Category: Photography

This is my take on titles that rhymes… a la “Sense & Sensibility”.
Got my shipment of 100 pack Printfile Archival film sleeves for 35mm films (7 rows of 6 frames) just yesterday and I was going thru the bible of archiving photographic materials, Wilhelm Imaging Research’s excellent book on their site and guess what? Looks like low density polyethelene which the Printfiles are made of are crappy for storing photos despite what the stuff on the packaging says. According to WIR’s observation, low density PE seems to stick to the film in high humidity storage after around 5 years and not forgetting that it tend to scratch the emulsion layer when inserting and removing from the sleeves! Nicely done.. now I’m left with a whole pack of film sleeves that might need to change in a few years.

Developed my first roll since coming to France yesterday, and noticed that the 2 rolls of Kodak 400TX yielded results that are a little cloudy. Googled the internet and it DOES seem that expired fixer will give you cloudy negatives. The fixer I have is about 1-2 years old and its been in the original bottle since then. According to the instructions on the bottle, the fixer will stay fresh for 6 months in the bottle and 1 year in an airtight bottle. Looks like I will have to go out this weekend and look for a new bottle of fixer! I have at least 10 rolls of B&W backlogged for development.

Looked at my backlog of b&w films to be developed and realised I’ve got a roll of Pan F (yeah, not Pan F) that’s probably expired a year ago and not kept in the fridge to develop. I only have Rodinal in stock now, and usually at 1+50 dilution. The spec for Pan F+ is 11min at 20C, so I assume that Pan F is the same. Read somewhere that expired film needs to be developed a little more, but can’t seem to find that page. So this is going to be a major brute force method. Will see how it turns out.

My lens library has grown a little with the addition of this AIS zoom lens bought from Fujiya Camera in Tokyo. Thanks to a friend that had to bring it back. Cheap price considering that the optics are supposed to be quite good, and its a constant f3.5 max aperture. The only thing about it is the one touch zoom is a little loose, but I’ll try and find some time to send it for servicing to tighten it one of these days.

Ahh, my favourite time of the year. Stocking up day! So for christmas this year this is what I managed to get during my end of year in Singapore:- 2 Bottles of 500mL Agfa Rodinal (surprised to be able to find it at all. After all Agfa Film is closing down. Wanted to get another few bottles of 125mL solution but since they probably don’t make it anymroe and the solution keeps for years, Idecided to go for 1L of it! Enough for at least 200 rolls of B&W films at my dilution)
– 5 Rolls of Ilford Pan F
– 10 Rolls of Ilford FP4+
– 20 Rolls of Kodak 400TX (Got it at a good price. and the expiry date is sometime at the end of 2007, so should be enough. Anyways, in France films costs a bomb)

All in all, a good outing but then again.. got to spend mroe time to put the films into use int he next 2 years. Hope in my next stocknig up session most of the stuff up there is still available! Its not an easy time to be shooting film nowadays.

This should have been posted 2 weeks ago at least but I didn’t have the time. Came back from Shanghai after 4 months with the following to develop:2x Ilford HP5+ at EI400
1x Ilford HP5+ at EI800
6x Kodak 400TX at EI400
1x Kodak 400TX at EI1600
5x Kodak FP4+ at EI125

Going to take some days to get them all developed! That’s on top of all the colour film rolls of course, I’m sure Ive gone thru at least 10 rolls of Provia, Velvia and Kodak 100VS but all developed in Shanghai since its only 15RMB per roll of slides in sleeves.

This one should be grouped under gadgets, but what the hell? I’m in Singapore right now and just received 2 packages from the US. One of them is a new tripod head, the previous one a Manfrotto 486RC2 has been sold to a nice gentleman here in Singapore over the weekend (seems its quite a hot ballhead on the marketplace). What did I replace it with? Went for an Arca-Swiss type head, and got Kirk Enterprise’s BH3 ballhead. I dont need something like the BH1 or a real Arca Swiss B1 sinc eI dont have a large 300mm f2.8 or larger lens for now. Had to change to a new ballhead becuase the Manfrotto head just doesn’t handle the F4s with the 80-200mm that well. When you compose and lock the head, it moves a little since the whole setup is too heavy. Continue reading “New Addition to the family… Ballhead and Scanner”

Specs…Lens: 25-50mm f4 AIS
Camera: Nikon F4 with MF23 back

Tested out my new used 25-50mm AIS lens on the F4 when I went on a street shoot today, and noticed that although its an AIS lens, and matrix metering works with it (seriously, I’ve never used the Matrix Meter before, prefering to use Central-weighted or Spot meter), when you’re on “A” (aperture priority) and one of the “P” (programmed) modes, no aperture information shows up on the MF23 back. This also means no aperture info is imprinted on to the film. I usually set the MF23 to print shutter and aperture setting information between frames, but with AIS lenses, it seems that it only prints shutter speed and you get a “–” for aperture.

When you set the F4 to “P” mode, the body doesn’t seem to be able to set the aperture on the camera, even if you stop it down to the smallest aperture setting. In effect the “P” setting works like “A” where you set the aperture using the aperture dial on the lens.

Don’t matter to me too much since I’m mostly on aperture priority or full manual.

Just can’t help it. Saw this rather rare lens from the early 80s in a shop in Shanghai and it was selling at a rather affordable price. At KEH its more than 400USD, while the price here was about half of that.
Heard about this item from a bunch of websites. Including this respectable site (at least to me) by Bjorn Rorslett. Basically this lens seems to fit into my requirements. Have been looking for a lens that covers 24mm or 35mm range. I’ve got a 20mm, 50mm and 28-85mm for the time being. Don’t like the quality of the 28-85mm for landscape. The max aperture f4 didn’t affect me too much. For landscape, and with a good tripod, I usually use f5.6-f11 anyways. Sweetspot for this lens seems to be around the range I usually utilize. And for that range, this lens seems to outperform some of the prime or professional zoom lenses.

No need to think then. Bought it for 1750RMB here in Shanghai this morning. There were some dirt and blemishes on the front element but after a cleaning session with Pecpads & Eclipse, it was a good as new! Its amazing for a lens that’s 20-25 years old! So far so good. I won’t know if the glass is as good as hyped until I get my 35mm film scanner (yeah, been waiting for 4 months for one). Will see if its as good for walkabout lens. Its definitely heavy, and f4 is not enough for focussing on an FM2 and available light photography.

Went scouting the photo shops in Shanghai and ended up buying a Benro MP66 monopod instead for 240RMB. Its a midsized monopod that goes up to 1.5-1.6m at least with 4 leg sections. Its made of Aluminium. There’s a Carbon Fibre version that’s almost double the price. The strange thing is that when I compared the weight, they weigh almost the same, with the carbon a little lighter, but not significantly. When extended, it seems that the aluminium version is much sturdier, so that’s why I bought it. And the price is quite reasonable. What does it look like? Easy… the design is a copy of Gitzo’s, but of course it looks like the quality is not even nearly as good, and the logo looks like Manfrotto. The only complain I have up to now is that the base where you screw onto the camera body seems to scratch the body itself. That’s what I did to my FM2 this afternoon.