3Q MRC Annual Concert 2011

Time flies, another year to see those same toddlers grow fast and graduate. A very tight and good timing schedule to go on smoothly during the session. Capturing kids always fun and interesting. Laugh is impossible to get rid of. Some are cooperative and some will show you sour face.

I particularly love to capture their faces, especially the lively moment. The arrangement, queue-up session and their sometimes-mess-up dancing session produce a lot of laughs, not only for their caring parents but as photographer, I can't resist to laugh out loud during capturing. The joy is radiating in all angles.

Some of my favourite capture of their lively moment.

Posing Model


Angels


Shake your body!


Future Professional Dancers


Welcome to Haiwaii

开怀篇 (9) - 多啦A梦的女友？

午饭后，查了邮件懒散地站起来伸伸腰子，才发觉被同事问。
“猜猜看，这是谁？” 同事努努嘴地向那玩具看去。
“我知道！”
“那你知道她的名字吗？”　我不干示弱地反问。
“。。。”　 同事不好意思的摇头，然后很快的作出反攻，“多啦A梦的女友啦”
“什么？” 还以为自己的耳粪太多，听错。
“不是多啦A梦的女友吗？”　
“此话当真？”　我忍住笑地把问题问得严肃一点。
“应该是女友吧。”　
“不会吧？咱们的年代应该不会有鸿沟，理应你应该知道滕子不二雄笔下的多啦A梦。” 我吃吃地笑着问。然后，再来最后一着将军她　（好像玩象棋似的），“是否知道其芳名？”
“不知道”　同事也吃吃地笑着不认输再问：“不是多啦A梦的女友吗？”
我即刻笑到飙眼泪，然后上气不接下气的回答：“胡说！乱伦咩？是多啦A梦的妹妹啦！”
其他的同事笑到东歪西倒。
果然，一场大开怀地笑，饭后的瞌睡虫立刻消失到无影无踪，还厉害过咖啡的效应。感谢啦! :-)

Monochrome or mono-bore colour?

Kick-started a unique experience to explore colourless view. Only two colours available - Black and White (B&W), or in another word - monochrome. I heard feedback saying that B&W is mono-bored or old style. I disagree. Our eyes able to view colour but to visualize in B&W, this is again challenging yourself to have it in your brain.

Especially thanks to the following Masters: -
1) Master Soo Hoo for lending me the never-seen-before Gossen Scout 3 light meter for assisting.
2) Master Sean who guided me how to decide to set the exposure for challenging light condition.
3) Master Kevin who brought me to the location.




My first medium format roll of Shanghai GP3 100 triggered my curiosity to see thing in monochrome way. Location introduced by a master. I didn't expect to have this China made ISO100 film to shoot indoor. Insane right? I think so. And not to forget - maximum shot is 12. I was unlucky to have several failure shots but overall playing around with slow speed gave unexpected outcome. Honestly I didn't expect at all.
Standing Pillar


Open Door


Group Photo


Honda 70


Hardworking


Kinda addicted with the way of seeing thing in colourless mode. I'm going to load another roll to improve skill and explore. Hope you like it.

Challenging rangefinder capture

It's very difficult and challenging to figure out how the rangefinder works. Beside the limited exposure setting on camera, another roadblock is sense of distant range. I did fail terribly. Too difficult to use this for street shoot with confirming focus from viewfinder. Perhaps I should get an Olympus 35 SP, kidding!

Have a look on my failure shots. Tested with Fuji Superia 100 expired film.

Walk





I tried best to catch the person busy chopping meat but at the end, my distant range sense completely fail. Shot not viewing but at chest level.



Loneliness


Overall experience was completely new. I may stop a while on trying this RF (rangefinder, not radio frequency). I will be back if I'm more prepared on both distant range and exposure setting.

Virgin roll of 120 format film

Sounds not so good to put virgin term. I can't help this as this is a completely new and first time experience to shoot in medium format (MF in current acronym. Ahem, not for manual focus). Make a dare move to kickstart using Yashica B without any metering is interesting to test my own instinct on lighting condition.


Of course, don't mention about out-of-focusing by just looking at that big viewfinder. Honestly, I still cannot confirm my focusing details by the viewfinder. I still use "extra bloody big" magnifier glass to CONFIRM! Scary huh? Check the below viewfinder again.


