My last roll of Ektachrome

Lady in Red

No worries : this is only the last roll of Ektachrome in my box. It expired sometime in early 2021 and travelled in a container from Singapore to London, and probably made a couple back and forth on airplanes without being shot.

Nic G, The friendly gardener at All Hallows By The Tower Garden

It all started by the Secret Gardens open days in London, where I loaded the M6 Classic with the said roll, and attached the Voigtlander Color Skopar 21mmF4 and the famous 21-25 viewfinder. It was a very lovely day and we headed first to the Tower of London where we visited the garden of All Hallows By The Tower garden, where Nic the gardener grows plants he saves from the streets.

London Bridge

We walked back along the Thames , for the very touristic shot above, we also visited the Nomura building with its rooftop garden but I managed to screw-up the shots.

Panning action

A bit of panning on passing vehicles is never lost, above on Lower Thames street.

Harry and Edwig

Catching up with the city, we visited the Lincoln’s Inn, as they put on their website a “thriving society of barrister”, I am totally ignorant of this, but there were beautiful grounds and I could shot a few birds. Getting there we crossed the London’s Naked Ride, for which I made a couple of shots but not so funny with 21mm, so I’ll pass. Use google if you have no idea what I am talking about.

A Jag in London

We continued the game the next day, spotted the nice vintage vehicle above.

Singing in the park

We finished sometime Sunday afternoon around Notting Hill visiting some private gardens.

Le Pont-Neuf

As I am a slow shooter, I finished the second half of the roll in Paris. Which I find very inspiring since my return to Europe. By then I had changed the lens to the vintage 35mmF3.5 Summitar LTM.

Boarding

l’Ile de la cité

Photoshoot for a Japanese wedding, place Dauphine

The queue for essential goods

Saint Sulpice

In Saint Sulpice church, a German Choir was practicing, the light was wonderful and I regretted not having a better set-up, but I think the above shot gives an idea of what was going on.

In France everything end with cheese.

This was my first E6 roll processed and scanned by Analogue Films. Good job as usual and I was nicely surprised they were able to do it in the same one week period as they do for C41 or black and white.

I hope you enjoyed the reading.

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Australia on slide (Ektachrome Leica M6)

Holidays are (were) here, once again I was very excited at the perspective of having something different to shoot (or just something extra, or just something). Something different this time was Australia, a family trip to the Coral Reef and Ayers Rock

This is the … err the rusty stuff in the sea

As usual now I picked up the travel kit in my travel bag (3 year old Wotancraft scout) : The Leica M262 and Leica M6, plus a few lenses, 28 / 35 / 50 Summicrons and also the 90mm Elmarit. I know that’s a bit too much, but hey you don’t travel these places every week.

Green Island jetty

I was quite excited to shot a roll of Kodak Ektachrome. This is my third roll and I quite like it. I an not a great landscape photographer, but I had to give it by best shot.

Seascape with dead wood

Most of the shots here are done with the 28mm Summicron Asph V1.

The models

I could jest by saying my recipe to shoot slide is : load the roll, removes the lens cap, aim, shoot. But that’s pretty is actually, the M6 meter is accurate (I changed the batteries before the holidays).

Chinese tourists at the beach

100 ISO is great for full daylight, still it was very bright, I cannot recall exactly, but a lot of shots where around 1/250 and F11.

Dive boats at sunset

The next best thing to shooting the the seascape is looking at sunsets. I often mock shooting sunsets, a bit cheesy, yeah yeah, but when its nice, its nice.

The jetty

And the slide film is doing a good job in this case as well. Mettering was a bit more on the guesstimate side. It was a bit easy for me because I made the guesstimate work with the M240, so I did not lost many shots doing the above and the next one.

The sunset

Final sunset with drinks at the jetty above before heading back to Cairns the next day, and hanging around a couple days there before reading to Ayers Rock.

Uluru in the evening light

Ayers rock is a beautiful place, at that time of the year (late October) but very hot (40 degrees Celsius), the colors are gorgeous. We had a very short stay there, so we did what we could.

Uluru

We walked around the rock at lunchtime and dined under the stars.

Uluru is surely a superb place, beautiful, magic to a certain extent, maybe not as toutching as other places I have been to, but maybe I did not stay long enough.

The rock

And finally before you ask, I was in Uluru after the rock was closed from climbing, and would I have been there the week before I would have not climbed it.

A beautiful gorge along the rock

Finally I shot a single roll during that week. The rest is digital and maybe that would be for another post.

Sunset over Kata Kuja

Meanwhile, visit Australia and shoot film.

BACK TO THE MONKEY GOD TEMPLE – With a roll of slides

The Sedan chair porter

This is a follow up of my last port about the Monkey God temple birthday  in Tiong Bahru. These pictures were taken with a roll of Provia 400F given to me by KC Eng. It is expired since 2008, but I did not check at the time and shot it at 400 with Leica M6 and Summicron 50.

The Lion dance

Ths shots were processed at Analog Lab and scanned at home ; they turned out quite okay. Maybe the overcast weather did not allow for a more reach color palette.

