Velvia 100 [FINALLY]

I was busy doing other things I forgot to scan these films before the sun came down. I'm using a document scanner to scan the film, it will just look like the photo right below this - a Pro 160 Kodak 120 film. With a much higher density film like Velvia... you really can't see much on such a scanner. The photos below are scans of prints.

Chinatown's Buddha Tooth Relic Temple - taken on the last outing with Allysa (where are you!?)

Somewhere along Clarke Quay. The problem with 35mm film is that there are THIRTY SIX frames. I forgot where I took the bulk of my photos, much less the settings.

Somewhere in Clarke Quay - a tad underexposed

Took this when I went out with my Scouts buddies. Hand held, which explains its blur. I rarely have a tripod with me, in fact, the tripod has never left my home. I use it for taking portraits for my mum once in a blue moon.

Mega moth at Sarimbun Camp during the National Patrol Camp Competition. Alright it ain't that big. I lament not having a fish eye lens. I think the 24mm is an excellent walk about lens though, no complaints.

Retro car at the back alleys of Arab Street. I walked so far to look for my DUCK RICE! Which I didn't find and didn't bring the elf to anyway.

Just a staircase. I took random non-eye catching things to illustrate the magical properties of this film. Simple things begin to look marvelous. Alright, this isn't a great example but you'll get it with the last photo. (I hope)

Rear end of a Volkwagon Beetle opposite Bugis St. Yes, I ended up here with the search for the elusive "shi quan ya fan"... I ended up eating the Yu Kee duck rice there that failed all expectations! Come on Westmall Yu Kee, take over their business! They're wasting your name! (yes I love the Yu Kee @ Westmall)

The eye catching random artifacts.

Hope y'all enjoyed this post. I really love the effect I'm getting out of Velvia. Call me a retro geek, call me anal, call me equipment air head- I just love Velvia and I think it's worth every extra penny compared to negatives, about 2x from film to develop to print. This particular roll cost me about $27 from start to end. The developed slide film itself is a work of art gleaming with colour.

I'm addicted. Praise aside, I think the film should be rated as an ISO 80 rather than 100. My emulsion came out a little dark and it freaked me at first. I thought all was lost. Thankfully the difference between ISO 80 and 100 is just 1/3 stop? All was fine.

Now whenever I get the money, I shall try a roll of the legendary Velvia 50. Once I strike jackpot, I'll upgrade them to 120 on my RZ67. Till then... I shall drool over the emulsion. [yes, I'm too poor to print them out. 70cents a print... I only did 7 and my wallet is hurting.]

Ahh... a good reason to quit Starbucks for good.

The Pineapple

This one's meant to be upright. I've got no idea why it doesn't want to orientate itself that way. I've uploaded it thrice already. Lol

The unknown bruise :\

Tender shoots

Basking in the sun

Yep, I'm growing a pineapple. Nah, that's not a new hobby that's going to take me away from photography. I just happened to have a pineapple shoot of a species of pineapple that I really like, so I'm planting it. As you can see, it isn't in a very good state of health so I'm trying my best to keep it alive. Well I picked the pineapple cause' the body looks good, it didn't immediately occur to me that I might want to plant it. Thus the shoot is kinda mangled and in need of ER.

Till next time. (:

Outing with Ally

Went out for a photog outing with Ally today. Most of these photographs are taken by her, those which are taken by me I'll mention it, all straight from the Canon 80IS without post processing except for scaling. [ Sorry it is quite a narcissistic pick cause' I want to let her post her nicer pics herself (:]

Back alley of Chinatown/Maxwell [my work, obviously :D]

The Red Dot Museum. Totally cool place (: [My werk]

@ the Red Dot Museum

Clark Quay!

Clarke Quay - Look at my gorgeous baby

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. I had wanted to take something similar with my Mamiya, alas the man at the centre moved when I've finally settled the exposure and focus on this very slow, fully manual camera.

Cool stuff huh? Wait till she uploads the rest or when I'm done developing my medium format films. (: Heh, funny outing too. I bumped into the old man who frequents the Camera Workshop. He was amused and his friend laughed at me for being so backdated. Lol. Then there was this bunch of hippies and one of them told me "Nice camera man!" to which I sheepish replied "thanks". Nice day.

Nights

-edit-
So far the little Ixus 80IS has proven to be quite a worthy camera. Nice colours, acceptable noise and sharpness. My only peeve about it is the fact that it suffers quite badly from veiling glare. Meaning that there's a "lightening" effect across the frame when there's a particularly bright spot in the frame. The washed out contrast is just blah and its actually worse than the Sigma 105mm Macro lens that I have. We can't have everything go our way can we? heh (:

Random November

Construction work. I would like the bulldozer thing to act as an anchor, but I was trying to get away as soon as possible cause' that place is near a defunct army camp. Didn't want to be seen as a terrorist lol. Yea, I had better frames, but they're blurred. Oh wells (:

Gen died waiting for me to setup the camera. Hah, joking

Trip to National Museum. Photographs of newly wed Vietnamese brides and their Singaporean husbands. I think the girl 2nd from the right of the photograph is really pretty, the husband on the other hand... ahem. Oh wells, but that isn't really the point. I'm quite disgusted by the idea of "purchasing" brides. I wonder about the morality of this compared to sales of organs. At least organ sales could save lives... bride "purchases' while it may not necessarily be bad, seems like... I don't know, it just irks me. I call it sentient organs transaction.