Kodak Pro 160
An analogue expert, Kevin alerted me earlier on its colour output. Without much expectation, the colour tone is more towards warm. Thus I purposely challenge myself with "virgin" roll to shoot casual portraits.

This is digital shot, mind you!


This film may not be your cup of tea but I like that kind of faded old colour tone that gives you another kind of moody feel. Indeed portrait film and feeling is very subjective then.

My dad who showed and passed me his Yashica B, my rational part completely GONE! Great job dad!


Instinct or doing maths?
Shooting film without metering seriously polish up your alertness - another exact term - instinct. After finished this roll, I just learnt about the Sunny Rule 16 (I forgot the name again, any expert probably can correct me please.). For instance, if you are using ISO 100 film, under sunny day, set your f value to 16 and shutter speed set exactly the same as your ISO value - shutter speed is 1/100. Doing math? I'm not good on this.




Scanning Result
Using the old Genius ColorPage-HR7X slim scanner, I don't feel any limited features to give a reasonable good output. One of my main reason to play around with film, I'm rather lazy enough to do any editing. Same with the scanning effort, no colour adjustment, no highlighting, no sharpening. Scanning result is AS IT IS. Otherwise what the heck of shooting film. The only thing I do with imaging editing software - put EXIF info and resize it for upload convenient. Imagine without resizing, 20Mb with 2400dpi set. You will just sit in front of your desktop to wait for another hours just to upload. Worth? I don't think so. Resize works, period.

Indoor colour tone even more warm. 1980 photo? No! It's 2011!


Colour or Black-and-White?
This is very interesting to explore. After this roll output, my wife immediately complained why not focusing on her. Great, I'm trapping myself to receive complain :-) I may get another Kodak roll to plan or start my own B&W street portrait with full force. Who knows? Don't assume how deep is the water, just jump and you will know the answer soon :-)

Ilford Sportsman Style 4 Vario (1962)

Beside my previous writing on TLR fun, I'm exploring another mind-blowing working unit. Why mind-blowing? It is because it's still a myth for me to figure out how to find the range!

You may assume me going insane and rich enough to play around with almost antique stuff. Honestly, kinda fun again to check if your real instinct works well. A range is a horizontal distance where a projectile launched with a velocity at the angle to the horizonal of degree (from Range definition). Well, I'm not going to drag another grandmother story about mathematical Cosine and blah blah blah.

Ilford Sportsman Style 4 Vario (1962) 


Check out the shutter speed! Again, you have only 4 shutter speed to choose - Bulb mode, 1/25, 1/50 and maximum 1/200.



The DACORA 45mm f/2.8 lens is focused by rotating the focusing ring (front-cell). A lot of guess work to do by checking out your principal subject distant range. I'm currently having big problem to play around with this. Viewfinder is only viewfinder. See the yellow-coated screen? Yes, you can view but there is nothing happen even you rotate the focusing ring. Challenging but fun, right? I like old camera because it's like 1960s automobile. You know there is a problem, find the problem and fix it, then get it on the road again.

Left - film type you load. Right - film counter. Either 36 or 24. Very useful indicator.




Loaded film but currently didn't shoot much. I'm still adapting and adjusting myself to find the distant range that is in feet calculation, not meter. I asked my friend - 1 meter is equivalent to 3.3 feet. You may notice Ilford brand is normally relating with Black & White (B&W) film. It does not necessarily must load with Ilford brand film. The loaded film is colour film (expired) for learning stage. Jot down the distant range I set and exposure captured. I eager to see how the outcomes. Correct exposure or out of focus. Another waiting game to test my patient. Great!

TLR Fun

TLR stands for Twin Lens Reflex. It was my accident to discover my father has this precious vintage camera. According to my father, this camera was from Hong Kong if I'm not mistaken. Yes, this is the rarest Yashica B. At the moment of blogging this, it is very challenging to find any available Yashica B in Evil-bay (Yes, you are correct, EBay :-P).

