There is no Planet B

This is not a piece of sci-fi write up, just a few shots from a protest about Climate Change on Trafalgar Square in London in early November.

It seems to become a recurring pattern in my posts (check here ), but this is a reality : some people wants to let the others know that climate is changing and its time we do something about it.

I don’t necessarily do enough myself (oh that business trip to Asia makes me guilty) , but maybe sharing pictures is a small action I can do?

It cannot be less productive than wearing an extinction rebellion tie 🙂 . Ok ok and what about the impact of film processing? Frankly I don’t know. This was shot with my Leica M4 from 1967, with an even older lens, so probably it has less impact that a digital sensor made in the recent years. Tough question, a bit like electric car battery impact vs thermic engine oil consumption.

This guy’s accordion is probably not younger than the M4, he kindly started playing when I asked to take his portrait, but even in 2022 the M4 is still not capturing sound. I used the KEKS EM-01 Light meter , it is nice and light and quite accurate, but I still have problems reading the measure.

This is another roll of my 100ft HP5 roll that I still have not finished, it is not so old, so I don’t think age has deteriorated it that much but I am not really enthralled by the grain. Well another 4 rolls to go. It seems it never finishes, but all in all it should be about 18 rolls overall. I think I’ll buy something else next. Maybe some Ultrafine 400, but it seems the Extreme is sold out. They now have a different product, Finesse, I have to dig a little before engaging me for another 18 rolls, but also that is just 60USD for 100ft roll.

Rebels at rest

By the way this is roll 23 of this year, all in all better than last year (in term of number of rolls anyway) but far from my 55 rolls from a few years back.

Oh I have decide to go back to Caffenol, so watch this space for badly processed pictures in the coming weeks.

I hope you enjoyed the pics, and remember : “There is no planet B”

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ROLL 2021#14 Just walkin’ around

A short post with not many words for the roll 14th of the year 2021. This is a roll of Ilford HP5+ hand-rolled from a bulk roll. I thought I counted 30 frames but it looks It did not count well and could just fire 25 shots.

I dug out the Leica M4 from the box and screw the Voigtländer 21mmF4 Color Skopar in front of it, set the 21-24mm finder, put a battery in my Sekonic light meter and hit the road.

The roll was processed at home in Caffenol Delta. I put a 6th of the water from the fridge to cool down the very hot tap water ( 29 to 30 degrees), and used the usual dev time (4.41 minutes) for the delta recipe. It looks it had a positive effect as the negatives were not as dark as usual.

The film dried overnight and was scanned today. After scanning there are a few dusts specs and white spots, but all in all a pretty successful processing.

A pretty mundane set of pictures : after 15 month without leaving Singapore, I start to be a bit bored. No big celebrations are happenings, it s a bit more of the same every week ends.

I shall not complain too much as the weather was pretty good that day, instead of the usual downpour we get on afternoons these days.

Luckily sometime the unexpected steps into the frame

Or you have lunch with friends

And suddenly when you feel you are finally in the mood, the film ends.

I hope you enjoyed the post, stay safe.

The last roll of 2020

The back alley

Happy new year dear friend reader! Let’s hope for everybody that 2021 will be different from 2020.

I am cheating a little bit as this is not strictly speaking the last roll of 2020, I have a roll of Portra 160 in the Leica IIIc, that I will finish soon and that technically I will call the roll 51 of 2020 ( I’ll come back to this on the next post).

I love Rock’n roll

So number 50 is a roll of Fuji Across 100 version one, expired sometime last year, shot in the Leica M4 with the Summaron 35mm F3.5 ltm.

28121

Once again I have processed the roll in Caffenol CM, scaling the recipe for 500 CL, with a certain success.

Anchor

As my regular readers have already found out, I was back to Geylang Lorong 3, with some friends. A place that will soon disappear, so no chance to see it again in 2021 rolls.

Heem

I put my favorite pictures at the top of this post, this is my third attempt at the back alley and I am quite happy with this one. And the guitar really rocks.

On most of the shots the Caffenol reveals great details and contrast. I am very happy with this roll. There was also very small dust cleaning required after scanning.

