compare similar shots with Portra 160.

All shots: Hasselblad 500 CM with standard 80mmF2.8
Kodak Ektar 100 shot at 100
Processing and Scanning : Whampoa Color

When the coffee is good

Yes this is a about Caffenol again: after a few rolls ranging from total failure to barely acceptable, I finally got two rolls who turned out pretty good yesterday. I must say that I finally received the pure vitamin C powder so this brew is more deterministic that the others. I also stick to reducing the ingredients by 1/4th as I use a .75L bottle to store it. I used the times derived from past experiences and the Massiv Dev Charts site. So for this Rollei 80s I used the mix at room temps ( about 28/29 Degrees) and 5’25” from when I started pouring to the time I poured out.

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  Paper work

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  Arabica at Arab Street

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  Science Museum

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  Philip Street temple

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  The customs house

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  The MBS Apple Shop

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  The MBS Apple Shop

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  Rest after a ride

The result is pretty good, contrast is fine, there is little dust on the negatives and scanning goes without problem.

I ll keep doing this a few time before maybe trying to cool the mix a little in order to have more leeway in playing with the dev time.

All shots with Agfa Isolette III on Rollei Retro 80s. Oh it is noticeable on some shots that markings from the film backing paper can be seen, but this roll (I have 2 more) are 2 years expired are spent the last few years in the humid climate of Singapore so it may explain why.

Caffenol rebirth : week 3

I am pushing my luck by trying the my brew from two weeks ago again this Sunday.

First things first, shooting a bit of film. The weather is not improving and I did not had a chance to shoot much this past week. So this morning I loaded the old Agfa Isolette with a roll of Rollei 80s (my favourite film) and hit the road in direction of Arab street with a detour by Little India to finish the roll of Acros I processed last week.

Cool and Joy Barber

Waiting for a ride

Morning break

The waitress

Arab street art

The Sultan Mosque

Cleaning after the rain

The cute rider

Arabica

More arabica

at the crossroad

The Agfa uncouple rangefinder is no longer working so distance are guestimated. I also use the EM-01 KEKS light meter.

For processing I used the two week sold Caffenol stored in a green bottle in the shade at ambient temperature (more or  less 28 C). I think it turned out quite well (5 minutes processing at 28 degrees, 30 second inversions then 3 inversions every minute). The negatives are of average thickness, maybe I could have added 30 seconds. The caffenol is now old and this is the 3rd film processed with this batch.

I made a fatal mistake by wiping the film with my kitchen towel, lot of dust I had to clone in Photoshop. I will have to find how to do this properly. The fixer is starting o have some deposit. Maybe it wont last after the next couple of films.

Plans for next roll is to start a new batch of caffenol to see if the process is repeatable.

Around Arab Street with the Hasselblad

… and some friends from the HUGS (Hasselblad User Group Singapore), just before we could not hug anymore. A very small mid week post, 10 shot of a Rollei Superpan 200.

Corona

Waiting

Friendship

Le marin de Gibraltar

Lets get a ride

% Arabica

Humps ahead

In my hands

Sultan Mosque

Shadows and light

This is taken with a Hasselblad 500 CM with the Planar 80mm F2.8 CF, processed at my usual lab and scanned at home with the Epson v800, and edited in Lightroom. I don’t particularly like the Superpan, but I must admit it was OK on this occasion.

Toa Payoh Markets

Saturday Low Che Ng, the man behind the facebook group “Lets shoot Film SG” organized an outing in Toa Payoh area in central Singapore ; mostly visiting two markets (apparently there are more around there)

I packed a bit too much gear, but mostly for this post, I shot two rolls of Cinestill 800 with the Hasselblad 500cm and 80mmF2.8. The films were processed in express by one of the labs we still have here : Konota. They were scanned at home on the Epson v800 and Silverfast, using the Portra 400 VC 6×6 profile.

I never really managed to get perfect exposure with the 800T, but generally I shoot them at 640 and process at box speed, giving it a bit of over exposure. The markets were very nicely lit and indoor and shots were generally done at 1/125 F4.