Yashica B with leather jacket


I'm not a professional photographer, nor an analogue expert. I'm just curious in film photography after some while indulging into digital world. Well, you may disappoint from my poor knowledge on sharing technical setting or its metal solid structure. Nope, never plan to share from this point of view. Why not I share with you how I possibly fail the shot and the fun of adjusting myself to adapt the Yashica B's way of capturing what I see? Should be fun.

Viewfinder



TLR viewfinder is completely different from what you experienced in SLR (Single Lens Reflex). Vertical view hardly get me to stick to horizontal line correctly. In addition, the so-called "large" viewfinder is very difficult to confirm my object's sharpness. I need to use magnifier glass like an old man. :-)

Low speed film
My virgin film roll - Kodak Pro 160S. Low speed film to test and I'm curious about the colour output. In despite of low speed, I directly tested capturing portraits rather than landscape. Someone told me the colour output may go something like faded colour. Let's have some patient on this waiting game.

Instinct
One thing fun about film photography with full manual camera without metering - is to do some guess works. Guess work a.k.a your instinctive light justification will either give you a successful shot or a completely failure shot. Yes, DSLR may do a lot of metering job while you care about your composition. With full manual camera without metering, you are busier than before.

Yashica B in nude mode


My skill is not yet equivalent to instinctive justification level. Still need to jot down every shot I made on its exposure setting. Challenging part is you only have 5 choices of shutter speeds - Bulb mode, 1/25, 1/50, 1/100 and maximum 1/300.

With 120 format film size, you may try your luck to get 12 - 14 shots in total, as it is 6x6. It does not matter or relates with your braveness to try out this medium format (MF) camera. You should try once and check your feel without checking your DSLR LCD screen. Give yourself a chance - WHY NOT? :-)

Meets US Colleagues

Especially thanks to Bhawani for great half day trip plan with our US colleagues!

Our first destination - Jerejak island which is located within our view sight along our driving route to office. It was indeed hot sunny day like oven (arhhh... I didn't push the blame, mind your logical thinking please!). Well, the photos captured without any CPL filter. (CPL - circular polarizer. No idea? I'm busy, explain to you later)

Initially, Lay Hong and Bhawani blamed me for not giving them 1-2-3 to signal for smiling. Mitch became the one who was not ready. Haha!



Before departure, of course a group photo must be taken.



Penang Jerejak Island! The plane... the plane... the plane... (Do you remember what movie is that? :-P)



My first spyshot above shoulder without looking at viewfinder - new way of shooting silently. Handsome and natural, right? Look at the facial expression - unexpected hiking. I was attacked by mosquito.



Phobia? Excited? Or Happy?



Mitch's eyes are very sharp. I didn't even see the snake.





Spicy prawns with special brewed beer. Not me. I took Mango lassi - I swear I tell you the truth.



Too hungry, I whacked a full bowl of Briyani rice. Indeed delicious!



After very hot sunny day, the best to have is to go to Penang hill to enjoy cooler environment and have a chilling beer!



Not dawn, it's evening time.



Great team work!~ Psss... they didn't hike but using 4WD to reach the top :-P Sorry Eric, this was the best extreme low light shot I got. Please blame Chang Lee's fingers :-)

Where is Mitch? Oh... mama Bhawani went away to get Big Kid.

心态 (2)

最近喜欢听老歌和怀旧,我怀疑心态开始变老. 这是否是一种过程还是自己有问题.

很多时候,与人有冲突时,开始放手. 不是认输,而是嬴了也是输了, 是输了友情.  值得吗?

 有时侯糊涂一些与乌龙一点, 是难得的. 机关算尽, 只谋取到短暂的高兴, 接下来失去的只有更多.

Negative (2) - Completely fall for film

Part of the reason I love about film is no editing and the colour tone that cannot be produced in photo editing software. Location still locked on Chowrasta Market, one of my favourite place for street shoot. Words can't express what I meant. Some of my favourite shots to show off here...

Nikon FE / Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AiS / DNP Centuria ISO200 (expired)

"Chopper"

My old schoolmates - Teik & Ah Beng - No! One of them is not Sudirman, please :-P




Dedication



Making Decision



Enthusiastic Seller + Potential Buyer



I kinda like the slightly warm colour tone of this film. The saturation just match my personal preference. What about yours?