Dragon Dance

Dragon Dancer

Dragon Dancer

The musicians

The musicians

The lantern bearers

The lantern bearers

The lantern bearers

The lantern bearers

The lantern bearers

 

 

 

 

MCPHERSON “LEGO”BUILDINGS on slide

This is the second roll shot with the Hasselblad during the outing to Mc Pherson area. The Lego buildings at this point were behind us, so not too many shots of the “Mondrian” colorful pattern here.

Shots are done with the faithful Hasselblad 500cm, with 80mmF2.8 and I used a more than 2 years expired roll of Rollei CR200 .

When I collected the slides from the shop I watched them on light box there and they really looked brilliant. Once scanned I must say I am a bit disappointed, maybe not trying hard enough.

I  think the high contrast of the slides make it difficult to scan.

Also the weather started to turn a bit more cloudy and the colors less saturated.

This type of shots may benefit from using a tripos as well.

 Being a slow shooter I did not finished the film that day so I carried the Hassie in Lavender area the following week and walked from there to my fav lab t bring the roll

Tibetan Buddhist  temple in Beaty lane

I love this area, I used to hang around there weekly until two years ago, it goes under a slow gentrification, but still very interesting with its workshops, warehouses, small shops, bars, coffee shops…

One of the commercial buildings along Lavender road

On Jalan Besar a shrine in front of a Feng Shui consultant

I don’t like the rendering of the next two shots, but sure they look vintage enough.

Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple on Waterloo street

Waterloo street life

All in all a nice set, but not as nice as the Portra roll of McPherson “Lego”buildings . It does not seem the film has suffered from being expired, but it was kept in the fridge most of the time.

FIRST ROLL OF Rollei Variochrome

“A la Mort Subite” Brussels – Belgium

Summer holidays have been over for a few weeks, and it is time to go back to this blog. As usual I did not shoot as much as expected during the holidays. One poor roll of medium format Rollei 80S with the old Kodak Autographic, and with the M6 a roll of Kodak Gold and the present roll of Rollei Vario Chrome.

L’Atomium – Brussels – Belgium

The Rollei Varichrome is a reversal (slide) film, claimed to have high latitude and can be shot between 200 and 400 ISO, 200 being recommended for scanning. Although introduced in 2017 it seems it is a “new old” stock that will have a limited availability. some reading suggest this is altogether expired material already. Note this film can be cross processed in C41 as well.

L’Atomium – Brussels – Belgium

My complete roll is a bit over exposed, in particular those of the Atomium, generally the dark areas are not dark enough.

Le botanique – Brussels – Belgium

Above shot of the botanical garden in Brussels is very pleasing, the lack of contrast gives a great mood.

The following street shots taken during the FIFA world cup final also work quite ok. The vintage look is overall quite nice, except maybe the picture of the two young ladies, but it may just be the exposure being off on that one.

FIFA World Cup Final – Downtown Brussels

FIFA World Cup Final – Downtown Brussels

FIFA World Cup Final – Downtown Brussels

FIFA World Cup Final – Downtown Brussels

FIFA World Cup Final – Downtown Brussels

Mrs B

I like very much the first shot and the one above taken in the vintage café “La Mort Subite”.

All in all this looks too much like an Instagram filter to me, some shots are very satisfactory, but it will become very gimmicky to use. The experience is quite expensive as well, I think the roll was like 18SGD and the processing 13 SGD, so more or less 1SGD a shot. Shooting a roll of Kodak Gold would cost half of this and Instagram filters are free. In conclusion it is worth giving it a try, but then it’s better have a subject on which you will shot your whole film, the gimmick effect being lost in the consistency of the subject. For instance I imagine a wedding photographer may like to shot a roll of this as a special feature. For me I don’t think I’ll use this again.

Finally two shots below on quite different subject :

Still life : a traditional French post box

Countryside restaurant outside Manila (Philippines)

 

All shots at 200 ISO with Leica M6 and one Summicron or the other (28, 35, 50) and scanned on Epson v800.

 

Chiang Saen – Thailand

So I finally shot the roll of Velvia 50 that has been sitting in the fridge for nearly two years. As around 20 SGD from the shop plus 13 for processing, this does not come cheap so I was waiting for an occasion to put it at good use. It made the trip to Chamonix last year but flew back to the fridge due to terrible weather in french alps.

I finally used it during the recent trip in Sunny Thailand. I used a Leica M6 classic and most of the pictures here are done with the Summicron 28mm. The film was shot at box speed.

Scanning the slides does probably not give them justice, I think that slides are better projected or printed in Cibachrome (who remembers this?) Here they look like nice digital shots, what they are at the end of the day. Scanned on the Epson v500, they look very close to what I can get out of the M262.

For people my age (50+), shooting travel on slides, reminds or the time where our dad or uncle keen on photography was bringing tons or slides from exotics places he visited and embark us for then boring evenings or projections (including oddly synched soundtracks)

Nowadays I the slides are shoot are mostly Rollei; they are more affordable. Both Rollei and Fuji have color casts one scanned, Fuji in the pink , Rollei on the yellow. On this set of late afternoon pictures in Chiang Saen, the cast is quite pleasant and I did not try to correct it too much.