The Jackfruit man

The first market has a first floor hosting a few stalls and giving a nice view of the ground level.

The reluctant model (I will print and bring her the picture in order to appease her)

For outdoors shot I did not use any filters. Just a bit of post processing in Lightroom ; it looks like the color rendering is quite OK.

These two rolls are dating back from the kick-starter project of the Cinetstill 120 format, it appears they survived nicely in the fridge (there are 3 more there).

The second market (Toa Payoh Lor 7 Market I think)  is a bit smaller in term of food but the hawker center was quite busy and nobody seemed too bothered by six photographer hanging around.

The amount of detail in the shots is amazing despite of the grain, in the shot above at full size, you can see the cigarette butt glowing.

A lot of sitting and waiting it seems.

And playing with phones

At the back was a small shrine attended by the lady with the green hat.

And finally a stall selling the king of fruits : Durian.

As for every activity in Singapore we have a fodd break, tasting an amazing carrot cake at xin ji fried carrot cake (for non Singaporeans you have to google to check what this is, and come around to try it) .

I also did two half rolls of B&W in 35mm so maybe you will hear more about the Toa Payoh markets soon.

MCPHERSON “LEGO”BUILDINGS on slide

This is the second roll shot with the Hasselblad during the outing to Mc Pherson area. The Lego buildings at this point were behind us, so not too many shots of the “Mondrian” colorful pattern here.

Shots are done with the faithful Hasselblad 500cm, with 80mmF2.8 and I used a more than 2 years expired roll of Rollei CR200 .

When I collected the slides from the shop I watched them on light box there and they really looked brilliant. Once scanned I must say I am a bit disappointed, maybe not trying hard enough.

I  think the high contrast of the slides make it difficult to scan.

Also the weather started to turn a bit more cloudy and the colors less saturated.

This type of shots may benefit from using a tripos as well.

 Being a slow shooter I did not finished the film that day so I carried the Hassie in Lavender area the following week and walked from there to my fav lab t bring the roll

Tibetan Buddhist  temple in Beaty lane

I love this area, I used to hang around there weekly until two years ago, it goes under a slow gentrification, but still very interesting with its workshops, warehouses, small shops, bars, coffee shops…

One of the commercial buildings along Lavender road

On Jalan Besar a shrine in front of a Feng Shui consultant

I don’t like the rendering of the next two shots, but sure they look vintage enough.

Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple on Waterloo street

Waterloo street life

All in all a nice set, but not as nice as the Portra roll of McPherson “Lego”buildings . It does not seem the film has suffered from being expired, but it was kept in the fridge most of the time.

A walk around Singapore with the Hassie and a roll of Cinestill 50D

One of the vintage public housing estates in Singapore

I realized when doing the math at the end of the year that in 2018 I did not shoot much medium format film. I must say that my only working condition camera is the Hasselblad 500 CM which is not so easy to grad around for my casual shots.

A traditional flowers arrangement for a shop opening in Singapore, to wish success. Now binned

One of the consequences is that my film box contains now mostly 120 film, some starting to be expired for more than two years. Not that I think that the are going to be wasted, but it is never a good sign.

 

Hong Lim park

So I have now decided to bring the Hassie along for casual shooting. There will probably be less people in the coming rolls as it is not greatly suited for “street” shots, but probably more city views from a local tourist.

Hong Lim park

Hong Lim park

Hong Lim park

Bollywood Dhoom on Circular Road

Mustapha shopping center

Mustapha shopping center – with people

Allenby House : a colorful building at Jalan besar

I think this is my last roll of the Cinestill 50D, part of the Kickstarter package. I quite like this film in the end as per my last post, it s quite punchy, is easy to scan. And slow speed is fine in good weather and daylight. I am not sure I ever shot many films with the Hassie at night or dusk.

The thyme at Merci Marcel in Tiong Bahru. I love the light bulbs.

One thing the lead of the film is gooey so when you remove the lead you will often end up with some parts of the back that take up the film being sticky, and some goo ending up on the roll as in the first Hong Lim shot.