First time using slide film!
Lomography Xpro Slide 200ISO on Diana F+
When I first loaded the film into my Diana, I was really worried that my images wouldn’t develop and I would get over/underexposed photographs. I was fairly new to Lomography at that time, and reading about slide film really interested me. It was famous for its punchy, eye catching, saturated colours, and I was itching to give it a try.
My previous experience with colour negative films and black and white were not that great - only about 8 to 12 of the 16 photographs were developed each time! But when I received my slide film negatives and scans back, boy was I surprised! 16 out of 16 photos were developed!!
I was overjoyed. Exhilarated. And very proud of myself!
In conclusion? I absolutely love using slide film.
Yup, say hi to our latest contributor, Ariel Tan! We’re glad that you love slide film because so do we! Share some love and follow her back at http://peanutshutterjelly.tumblr.com/.
“Ipoh Mali” on Slide
Lomography Xpro Slide 200ISO on Holga GCFN
I shot these during a short trip to Ipoh, the historical capital of Perak, one of Peninsular Malaysia’s northern states. Besides being famed for its local delicacies and coffee, one can also appreciate beautiful colonial architecture.
I chose to play with light and multiple exposures in this set and I think the results are quite pleasing to the eye. I’ve been shooting with many new cameras that I’ve forgotten the magic of the plastic fantastic Holga - the camera that made me fall in love with analogue photography.
-yovie eswark
Up, Up In The Air
Kodak T-Max 400 on Holgamod 120N
Just going through my old scans and found this set of pictures discarded in the ‘No Good’ pile. They are from a crazy trip across the globe on work last year where I was spending 40% of my time in transit or flying across a whole continent, and not enough time shooting on land. Most of the pictures shot on film from my window seat came out super blown-out, as the sun was just too strong up there. I was hoping to be able to capture something good, something better as the shots I randomly snapped on my iPhone turned out lovely. All 5 pictures above were taken in different parts of the world, in the air upon lift off from Kuala Lumpur, over Japan, over California, over Russia, and finally in Mexico. Pretty cool when I see it from that perspective ;)
Next time, I hope for more time on land! Yes, on land where the action really is!
-eleanorrigby236
My Analogue Romance = Film Cameras,Vinyls & Paperbacks!
Fujichrome Provia 100 on Mamiya 645
When it comes to my vices, I have 4 major ones: owning as many Apple products as I can afford (haha) and satiate my ever growing analogue lust -film cameras, vinyls & paperbacks. Nothing makes me happier than listening to good music, shooting film and curling up with a good old book.
The texture of crisp paper in your hands, the clarity of music on black is just incomparable; no matter how much I love my iPod nor constantly toting the iPad everywhere I go.
In that sense, shooting film just gives you the satisfaction that no app in the world can ever emulate. Right? :D
I may be a slave to the capitalistic digital world, buying one product after the other - a neverending race between Achilles & the Tortoise but just remember…it pays to slow down for a while and live your life one frame at a time, the analogue way.
-delusiana
Zero Image Solarized
Fuji Neopan Acros w/ Zero Image 2000
(exposure @10mins)
(exposure @38 secs)
(exposure @40mins)
(exposure @1min 15secs)
(exposure @19secs)
Being a huge fan of pinhole photography I knew it was time for me to get a solid camera from Zero Image, famed for their beautiful and sleek looking pinhole cameras. To aid me with getting the proper exposures for my shots I use the useful chart on Mr Pinhole’s webpage keying in the f-stop of the Zero 2000, in this case is at f/138. I used my Sekonic light meter to measure the light and cross-referenced my exposure readings with pinhole exposure chart. Simple as that.
I made sure to always place the camera on a stable and flat surface if not secured with a tripod. The Zero 2000 weighs at a nice 250g, heavier than any of my past plastic pinhole cameras, and this is really convenient to avoid unwanted shakes and blurring (of course it’s not really a problem when photographing moving objects) .
I did everything by the book, exposed each capture at the optimum times indicated but what a shock I got when the negatives came out a little odd, with patches of inverted tones! The blacks are a little white and the whites a little black. That was when I realized something happened unbeknownst to me, I must have somehow somewhere exposed the negatives to light while I was developing the roll creating this effect, also known as solarization. Solarization is a phenomenon in photography in which the image recorded on a negative or on a photographic print is wholly or partially reversed in tone. Dark areas appear light or light areas appear dark. The solarization here is only partial as a 100% solarized image would look just like a B&W negative when scanned.
