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By Brian, January 20, 2008 1:18 am

How can I not try it. Been hearing plenty about this dirt cheap chinese black and white film with the limited dynamic range and possible unpredictable performance that I’ve got to get some to muck around. It costs 7.5 rmb at Huan Loong dept store next to the train station and I’m pretty confident its the same elsewhere.

Was looking for Lucky 400 as well but it seems they do not make nor carry it anymore. Will keep looking for it.

So 4 rolls to fool around, portion 2 rolls for Rodinal and the other 2 for HC110B, which i still have some stock solution leftover.

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By Brian, December 13, 2007 11:40 am

I’m currently thinking of switching my default Konica-Minolta scanner software to one of those third party system, primarily because I find that the default program seems to want to do strange things on the autoexposure function. My black and white photo scans are usually lacking in dynamic range. While testing out Vuescan this week I realised that I was able to adjust the scan so that I get maximum details out of it and then adjusting the exposure in something like Lightroom in order to have a balance between detail and exposure.

So excuse the slightly darker looking photos in black and white.

At the same time I’m thinking of getting some IT8 targets to calibrate my digital camera and photo scanner. I think some of the colour photos just don’t look right in terms of colour, even on a calibrated monitor. So that’s the next project coming up… I have already found a reasonable priced vendor for the targets. URL below.

http://www.targets.coloraid.de/

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By Brian, November 26, 2007 1:05 pm

What a scientific title this time! For the lay person, I had a bottle of Kodak HC110 photo developer sitting in my storage box for the last 1 year, bought it while I was in Paris in 2006, and this time I thought I’ll try it out on 2 rolls of Tri-X (400TX) film that was taken in the last 1 month.  HC110 is one viscous fluid… reminds me of concentrated cough syrup that looks like beer in colour. Doesn’t smell that bad, actually I didn’t notice any smell at all. You first do a 1:3 ratio from the concentrate syrup into what they call the stock solution. I store 1 litre of it in a mineral water bottle. Then from there, you mix to generate the  working solution. For this case I use solution B (1:7 ratio with water) and used it on the 2 rolls.

Continue reading '400TX Swimming in HC110 Solution B'»

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By Brian, November 16, 2007 12:35 pm

My first roll with the M6 and Summicron ASPH 35mm came out of the developing tank this week, and after scanning, here are 3 from the roll of 36. The first shot was totally out of focused. Like I said, the viewfinder is always in focus on a Rangefinder camera, so since I’m used to SLRs, I just took the shot thinking it was ok.

This first shot above of the alleyway near my apartment actually looks much better after scanning on the 5mb JPEG file. I had to compress it quite a bit before uploading, so the so called ‘Leica Look’ is more or less lost. In the actual scan, you could see that the third bicycle was sharp while the rest were slightly blurred. You can’t see it in the picture above, but its there in the large version.

And this next one was my first take on ‘shooting off the hip’. The edge of the pipes are clearly in focus while the rest slowly fades into blur. Somehow I like this shot, although clearly the original intention was to shoot was was inside the shop! Focus was way off, but exposure was ok. I got to go practice my focusing.

This is another bicycle shot. Original shot much clearer and the bicycle really stands out. Can’t tell from this slimed down version.

Overall, I’m quite happy with this roll. Got to practice, practice, practice. I dont think I can get to people close enough without them noticing. When you lift your camera to the eye, they will notice. But its true that with a rangefinder, when you snap, usually its so quiet no one will notice that their picture has been taken.

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By Brian, November 4, 2007 10:43 am

Came back from Tokyo with me first serious camera. Serious here means a minimalist rangefinder, slightly more than minimalist since strictly speaking it has a built in metering. I’m talking about the Leica M6 here, and I guess with the only RF lens I will ever probably need… A Summicron 35mm ASPH.

First thing first. And the first roll in today is an Ilford FP4+ since the sunlight is out in full today in Shanghai.

After a couple of shots, its not that easy to remember that what you see through the viewfinder is not what the film will capture. You have to remember to take off the lens cap before taking the photo. Focusing with triangulation is not something that is second nature. Although possible, I’m still not capturing the moment, still taking as though I am using an SLR. It’s a problem since my style has always been candid street, and with SLRs i need to lift the camera, focus quickly with my eye (no autofocus) and snap. With a rangefinder, when you look through the finder, everything looks sharp so my brain would be trying to compute this apparent phenomenon. I guess it will take practice to get used to it.

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By Brian, September 23, 2007 1:04 pm

Been busy going through about 1000 photos, at least 80% of them from the Ricoh GR Digital, which I brought to Taipei, Hong Kong and Beijing and the rest from my Nikon D2H used only in Beijing. Sorting is quite simple, I go through them and if they dont hit me the first time I see it or if the shot looks too touristy (flat and no emotion) it goes away. After that process, kept about 600 photos, and out of that, I’d say half is relatively flat but I’ll keep for nostalgic reasons.

