Concerts : Ash Code ( IT) – March 2024

Ash Code is a Dark Wave band from Italy, actually form Napoli. They were playing here in March, opening for French band Corpus Delicti. I could not resit to go back to concert shooting after a very long hiatus.

I wasn’t sure how much gear the venue would allow me to bring in, so I settled for one lens one body set. Namely the LeicaM6 classic and the summicron 50mm v5. My favourite provider had no more Kodak TMZ 3200 so I bought two rolls of Ilford 3200 for the whole show.

The venue is  229 at 229 Great Portland and the evening organized by Reptile. I had no problem checking the camera in. I had set the body to 6400 ISO, but I will come back to this later.

The concert was great. Ash Code, produces some dancy tunes, not very remote to what Sisters of Mercy would have done, with a bit more synthwave side. Maybe a better comparison could be found in the direction off some 80’s belgian bands , remote cousins of Neon Judgement or Parade Ground.

They deliver a pretty good show, Alessandro and Claudia taking turns to the mic. Although I am pretty new to their music, that was a very enjoyable.

The scene was quite dark with a lot of back light, so not super ideal, but access to the front of the stage was super easy. I shot a concert of a friends band with the same set-up a few years back and I realised that the only good shots are those where there are both dark areas and highlighted ones, there is not point shooting a scene without contrast, whatever the ISO.

I also had a discussion with a pro about the value of metering : because most of the scene is in the dark, your meter will be fooled and try to over expose. So having shot the rolls at 6400 ISO I had them processed at box speed, actually pulling the film or compensating by -1 stop ( there is no compensation setting on the M6 ). I think that was a wise choice. Because most of the shots were taken at 1/125 f.2 or f2.8, I have a fantasy of setting the speed and aperture once for all and not to bother, but I was told otherwise.

More on on Ash Code:

Discogs : https://www.discogs.com/artist/3844956-Ash-Code

Bandcamp : https://ashcode.bandcamp.com/music

Oh great party afterwards by the Reptile team, but it takes too long to recover past a certain age.

Malta on Cinestill 400D

Here are a bit too many pictures of my first ever Cinestill 400D roll for my first ever trip to Malta.

I bought this roll a while back, maybe 6 months, from Analogue Labs ( where this roll was processed) for what seemed to a bit too much money ( about 18 GBP).

Marsaxlokk

I waited for the correct opportunity and here I am going to sunny Malta for a family holiday.

Marsaxlokk Sunday market

The D in 400D stands for daylight, and the film is described as a fine grain color film with daylight balance. It has soft tones, natural saturation, warm skin tones. The film can be shot between 200 and 800 without push process and up to 3200 with push process.

Marsaxlokk Sunday market cleaning up

I loaded the film in the faithful Leica M6 classic, fitted with the Summicron 50mm v5. ( some shots may have been taken with the 35 Asph v2 or the 38 Asph v1, but generally the 50 is attached to the M6 and the others to the M262)

I set the ISO dial of the camera to 400, not knowing what was best for my situation, the box speed seems to always be a safe bet.

Valetta

The days were very sunny so a lot of the shots were done with high speed and smaller apertures. The colors remind of Kodak Portra ( warm tones) maybe and surely has a certain vintage look to them. Is this expected or not, I am not sure.

The film surely has very fine grain and shows a lot of details.

I also find the shots to have a lot of contrast, maybe just bit too much for my taste. But it is a very nice result I think. I an already looking to buy some more.

Oh and Malta in this story? Malta is a small country consisting in a few islands, the capital Valetta is where we stayed. If you are open minded there are plenty of things to do, mostly around history and architecture.

There are also plenty of outdoors activities.

Diving just outside the city walls is one of them.

The place is attracting quite a crowd of tourists, in this mid-term holidays the place was packed with French and Britons.

A street photographer with his box camera

A couple of steep streets with stairs are hosting several bars and eateries.

Our first stop was Marsaxlokk with a famous Sunday fish market. You can access from Valetta by bus or Uber. From the ferry terminal in Valetta you can access the northern island of Gozo ( we missed because the schedule changed the day we planned to go) or you can take a 2 Euros ride across to the 3 cities.

Tourist boat touring the harbour

Boats in the Three Cities marina.

