FIRE WALKING CEREMONY – Another roll on Kodak TMZ3200

Devotees waiting outside the temple

You can read more about the Fire Walking Ceremony in my post from 2014 (here). In short it is a Indian festival honoring the Hindu goddess Sri Draupadi, who is the wife of the five Pandava brothers who walked on hot coals to prove her purity.

Devotees waiting outside the temple

Devotees go through a purification period and on the day of the festival they walk from Little India where they get blessing and protective amulets to the SRI MARIAMMAN TEMPLE in Chinatown where they walk through the coals of the fire pit. After this they go at the back of the temple where they discard they protection and offer to the god the beads necklace they wear since the beginning of the cleansing period.

Devotee entering the temple

This is the 3rd time I am going to the festival. As I mentioned in my last post, total respect to the devotees. I went in the evening as usual with my friend Matte Lim.

Devotee entering the temple

This is my second or third roll of this film. The first attempt was so so. This is supposedly a new film, replacing the old TMZ 3200 discontinued in 2012. I think the film works well for scenes with good contrast and some lighted parts ; if your scene is grayish you wont get much on the picture.

Devotee entering the temple

It was night when I attend the fire-walk festival but both places where I was had some heavy lights on parts of the scene.

Devotee entering the temple

The M6 is great for focusing in the night, even with my ageing eyes, also the metering is quite ok. 

The fire pit (Heavy back-light fooled the meter)

Most shots are done with 50mm Cron (v 5), maybe some with the 35mm Cron (Asph v2), as I swapped the lens between teh M6 and M262 at some point.

Devotee removing his beads necklace

Offering the beads necklace

Processing was done by the usual lab and scanning at home with the Epson v800 , scanning is easy.

 

I like the grain, which is quite limited and pleasant imo (but my wife does not).

The 3 next pictures are my favorites.

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Leica M240 – A rented friend for a lonely week end (Day three, Sunday

This morning I am very adventurous and I try to mount my old LTM lenses on the M240 using some 5 bucks adapters that I own. I have tried the 50mmF3.5 Industar 22, the 50mmF2.0 Summitar, the Jupiter 35mmF2.8 Jupiter 12 (the one that goes so deep inside the camera) and the Canon Serenar 135mmF4 (the bad version) The good news is I did not break the camera and all lenses can fit. I would not bother you with some test shots as I did not make a very scientific test but here are the results:

• The Serenar does not focus at all, but with Liveview can produce some acceptable pictures
• The Jupiter seriously back focuses
• The Summitar back focuses slightly
• The Industar, probably focuses alright but picture quality is really crap

This said they can probably be focusing problems can be used with LiveVew; if ever you can use it. I found myself having problems focusing with the screen in bright light and I need my reading glasses to do so. This is another lesson for me: LiveView on the go is not really for rme, why would I want a rangefinder if I though otherwise?

So I finished playing and walked to Little India with the Summilux and the Elmarit. First stop Tekka Market.

Once again the pictures are taken at a too low speed. Color rendition is fine for me.

Next I change from the Summilux to the Elmarit and walk to the “” temple when there is a celabration

I spend a while trying to get a nice shot of this musician,; I really like the focusing of the Elmarit; unlike the Summilux which have such a long range. Another cool feature of the M240 is the continuous mode, really handy for street or travel type photography.

I made several more stops on the way back home and in the afternoon I take my back to take some pictures of east coast park and the sea side. On the way back, Right on time I rode back via the new sport hub (below)

I pass by gardens by the bay for the sunset over Marina Bay Sands

This was a nice day. I just  forgot to bring the LTM adapters to try the Color Skopar and the Jupiter outdoors, but that’s life.

Final round of shots tomorrow morning before giving back the camera.

The last two film shot from India or when 12 shots are more than enough

Everything comes to an end. I post toguether the last two shots done with the Hasselblad of the Indian trip.
I realized I posted here 4 shots of the last film a good ratio.

Paan Wallah - in the street - New Delhi - India

These were shot in the New Delhi old town between the Red Fort and the Friday Mo-sq.

Bike repair in the street New Delhi (India)

Anyway this is not the end of the Indian pics; I have already discarded half of the digital pics; there is still a long way to go to get to the 200 keepers; you’ll probably see some here soon.