No-parking

The tiny Summaron is super sharp and easy to use. I have used the old Chinese made adapter (not my genuine Leica one) and it seems the focus is spot on even for closer shots.

CCTV ?

Is this the place where even CC TV Cameras get stolen?

Selfie in the making

Good think to tag along with friends is that they can make subjects.

The briefcase

This makes me think about one of these movies where spies or thieves exchange a big suitcase of cash. I did not dare to peak in that one, maybe I should have?

The final hour

Close up

Below a couple of unrelated pictures of the same roll, different styles with the same set-up

The old supreme court

Kid’s story

Caffenol Rebirth : perseverare humanum est

We roll models

So what happened since last post and the “Caffenol rebirth” ; well nothing much happened in town nor to myself, so I shot half a roll of Fuji Across, mostly Saturday

Lonely dinner

Last Sunday I pour my Caffenol in a bottle of green glass (Perrier) and kept in just in case.

Gelato

So tonight I was restless and I decide to give Caffenol another try.

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

Time for a nap

or catching up with th enews

Chinatown is her catwalk

As I did not finish my roll, I opened the Leica M4 in the dark, fiddle a bit with the film and managed to cut a 1 cm lead for the rest of the roll and unload the 22 first shots from the camera. I then loaded it in the Paterson tank and proceed as last week.

The lovely newly weds from China

That way

Massive Development chart give me again 6’44 @ 28 deg, for 100 ISO Accross, the Tri-x was overcooked last week, but that was 400ISO, so I though that I should give it a try, but actually I emptied the tank at 6’14.

Time for a trim

Double ciggie break

The film is still dense, but can be seen through in normal light. Probably some of this is due to the coffee coloration (I can see if is brownish), so for the next 12 shost I will cut the time down by maybe another 30 or 45 seconds.

Social distancing

Orchard back-light

I kept the Caffenol again, I read you can keep for 6 or 8 weeks. Without being so extreme, if I can use one batch for my monthly shooting this changes the economics of it totally, at 2$ a roll this is a no brainer. Plus it is amazing to have all the products ready and go through the motion in about 45 minutes.

My new fav model

Ok so now I’ve been through this roll what is the conclusion. It looks quite good for what it is, no reticulation, reasonable grain, the contrast is quite good.

Walking in the sunshine

This was also measured using my new Keks EM01 ligh meter.

A COVID hero back from work

When humans were roaming the streets

Well the situation in Singapore is not too much at celebrating and I did not find yet the way to represent the poetry of empty streets. So this posts start with reminding the not so distant past when Humans were roaming the streets.

Why did the bus move?

At that time, a couple of weeks ago, I put one of my last rolls of Polypan F50 in the Leica M4 and hit the road with the Summaron 35mm F3.5 ltm.

Not really a crowd

I have a nice Leica LTM to M adapter which provides proper focusing, and bring the 35mm framelines on the M4, so I can frame accurately.

Resting

The roll of Polypan was given to me two years ago, and is probably expired, but shot at ISO 50 it still looks fine.

Napping in back alleys will soon be a luxury

Shooting ISO 50 with a 3.5 max aperture lens in overcast light is a bit challenging.

The careful walker

Chinatown even had Caucasian tourists at that time

Grab drivers at rest

Mobile worship has no limit of race or religion

Shades of grey on the old Polypan are amazing, so are the details.

I had a couple of disappointing roll recently. First I shot a roll of Kodak Tri-X with the Heineken toy camera that shows reticulation. This was a small boat trip with friends for a birthday celebration, so I am quite annoyed.

Ramming speed

The camera works superbly, and ISO 400 by the see on a bright day is plenty for the F10 plastic lens.

Our captain

Even in the shadows as above, but it was screwed up at processing as you can see below.

Is it a call for self processing in the future?

The next roll, is the evening birthday party of my friend Paul, shot with the Leica M6, and still the Summaron 35mm F3.5 LTM. This was a roll of Ilford Delta 3200 shot at 3200. The M6 meter is always very accurate so I am very surprised that the roll turned out so underexposed.

