Old Prints

I just sent my roll of Neopan for printing, so I dug out my archives and printed a couple of old interesting stuff that was never seen before.

I still like this photograph alot, and I have no idea why. Most people here would probably think that its a very plain photograph, that's what I think too... but I'm just drawn to it.

A little lost detail in the shadow area. The scanner the shop uses is not sensitive enough to pick it up. The people printing this photograph also didn't fill the lights for me. Had to do it myself, albeit with much more limitations, since I'm scanning the prints and not the film.

A revisit of the cute kid here. Bumped up the contrast and saturation to get it looking like this. Apparently both Kodak Gold and Fuji Superia makes for very subdued looking photographs. I'm going to use slides and black and white exclusively now. I'll prefer either end of the spectrum, either no colours or saturated colours. The compromise just doesn't cut.

Ditto. Cute chap huh? (: Almost as charming as me when I was a kid :PP Lol

Dr Ng Eng Hen during the opening ceremony of the Ngee Ann Kongsi thingy thingy. I love the shallow depth of field. I'm wondering if I should have included Cheng's face in the depth of field... I think this is fine. :P

Same stuff here. Performance during the opening ceremony.

Ditto. I should think that terrible yellow cast at wall is the result of the lighting's colour, not some strange artifacts due to the use of florescent lighting.

Again, lost shadow details with the scanner and printer... this needs substantial darkroom work to print properly... time to test my sister's skills at burn and dodge. Heh

Same here. The scanner and printer lost the highlight detail this time. The clouds got burnt out though it is very apparent in the film. Sigh.

Just terrible... this is a very high dynamic range photograph with extreme shadow and highlight details... after the scanner and printer got this out... all I've got is a black mass of twigs. Blah.

Conclusion: I should give more tolerance for the edge of the film. Else the composition's going to come out funny. Just look at the 2nd last photograph. I lost both the apex of the cone as well as the cross on top of it. Sigh. Well I'm still happy with the 1st photograph though. :D

Gonna ask my sis to print 2 copies of the 1st photograph. One original image and one mirror image. I'm inclined to think that I'll prefer the mirror image version. Then I'll decide if I'll send it to ruby for darkroom sepia toning. :D When I get more cash, I'll commision a print for that photograph at A2 size maybe? ((:

Suspected Phoon father... hahas, nah I'm sure he's not... just that the family semblance is in there....... an uncle maybe? :P I'm nasty. Lol. Nah this is to show the shitty grain I get from the Kodak when underexposed. It came out so unsaturated that after re-saturation it is still.. like that. It looked like a fading print from 20 years ago.

Neopan 1600

Pardon my ignorance, I don't know what church/cathedral this is. It's behind SAM. A really gorgeous building hidden away that people walking around town will almost certainly miss. Excellent building for photograph, no distracting elements such as the trees around CHIJMES. But erm cause' I only had my 70-200F4 L with me that day... I went into the backyard of SAM to take this photograph. Heh. The weird thing at the bottom left corner is a pesky little cone that sneaked into my frame. I moved it several times but it wants to be on my film too much. Ah wells. Made me miss a fellow photographer[tourist] who was at the entrance examining the wall at the gate.
Notice the blown out highlights of the sky though. I did some exposure bracketing for this shot. The -1/2EV one lacked shadow details with no appreciable gain in highlights either. The +1/2EV one was simply horrid, with low to no contrast on the building and obviously blown out highlights. I suspect a slower film such as the Ilford FP4 would have been better for these kind of work. I don't blame the neopan, after all it's a high speed film meant for night and indoor work.

This is taken along Armenian St, opposite the pub/club thingy that Wanzhen went to the other day. I think it was about 4-5pm when I took this photograph but it looks as though it's taken in the morning eh? Nice place, photographic opportunity lurking at every corner. Looks like a masterpiece to me [:P i over flatter myself once in awhile :D] I feel tempted to print it as a 12R or bigger
24mm P mode. Should have been -1/2EV

The Heritage Tree at the top of Fort Canning. Wonderful piece of a tree, its a flame of the forest grown in the shape of a rain tree and almost as massive. Sadly the bulk of the trunk has rotted away. I'm confident it'll be here to stay for long though, there're red ants taking care of this piece of flora. A wonderful symbiotic relationship.
Taken from the slope side of the tree. I was worried that I'll roll off the cliff into nothingness. Hahas, nah, I was more worried about my 2 cameras.

The Heritage Tree from halfway down the slope
Another view of the Heritage Tree from the "plateau" side.

The buyer of my battery grip called me to meet up with her. I noticed the beautiful lighting of the small path as the sun began to set. Must have been about late 5pm already. Ahh... nearing the magical hour for photographers.

Took this further down the hill... See, different direction of travel reveals different aspects of the same place. I'd have missed this shot if I went down the park along another path.

That's about all (: Hope you enjoyed the photos.
[and pardon the absence of any white balance. I prefer the warm sepia tones from the editing, so I didn't bother to remove any colour cast introduced.]

mm.. a little note about the film before I go. I suspect that the film is too shiny or something, I got some moire artifacts from some of the scans. But then again, I'm using a normal flatbed scanner and adjusting the lighting in picasa to get these photographs. I hope it won't become an issue. What I appreciate most about this film is the low grain at ISO1600. In fact, I don't see any grains from these scans, or at least they're significantly smaller than the resolving power of my scanner [which I admit, is pretty low]. Would I use this film again? You bet. Perhaps exclusively for low light work.
:D

Ilford -revisit

Hmm, 5 new prints from the last roll of Ilford FP4. I only scanned 4 cause' the other one isn't that great after all. These are printed downstairs... 5 prints for $1.25 = 25cents each. The print quality is fine but the colour came out greenish... it's fine for scans but that just means that the prints themselves are unattractive. Sigh. It is as simple as desaturation on the scanned files before printing and they didn't do it, I'm disappointed.