Then its time to tag the photos so that it can be searchable in Adobe Lightroom. But since I put each shoot in a separate folder which I label according to date I upload and location, actually it doesn’t really require tagging, but why not? So the sorting took me 2-3 days to go thru. And I’m glad to say that now I can start uploading the photos up to the site. Hong Kong comes first. Taipei later since there are more pictures. I didn’t write any article for Beijing, but I guess I’ll just put photos plus a little commentary later on.

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By Brian, September 3, 2007 12:09 am

There’s this thing about taking photo of activity around zebra crossings. Day or night, messy or simple, it almost always looks good in black and white. I’ve done a keyword search on my b&w collection just for Shanghai alone and came up with more than 30 of them. Here’s a collage of 6 that got clicked in random by the mighty mouse.

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By Brian, September 1, 2007 12:11 am

Came across this site (www.honlphoto.com) which sells highly rated photo wraps and flash accessories. Prices seems reasonable, and they ship worldwide using USPS (instead of sometimes very expensive UPS/DHL combo). I’ve just ordered a medium sized wrap for my camera or lens when I need to dump them into smaller backpacks, and a regular sized speed snoot for directing the light into a smaller beam for easier targeting on one of my Nikon SB800s. Ran up a US$60 bill, which is quite reasonable including shipping.

Should arrive in, say, a week or two, and we’ll see if its really as good as people say it is. Treat it as a birthday gift to myself! Although I would have loved another Voigtlander anytime.

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By Brian, August 19, 2007 6:08 pm

Just for the fun of it, I did a test of my 3 prime lenses, shooting some
old buildings out my apartment window on a clear day in Shanghai. The 3
suspects are:

• Nikkor 35mm f1.4 AIS
• Voigtlander 40mm f2 Ultron SL Aspherical
• Nikkor 105mm f2.5 AIS

Nothing too scientific. A D2H mounts those lenses, and bolted down to a
Kirk BH3 ballhead and a Manfrotto aluminium tripod and triggered via
cabled release. All major aperture stops are tested. Half stops on the
Voigtlander are avoided as far as possible since they are not registered
on the EXIF. File format is RAW of course.

Nikkor 35mm f1.4:
f1.4 has the hazy look to it. Worse off when the subject is in the
distance, and a little less so nearer. But image is soft, and probably
only useful when you REALLY need to use f1.4. Definitely not something I
want to use when I can avoid.
f2.0, the hazy look starts the clear up, and photo starts to get
sharper, both for corner and center of image. Sharpness improves as you
move to f2.8.
f4.0, peak sharpness for center seems to start from here and remains up
to f11.
f5.6, peak sharpness for corner for my sample seems to be at f5.6 onwards.
f16, sharpness starts to deteriorate compared to f11, both at center and
corner.

Voigtlander 40mm f2 Ultron:
Nothing much to report here, all apertures seems to return same
sharpness, but f2.8 seems to be a little sharper than f2.0 but that’s
very very minor. Could even be of vibration from wind. Sharpness from
center to edge is excellent. At f2 and 2.8 it seems to beat the 35mm
f1.4, but at f4 nothing can touch the 35mm Nikkor, which seems to be in
a class of its own. However contrast from this lens seems to be slightly
better than the Nikkor. Could be because of the intermittent cloud
cover, but I’ll trust my eyes on this one.

Nikkor 105mm f2.5 AIS:
f2.5: Sharpness in centre is quite good. Wanted to say the same amount
of detail as the Ultron, but its not comparable due to very differing
magnification. Still, very usable wide open.
f2.8: A little improvement in the level of detail in the photo. Like
going from very good to excellent.
f4.0: Looks like the peak sharpness and level of detail in the photo at
this aperture. Sharpness looks maintained up to f11.
f16: Reduction in sharpness due to refraction can be seen at this
aperture. Reduction continues to f22, which is a little worse off than
f2.5. Somehow the corner and center seems to perform equally for this
lens, unlike the 35mm.

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By Brian,

Had the chance to test out this lens as my primary lens during an outing yesterday to Hangzhou. It fits nicely on a D2H, and like the look where the camera body is much bigger than the lens that’s mounted on it. The 40mm is about a cm shorter than the popular Nikkor 50mm f1.8 AFD. But feels a lot heavier since its made fully of metal, reminding me of the AIS lenses of yesteryears. The clicks on the aperture ring is tight and assuring. You get half-stops in lower aperture stops (didn’t notice others since I was using >f8 the whole day). Focus ring is nicely dampened, feels just like a good condition AIS lens. If you look into the lens there’s a 9 blade aperture, which I’ve not seen for some time.

