Voila! ٩๏̯͡๏)۶

Who's your daddy?

2010-11-04T23:45:00.004+08:00

I just traded in my Nissin 622 for a brand new Yongnuo 560, thanks to the kind auntie at TheCameraWorkshop. Bought a new light stand and umbrella holder too. I was eager to start shooting portrait but I didn't have a model. So using myself and a rig of some RF-602 triggers, I took a few shots of myself.

I am not good at posing and lighting is difficult to control with 2 lights and 1 camera and being the model myself. So I ended up with 1 photograph that didn't look too egotistic or lame. (:

Bare lights 7omm zoom each. 1 on my face from camera's top left and 1 behind me to create some separation rim light. Burned the background a little further in photoshop cause' my room is too small to get a proper black.

Street photography(and a little bit of me)

2010-08-23T22:56:00.004+08:00

I just bought a 18-55mm IS kit lens 2nd hand. Decided to test out the supposedly good flare resistance of the lens with this shot. Both lens and Hoya HMC did a marvelous job and suppressing flare. (: Was very satisfied with the nifty cheap lens.

Random snap shot opposite Bugis Junction. Tan Quee Lan St I believe... as random as it gets. I was testing out the 18mm of the lens. Whoohoo. I miss my 24mm on full frame. This is about as wide as I'm (my wallet is) willing to get with my 40D.

Cakes for my friend's birthday ^^. Sorry for the off white balance. I wasn't in a good shooting mood that day.

Tada! a bunch of my close Scouts and Guides friends I've known for years. The photographer is never in the good group photos. Alright... time to bring out a stupid tripod someday. I'm surprised at the rather pleasant skin colour, especially considering the various type of ambient lighting around, plus my ceiling bounced flash. (fine.. it tend towards purple. Its a snap shot okay?) Hmm. Sometimes, the camera does matter.

Just this make this blog a little more personal... to give this blog a face... that's me in black. Acting chillax. Hehe

I was inspired to post this after seeing my sister's best friend's photos on Flickr. It made me realise what drew me to photography initially - street photography.

I like how photographers can bring attention to the little details in life that we often overlook. A rusty lock here, a colour mismatched group of watering cans, a dinky stairwell. It really makes one stop, take a look, and appreciate the world and its complexities from the ground up.

All the fashion and portraiture and strobist style of shooting I have been learning for the past month have their place. But the spontaneity of photojournalistic, street photography conveys messages on a different level. It really speaks to people.

Hai. All this realisation after spending a bombload on more strobist equipment. Hmm... got to incorporate it into street photography somehow. Maybe learn from one of the well known photography masters... a weirdo who quite literally slams the camera in your face complete with flash and zaps a photo out of you. Or be a street stalker, plant my camera at a hidden corner and use my yongnuo rf trigger to trigger my camera. ^^

Haha, till next time I'm not lazy to post.

lol (:

Seems like my next lens purchase won't be the 24-70mm... but more likely the 70-200mm f2.8. (provided i manage to save THAT much money.)

Pentax Asahi 35mm F2 Super Takumar

2010-07-21T21:12:00.002+08:00

HDR and St James

2010-07-04T03:48:00.002+08:00

Original shot: Canon 40D 50mm f1.4
Settings:
Aperture F1.8
Shutter 1/60
ISO 800

HDR done in photoshop from 1 RAW file

St James' DJ. Illuminated by Nissin 622 as fill

again without fill. Ambient light silhouette

Random girl walking out of the club

Caperture SMU Run Team shoot

2010-06-27T00:00:00.004+08:00

I love this shot. The cinematic feel and the pure abundance of coke cans. Now who says we can't chop off foreheads in a good photograph. More comments when I'm free. I'm dying for a shower.