Typical houses with their bow windows

The fortifications and the war museum

Wuestenwinds beach

At night

Finally on the light picture, you can see a very special effect around the led lights. I think its called halation. Very common on the 800T film, but I was not aware that the 400D would also produce it. Anyway, this picture managed to go in Explore on flickr, so thank you Cinestill.

I hope you enjoyed the reading.

Agent Shadow in Paris

The Leica M4 was my first Leica, I bought it in 2011 for the incredible amount of roughly 2000 Eur with a Summilux 50mm v2 attached, to the amazement of my son ( 9 years old then ) who looked at me counting 100 SGD bills as I paid the seller.

Bibliotheque Mazarine, Institut e France – Paris

The M4 had a strange double effect on me : first it was not love at first sight, second it still pushed me further down the Leica rabbit hole. Fast forward 12 years, I only shoot rangefinders ( 90% or more of my pictures ) and I sold my Nikon Digital Kit (awesome gear) .

Libre Service

So as per the opening picture I still own the M4, and shoot with it from time to time, the lack of a meter make me use the M6 more ( or the IIIC if I want to go back to basic). Over all these years however I am ashamed to admit that I have only shot about 50 rolls with it, so roughly 4 a year.

Bourse du commerce

Heading for Paris recently I attached the Summicron 35mm Asph v2 ( the only Leica Lens I ever bought new ) and loaded my second roll of Kosmo Foto Agent Shadow film. This is a pretty sexy combo, I also carried the Sekonic 380x.

La petite tailleuse de pierres

Actually not : the young lady above is not a stone mason, but close enough : she is a project manager in a company renovating historical buildings. And she was giving a hand for the “Journées du Patrimoine”, and yes : she can handle a hammer.

I can’t I have pop-up

So back to Agent Shadow… I found the name a bit ridiculous, why do you have to give witty names to films? Also I was not so amazed by my first roll. But at a third of the TMY / TRI-X price, it is worth giving it a second chance.

A Love Letter to Paris by Peter Turnley, by the Paris Townhall

In fact this roll gave me some good reasons to like the film : it is not too contrasty, grain is small, details are good. All in all this a very good midway between the HP5 and the TMY.

La Sorbonne

Mazarin statue on his tomb

We were lucky to be in Paris during the Journées Européennes du Patrimoine as we could visit a couple of historical buildings like the Institut de France, la Sorbonne and the College de France.

La Sorbonne library

A professor introducing us to the College de France

On the last day we had a bit of street action as the sun was going down. Walking towards Chatelet, we met what was left of a street party / demonstration.

On n’arrete pas un peuple qui danse

When suddenly arrived a massive party of rollers / cyclists.

Causing an interesting / interested reaction from the party side of the place.

Ensemble / together

I hope you enjoyed the pics. Film was processed ( and bought ) at Analogue Films in Shoreditch.

Leica IIIC, VC 21 and Kodak Profoto : mundane shots in London

Knightsbidge

Quite a while back actually, I shot a first roll after the IIIC was repaired. But one roll is not enough right?

Notting Hill

So, on a sunny day, I loaded the little fellow with a roll of Kodak Profoto 100 a fool proof colour print film that comes and goes from the shelfs, and screwed the Voigtlander Color Skopar 21mmF4 on its front.

First set of pictures were taken during a big walk to Notting Hill, Portobello road and back.

The area is usually very colourful and have a lovely rendering on film.

And the 21mm give some good dynamics to the pictures.

If you are familiar with my blog, you remember that a couple of years back I bought a metal 21/25mm external viewfinder made by Voigtlander to replace the plastic one that comes with the lens.

The optics of the plastic finder seems to unglue itself and move so its not fit for its purpose. I brought it back to the shop once, then tried to repair it myself, not so easy. In the end I bought the separate viewfinder for about half of the price of the lens ( both new).

As I am in no haste of finishing any roll, a week passed for the next stroll to Brick Lane.

Crossing the City on our way to Brick Lane ( because the tube broke down), we came across this white dead tree which in fact an art work by Maurizio Catellan.

… and we finally hit brick lane and its murals.

And another week passed, until we finally walked by Marylebone (above) and Soho ( Below).

In between, the Thai restaurant below is situated opposite the Aperture Camera shop where the IIIC was repaired.

There is always some action in Soho, but not enough to finish the roll. Luckily there is always a Sunday walk to Hyde Park…

where a lucky young fellow turned 30.

