A chance to shoot some birds and animals in the SF Zoo was a great opportunity to use my Canon 2x extender which is basically collecting dust. The setup is a simply a Canon 5dmiii + 70-200mm f2.8 + 2x extender ii.
Great weather and here are the photos shot that day.
I was nominated by Joyce Peng to do a 7-day self-portrait challenge: 7 days, 7 self-portraits, and 7 nominations to keep this going with other artists/photographers. I invite Pouya Ashtiani to take the time to extend the fun.
I put a small twist to this challenge as well. I will be composing self-portraits through the viewfinders of different cameras.
Today, I am viewing through my Hasselbladski. A company called ARAX used to take Kiev 88 and modify them to Pentacon Six mounts. The selection of Pentacon Six Zeiss lens are vast and quite cheap. Seen through here is a Zeiss Jena 120mm f2.8 lens. The viewfinder is super bright and the split screen makes focusing a breeze. Today I am holding a medium format stereo camera called Sputnik.
Photo taken with Sony RX100II.
After a weekend of crappy weather, Monday was a complete opposite. Kirk Lau and I couldn’t resist on the amazing weather and took our Grapflex Speed Graphics to the Shanghai Bund for some night photography. Knowing how bad the reciprocity of the Shanghai 4×5 film, we decided to give it a go away. I was armed with only two lenses, the Fujinon 65mm f5.6 SWD and a Leica Dimaron 150mm f2.8. I only took 4 slides of Shanghai 100iso 4×5 film in two film holders. Here is a shot taken with my RX100 II on my shot.
Let’s see how the photo will do. I am stand developing them with Kodak HC110.
Kids weight-lifting competition at Sunset during Mai and Peter’s Family Shoot.
One photo from the morning family shoot.
One day I saw an old beaten up Leitz medium format projector on sale on ebay. On closer look, I see that it has a Dimaron 150mm f2.8 lens on it. I contacted the seller about buying the lens on its own and to my surprise, they agreed and all for $25USD! The lens came and considered how beaten up the original projector was, the lens was in pristine condition. It even came with the original cap!
Using just a simple cardboard gift box that i saw lying around, I cut up a small square. I put the lens on the paper, drew a circle and cut a small hole that will fit the lens. Then I mounted it on my Speed Graphic and see how it looked in the focusing screen.
Somehow, there was no light leak and the lens is able to fit 4×5 without vignetting! I didn’t try tilt shift but I doubt it can cover that. I was really happy that it can even cover 4×5, consider it was from a medium format projector.
I quickly setup a scene to test the lens with FP3000b. Here is the first shot.
Amazing sharpness, solid contrast and dreamy bokeh.
I was blown away with this lens, even though this is only a piece of glass and doesn’t have an aperture. I am basically stuck with f2.8. For individual portrait, I think it’s perfect, but for group shots, I don’t think this will be too functional. Nevertheless, I am super happy with the result and it’s only $25USD! What a lucky find!