Party @ Butterfactory

2010-06-17T23:11:00.005+08:00

For this series I didn't place so much emphasis on taking good photos. Rather, I was testing the limits of the Canon 50mm f1.4 and the 40D body. I'm pleasantly surprised and some of the photos, I'd say turned out pretty good. The DOF etc might not be the most accurate etc etc but that's the limit of the 40D 3200 ISO. Besides, I bought a fast lens to use it wide, especially in dark places like a club. (: Enjoy, and please comment.

The lens body combo couldn't AF in some of the areas and MF is obviously out of the question. A lighter and voila, we have AF. The amusing green flare is no the fault of the lens. It's caused by a slightly dirty and cheap UV filter.

Lighted purely by the candlelight on the cake. Our corner was exceptionally dark.

ditto

AF helped by the spotlight and high contrast by the girl wearing white.

Pure coincidence the revolving purple effects lighting hit the glasses when I tried to AF on them.

Thanks for coming. (:

Still photography (lesson)

2010-06-16T00:40:00.001+08:00

Some random shots I took while having the still photography lesson. Its late I'll update again.

SMU Water Polo shoot

2010-06-12T23:42:00.007+08:00

Hmm. I helped out for the shoot and these are the random shots I took while I was skiving (:

This series is adjusted for contrast and saturation, and one photo is cropped. I'm not used to the 40D yet.

Starting the ball rolling... we have The Ball

Reflection shot. Obviously not taken by me cause' I'm a guy (:

Trying the capabilities of my 50mm F1.4. Face is a little off focus I think. Accidentally set focus to centre of the frame

Again but the face is now in focus

That is a real photographer with a real camera. Hasselblad no less (: What he holds in his hand... beats the resale value of your car. The lights, probably more than the sum of all your photographic gear.

We kept making this guy jump into the water to make a big splash. Splash wasn't spectacular from my angle so I sent him flying instead.

Noticed this interesting lighting from the gold reflector one of the helper was using to shield the Hasselblad from the splash.

Random shot. The only cropped shot in this series.

I was thinking of making an Arena advertisement.

Ahh... we photographer work from day to night. Some OOF from my 50mm 1.4 of the street.

That's all. Hope I didn't bore you out. (: Do come again and leave some comments on the tagboard. Thanks

p.s. - to view all my photos, click on the tag Martin Ywain below.

Return from 1 1/2 year hiatus

2010-05-28T00:59:00.007+08:00

Hey guys, I'm back from a very very long hiatus I know. Time and budget constraints. I've finally gotten my hands on a digital SLR again. This time I'm back with a better camera, a 40D, but less... skills/familiarity you might say. Pardon if my photos don't look up to par cause' this is my first shots in this camera. I'll strive to take better photos and post them here, regularly I hope.

Most shots in this set are taken at SOTA and La Salle or along Selegie road. All are taken with Canon 40D 24mm f2.8. Not an idea architectural lens for the APS-C sensor, but let's work within the limitations and see how it goes.

Yes, I'm not keen on blurry "artistic" shot but this accidental shot does seem somewhat intriguing.

Hope I didn't bore you too much. Stay tuned for updates

Velvia 100 [FINALLY]

2008-12-18T19:03:00.007+08:00

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

2008-12-13T15:35:00.002+08:00

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

2008-12-07T01:17:00.008+08:00

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

2008-11-22T18:19:00.004+08:00

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

2008-11-06T17:44:00.003+08:00

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

2008-11-02T18:05:00.004+08:00

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"

2008-10-30T13:56:00.004+08:00

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

2008-10-26T18:16:00.006+08:00

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

Musings

2008-10-25T01:34:00.002+08:00

Alright, I don't usually do word posts here, but who cares - "I built this place, in here, I make the rules" loose quote from the Train Man in the Matrix.

Yea so I feel like I've posted too much on my other blog so here I'm rambling again. I was reading a post from photo.net when I saw some really funny descriptions of my "new" camera's sister models .

"I sort of treat my 645 as a walking around camera and the RB as a tripod mounted camera. Both are built strong enough to use to crack walnuts and they are cheap enough today to make one salivate. Jim M."

