Fujifilm Fortia SP
Here are some of the new shots from my newly developed roll of Fortia SP.
These were taken from the to of Komtar, Penang. I went there at about 4pm and waited till 7:30pm to get these shots as I was hoping to get some great sunset pics since I felt it would be my last time living in Penang. Entry into the top of the tower cost about RM15 at the 60th floor.
I was kind of sad realizing that this would be the last time I would be living in Penang officially but I guess that’s how things are.
Fujfilm velvia 100
I took these shots recently of Penang using my dwindling supple of Fujifilm Velvia 100, but that’s alright as velvia won’t be seeing the end anytime soon since supple is still strong along with demand.
Only 2 shots came out alright, the rest seemed rather like another repeat of what I have already done. So no point in considering the repeated shots keepers.
“A shot from a distant world” I took this shot using center metering while forcing it to underexpose a bit as well as took it from a low angle. I like how it turned out even though this isn’t what I had expected.
“Shimmering in the wind” I think this has been done to death! I need new inspiration!~
The new setup
I know it has been a while since I made any new entries as well as uploaded any photos but I have been very busy with the “big move” but now I’ve finally managed to have 90% of my stuff setup including my workstation.
So until then pleasant dreams~!
Tips on using the sigma 70-200mm on Nikon F4s
Well I just got back the film a few days ago but I realized all the shots I took in Labuan were all underexposed. Which really upsets me as I had taken a lot of beautiful shots there. I tried to find out what went wrong.
I discovered that on the same roll only the Labuan shots were underexposed while those take in Kundasan with the very same roll were all properly exposed. Then I remember at the time I had the sigma 70-200mm on and I had used aperture by mistake since I thought it would open all the way to 2.8.
But on the Kundasan trip, I had used the 17-35mm lens on my Nikon f4s. So my fault there to assume something would work the way it should. Tip here: Always try out your assumptions on non-critical shots or else miss out on the best shots later when those assumptions do not work.
So until then, pleasant dreams~!
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu 1/4 Scale Pre-Painted PVC Figure: Asahina Mikuru (Bunny Version)
Now this is one rare figurine thanks in part to the level of quality and fans buying this up in a flash. Here we have Mikuru Asahina in a bunny suit. When I found this little beauty along with a Haruhi version, I chose this version as the level of workmanship is damn high and also I’m a Mikuru and Yuki fan.
Revoltech Saber sculpted by Enoki Tomohide
I picked this one up when I was in KL last month at the model shop located at Pearl point. I’ll have to say this, Saber here is sure one hard to pose figure!
I only managed to get her into 2 poses before I realized that if I tried any harder I may accidentally break one of her joints. The other one I have of Rin Tohsaka which is also a Revoltech unit was a lot easier to pose.What compounds this problem further is when you try to pose her with her sword excalibur (I think that’s what it’s called).
Anyway the detail and color are pretty good on this model and the cuttings on her are very fine and accurate. I have friends who collect these things solely for the collector’s value and wanting to have a complete set or something. I usually buy them base on their quality of workmanship so my collection is very haphazard of different figures from different series where as my friends try to collect everyone of them for each anime series.
Fujifilm Fortia SP 50
“Now we are soooo cooking with gas here!!!!”
That is what I think whenever I load a roll of Fortia SP. Rated to be used at ISO 50 but fujifilm recommends to be rated at ISO64 (I never tried it at that yet). I first decided to try out this film after my supply of color slide film ran out and I saw that Shashinki was selling them in packs of 5 for Rm250, that means Rm50 for a single roll! Pretty steep but after using it so many times I think it’s worth for me, the only draw back is that this film is only available for the Japanese market and is only produced in limited quantity per year and it seems to have a short shelf life (with my batch expiring this August 2008 when I bought it in August 2007, I had thought this was because I had bought an old stock but when I went to Japan, all the Fortia SP were marked to expire on August 2008).
Fujifilm Provia 100F
Fujifilm Velvia 100
This is my second time using this film, the shots from my first rolls were only so so. You can see some of the shots from my Japan trip which doesn’t actually register steller on the radar.
ilford Delta 100
Well after fixing a major problem that was hindering me from scanning film, I then decided to rescan most of my film shots since all the ones I had before the problem was crap.
Tip on using film scanner
Here is a tip for those scanning film using flatbed scanners, I had originally scanned in a lot of photos from film using my flatbed scanner but after scanning them all in, I then realized they were covered with a lot of dust specs! I thought that my Nikon f4s internals were dusty so I decided to clean the internal with a blower. Let me tell you this, this is not a digital camera so this method does not help much! Although it doesn’t hurt to give the internal a good blast of air to clean it once in a while but this was not the problem affecting my photos.
But then I didn’t think it would solve my problem, I then thought another suspect, perhaps the film themselves were dirty, I check….nope, they were all clean. Then another thought came to me, the dust looked like those you would see on the sensor of a digital camera. It then occurred to me that the scanner glass as well as light surface could be dirty themselves. Sure enough the surface were covered with dust. So a little elbow grease and lots of glass cleaner, it was good as new. I then conducted an experience and sure enough, 95% of the dust specs were gone!
So I then decided to rescan all the film that were affected by this problem (8 rolls +), I would work like this, everytime I load in a strip of film, I would check the surface of the scanner for dust specs and then clean them off if I find any. While a lot of work, but it was well worth it.
So until then pleasant dreams~~!
Nikon 50mm f/1.2
Even though I’ve owned this lens for a while now but I’m still learning how to use it. It’s that hard to use but then it was the same with my 85mm f/1.8 as well.
So I hope to learn to eventually master this lens, well today I decided to give it a spin on my s5 pro and decided to go nuts using f/1.2 which is very wide. Here is a test shot I did with it.
Here it is at f/1.2. As you can see, at f/1.2 the plane of focus is VERY thin already with this lens.
While I have the option of using it at f/1.2 I would recommend against it as the point of sharp focus is paper thin.
Here it’s next at f/2.8. I would suggest just going down 1.4. Any further does not make the bokeh better but makes it harder to keep what you want int the plane of focus here.
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