The outcome of my first roll on the Zero 2000 was a surprise but I think it gave the images a touch of class and elegance which is pretty cool. Not so sure I can achieve the same results in the future, unknowingly at least.
-eleanorrigby236
The Zero 2000 made with polished teak wood with a f-stop of f/138, it looks mighty good and definitely feels good in your hands.
Testing the Epson V700
Shanghai GP3 BW 100 on Lubitel 166B
(Black tea + Vit C, 15 mins, 3 agitations every 30s, Epson V700 BW Negative mode in 16 bit color)
When eleanorrigby236 was scheduled to leave for Europe, I realized that I’ll lose access to her scanner, and that means spending more on scanning at my local lab! So she asked me if I wanted to buy hers at a discounted price since it’s practically mint and I said OK! Heh.
Anyway, I’ve developed this quite some time ago in Tea & Vitamin C. This roll was my best Tea-C result so far, the negative was clear with light tannin stains and images sharp & crisp. Since I used the Shanghai, you still get the typical grainy texture although they aren’t as pronounced as the ones developed in the normal B&W developer, probably owing to the almost continuous agitation scheme for a whole 15 minutes!
Now, I experimented with 3 scanning modes, namely Color Negative in 16 bit grayscale, B&W Negative in 16 bit Grayscale and B&W Negative in 16 bit Color; and I found that the 3rd option yields the best result - B&W with light tea tones. The scratches were probably due to my rough handling while “squeegee-ing” the wet film with my hands.
Nice huh?
-delusiana
At the Butterfly Park with the Kodak E100G
Kodak Ektachrome E100G on Kiev 88
As many of us have come to know, Kodak has stopped production of their Ektachrome slide film series. I was reluctant to shoot the roll knowing that I had no way of getting it processed at an E6 lab here, but I thought I’d give it a go anyway. I was shocked to see how the colors didn’t turn out too crazy even after the roll was cross-processed. You definitely still get the yellow and green tinge in the highlights which I see people complain about with this film but it worked out OK in this set as I was shooting a lot of flora to begin with. The E100G is undeniably sharp with very fine grain and is definitely the slide film of choice if you want to shoot and not worry about wild color shifts like what you would get with a cross-processed roll of Velvia film.
You can see in my image of the dead butterfly above my focus was way off and the final image turned out pretty bad. To save it I thought I’d try to convert it into B&W to see if it would make the image look better. In color, your eyes are automatically drawn to the butterfly as it is the object that stands out the most, but then you also see the flaw in the picture. By converting it to B&W I find that your eyes process the image as a whole because it sees it more as a pattern as opposed to a complicated image. Somehow, the focus becomes secondary in the image, as the story becomes the center point now.
So even when you end up with a bad shot, try working with it and converting it to B&W to see if it speaks out to you differently. Of course this will not work with every picture. A bad example of converting to B&W would be this on below!
Sure it looks OK because it is stark black and high in contrast, but can you tell what you’re really looking at? This photo was just too busy to begin with and in between the ripples, the koi, and the reflection off the water, the loss of color does not help. The image definitely looks better in color. So be careful with what you choose to tweak when you feel the need to do something to fix your images and don’t go overboard.
Anyhow, I quite like the E100G and I’m definitely going to grab a few more rolls to chuck into the fridge for another day a few years down the road, when the film is totally extinct!!
-eleanorrigby236
Sometimes I need color too
Lomography Color Negative on Kiev 88
Having been shooting mainly in B&W these days, I thought I wanted to bring some color back into my pictures. As I am not a fan of cross-processed slide (E6 processing is hard to come by where I am right now) I decided to go back to my roots. I have never tried the Lomography Color Negative on medium format before so I popped it into my Kiev and shot away in the comforts of my living room. It was a warm day with an orange overcast that late morning which contributed to the nice and subdued glow.
I shot these images using my newly obtained light meter to see how accurate it is, and removed the TTL spot prism from my Kiev to shoot with the waist finder. I have to say the Kiev waist finder is super bright and clear that it makes focusing and framing a breeze. I did it hand held, then propped it up on my tripod, and it was all plain fun and easy. 12 frames went by in an instant.
I love how the pictures came out, the tone is right and real albeit a little softer in the pictures than what I saw with my own eyes but close enough. Watching how the light moves and shooting from different angles will result in different color casts on your final image, which is why it’s cool to take a moment, recompose, and shoot your subject twice of even thrice to get that perfect shot. Tomorrow, if the sun is high again, perhaps I’ll try to flip a 120mm color negative film to create a DIY redscale roll.