Sorry for not posting for such a long time. I had alot of things to do post exams and I took most photographs in film. Unfortunately, I've been using the 35mm camera which has 36 frames. Of which I've only taken 9 photographs. Thus there isn't anything I can show as of now. These are all really random photographs I've taken with a compact camera, Canon IXUS 80IS. It is a nice camera but it is obviously no match for the DSLRs I've owned or used. Well, it is a light and cheap alternative. It travels with me everywhere I go and it takes photographs that are interesting but doesn't warrant me using film. (:

Ok, till next time. I'll try to upload as frequently as possible. Do visit again.

Superia 200 Last Roll - Texture

Whee~! My sister's piggy bank, pretty darned cute eh?

A cat vinegar jar lying around in my house. Sadly, it's head has suffered a slight chip... I like the soft glow effect the ceramic gives under intense lighting. The bokeh contributed to it as well. Nope, not a studio shot, just shot on a granite bar top with a pair of halogen spot lamps.

Incense on my family altar. I'm not devout, but I do pray once in awhile. Mostly for safety of my family when they go overseas. That reminds me, I haven't done that for my sis. She's in transit to Denmark at Frankfurt right now. (: She's a nice sibling to have around and we're the closest in the family of 6. Well, we're the youngest kids around.

The grip on my brother's badminton racquet. It hasn't been used in ages. It's the velvety cloth type of wrap. My house is home to nearly a dozen good badminton racquets. A legacy of my dad's passion for the sport... and the past family wealth... which has never found its way into my wallet. Haha :D

Fossilized remains of a pair of scallop shells on a slab of coral. I, me, yes me, found it on a beach at Tioman Island when I was a little kid. Huge slab of coral if you ask me... about 30cmx25cm with 2 large scallop shells on it. Yes, it is fossilized as it is now porous rock, not kidding. This is meant to look like the surface of the moon... well... a macro lens at f2.8 doesn't give a wide depth of field which thus explains its failure.

"Magic hour" plus post rain lighting = Perfect lighting.
Quite sad that the family scanner can't quite render the nuances and changes in shadow detail. I'm disappointed that the reflection of the sun in one of the droplets didn't come through as planned... I'm still intrigued by how Ken Rockwell does it. The sun stars in his images comes off was wonderful starbursts. Maybe I should shoot into the sun instead of the reflection of it.

Hmm, I found a way to negate the limitations of negatives - shooting in good light, I shot all these during the supposed "magic hour". It was a spark of inspiration which conincided with good lighting. I couldn't sleep the night before I took these photographs, so I re-read the book "How to see creatively" and decided that I wanted to finish the darned roll of superia in my camera. Which I did the next day, and resulted in these. The book reminded me of texture... something terribly lacking in my photographs previously. I used to be too concerned with form, shape and lines especially since I've returned to black and white photography. Well, texture can still be seen in black and white, I'll make it a point not to neglect it in the future.

All these photographs were adjusted in GIMP to mimic what I see on the printed photographs. It's printed from the lab downstairs, so I presume there were no adjustment to the saturation curves. Other than being the last roll of Superia I'll probably ever shoot again, this WILL be the last roll of film I'll develop from the lab downstairs. I like the uncle and aunty, but I can absolutely not stand the fact that they've scratched every single film I've sent to them for processing thus far. Geezus. I like the popcorn guy and now, I can't get another print from the negs. Rar. Annoyed.

IR photography

My first attempts at IR photography. If you think that these images sucks, I agree :D They're made with a self modified FOC webcam that Creative gave away a few years ago as publicity for Qmax. The first few photographs looks like typical black and white photographs, the last photograph which shows my eyes are where IR get abit funky. Apparently the iris does not block IR light and thus it looks eerily translucent.

I think the translucent iris makes me look like some psychopath on drugs. Lol

Just experimenting for fun. I won't be pursuing IR photography anytime soon, it's expensive and not as fulfilling as colour or black and white photography in my opinion. (:

My Dinosaur "Mailbox"

These photographs are taken by my ancient Kodak EasyShare Z7590 @ ISO 80. Sigh, the quality sucks, it makes me wish I still had my 400D with me. Ah wells, I'm going to buy a 30D at the end of the year after I've got cash from working.

These are the photographs of my mega mailbox camera (:

Better than your DSLR LCD

Whoops... table's leg is out of focus. Lol

Random shot of the rattan chair I'm on right now... oh the moire. Hah

That's all. (: Well to the Kodak's credit, it was an ancient camera which doesn't enjoy a place in my puny 30L Dry Cab. It has got fungi streaks all over the lens. Lol

Medium format - My new love

My 2nd roll of film through the RZ67. You can consider it the first, since the original first roll was screwed when 2 shopkeepers opened the film back hinge. Hahas, ah wells, I don't blame theme. This is a 'rare' camera in Singapore. Enjoy. [these are made on a flatbed document scanner. Meant for showing the composition only. Please don't flame me about uploading crap quality work :P]




My 2 beautiful maids. Maria and Marie. Hahahas, kidding. Two of my best friends ever, Nat and Carmen. (: Cheeky Nat and pretty Carmen. Lol

Freshly reprocessed in Picasa 2 and GIMP.
I'm really glad with the exposures. These four were exposed with my guesstimate-eye-lightmeter. They're all "well" exposed as far as my scanner can scan. Out of the 2 rolls, only one exposure was really off. (: I'm in love with MF. Heh

If you're wondering why the contrast of the 1st two, it's cause' I'm scanning with a flatbed DOCUMENT scanner, using ambient light as backlighting. I scanned the bottom one first, while the sun was brighter. It's dusk now which is why the lighting varied so much. So yep, the negatives look good, it's the lack of light for the scanner to do a good scan with high contrast. Yep