Very happy to walk around with the IIIC again and see that’s its working fine. The 21mm is still a hard beast to master and there are a couple of missed shots with my fingers in the frame. I finally quite like the film, maybe its better for evenly lit scenes. But overall I cannot complain.

London in Pride

Our left neighbour

Saturday 1st on July 23 was my first time attending London in Pride. I wasn’t sure about my expectations, but it was soon clear that this is a very popular event.

Our right neighbour

We managed to find a spot near Hyde park corner with direct access to the parade (behind grids though). We were super lucky to have colourful neighbours on our left and right side, so many of the people participating in the parade engaged with them, giving me some opportunities for some “action” to shoot.

Tom was here!

As much as I like taking snaps, I like enjoying the moment, so I stayed at the same place all afternoon, this is not necessary a great idea as after a while I had some serious backlight which is visible on the later shots.

Flying proud and safe with BA

So on the gear side, I brought the M262 for the digital shots and the M6 for film as usual. I carried a 50 cron v5, a 35 cron Asph v2 and the 90mm Elmarit.

The fireman’s kiss

On the M6 I had a few shots left on a Ilford Delta 400 ( black and white ) and rummaging in my film box I realised I did not had many rolls, I stopped hoarding films a while back. I bet that colour would be best suited (good guess) so between a Ektar 100 and an expired Cinestill 800T I settled for the later.

Ni hao

Ok that’s a bit silly, to shoot in daylight with a tungsten film I know, but being unsure of how easy it will be to shoot film that day, I settled for the cheaper film. I purchased this Cinestill as least 5 years ago so it probably cost me half of the Ektar cost, it was time to shoot it and I had decent daylight shots in the past. We ‘ll see in a couple of weeks how sound was this reasoning. And I compensated a bit for the old age of the roll by shooting at 400 ISO

Reflection

So here are a selection in my 600 or so pics. On the M262 I switched a few times between the 90mm and the 35. I think I rarely used the 50.

Pups out for a walk

A camera friendly diva

The flare due to the backlight is quite pronounced in the above, I did serious ( for me) Lightroom edition to compensate, but that’s not 100%. Also I did not put my reading glass when formatting my SD card so I inadvertently reset the camera to factory settings, so I lost the compensation control on the thumb wheel, which I normally use a lot.

Everything is better with bubbles

Mind the Gap

Mister Leather was in town

Y.M.C.A.

A lot of fun, charm, good spirit and probably quite a dose of courage for some participants. I’ll be back.

I hope you enjoyed the post.

Roll 11 – The Leica IIIC is back from repair

So the Leica IIIC went for a repair, at Analogue UK, he was suffering for a lazy curtain causing half of the frames to be underexposed.

When I collected the camera from the shop I loaded it with a roll of Ilford FP4, screwed in the Summaron 35mmF3.5 and hit the road for some test shots.

I have been quite slow to go expose the whole roll. The IIIc even flew to Singapore ( and back ) for a week of work when I only took 4 shots ( I was super busy).

One of the 4 shots is a portrait of my shy colleague Terrance above, while we had lunch at Keppel Bay.

The other 32 shots were taken around London, in my usual areas, Chelsea above, Regent’s Street below.

Or even people strolling along King’s road.

So what do I think about the repair? Well the main defect is gone, clearly there is no comparison with my two rolls from Paris in April.

If I want to be picky I would say that I still fill that I still found the right side of the pictures like the above a tad darker. But this is very subjective

When the light is more subdued left and right seems identically exposed.

Up close and personal, with some flare, that’s not on the body, relax.

The Austin Mini (Special) was my very first car back in 1986!

A colourful street, converted in black and white inside the camera.

Around that time everything felt regal.

Emergency Exit, inside a party bus

Fenwick has been sold and will go soon have I heard

Oh I recently read a review of the TT Artisan 28mmF5.6 LTM version, this is a very tempting lens to complete my LTM kit for a limited budget. The original Summaron prices has rocketed sky high. As we enter July tomorrow, Christmas is just 6 month away 🙂

Everything comes to an end. I hope yo enjoyed the post.

Drum & Bass On The Bike

So 4th of June 23 was a beautiful Sunday, where I forgot receiving an invite to join “Drum & Bass On The Bike” at 2pm at Wellington arch. But anyway as fate has it, by 5h30 I passed by the said arch and noticed there was quite a crowd.