"is the RB67 really that heavy? The body of my kiev alone weighs 2.2 kilos :-/ at least it can be used as a weapon if need be"

"I must say that the RB 67 is the size of a mailbox."

". So, while it isn't quite a boat anchor I think if I held onto it, the tornado wouldn't be able to carry me off to Kansas."

hahas (: Alrights... it's kinda getting really late. I better go. Hold on to your guts though, I just finished my 2nd roll of 120 HP5+. I'll develop it in the darkroom with my sis on Sunday. I'll upload simple scans by Sunday night I think. Do expect alot of blurry images and off exposure images though. Thus far I've been using rather slow shutter speeds hand held and with the Sunny 16 + self-adapted guesstimated exposures. I'm too poor to buy a light meter, too lazy to lug an EOS 33 with tripod when I'm already carrying the "mailbox".

Bye

Scans

2008-10-21T13:16:00.005+08:00

My scanner is currently my favourite imaging device. It gives me digital convenience while giving me rather exotic images that I like. It's very abstract due to the inherently 2d image. I never know what comes out of the scanner and post processing, it makes it really fun. (:

My 2nd sis's piggy bank on Superia 800 film. The emulsion is too dense I can't get the colour out onto the scanner. Heh, well, sepia works for me.

Colour inversion helps me get the "correct" colour on the film emulsion. It makes the image funky and cool though. I've only tried this recently cause' I used to crop frames out before inverting the colours.

I tried to do a "open-top" scan which I use to scan my film in the morning. This was taken at night thus the blackness of it all. This one isn't colour inverted. Well, the room was bright with lights as far as my eyes could tell. Now we see how incredible our eyes are at compensating brightness level. Well... I found a method to negate this compensating mechnism. I can accurately call the exposure of a scene within 1/2 EV step - so far. hehe, I'm a living light meter. This scan looks like a good mystery to me.

Mmm, my favourite. Love the dramatic effect on the narrow road the scan has given. I used a pen light to brighten up this scan at the film area.

Mm, new projects coming up would be film stressing. Yes, literally stressing the film out. Well, that might take till Nov 14 before commencement. hehe. Do check in once in awhile for unplanned updates like this though.

Superia 800

2008-10-14T12:15:00.007+08:00

Musing... an attempt to free the little character on the right most frame (: Artsy huh?

An experiment I'm glad I made. I like the effects on print, much better than this scanned version

I know this is quite a crappy shot, but I don't expect myself to run up to the guy's ass with my 24mm lens just to capture this interesting moment between the girl and her dad (:

Remake of the black and white version. Obviously better exposure cause' there isn't awkward lighting in broad daylight

An attempt to mimic the style of the photograph above. Didn't work out all that well. This one's junction's wider. A 35mm might do better than a 24mm here. Light's too bright. I think I set it to f16 + CPL and I can't get sufficient blurring from the traffic.

This one's my fault. I failed to recognise the overly bright sky above. The walls are severely underexposed, which explains the noise.

Couldn't quite get the effect I wanted. Maybe a little artificial vignetting might help. Then again the caution sign's already about 2 stops under exposed. Should have filled flash, which I don't have, or just pointed the camera higher for a silhouette

Hill Street cat. This's the funny faced fella I didn't catch the first time I saw them. She's all grown up now. Still as scared of me as ever. Cute little girl, I'd have petted her on her head if she didn't keep running away.See the interesting clouds? I was so surprised to see them through my viewfinder. They were almost invisible to the naked eye. This is how the pros get the really interesting cloud effects. They use ND filters to draw out the clouds. For the same effect, just look out of your window. You'd realise that you can see details through the window pane you can't see if you just looked straight at the sky. Hmm, the effect isn't that great on this photo cause' I'm a poor bloke without a ND filter. I used a CPL and twisted it to give this. I might get a 3stop ND filter just to do this... ahh the possibilities

My favourite of the lot. Why? Cause' it's almost black and white, I had to focus on composition and form. The colours the Superia gives is just bleh. Then again, it's actually up to the labs to interpret the colours... that's a finicky technical question I don't wish to discuss on my blog. Well, I still dislike colour negatives anyway. I bumped up the saturation and increased the warmth for the Dr Ng Eng Hen's photo... his face turned orange before the other colours got close, CLOSE, to the correct hue and saturation.

