Nikon F3 with Agfa 100

In film photography, you have to use different films to get different effect. This time, I tried a roll of Agfa 100 negative. It obviously is a low sensitivity film which produces smoother images and less noise than high sensitivity films. However, this film is not good to be used in a low light situation because of its low sensitivity. Surprisingly, I took a lot of indoor shot with this film.

I finished this film quite quickly as I just wanted to test it.

This image was taken with a Tokina 70-210mm f4.5-5.6 lens. This lens is kinda useless. I really should not buy this lens although it is only for £15.

Nikon 50mm f/2, in this image, you can see how smooth the Agfa 100 is.

A back light shot.

Kids in Adventure Playground during the Recreate project.

Students protect.

Runa's toy soldiers.

This picture was taken when I was working for a art auction held by Chinese Art Centre.

I don't think this test that could shows the performance of the Agfa 100 because many photos were taken in a low light situation. I will do another when the day is more sun light.

Canon FD lenses on Sony Nex 5

I have just received my FD lenses to E mount adapter. That means I can now use my FD lenses on my little EVIL(Electrical Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens) camera, Sony Nex 5.

Putting this Canon 70-210mm F4 tele-zoom lens on the Nex 5 looks really ridiculous.

I have got several Canon FD lenses but I mainly use only two prime lenses 50mm 1.8 and 28mm 2.8. I like to use prime lenses more than zoom lenses because prime lenses produce better image quality than zoom lenses. Moreover, prime lenses have larger aperture which can give me shallower depth of views.

In fact, I use the 28mm lens the most although its maximum aperture is only 2.8. However, the crop factor of Snoy Nex system is 1.5x. When using a 28mm lens on my Nex 5, the field-of-view is equivalent 42mm lens that is more like a standard lens than 50mm lens using on Nex 5. A standard 50mm lens would become 75mm, it is more like a portrait lens.

In these three images, you can see the bokeh of the FD 28mm f2.8 lens at aperture f2.8.

FD 70-210 F4

I won't use this massive lens on the Nex 5 a lot although I took a picture of that.

As I also have a Nikon lens to FD mount adapter, I borrowed a Nikon Ai-s 55mm f2.8 Marco lens from AV store. I used the lens to take a few close up images of my stuff.

The Nikon Ai-s 55mm f2.8 lens is not a extreme close up lens, but it is able to produce a very sharp image of my little models. That means it will be good to use it to take pictures of flowers in the summer.

Mysterious Package

As I keeps buying camera stuff on internet recently, sometimes, I have to go to the post office to collect my items when there are no people at home to receive the packages.

On a day last month, I went to the post office to pick up my item. Once I reached the package, I felt so strange because that was so heavy and I remembered that I didn't buy anything which is heavy like that.

I opened the package at home and saw this. What the hell is that?

A bible?

No! It is a vintage folding camera made by Houghton-Butcher Manufacturing Company from 70-80 years ago.

I thought my friends sent me this but it was not after I asked them. I also thought that might be some people posted to a wrong address. I would like to find out the reason but there are no any information of the sender, even no return address. Okay! I kept it then.

In order not to waste this camera, I used it to take two pictures. I didn't have any large size films for this camera so I used photographic paper. After taking the first shot, I was so surprised to see this way was work although the photographic papers were not as sensitive as films to light and the shutter on the camera is a little bit stuck. I scanned the images on the computer and reversed the colour on Photoshop.

The first shot, 2 sec exposure, quite dark

5 sec exposure, brighter but still dark.
It looks pretty good, especially the depth of view. The in focused image is quite sharp too. I can't believe that is from 70-80 years ago.

Only 2 two pictures? Yes, that is it because it is not a digital camera. I spent a long time to take one shot. Loading the photographic paper to the camera, checking images, focusing and developing images were what I had to do for every shot. Especially, I was not familiar with this camera so that was enough.