DJ Dom Whiting the man himself

Bodies were shaking to to Drum and Bass sound of DomWhiting and frieds.

Good vide and music. Dancing in the street ? Anytime!

Selfie opportunity

Find out more at https://www.domwhiting.co.uk/

All shots Leica M262 and Summaron 35mm F3.5 LTM

2023 ROLL#05 – PARIS IN THE SPRING (2)

Sunday newspapers sold at the corner of the street

As the proverb says “errare humanum est perseverare diabolicum“, so here my second post with the second roll shot in Paris ( in the spring) with the Leica IIIC and its curtain problem

A bright jazz band

Of course I did no knew at the time that the infamous back curtain was lazy and that my pictures would be overexposed on the left and underexposed on the right.

Meanwhile Kuzama was painting a vertical line

I was so happy shooting away because as per my last post ( 2023 ROLL#04 – PARIS IN THE SPRING ) Paris and Leica III make for happy shooting. Particularly when a jazz band is playing at the foot of a giant Kuzama painting in the sky ( courtesy of LVMH advertising) .

Canal Saint Martin

We made a particularly long walk that day from the Seine to the Canal Saint Martin, aiming to reach la Villette ( we stopped before and turned back, that was already a 10 km plus walk).

Silence Kills

When I lived in Paris, I rarely ventures in this area, I probably did not set foot there in 20 years. For the cinema aficionados along the canal is the famous “Hotel Du Nord” from eponymous movie by Marcel Carné with Arletty.

Walk your plants

The canal seems to have become a fashionable leisure area where the young and the less young go for a stroll, a ciggie or a drink on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Particularly if the sun is out.

Rediscovering comics

.. playing pétanque, reading, lounging, studying, making music, drinking again, sunbathing, all typeof activities seems to fit along this calm water piece.

Unwilling victim of my camera

Our road ended at the “base nautique de la Villette”, visiting the park of la Vilette will be for another time.

A Vintage Citroen DS, with its vintage driver, shot with a vintage camera.

In 2023 we bring our empty bottles for recycling

The country of food (like any other country)

Next day was the last day in Paris, time for a couple of snaps like the creperie above of the other jazz band below.

A young fan

Ok I did not emphasize too much but the all the shots show signs of the curtain problem, at various level, depending on the speed of the shutter. I played a bit with Lightroom trying to balance highlights and underexposed areas, but I think as the scanner was fooled by the problem, there is just that much I can do. I think I can try to rescan some shots twice and blend… not sure there as any worthy of such work, maybe the next one…

Hyde Park Corner, London

Back in London I still had a few shots in the roll. I changed the lens for the Voigtlander Color Skopar 21mmF4 and shoot away on a Saturday stroll. The mounted police above is quite nice, very dynamic, the 21 has some charm.

Vintage on vintage again

This roll was shot on Kodak Tri-X (ROll 04 was TMY 400).

So the Leica IIIC went to Aperture UK for a CLA and they called me after a little more than a week to announce it was ready. I went to collect it yesterday and put a roll on it so I am checking that its definitely ok. The CLA cost 240 GBP, already the cleaning of the rangefinder is awesome, even if the window is small, it is super bright, focusing is a bliss. It looks like I have anew curtain also.

Tottenham court road – London

Is it worth it? Well how long is a piece of string? The gentleman from the shop told me a IIIC is about 250 GBP, so I could buy a new non CLA’d one instead of fixing mine : that’s an easy answer. Now on the other hand this starts to be an expensive camera. I bought it for about 200£ 10 years ago, had an initial service of about 200£ and now an 240, that’s a 640£ body. On the plus side its newly CLA’d, is in good condition. I shot something north of 40 rolls over 10 years, you can try to make some maths see how much vintage shooting costs.

Lets see how the new roll turns up…

2023 ROLL#04 – Paris in the spring

Munching in the sun

“Are you feeling lucky punk?”, the famous line of Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry was probably a warning. How lucky was I feeling picking up the Leica IIIc for a week end in Paris?

Girls in Uniform

I had not used my oldest Leica for a good year, so it was time for a walk outside the cupboard. I attached the Elmar 50mm3.5 and took a couple of rolls of Kodak film. One TMY 400 (this one), one Tri-X (the next one).