Conclusion:
Colour negatives are really disappointing. I'm not wasting money buying any new stock. I'm on my last roll of Superia 200 which might be screwed up for all I know, cause' I re-rolled it into another film can after I screwed up the original one. I'm going full black and white now. When I feel rich enough I'll experiment with slide films. I have a roll of Velvia 100 in the freezer now. I haven't got the patience to go shooting one whole day with it. I might be getting a Canon 30D soon instead of a Mamiya 645 pro. The Mamiya seller is kinda... missing.

Oh yea, I forgot to mention. There's this pretty Caucasian babe who looked at me for a tad too long and I just gave her a funny look. Damn it, babes notice GWC [guys with camera]. I must develop a suitable response next time I go out shooting. Lol :D

Yeps, I better be gone. Bye all. 1 more month and you'll probably see 1 update per day - provided that I got myself a DSLR/compact.

-ramblings that might offend people. If you're easily offended and you own a DSLR, do not read!-

On a side note, there're just too many noobs-with-camera nowadays. I must have seen 2 dozen people with DSLR within half an hour on my last shooting trip. Why do I call them noobs? Well I'm a snob for one, 2nd they run their face into a flat panel and use the onboard flash. Goodness sake, I can't imagine the flare and "vignetting" he's gonna get. That's just one example. I'm sure out of the 2 dozen, at least 7 are decent and probably a hand full of pros. But the sheer number of people running around with big cameras is just shocking. This is what you get when the big companies go bananas with their adverts and price slashes on the DSLRs... Any budding pro-photographer-wannabe, you better distinguish yourself with either 1)film 2) medium format. If the above 2 fails, go get yourself a compact camera. Nope, I'm not joking with the compact. If you need evidence that compacts can get good photo, visit my teacher's flickr and check out his macro shots. [Mind you, he's a geography teacher, not a photography teacher, I have none] Then again, check out the flickr's group of phone camera photographers. Their photos are all better than mine, a snob who trots around with a big SLR.

Old Prints

2008-09-27T17:04:00.005+08:00

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

2008-09-24T21:42:00.005+08:00

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

2008-09-22T20:22:00.005+08:00

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

2008-09-21T23:29:00.005+08:00

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

2008-09-20T18:13:00.001+08:00

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

2008-09-19T19:12:00.009+08:00

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

2008-09-12T00:05:00.005+08:00

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]

2008-09-07T19:11:00.005+08:00

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.

1st Roll - Scan of prints Fuji Superia ISO 200

2008-08-30T16:18:00.005+08:00

Nice rich colours from the sky eh? (: Wish I shot it with my Velvia instead. Would love to use a ND hard edge also... but I suppose the silhouette works

Colourful load of stuff on that dumpster... I'd have exposed it 1 stop darker. But with film, its hard to tell what you'd get

My terribly messy desk during my prelims period [1 more paper to go]... Same here. I would have underexposed by 1/2 stop. There's Oon's photo at the centre that says "do your work!". Oh.. and sorry Mildred, you fell off my wall so I dumped you into my "cabinet".

The massive cloud photos... 7-11seconds hand held. I think this was shot with the 70-200mm F4 L @ 70mm. Told you the cloud was huge.

