The Social Kitchen at Orchard YMCA

Today I am posting a few shots salvaged from a friendly “reportage” we did with a group of friends last week for The Social Kitchen at Orchard YMCA, in Singapore.

The Social Kitchen, is the Cafe located on 4th floor of the YMCA. It is a social enterprise that provides employment to disadvantaged individuals. The intention was to give them a few pictures to put on their website.

I must say I did not perform very well, and I am bit ashamed of it. I pleased myself in my choice of gear, but the result is not really usable by our friends at Social Kitchen. Luckily some more conscientious photogs were there.

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I brought the Leica M6 with Summilux 50 v2 loaded with Ilford Delta 400. Above are the shots processed in Caffenol, my eights roll and the worst so far I must say. Very nice opportunity to shoot in a kitchen, but also quite difficult as the place is small and was packed with 3 staff and 4 photogs.

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I also carried the Hasselblad 500CM loaded with Cinestill 500. There are only 3 “good” shots on 12, I don’t use the blad so often these days, so I mixed up mix and max aperture, and the first 6 shots were blank. The Cinestill roll was shot at ISO640 as usual, and all shots were done at 1/60 F2.8.

It’s nice to have fun, delivering good and usable pictures is another matter.

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A NIGHT TRIP TO SENOKO FISHERY PORT (Film version)

This is  a small follow-up to my former post : A NIGHT TRIP TO SENOKO FISHERY PORT .

These pictures were shot on Cinestill 800T with a Leica M6 with Summicron 35 Asph v2 or 50mm V5. Processed at the lab around the corner and scanned at home with the Epson v800.

I shot the roll at 640 ISO, still I found the pictures being under exposed, unlike the roll I shot in Tokyo last year.

She is the boss.

 

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.

Yes another roll of Cinestill 800T (35mm)

I shot the last of my Cinestill 800T 35mm rolls during the last holidays in Japan. This is the last roll from the batch I ordered from UK a few years back when it was first released. I must say that I am quite satisfied with this one.

The roll was kept a couple of years in the fridge but had also traveled by plane in many occasions, because it is not so easy to make up your mind to shoot a 18$ roll of film rates at 800 Iso and specified for Tungsten light.

The roll was shot with a Leica M6 camera and one my Summicron lenses, 35, 28 or 50mm.

Based on my former experiences I rated the film at 640 ISO on the M6 ISO dial and off we go lets shoot happily.

The first few shots are taken at night in the popular area of Dotombori in Osaka. Neon lights, restaurants and people, that works great for the 800T.

When shooting at night the M6 meter, which does center averaged measure, will have a tendency to overexpose : your subject is bright surrounded by a lot of darkness, so the reading will tend to overexpose. I generally underexposed by a step of diaphragm or the next speed to get the balance right.

On the next day we were off to Nara to visit its park and temples and the 800T was still not finished. The following shots were done without filter.

The above shot has tints that reminds of Portra 400, so it is not that bad. I tried to shot as open as possible which explains the softness. The M6 speed is limited to 1/1000 second so shooting in daylight with a 640 ISO film does not always give you a lot of latitude in term of aperture.

But shots taken in the shade allows a wider aperture and to play with out of focus.

The next few shots are taken in restaurant in Takamatsu the main city in Kagawa prefecture.

The south most part of our trip was Hiroshima where we visited the peace memorial.

At this point I played it old school and rewind the film which was about 28 shots and store it aside. I loaded a roll of Rollei CR200 slide film and when back in Osaka, I loaded the Cinetsill back again, put the cap, turn the aperture rint to on F22, set the speed to 1/1000 and fires 29 shots to find more or less the point where I was last and use my last 8 frames below:

Another roll of Cinestill 800

A couple years back I participate in the kick starter campaign for the launch o the CineStill 800 medium format film. I ended up (with a slight delay) with a nice T shirt ( (I spare you the picture for the time being) and a few rolls old the said film.

I have already shot a few rolls and I must think of going through the reminder before they expire. The Hassie also did not get much action this year so I loaded a roll when I went to the Leica User Group Singapore outing to the Red Hill market area.

Above is the best shot of the roll. This lady sing sings the market for the greatest pleasure of the people around. The film was rated at 640 ISO, the day was a bit overcast but most shots were done about F11 1/250.

This is the seventh month of the Chinese year and it is the time were the dead visit the world of the livings and displays of religious artifacts as above are common over Singapore, to please them and let them go back in peace.

We also took a tour of the Red Hill close estate, a public housing estate set for redevelopment.

I did not manage to shot the whole 12 frames in  the morning, so I went last week in Chinatown to finish the roll on the lantern festival. I shot the remaining frames at F4 1/60s.

The above is quite OK, the below is not. It is seems a bit difficult for me to measure the light for this kind of scene.

Shot with Hasselblad 500CM, Planar 80mmF2.8 lens, and a tripod fr the last two shots.

The film was scanned with Silverfast and Epson v800, with bit of white balance and contrast and exposure adjustment in Lightroom.

First try of Cinestill 800T

My sson Noé in Shanghart gallery, lightened by Tungsten bulb

Cinestill  produces a tungsten film (the 800T) based on motion picture cinema film; they pre-process and package the film so it can be used in 35mm cameras and processed in any C41 capable lab.  Cinestill also had a daylight film and planed to offer a 120 format film, but if I believe their web site (http://cinestillfilm.com/) all products are sold out at the moment and the kick-starter project for the 120 format did not get off the ground.

“Lock Road” sign in Gilmore Barracks , overcast daylight

You can however still buy some film in some online re-sellers or in brick and mortar shops. I have 5 in my house in France waiting for me that I ordered from Firstcall Photographic Ltd in the UK and I bought this one in the Lomo shop in Chinatown in Singapore. This is quite a costly film, Lomo sold it around 16 SGD and Firstcall 13 (so around 8 EUR or 10 USD). Processing is standard price so around 8 SGD here. All in all this is quite expensive for casual shooting.

Lavender Food Square, probably accounts as daylight (dimmed)

Picking the camera to try a new or special film is a bit tricky, I do not want to blame the gear for missing shots or bad exposure, so I decided to remove the dust from the F4s. Unfortunately it appeared (once all loaded) that the auto-focus was not working any more. Well we have a say in France that for every bad thing there is a good one coming. So with no AF working I was allowed to pick up a manual lens; that was the small and sturdy 50mm F1.4 AIS. But I must admit it feels silly to carry such a big beast of a camera with no AF.

My friend Oliver aka the Walrus, artificial light but I cannot say it’s tungsten

After google-ing a bit I decided to overexpose the film a bit and shot it at 640 ISO and processed at 800. This is a Tungsten film, for those who do not know it is to be shot in scenes lightened by tungsten bulbs. Daylight shots should be done with a 85B color filter; I have done none of this and tried to manage the white balance in Lightroom, but I think I’ll get the proper filter next time (quite inexpensive).

My friend Fei, artificial light but I cannot say it’s tungsten

Many Heineken bottles, artificial light but I cannot say it’s tungsten

“Fat leo’s” team; artificial light but I cannot say it’s tungsten

Camera:Nikon F4s
Lens:Nikkor 50mmF1.4 AIS
Film:Cinestill 800T