A bright yellow caution sign at the entrance to a walkway in La Salle. Makes the dark background look ominous doesn't it? Better than the coloured version in my opinion, though I think if it was shot in Velvia, it would have been superb. I'd prefer if I got nearer to the caution sign to bring the viewer's attent smack centre on the caution and the falling man's symbol. But much as my position is awkward already, I'm not about to lie on my belly in my full grey. Sides, I think I was nearing the limit of the closest focus of my lens already.

This lady was very interesting cause' she was lying at the side of the main walkway through La Salle just leisurely reading away. Shot with the now sold 70-200mm F4L at 200mm approx 1/30s shutter. Another testament to my human tripod ability. Trust me it wasn't easy. I think I took 2-3 shots at her and they all look sharp on film. Chose this cause' it had the nicest composition.

Tried my hand at pseudo architecture photography while actually focusing on the street photography aspects. 24mm F2.8. Seems a tad too wide for normal street photography. This photograph seems fine for me though. Mm, maybe I can mount the 50mm on my film and the 24mm on my APS-C sized Canon 400D [effective angle of view = 38.4mm lens] and go snapping away. I really need to experiment with street photography and I've got a roll of Superia 400 to waste. Really waste cause' I'm really sick of that film by now. I think even Kodak does better. I'm currently trying to waste a roll of Superia 800 I bought last year... well at least it is a fast film.

Same 24mm, focus placed on lines and architecture now. 2nd favourite after the photograph of the lady on the grass.

Hope you all had fun browsing through (:

If anyone actually enlarged a frame to look at the photograph and realise that they're all very grainy, it's not the film's fault. The film's ISO of 125 meant that I had to shoot 1 stop faster than the film's rating to capture all these. My sis developed the film for me and she refused to push process for me cause' she doesn't know how to. So... effectively they're all shadow details and the film is underdeveloped. Yep. The Ilford FP4 is a great film for fine grain work. No excuse for the Superia 400 though. They're shot as the camera's meter tells me and professionally developed at Shalom Labs.

Sequel

Hmm, not a very productive day. After about 1 hour plus of work on the theme of insomnia... I've only got 1 shot that's about decent from 2 dozen shots. Even then it seems to depict troubled, disturbed or even haunted more than insomnia. Sigh... the trouble of "creative" photography. You really don't know how much to expect from it. Oh wells.

We'll see again... after A levels. I'm really curbing my photographic attempts.

See you all (:

Monochrome

Experimenting with macros led me to discover that monochrome simply looks superb. If I feel rich enough and have made a photograph to my taste, I might print a true monochrome. i.e. Printed with enlarger in a real darkroom and then washed with toning solution. (:

Subject: A roll of empty Ilford FP4 from the last time and a 50cents coin on a old style calculators.
All the chrome photos are taken in camera, not post edited from colour photos.

Fort Canning Park

The effects of different exposure

-2/3 EV

-1/3 EV

0 EV

Reverse bungee. F stop increased to decrease shutter speed, so as to show motion of the van.

The hole in the tree

Trudging ant. Looks better in landscape. The web screwed up its orientation

Lovely grass. Reminds me of lalang. Looks nice up close but... as a patch... it just looks strewn and overgrown. Missed the depth of field sadly, the flowering stalk isn't fully within the depth of field, the tip's slightly out of focus. Could be much improved on with my 105mm macro lens, rather than the 50mm f1.8. Then again, I think the background would look messier than I'd like due to perspective compression. Maybe a 85mm F1.4 is in order once I get some cash.

Fort Canning Park is a beautiful place. I only regret not being sufficiently prepared. I missed a shot at a gorgeous pigeon with shimmering green plumage cause' I forgot to load the battery in the camera... Ah wells

I've got more shots taken with Neopan 1600. Wait for me to update it at the end of the week. (:

1st Roll of Superia 400

Poor lighting. But ok~ for an experimental job. Flow petal sprayed with water. Taken with 105mm Sigma 2.8 macro @ f2.8. Great lens for macros... not so great for landscape cause' of veiling.

Orchids saved from my sister's office (: pretty huh? They measure about 2 inches+ across. Forgot what I took this with. I suspect its the 70-200mm F4 L

Oh... this is taken with the Ilford FP4 during teachers day celebration. Got it developed properly... sadly the film got scratched. Nice bokeh in the background huh? Composition ain't that good though. I took too long to take the photograph and they walked beyond the limits of my 70-200mm F4 L

This is the photograph that convinced me not to use film of this quality again. Have anyone seen such dull yellows one a caution sign before? Gee. the photo now lacks the impact it ought to have. Heavy noise in shadow areas. Not as bad on the print though, scanner worsened it. Taken with Canon 24mm f2.8. I was sitting/lying on the floor when I took this photo. Got quite a few weird looks.

Corridor along La Salle. This reminds me... either I've forgotten to request a print for the girl lying on the synthetic grass... or the shop forgot to print it. Damn shit. I like that photograph. I guess I'll print it downstairs.

This is one of the two shots I took while walking along the road near fort canning... when it rained and I had to run to SMU bus stop to take a bus home straight.

1st Roll of B/W Ilford FP4 Plus [ISO 125]

Damn, I love these films. They're scanned on my DCP-135C. Don't check, it ISN'T a film scanner. Minor editing of contrast, lighting and of course, course inversing only. There are two kind of hot in these photographs.. see if you can spot 'em. ;)

Open the file and hold ctrl while scrolling upwards on your mouse to enlarge.