The result coming off the lens is quite good, once I sort out the misfocused photos (manual lenses!! Arrghh!), which forms quite a few of my total shots. Usually I will use the focus indicator on the D2H, but sometimes when I need to take it quick, I use the eye, and this is where most of the problem is. The shots are reasonably sharp, doesn’t look as sharp as my 70-180mm micro lens which I brought with me as well. There were some shots that was very nice looking, and others were purely misfocused.

So as a conclusion, I think handling wise, I dont think there is another lens that’s better than it. At least nothing I’ve used yet so far. Image quality wise, it is definitely capable of a good picture. The aspherical glass in the lens keeps distortion to a minimum. What I need to do soon is to perform some test on the performance on all aperture stops to find the optimum stop. Will need to check the bokeh blur effects as well. Heard from some websites that the bokeh is harsh, whatever that means, because of the aspherical lens. I agree its not as smooth as other lenses I’ve seen, but I think its still not too bad. The 9 aperture blade should allow for nice rounded blurs.

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By Brian, August 15, 2007 10:58 pm

Shot this tonight at Xintiandi. The original uncropped picture has a lot
more coverage than the one below. Shot at ISO800, B&W mode to maximise
the grain like luminance noise, f2.4 and at the most 1/20s. Focus is
preset at infinity in order to be able to shoot stealthily like a
rangefinder. An optical viewfinder on this thing would be ideal!

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By Brian, August 6, 2007 10:44 pm

Ok, managed to get a SU800 here in Tokyo, so my flash system is now up to 1 SU800, 2 SB800s and an R1 system. Hmm… plenty of fire power, not just have to get it to work properly. Too bad this week in Tokyo I only have the SU800, so no time to test out everything.

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By Brian,

Spent this Japanese weekend going to Hakone to look for Mount Fuji. The last trip was raining when we went to Kamakura, so no Mount Fuji. The last weekend, it was foggy the whole day in the mountains so we didn’t see Mount Fuji again!

But what I got this time as a discreet shooter was a Ricoh GR Digital. Heard about this little camera for sometime already, and there’s a niche market here in Japan for that kind of camera. Went over to MAP camera at Shinjuku and saw at least 10 samples for sale in the second hand shop. Got one nice quality one (realised later that the mode selector is a little finicky between A and M mode, but its a small problem). Accessories for this GR is just expensive as hell. There’s an optical viewfinder that goes for 150USD! Does nothing other than letting you shoot without using the LCD viewfinder.

Compared the GR to the new GX100, but eventually went for the GR even if its just 28mm fixed lens without a zoom. The GR just feels better with the twin dial control like on DSLRs. THe GX100 has 2 as well, but the horizontal scroll wheel is more like a rocker dial rather than a full spinning dial. Anyway, beginning to love the GR in B&W mode and high ISO… reminds me of film and a little of Kodak 400TX. Will be testing this little camera to see what its capable of. Great when I dont have the chance to whip out the D2H.

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By Brian, July 28, 2007 2:24 pm

In order to expand my creative options, started to expand my nikon flash system with the purchase of a second SB800 in singapore from a guy through an advertisement on Clubsnap forums.

Then, to complement the macro system I have been building up, i got myself an R1 system when passing through Kuala Lumpur. Was told its the last unit in Nikon Malaysia. Funny thing is that when you look at whats inside the big R1 or R1C1 box, there’s nothing much inside. Most of the space is taken up by a large storage box/bag. The SB-R200 unit themselves look a little less convincingly built than the 800s, but works.

Wish i could say I’ve spent a lot of time with whats available to now, but was down with flu once I got back to Shanghai, so thats a story for a future post.

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By Brian, March 9, 2007 8:57 pm

Finally went back to digital photography. Didn’t fall for the tricks of the industry and get something with the most number of megapixels. The last thing I’d want to do is to have mega megapixels, and have large RAW files that’s taking forever to process.

So this morning went for the first time to Nakano station on the west of Tokyo and found that Fujiya (www.fujiya-camera.co.jp) still has a D2H left. On their website search it seemed as though the D2h was already sold out a few days before. There were a few D2Hs but they cost twice as much at 230k Yen. So D2H it was.

First checked the auto exposure  since D2H were quite famous for failing exposure meters. Tried the 8fps continuous shot as well. Tried just about all features I can think of just to make sure its a good sample. Nothing to be concerned about, I’d even rank it 8-9 out of 10 in terms of condition. Only complain I have is the smell of cigarrette reeking out of the camera. Obviously used by a chain smoker before. Put the first few pictures thru Opanda EXIF viewer and noticed there were 36k shutter clicks on the camera so far. Not that bad for 3 years. Not low, but not high as well considering its a pro level camera. Will be fooling with it soon, and so far the AIS lens compatibility seems quite perfect.