Everything that shines…

I also packed the Sekonik 308x light meter, as I cannot guesstimate and I found it easier to use than the flash shoe one I use from time to time.

A movie character

The IIIC is charm to use, and shooting with it you really feel lucky (I do). The Elmar itself is another story, the aperture setting at the front of the lens is not very user friendly, and it puts me in a mode where I set my speed and aperture only every few shots.

Pass me the lotion

So far so good, and I can add, probably for the 10th time, that the camera is quiet small and funky so it is quite appropriate for street photography ( I don’t like the term cause I am a bit snobbish, but that’s what I kind of do).

Another kind of street artist

So where does it go wrong? As usual with film photography it goes wrong when you get home, wait a week for the lab to process your film and you discover that the film has not turned out quiet as expected.

But the band played on

With some reframing and photoshopping I managed to minimized it, but on that beautiful week-end where most of the shots were done at high speed ( for the IIIC that means 1/100, 2/100 or 1/500, I never trust the 1/1000) the left of the pictures is constantly overexposed and the right underexposed.

Ciggie break

It is more noticeable in the scenes which are brightly lit, like those at the market, not at all in the one below shot in dim light. This is due in my experience to the back curtain being lazy.

Sketching in St Eustache

Lost

The painter

The two pictures above were actually shot in landscape and resized, as half the frame is black.

The harder rat will last (I can’t translate the French wordplay)

So what happens next? Well first thing I shot a second roll because I did not knew, and you will see it in a couple of days.

Then last week I brought the camera to Aperture UK in London to have it serviced. For the second time this little fellow will cost me more than I paid for it in the first place (230 USD back in 2013). Ok I realised that this is 10 years back! I can’t believe it. I think I shot about 35 rolls with it, so we’ll probably say that each roll cost me 20$ of camera usage, not counting the lenses. Film is definitely not cheap.

A popular Japanese place

I hope you enjoyed the reading, be patient, next roll is coming

2023 ROLL#03 – LONDON IN COLOR

Borough Market – Hot Chocolate

OMG this is roll 03 already ! But one sec where is roll 01? Well ok Roll 01 is sitting tight in the computer, waiting for its blog post, but I think I could share a few colour shots for a change.

The players – Clerkenwell

So actually the trip starts where Roll02 finished, in Borough Market, I had a bit of a hard time to load a roll of Portra 400 in the M6, god knows why. This is always so easy but not that day. So I missed a few shots and soon after it was loaded it was too dark for the Summaron 3.5. On the way back we walk up to Smithfield market, then up to Clerkenwell, where we met these gents playing chess outside of a church.

Who cares about signs when you drive a Jag – Chelsea

Sunday was more a Chelsea / Thames river walk where I first met the above Jag then towards the Thames I met again the following acquaintance.

The return of the penny farthing- Chelsea

The guy on the penny farthing this time in colour, the cars don’t make much for a background, but I had not enough time to move them around.

Then a long walk along the Thames.

My photographic weeks are long tunnels where nothing happens until the next week end, so after a long apnoea I carried the roll of Portra ( with the camera around it) to the west side that time.

The three wise men

Around Harrods I met these three happy Chelsea pensioners, they are retired servicemen from the British army, leaving in Chelsea. They were happy to pose for me in front of a big car. When I told them with such a big car one may think they were having a good life they told me that indeed they had. Nice to meet happy folks from time to time.

Kensignton Palace entry

Through Hyde Park and towards Nothing Hill I notice the doorbell of Kensington Palace, next time I am invited I’ll know where to ring. Two Pictures are not much for a Sunday but ok there’s no hurry.

Meanwhile life goes on

Opposite 10 downing street Ukrainians continue demonstrating against the war that is still going on in our backyard, while here life goes on.

… a special tourist

Moving eastwards, Benjamin Netanyahu was in town, causing some of his countrymen to express what hey think of his visit to the UK and recent policies. The man travels in style, staying the Savoy.

A couple of shots reminding of the Empire and its colonial past.

Monuments to the Gurkha’s

A Royal Enfield Side Car

Dancing in the streets

Luckily all is not doom and gloom and people are still dancing in the streets.

I hope you enjoyed the walks, maybe a bit of Paris action soon…