The film was not expired. My only guess is that the meter was fooled by the very bright patches at the table, and even more easily that a 35mm gets a wider range), probably for such event its better to meter from close and keep it fixed.

You can find more articles on this blog about:

• Heineken Camera
• Polypan
• Ilford Delta 3200

I hope you enjoyed the reading and the pictures.

 

 

 

Kodak Ultramax 400 – Oh no I did it again (Took the M4 and VC 21 on the road again)

SMU

We are entering the rainy season in Singapore now, and film rolls are not easy to finish. So the roll of Kodak Ultramax 400 I loaded in the Leica M4 took a little time to finish. Particularly with a F4 lens and less light, not all opportunities are good,

At the crossroad

I very rarely shot the Ultramax before, it is a quite cheap film you can still buy in supermarkets in France. My friend Felix, gave me a roll last time I met him, and he get a quantity of them for the same reason.

Peninsula shopping center

The Leica M4 has no meter so I used my new Sekonic handheld light meter. All in it is doing quite a good job.

Coleman street

The Ultramax end up being quite a different beast compare to the Portra 400. The grain is more accentuated, the colors get a bit more pink / green hue, the film I got from the lab was a bit more curly, but I am not sure it affected the scanning (with Epson v800).

Tiong Bahru

The 21mm gave good results again, thanks to the viewfinder again I think. The vertical shots of cross roads gave what I called “dynamic” in my last post; I think they would benefit in being shot a bit lower, like wait level…

The party is over

… but OK hand metering, range-finding (or pre-focusing or hyper focusing) and view finding are already a lot of actions for a single shot.

Bincho

A choir

With the 21mm the subject is often too far as above, unless you come really close to unsuspected subject …

Fun for everybody

… for everybody’s fun.

Carlsberg for free

Or willing models as above.

The Instax team

Or you meet the Fuji Instax team (I did not enter the discussion about Fuji vs Kodak with them).

Fancy fair

I also had the opportunity to take a few shots at night in a fancy fair and I must say the result is quite pleasant. A bit Saturated, but it looks the film reacted well to artificial light.

Fancy fair

Indonesian model

Interesting story here, aspirant photographer and aspiring make up artists from Indonesia using their friend as a model.

 

SMU : Looping the loop

A  few weeks after the first shot back  at the SMU (Singapore Management University).

The culprit! 

In case you directly jumped here: all shots on Kodak Ultramax 400 (not expired), with Voigtlander 21mm F4, VC viewfinder 21-25mm on Leica M4.

You can’t hurry love but you can try (More about the VC Color Skopar 21mm F4)

One George Street in Singapore CDB

This is a follow up of my first write up YOU CAN’T HURRY LOVE (ABOUT THE VC COLOR SKOPAR 21MM F4) For those who don’t feel like digging back in the archives (pitty, there are a couple of nice shots there and probably my best piece of text in a while), this is about picking the Voigtlander Cosina Color Skopar 21mmF4 back from the dry box and putting it back to work.

Ice cream parlor near Singapore river

Very quickly, the 21mm had two terrible defects for me: the color fringing in digital and the difficulty to frame in general. I decided in June to invest into a proper viewfinder to try to overcome the second issue : I picked a 21-25 VC metal finder.

Walk down the bridge

The viewfinder did a really good job, it very bright and accurate, well built and on top of it it is super sexy (I have to post pictures of the Leica IIIc with it).

Keong Saik road corner with Teck Lim road

All pictures here are from a single roll of Kodak Portra 400 shot with Leica M4 and VC Color Skopar 21mm F4 with the now famous 21-25 VC metal finder. Even vertical framing is accurate now.

“MY CHINATOWN HOME” by  Yip Yew Chong 30 SMITH STREET

Horizontal framing works as well. As I am a slow shooter these were probably taken over a few week ends in different areas of central Singapore.

The guitar hero

To shoot portraits the 21mm requires you to get very close to your subject, and still you will get some distracting details in your frame. Also you may get funky perspectives even if you frame correctly your subject (thanks to the perfect new viewfinder)

Tan Boon Liat Building – a commercial / industrial building

When yout wan to put a lot in the frame as the Tan Boon Liat Building, actually it goes in. Colors with the Portra are quite rich, and vignetting is limited.