-eleanorrigby236
Sunday Tea & Vitamin C
Fuji Neopan Acros 100 on Gevaert Gevabox (Flipped Lens)
At CGSF, we weren’t just busy preparing some tasty soup for colorful film adventures, we’re also brewing some Tea in Vitamin C to develop our black & whites in! Thanks to Paul Gadd of The Print Room KL who’d kindly allowed us to use his space & darkroom to demonstrate how to make your own film soup & develop your BWs in tea, we’ve finally managed to achieve this feat which has been eluding us since we first featured this technique courtesy of the lovely Firda Beka of Many Cameras.com!
Yes, I know the results aren’t that great, the photos look almost like a badly xeroxed version but this set was from one of my experimental phase. I’ve yet to discover the exact developing times & agitation scheme for the Neopan Acros 100 & Kodak TMAX but I’ll be sure to post here once I get that figured out.
So, the first set was taken with my vintage Gevaert Gevabox with flipped lens, which explains the crazy flared out effect & lack of focus.
The recipe: (to make 1000ml of stock solution)
5 bags of black tea (I used Lipton) in 600ml freshly boiled water
10 tsp of washing soda
5g of crushed Vitamin C- Let the tea steep for 30 mins and squeeze every drop out, you should get about 500ml of tea
- Dissolve the washing soda & vitamin C in about 400ml of water and add the two solution together and mix them well,
- The solution should stay usable for about 24 hours
- First minute continuous agitation, then 3 agitations every minute for 30 minutes
- Stop bath, fix & rinse normally.
Kodak T-MAX 400 on Gevaert Gevabox (Flipped Lens)
For this set I used the same recipe but with 8 bags instead of 5 (6 bags of japanese green tea & 2 bags of black tea) to avoid the excessive fogging & staining by the black tea which could hamper your scanning (and printing if you plan to do it traditionally with an enlarger!)
I also cut down the developing time to 15 minutes, with continuous agitation during the first minute and 3 agitations every 30 seconds (that’s an almost continuous agitation scheme!). I found that the negatives are much less foggy but I guess it could still be fine tuned.
This recipe works really well with the cheapo Shanghai GP3 100 though, and I’ll be posting the results from that set in my next post so stay tuned for that.
Oh, and say hi to my lovely Gevaert Gevabox!
-delusiana
Playing with doubles
Shanghai GP3 100 on Kiev 88
When I first saw Dan Mountford’s double exposure portraits some time back, I knew it was something I wanted to attempt one day, but just never got to practicing. For my test shots I used a very low grade film which I have come to love dearly. Many photographers dislike the coarse grain the film has to offer, but as I’ve said time and time again, I actually like how you can always expect the unexpected when using the Shanghai GP3. Sure it has its low points, like how its very thin film backing can cause the numbers and symbols from the back to burn onto your film when shooting at slower shutter speeds. What I usually do when I am doing some serious shooting with the Shanghai is to always take two shots, just in case the film gets too botched up in exposure.
How do you take these doubles? Well, it is plain and easy.
1. Shoot your subject against a white glaring background
2. Shoot the object you wish to super-impose onto the main subject
Having said that, it is very easy, but you may need to tinker around with your exposure to see what works the best. I also attempted to reverse the process, first shooting the object and then the subject against the white background, but that came out as weak doubles (as you can see in Images 2 and 3 above), which could still work if you want a more subtle fusion of two images.
Some tips you may have read online about shooting your first image at a lower exposure and then the second overlapping image at normal exposure will not work here, as you really want to blow out the white background and make your main subject appear darker for ease of a double exposure. If your background is not fully blown out then you will end up with the second exposure bleeding out of the main subject as seen in the last image above.
Of course, in the end, it is up to your visualization of how you want your double to end up looking that should determine your technique. Have fun and do share your results with us at CGSF!!
-eleanorrigby236
How to make your otherwise drab and mundane photos interesting?
Agfa RSX II 200 on Ensign Ful-Vue
Bored with your photos? Running out of places to shoot?
The solution is simple, really. Go for double/multiple exposures and if you’re feeling adventurous, intentionally make yourself a fat roll to get some delicious light leaks on your shots!
The first two photos were taken in the heart of KL near the Central Market / Masjid Jamek and I assure you that I’ve gone for a photowalk there for no less than four times in 2011 alone!