The meter of the M6 (with new batteries) is doing a good job as only one slide of the roll was badly exposed. Counter-intuitively, slides who are notorious for being picky with exposure are better shot under exposed, the opposite to print film which likes to be a little over.

Chiang Sen, is situated in the most northern part f Thailand inside the Golden Triangle notorious for opium trafficking and more. Situated 1 hour from Chiang Rai and 5 hours drive from Chiang Mai, it is  nice city along the mekong where the 3 countries (Laos, Myanmar and Thailand) meet.

I read once that in the 21st Century, slides are the only serious reason to still shoot film. This may not be totally true, but it is probably the type of film which competes the best with commonplace high end digital image.

Singapore Photo Walk – March 2016 – Rochor Center

I joined Bernard Goh’s Singapore Photo Walk outing of March with my son.

Rochor Centre is group of buildings built by the Housing and Development Board of Singapore. It was built and completed in 1977 and consists of 4 blocks painted in vivid colors yellow, green, red and blue.

This is an iconic building in the east side on Singapore center that can be seen by tourists going to Arab Street or Little India.

The buildings comprise habitations, shops and hawkers ( food stalls). On the ground floor you still can find some religious artefacts.

The center has started closing as later this year it will be torn down to give way to a motorway joining the north to the south of the island. A lot of the shops have already relocated, but some are still open. The habitations seems to still be occupied if I can judge by the drying laundry.

The void desk is a classical feature of the HDB blocks, an open area for inhabitants to congregate and do activities.

Our friend Long Siew Leng aka Jumping girl.

Pictures 1 and 2 : Hasselblad 500cm+80mmF2.8, Rollei CR 200 slide film

Pictures 3,4,and 5 : Leica M6, summaron 28mm2.8, Kodak Portra 400

Pictures 6 : Hasselblad 500cm+80mmF2.8, Rollei RPX 100 film

 

Medium format on the Beach : “Le cabanon de la plage” and more

Summer holidays in France means for me taking an odd camera out of the cupboard in my parents house. I must say I am always tempted to take the Dacora Digna  which gives me quite some quite consistent results. Its lack of settings, its Lomo / Holga style rendering (yes but a Free vintage Holga mind you) always make it for interesting results.

Le Cabanon de la Plage is an extremely nice good restaurant with an amazing setting on the border of the beach in La Bocca just outside Cannes on the French Riviera.

La plage

I also became partial to using slide film with it. This makes the price per shot quite high indeed but actually I really like what I get in return.

Nice is nice I think “Nice is nice” is part of lyrics of a song, this made us laugh our heads out when we were teenagers.

Finally, a subtle hint of posts to come, picking one one of the “odd” camera was quite challenging this year as I carried from Singapore my beloved Leica M4 and also my new long awaited toy, a pristine M6 Classic black with a Summaron 35mmF2.8.

Carnaval de Nice – Nice – France

Carnaval de Nice

Last month I went to the “Carnaval de Nice” with the Hassie and the second roll of Rollei Digibase CR200.

Carnaval de Nice

Nice is just 30 km from my hometown of Cannes, but this is just the second time in my life (about 48 years) that I go there. I have an excuse because I have been away since 1985. I went with my son Noé who also made some nice pics with his Coolpix.

Carnaval de Nice

Not so easy to catch action with the Hasselblad, I was also not very well positioned so there is a bit of back-light. I still think this film is great; the colors are very realistic and it is quite relaxed regarding exposition.

Carnaval de Nice

Carnaval de Nice

Carnaval de Nice

 

Camera::Hasselblad 500CM, Planar 80mmF2.8
Film::Rollei Digibase CR200

Rollei Digibase CR200 – PRO

Quai du large – Cannes – France

This is probably the last film of 2013, all in all I think I shot 54 rolls not including a couple of complete lost ones, so I reached my target for the year: 1 roll a week. I am not sure I will do it again this year.

But back to the Rollei Digibase CR200. This is a slide film, formerly sold as Agfa Precisa, and now produce by Agfa in Belgium. I orderd a 5 pack a few month back and found it in the post box (so to speak) when I was back in Cannes for Xmas. I could not resist to try one of rolls.

My medium format of choice when in Cannes in the Dacora Digna. A german point and shoot made in the late 50’s with a single adjustment for apperture : F8 and F11 (this was all shot at F11) and a very simple shutter made of a single spring that works more or less at 1/50 seconds. The distance is set on the barel of the extensible lens with just 3 markings.

Back in Singapore it took a while to have the film processed: I was told that the guy doing slides was busy which I think is a good sign (or maybe he has so little work that he waits a few weeks to process a a couple of rolls in one batch). Anyway 4 weeks and 12 SGD (7.5 EUR) later I got my 12 shots. Talking about money I think the film goes for more of less 5EUR.

The shipyard – Cannes – France

The film is easy to scan, although a bit curly, the colors are going out very well, very natural, unlike the last roll of Fuji that I scanned. There is probably more grain than on other slide films, but oh actually are there any other slide films available in 2014?

Le Moure rouge – Cannes – France

All considered I’m very pleased and cannot wait to try in with the Hassie.

Camera::Dacora Digna
Film::Rollei Digibase CR200