Sony Nex 5

During the new year party at my friends' apartment, one of my friends surprisingly has a Sony Nex-5 camerra which I have wanted to have one for a long time. I didn't buy because I was not sure how good this camera was. Until the day of the party, I tried my friend's Nex-5...Oh!No! It was amazing. I searched for its UK price on internet immediately...Oh my god! VAT free. And then I brought this camera.

The sensor of this camera is a APS-C CMOS sensor. This kind of sensor have been well used on nowadays DSLRs. Therefore, this little camera could produce high quality images as a DSLR.

In term of image quality, it is impossible to compare with my Canon 5d Mark II which has a full frame CMOS sensor, but the Nex-5 is much smaller, lighter and more portable than my 5d2. I don't want to carry a massive camera everyday, so this Nex-5 will be next to me at anytime.

Listen to The Beat

Finally, the animation of breakdance, Listen to The Beat is finished and it had been exhibited in Cavendish Campus for a week. Now, you can see it on my blog.

It is an experimental animation so no meanings at all. I tried to get every move on beat but it was too hard to do the powermoves part.

The move of the figure are based on Bboy Focus, Physicx, TheEnd and Cico.
Sound tracks are 2 drum track from Bboy Focus' Breakdance Tutorial DVD and Theme of S.W.A.T

Wu Chi Tsung Photography Masterclass

On Saturday, I was so glad to join this masterclass held by Chinese Art Centre before Wu Chi Tsung went back to Taipei on Monday. I knew quite a few people of my course had signed for this event but there was only Andrea attended. Oh! You guys really missed something.

In the class, Chi Tsung showed us his experiment of a special long exposure photography. He set up his camera on a tripod in a dark environment, used a powerful torch to shine no the place where he wanted to be capture when the camera started exposure. The workshop of this type of photography was on Friday night. I didn't sign for the workshop because I must work on Friday night as long as my family chip shop open. That was a shame I didn't join the workshop. Chi Tsung showed people how to work with the idea and the people experimented the idea. It seemed really fun.

After Chi Tsung shared his work, we started to present our long exposure works and then we gave each other opinion. I presented my Break-Light. They liked it and I received some nice feedback. Chi Tsung suggested me to take this type of pictures with lager apertures. That was a wonderful suggestion because I just thought about to capture the whole move and reduce other lights going to the camera , therefore, I used small apertures. However, a large aperture could absolutely give me a different result. I will definitely try it but I will need to find a very dark place first.

In the end, some of us of the masterclass went to the Christmas market with Chi Tsung and his friend, Chun Teng. It was so funny that I spoke to Chi Tsung and Chun Teng with Mandarin, sometimes with English, they both speak Mandarin but I just got language confusing. It was a very good day.

The Second Black & White Film

I am going to share some images from my second roll of Black & White film which was Ilford HP5 400 again. I will try more different films to see their difference. The next B&W one will be Kodak T-Max 400. I am glad that I am getting better to use the darkroom now and work much faster than before I was but I am still a little bit nervous working there. This time, when I was in the darkroom, I put my film which was rolled on the barrel to the stopper first, I was so lucky I realised so quick, take it out immediately and put it to the developer, finally that fault didn't affect the photos.

I am still using film cameras for snapshots only at the moment. However, when I get used to use them, I will do something different.

A big boy doing his crochet.

Monty sleeping in the studio.

Get your butt in here!

I took this image of James with the light on my mobile shining on his face at my friend's brightnessless flat.

When every time I walk passed here, I take pictures of the reflection.

It was not taken in a situation of lights but I love the walkway of leaves.

The weather is cold and heater have to be on.

Compare with a fungus lens and a clean lens.

Tried to capture the cloud in Manchester on that day.

Andrea in Albert Dock in Liverpool, I think this is a very lovely photo.

I didn't except I would spend more time to scan the films with the Nikon film scanner than the first time I did. While I was waiting the images transferring to my memory stick, I looked around the Mac suite and saw about 8-10 Epson scanners in the suite are all able to scan films. It was 7:00pm. I started the scanning at 3:00pm.