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.

 

 

 

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Warorot Market in Color

Toy stall

Same day different camera in Warorot Market in Chiang Mai, the Leica M262 and the Summilux 50mmv2.

Outside the market the watch repair stall

I do not have a lot to say since the last post of film pictures on the same subject, I think I still prefer the film shots. But the flexibility of the M262 in term of ISO is much appreciated. Can go high and low on demand, it looks so obvious, but not really for a film shooter.

It is also here that I realized the Summilux is seriously back focusing and that maybe I

should get a proper 50mm.

 

This family was rolling some kind of cigarettes.

Serious negotiation (above) about dry goods, looks like everybody was happy in the end.

The coffee shop around the corner, is quite busy and like all the upper section of the market has decent light.

This man is manually making some religious artifacts used as offerings in temples. Below one of the flower stalls doing offerings as well. There are many flower shops  there, some are doing offerings some looks to be casual flower shops.

Over and Under the sea with my Heineken Camera

Ok actually this is more over the sea than under. Part of the “big tour of the south pacific” holidays camera pack, I carried along the Heineken Toy Camera and its waterproof case. I had a great time and some interesting shots when I brought in on a company week end out in Phuket two years ago, so I thought it would be a nice complement to the DSLR and the Agfa.

To make things a bit more funny, I loaded it with Black and White Tri-X film. I think the colors generally sucks with such cameras and black and white will make a bit more special images. I think at 400ISO the Tri-X is a bit over exposed even given the F9, 1/60th of a second fixed exposure of the camera. The 100ISO shots at Phuket where a bit better.

Oh and the fixed lens is a 28mm.

Below is my aquatic family, mini me and wifey

And your servitor, shot by Noé the aquatic photographer.

Shots from our hotel in Tahiti, with the island of Moorea in the background.

Our neightborhoud

Finaly a real underwater shot with fish included.

All of this is good fun. I missed having a digital submarine camera though, I must say the few underwater shots would have been nice. But not regret, i’ll do this again.

The first film with the LOMO KonstruKtor.

So I finally finished assembling the LOMO Konstructor last week end. I loaded it with a roll of Ilford Pan 400 ISO, my favorite low end film and went for a Sunday stroll with the family around Singapore.

The camera is fun, light, small. Cracking is not obvious so I had a few overlapping frames “lomo style”. It looks like 1 to 10 meters is the ideal range to take shots, as further out the lack of sharpness shows and lacks of interest. Framing is a bit random, an I did not manage to take a vertical shot. Finally the shutter is a bit difficult to press, causing frequent camera shake.

Asahi

 

 

 

 

Asahi beer pump on club street, shot in the shades, probably one meter distance. My favorite shot.

 

This is a bit unfair to shot Lomography so close to the bin, but…

 

Mrs B. in the sun

 

I think this picture of my son is also quite good, a bit of frame overlap on the left, enough detailed on the center. Hey I’m a lomographer.

 

 

 

Singapore B Side: more card board recycling in a small alley in Chinatown. More frame overlap to the right this time.

 

Oops the lomographer lomographed. Even wife and children can use the Konstructor. With an aperture of F10 you really need ISO 400; maybe a bit overexposed in broad daylight but perfect as soon as there are a bit of shadows and not enough inside. Probably a bit of camera shake is involved here as well.

“Potatoo Head”a new place in Keong Saik road, in Chinatown, another example of the gentrification of the area where a new “trendy”place replaces the old corner coffee shop. The lack of sharpness really shows heere

Camera:Lomo Konstruktor, 50mm F10

Film: Ilford PAN 400 ISO

A day at sea with a Toy Camera

Let’s have a small break from the pictures of Vietnam.

Last week end we had a company outing in Phuket, Thailand and I was asked what camera i will bring. I have a pretty bad record for this type of activities as I broke my D80 last time as well as a Fuji Instax. So this in mind, plus not wanting to have a proper camera in the middle when having some funny activities (some involving water and some even stronger beverages) I ended up picking up the Heineken Toy Camera. A plastic 35mm camera that was given free a couple of years back with the purchase of 15 bottles of Heineken.

I loaded the thing with some Ilford 400 PAN, which turned out to be as its worst but also when we went to a beach on an island with a roll of Rollei RPS 100ISO. The pictures below were taken from this film. I really really enjoyed it, specially the ones under the rain. Of did I mention the camera came with an under water case? I don’t really shoot with toy camera’s, only with battered old ones, but I like the dreamy effect of the plastic lens very much.

Long Boat ashore

Long Boat

Fishermen

Andaman See

Happy buch

Friends under the rain

Long Boat ashore

All Rollei RPX 100ISO , F9, 1/100th

Long Boat

Fishermen

Andaman See

Friends under the rain

Happy buch

The return of the Hi-Matic (2)

So the Minolta Hi-Matic 7s, is out of the box. I find out a suitable Duracell battery in my magic cupboard and a roll of TMax from the fridge and off we go. As I said elsewhere I am not a mass shouter, I picked up photography in the old days of film when we were taking one shot at a time because well it costs. I don’t care too much about the cost nowadays but still I kept the habit, so unless there is a special event it takes me a few weeks to shoot a full roll of film. This is something I like with the Hasselblad or 120 film cameras in general, 12 shots per film is pretty good for a week end if nothing special happens. Hey also remember that this is not digital so ISO is fixed; there’s just so much time in the day where you can use your camera. Back to the cost, 1 TMax = 8 SGD, processing 6.5 SGD, 4 bus rides to the shop 3 SGD = 17.5 SGD for a roll so 50 cents per shot; 4 shots per EURO.

We are the rrobots

A Robot in a toy store (N’gee Ann City, Orchard Road, Singapore), shot wide open (F1.8) probably 1/30s handheld

Shark Aid 2012

There is always something happening on Orchard Road, that day it was the Shark Aid 2012 campaign to save sharks from Shark Fin soup

Walter by Dwan Ng

This is WALTER: A Big Bunny by artist Dawn Ng, in front of SAM (Singapore Art Museum)

Low Kee Hong and Jeremiah Choy,

Singapore Arts festival 2012 presentation in Kinokuniya bookstore by Low Kee Hong and Jeremiah Choy, interesting and funny.

Shot wide open F1.8 at 1/30s handheld, a bit blurry… duh!

Ok that was funny, but I’m not  sure my practice of photography have made a big leap forward. I think I have to get rid of the leather case whose strap comes in the middle when framing vertically,  also the  shutter-release button is not that soft, you have to press it with some strength before it actually fire, causing some shake; very unlike my Leica M4.