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!