The Monkey God temple in Tiong Bahru

Or when you are close to buildings and want to put them in the frame as above, this is a great ultra wide angle.

Don’t go away

I did not do many “street” shots on this roll, but the 21 gives an amazing dynamics to the shots like above.

Sakya Muni Buddha Gaya Temple in Little India

I was very convinced by these first 2 or 3 rolls, and this has slightly changed my photographic practice recently. I use the M262 and M6 with the summicrons for holidays or events, the M4 and IIIc with older lenses for fun( or street, or burning film name it as you want) and recently the 21 is glued to them.

Sakya Muni Buddha Gaya Temple in Little India

So expect more posts like this one, but as you know that I found love with the VC21 again, so i will have to find out new titles.

The Singapura Club – Little India

 

 

A wet day in chinatown

A small write up today, and I will avoid the temptation to make another complete roll review (although in fairness I was tempted).

The flea market that use to seat in Sungei Road east of the city center has been closed for building a MRT (the local term for underground). What used to be coined as the “thieves market” has slowly moved to Chinatown in the heard of the city.

I am not sure what the authorities think of it, but here is another attraction in one of the tourist hubs of the Lion-city. These guys sell mostly old junk, and it’s rare you will find anything you might want to bargain for … actually as odd as it seems I bought for 2$ a record of Industrial Music, and one of the sellers (not sure how to call them) actually has a few interesting cameras.

You will find old watches and Buddhist artifacts and amulets, and for the rest … you’ll see for yourself.

Sure this will come a popular spot for street photography.

The 4 shots above were taken in a rainy afternoon,  with Ultrafine Xtreme 400 iso with the Leica IIIc and the Summaron 35mmF3.5, probably 1/60 second and f3.5.

As I am here I also add as a bonus three earlier shots done on the same film with the Leica M4 and teh modern Summicron 50mm v5.

I hope you enjoyed the visit

KEBUN BARU BIRDSINGING CLUB (The Leica M4 SHOTS)

A follow up of the last post , I showed pictured made with the Hassie 500 CM on Cinestill 50D, but that was the Leica User Group Singapore outing after all, so I carried along a Leica M4 for film shots (here) and a M262 for Digital.

On the recommendation of fellow members of the group I brought my longer lenses, the 90mm Elmarit and a Canon Serenar 135mmF4  (the bad version). I did not use the Serenar on the M4, it is too unpredictable no use to throw away valuable shots.

It is easy to see here what shots are taken with the 90mm and whose with the 50mm.

Shooting with the 90mm is very unusual for me, specially on film. The Elmarit often comes with me on holidays but only for a couple of digital shots. The results are quite pleasing, it offers very different point of view.

The film is another roll of my bulk Ultrafine Extreme 400 hand-rolled. The processing from the lab was a bit below the usual quality, that’s life.

You see mostly men in these pictures, but there were many women as well, they just did not come on the frame at the right time.

 

ZHOUJIA QINGMING – Part 2

A small follow up to y last post about this celebration

Above is mister Lee Kum Yuen, he is the current master and son of the master who brought this Kung Fu / Lion Dance style in Singapore. There is a very interesting video here https://youtu.be/kZq6iGxfWUo.

I shot a couple of rolls with the Leica M4 and either the Summaron 35mm F2.8 (the one with Goggles) or a Summicron 50mm v5.

Above is the typical Lion Dance troupe transport, a lorry used the rest of the week for hardware work.

Below the troupes gathering before climbing up the slope to the part of the temple where the celebration takes place. (Did I mention if the other post the temple is massive?)

The slope is tough, the sun is hot, and yes they drum up-hill

Below starts the celebration directed by a monk,

below the final parade and one minute drumming of all the troops together.

The color shots are Kodak Portra 400, the black and white are Ultrafine Extreme 400, hand-rolled.

Oh yes if you want to see more, come back soon, I also did  a certain number of digital shots as well.