These were also shot on the same roll, the last 3 frames in fact and due to some fat roll action, I’m left with these light leaks! They definitely weren’t intentional but they sure made my otherwise repetitive images all the more interesting.
And you guessed it, it’s the same old abandoned house in Bangsar as featured in my Lensbaby post earlier.
Oh, btw, I was told by a fellow photographer who frequented the place that about 4 weeks ago during an outing (at 2am!!) they actually saw not one but TWO entities floating around the compound! Have you heard of Pontianaks before?
Sickkk!!
-delusiana
The new Holga 120 PAN camera review
Fujichrome Tungsten 64T on Holga 120 PAN
Fujicolor Superia 100 on Holga 120 PAN
My first time ever writing an article about a camera. Ever! Well there is a first time for anything right? Although it is not my first time using a Holga. Been using it since 2004 as it is one of my first real “toy camera”.
The camera that I am writing about now is the new Holga 120PAN (PAN = PANorama). One of its first kind on a plastic toy camera (open for dispute). I got hold of this camera from my supplier in Hong Kong when it was first announced. It might also be one of the first to land here in Malaysia. It was exciting for as the closest to its “wideness” is the uber expensive Linholf Technorama. Try googling it and be in awe.
It has been in my possession for a while before I finally got the opportunity to run a few test rolls on it while I was back in my hometown of Johor Bahru. I was pleasantly surprised at the results. It still maintains the signature effects of a Holga, the vignetting and dreamy soft focus, but the centre focus is quite sharp. The distortions that are evident on most wide panorama toy cameras are also nowhere to be seen. I love that.
The Holga 120PAN takes two 120mm film frames per shot. So a 6x12 shot will give you six photos per roll of film. If you are the kind that prefer quantity over quality, get a Diana Mini and use the half frame mode. The camera comes equipped with a bubble level for shooting landscape straight. I find it useful when shooting my favourite scenes using my el cheapo tripod that does not have a bubble level.
The camera really shines when shooting wide landscape scenes as the resolution of the 120mm captures more details compared to 35mm films. To me, it is not the camera for you to bring along to parties or gigs as a panorama 35mm camera like the Horizon would suit those kind of scenes better.
The Holga 120N is at the top of my all-time favourite camera and this 120PAN is not far below.
-DemanG
Edit: Demang is our friend who owns the super stellar online camera shop ROFLCAM, and he specialises in Holgas & refurbished Russian rangefinders among others. Do check his shop out and just so you know, ROFLCAM ships internationally!
Mirrors and Reflections
Shanghai GP3 100 on Kiev 88CM
I am a huge fan of medium format and as I progressed deeper into my experimentations with plastic cameras like the Holga and German-born Felica, I wanted to take things up one notch. Everyone’s dream medium format camera is the Hasselblad, I know, but before I ventured too far, I wanted to get a feel for the SLRs of this breed and decided to get a Kiev 88, known for producing pictures with a touch of antique obscurity and old-fashioned mystery.
The package arrived from Ukraine no more than 2 weeks ago and I immediately loaded the camera with a test roll (always the Shanghai!) and got down to the gritty. Ok, not really. These vintage beauties are quite a load to carry and I don’t trust my hands for anything below 1/60 (shutter speed), and as my tripod was out on loan, I looked for the only large enough surface I could find in the house.
My coffee table with a cool and clean reflective surface.
It was late evening and the sun was low, but still bright enough. The inside of my house was dark, so I made use of the remaining light to create these moody shots. This is what I would like the call the natural flash effect, where the subject is perfectly lit, with the background enveloped in darkness. The black spots and not-so-fine grain you see is once again courtesy of the Shanghai film, which yet again worked very well in this series of photographs. The faint but sometimes there white fog-like splotches you see behind the subjects are actually part of the background bokeh produced by the Arsat C 80mm lens that came with my Kiev 88.
I like what I got on this first roll and more than excited to set out on procuring other lenses and perhaps another body of another kind. I must say, the 120mm SLR is giving me a different kind of high and I love it ;)
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY EVERYONE!! …even if the one you love is a cold piece of photo-taking metal/plastic box!!
-eleanorrigby236
Meow, if you love Kodak!
Kodak T-Max 400 on Diana 151
(self-developed: Ilford Ilfosol 3, 1+9 at 6 mins)
Even Sora wants you to know that our beloved Kodak is here to stay and that FILM IS NOT DEAD!
-delusiana