Same... See how fast the cloud grew

Ah, the clouds got really close to me now... 24mm @ 11seconds handheld. [ok it was agains the parapet] Its 3am btw. Looks like morning huh? Love the cloud movement and the strange lighting where the ground is lighter than the sky.

p.s - Sorry for the lousy scans on afew of the prints. I'm lazy to redo it. heh (:

2 Attempts at scanning negatives

2008-08-29T23:25:00.001+08:00

1st attempt at scanning - even scanning

2nd attempt at scanning - uneven scanning but colour hue compensated

Both done on Brother DCP-135C 3 in one flatbed scanner. Cool huh? Anyone got suggestion on how to do it better? Thanks

2008-08-27T18:45:00.003+08:00

A low resolution attempt at scanning a negative film on my flat bed scanner... the circle is made by a film canister used to diffuse light from my camera phone's LED light.
Taken during the opening ceremony of the Ngee Ann Kongsi hall thingy (:

2008-08-14T23:15:00.003+08:00

Beautiful colours

Funky striations. Turned down the exposure to give a vignette feel, like Holga somewhat
The black spot on the right horizon is a plane (:

2008-08-10T01:24:00.002+08:00

Freedom

Boisterous kids can be helpful at giving directions sometimes (:

The sun's lonely when everyone's looking the opposite direction

2008-08-03T15:35:00.003+08:00

2008-08-03T15:09:00.006+08:00

^^ wotcha 2 doing infront of a hotel and behind bushes? ;)

The Heavens caught fire

2008-07-29T00:20:00.000+08:00

The Heavens caught fire

2008-07-26T23:06:00.003+08:00

Not Joaquim. Just a random bunch and a quick snap at NTU

My sister's favourite pig. Fast shot in car, both subject and camera hand held. I love the effect

Hustle bustle

Mmm, better not walk here later at night

What lies behind the door, closed for years?

Idiot's convocation

2008-07-26T22:49:00.005+08:00

Intelligence is too great a burden to bear for this idiot. :P

Monkey and Idiot

Can't help. I was bored and this weird fella had a weird setup. 300D with a... 24-135L? That's a ~1k lense on a ~$400 body

Idiot's the one with the white shoes

Random shot cropped to look like "look left, look right" [or is it turn? hecks]

Lots of happy people

Mum and Dad

Night Festival 2008

2008-07-20T13:31:00.006+08:00

Standard ballet teddy bear pose (:

Moulin Rouge anyone?

Ahhh, the fairies and angels have landed. Sadly not on my side ):

Bottom up lighting and strange blue hues reminds me of the Reichstag building during... one of the World Wars.

Entrance Guardian to the Singapore National Museum. Censored for visiting kids :D

1/2s exposure on this one. bears testament that I make a good human tripod :D

sigh. the nights are lonely. only one cat was at hill st when I passed by there so I made friends with the moon.

2008-07-13T17:17:00.004+08:00

My dad watching the Black Knights

The prelude

Black Knights waiting for cue - The Airforce Above All (:
1st performance
continued
Heart without arrow
Strange but magnificent Sunset - like the crap quality through my sister's room's SMALL window. Nostalgic, film-like

These should make it to the Airforce Ads (:

2008-07-11T00:26:00.005+08:00

Hahas, National Interschool Shoot photos [click here!] are out! Sorry for the bad sequencing... i'm dead beat (:
Well done NJCSC! (:
[whoops "well done"? hahas, Hancock, get?]

National Interschool Shoot 2008 - Club Dinner

2008-07-11T00:03:00.005+08:00

WOAH price tag [whoops, was taking the APGs behind. Hah (:

awww (:

Me cutting the ROCK cake

Worth the effort (:

Hide!

Surprise!

2008 National Interschool Shoot Debrief

2008-07-10T23:51:00.003+08:00

2008 APG

XinLing imagining herself kissing Lee

Some JC two/Ip4 + seniors

2008 Nationals Interschools APB A div 1st team

National Interschool Shoot 2008 Prize presentation

2008-07-10T23:35:00.005+08:00

2008-07-04T01:55:00.004+08:00

2008-06-29T16:25:00.000+08:00

Ubermansch test!

2008-06-29T16:14:00.000+08:00

WAH HA HA