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Large Format, lotophotos, Pinhole, Polaroid

WPPD 2014

April 28, 2014 lotophotos Leave a comment

I haven’t done pinhole in the longest time and WPPD was a great excuse for me to start again. I was in Shanghai and faced with less than ideal weather conditions, drizzling on and off all day, windy and cold. Nevertheless, I managed to get a few shots in. It was quite a challenge to do long exposure in Shanghai because everyone is wondering what you are doing and in times stood right in front of my camera, ruined many shots.

I tried to do this as scientifically as possible. I will measure my film to hole distance and divide by 0.6 to get my f ratio (I usually stuck with f128) then I will use that in my meter. I didn’t want to use my expensive Acros for the job and used my el cheapo Shanghai film instead. The reciprocity is super crappy with that film. A shot that is meter to be one minute will take eight minutes to complete! The lighting was also bad as it was dark and gloomy most of the day and most conditions were metered to be 1 to even 30 minutes! I ended up taking a lot more Polaroids as it was rated at 3000 iso. The reciprocity is also quite bad with these Polaroids and a 30 second exposure will span into a 2.5 minutes shot.

With all the rain and chaos, I ended up at home and made a few shots of the beautiful tiger lillies in a more controlled environment. The following is a photographic diary of today’s shoot.

Test shots at home before going out — Test shots at home before heading out

It was raining and found a covered spot for long exposure

Nice door but unfortunately people are always going in and out!

Large Format, Polaroid

Prelude to WPPD

April 26, 2014 lotophotos Leave a comment

Getting my equipment ready for WPPD (http://www.pinholeday.org/)

Speed graphic with pin hole board + FP3000b + Shanghai film. Special thanks to Kirk Lau for his assistance with the making of the pinhole! It’s extremely precise at 0.6mm!

Large Format

Fixing the Graphex 135mm Lens

April 15, 2014 lotophotos Leave a comment

Operating on the Graphex 135mm lens tonight. Anything below 1/25 doesn’t work, B does but not T, flash trigger also dead. I already cleaned up the shutter blades with no luck. Finally cracked open the shell and looked at the inside. A simple drops of oil in the right places and a good cleaning of the contacts solved both issues! The lens is super snappy and I am very happy!

Open heart surgery on the Graphex 135mm lens.

Large Format

Large format shoot at the Bund

April 14, 2014 lotophotos Leave a comment

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.

Large format photo session at the Shanghai bund.

Let’s see how the photo will do. I am stand developing them with Kodak HC110.

Digital

Le Moment in Soho

April 4, 2014 lotophotos Leave a comment

Casual dinner at Le Moment in Soho, Central, Hong Kong. Bob the owner is always on top of his wine collection. Through his introduction of his food and wine collection, you can feel his enthusiasm, passion and energy (which in my opinion is lacking in most restaurants in Hong Kong).

Here is a shot of the pencil sketch on the wall at Le Moment. Taken with Canon 5D3 + Sigma 35mm f1.4 lens. At 35mm wide open, you can see very noticeable vignetting at the corners.

Le Moment. At the top it reads, "Je deja passe un bons moment", I have to disagree because I think the best is yet to come. — Le Moment. At the top it reads, “Je deja passe un bons moment”, I have to disagree because I think the best is yet to come.

Polaroid

Roundhouse at around midnight

April 3, 2014 lotophotos Leave a comment

Shot with Mamiya Universal 50mm f6.3 lens + FP3000b.

Film Development, Medium Format

Seagull and Shanghai GP3

April 1, 2014 lotophotos Leave a comment

It was a sunny day during Gordon, Vicky and Cailey’s photo shoot. Ever since I got my Zeiss Ikonta B 532/16, I have been neglecting my Seagull TLR. Here are a couple of shots from the shoot, Seagull 4A-103 TLR + Shanghai GP3 film. Developed stand, Rodinal 1:100 for 1.25 hours, inversion first two minutes, then one turn every 30 minutes. Fixed with Kodak Rapid Fix, scanned with Epson Perfection V700.

Cailey hiding behind mom. There is a very 1960s feel to this photo!

Honestly, not too happy with the grain size, perhaps it’s time to go back to D76! Always hit and miss with these shanghai film.

Film Development, Medium Format

Pushing Shanghai GP3 to 400

March 25, 2014 lotophotos Leave a comment

Taken with Mamiya Universal + 50mm f6.3 lens + 6×7 film back. Developed Rodinal 1:65 stand 2 hours. First two minutes agitation, then one flip at 1 hour mark. Fixed with Kodak rapid fix. Scanned with Epson Perfection V700.

The result was not bad at all, this photo taken on Peel St. Central, Hong Kong.

Pushing Shanghai GP3 to 400

126 Format, Digital

Grandpa and grandson Zeiss in Hanoi

March 20, 2014 lotophotos Leave a comment

On a recent trip to Hanoi, I took along grandpa and grandson Zeiss on that trip.

Grandpa Zeiss is a pre-war Super Ikonta B 532/16, equipped with a Zeiss Opton T f2.8 lens which was top of the line at the time. Grandson zeiss is a newly acquired Sony RX100 II, equipped with a Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T f1.8 lens.

Let’s see how they perform. The 70 year-old grandpa that I acquired in a flea market in NYC years ago performed solidly with Ilford XP2 Super.

The Zeiss lens was super sharp as shown in the photos above. The first generation rangefinder is difficult to focus in low light conditions. For portraits, the dof at f2.8 is so narrow that a sharp eye is a must. Corner sharpness is not particularly good at f2.8 but for a classic portrait, the face or faces are usually in the center anyway. Down to f4 and above, the lens is sharp as a pin. The size of the camera is also quite small (for a medium format folder) and bringing it around was easy. The only complaint about this camera is the film advance system that limits only 11 shots per roll (rather than 12). This is fixed in the later version.

The newly acquired Sony RX100 II is a powerful little machine. Practically no noise at ISO3200 and a large aperture of f1.8, this little camera can handle most situations. This camera reminded me that taking photos should be easy (just like my 5d) and you can concentrate on composition rather than metering, focus etc. I particularly like the High Contrast Mono mode (HC BW) which I have taken the photos below with that.