CNY 2021 in Chinatown with the Hassie 500CM

Saturday morning a small outing was organized by one of my friends and we met in Chinatown to capture the atmosphere of this every special Chinese New Year.

The God of fortune

I brought the Hasselblad 500CM with the standard lens (The only one I have), loaded with my last roll of Portra 160.

The Buddha tooth relic temple

The film was processed and scanned in Whampoa Color. And I am quite happy with the results once again. I think from the roll are missing picture of the bottom of my bag and a redundant picture of the Sri Mariamman Temple.

The Buddha tooth relic temple

Shooting with the Hassie is very slow, and I brought multiple films but could only shot one.

Difficult crossing

One of the many murals describing last time Singapore (Here a Chinese Opera)

The usual decorations depicting the zodiac signs hanging on South Bridge road

Chinese lanterns in from the hindu temple of South Bridge road

Singapore racial harmony (official term) finds a perfect example with the display of Chinese lanterns in front of this Hindu temple and the sign above the entrance wishing to all a Happy and prosperous Lunar New Year.

Sri Mariamman Temple, Singapore

I waited 15 good minutes to take this shot to finally get a mopped in the middle and miss the top of the roof.

A group of Urban Sketchers drawing Chinatown as we shoot it

Chinatown complex hawker center

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McPherson “Lego”buildings

This is a set of pictures of the colorful public housing blocs situated on Circuit Road in Singapore.

Circuit road is accessible via Mc Pherson MRT, and is located in the east part of town, 20 minutes ride from Orchard Road.

This estate dates back from the early 1970’s and has recently received a face-lift, becoming the Lego or Mondrian estate. Apparently the “upgrade” as we say here was not only cosmetical as the area used to be a bit shabby from what I gathered.

The outing was organized by Low Che Eng from the “Lets Shoot Film SG” Facebook group. We were nearly  a dozen freaks walking around the estate, with cameras ranging from various Leicas and medium formats to a view camera (Chamonix ?).

I carried around the Hasselblad 500CM  and 80mmF2.8 loaded with a slightly expired roll of Portra 160vc (nearly two years I think) shot at 200iso and the Leica IIIc with the Voigtländer 21mmF4 loaded with a roll of Rollei retro 80s.

The film was processed at the usual lab and scanned at home with the Epson v800.

I did a bit of post processing in light room but even without it the film turned out quite well.

 

Finally meet a resident, this gentleman used to a be a guitarist at the raffles hotel back in the days where hotels had musicians and is  now keeping fit in his old age. This is the last shot of the roll hence the slight issue on the top of the frame.

The hassie keep on having problems shooting 12 complete frames, but this time I got lucky.

 

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

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