Photo of a native student in one of the floating schools in Tonle Sap, captured on a trip to Siem Reap in 2013.
Nikon FE2, Nikon 50mm f/1.8
Kodak TriX 400 (Pushed 2-stops)
Developed and scanned by BangBangGeng
Wei
Sometime around end of June last year, I was sent to Osaka on business trip for a couple of days. My accommodation was in city centre, while my working place was in somewhere outskirts of the town. Hence I had to travel a bit to my working place, by mostly walking and taking the local train service. My stay duration was short and I wasn’t given much sweet time to take photos around the city, but the journey from my hotel to my working place allowed me to do some street photography. So here are some photos I took with my FE2.
Nikon FE2, Nikon 50mm f/1.8
Kodak TriX 400 (Pushed 2-stops)
Developed and scanned by BangBangGeng
Wei
What is better than having a cold-brewed coffee during the working hours in the hot afternoon? This iced coffee is definitely a solution to fight away the spell of doziness in a hot weather.
Nikon D80, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 AF Lens
Wei
Few months back my friend and I had an opportunity to do food photography at my another friend’s newly opened cafe, Standing Theory. It was my first attempt on food photography by using film camera, in both full frame and medium format. It was also my first time taking it seriously, by putting more effort in preparing the photo shooting session. We prepared some props such as DIY wooden platforms, black matte cardboard, bamboo mat, plants, and books. We also had a silver reflector, a flash, a tripod, and a dozens of film to be expendable. Knowing the risk of film photography, my friend prepared a digital camera as backup throughout the whole photo shooting session. (Probably will be shown in his blog)
We were given a spot near the entrance of the shop, so that we can utilize the natural light. The reflector and black cardboard seemed work well in controlling the lighting. We tried to avoid using flash with the film camera as neither of us had experience in it. I took a lot of photos, and these are just a small selection of my favorites from the day.
Nikon F100, Sigma AF 28-70mm f/2.8
Agfa Vista 400
Kodak Portra 160
Mamiya 645 Pro, Sekor-C 80mm f/2.8
Fujifilm Pro160NS
Kodak Portra 400
Developed and scanned by BangBangGeng
Wei
Few weeks back my friend asked me to do a portrait shooting session for her dog, and I was happily accepted the task. The shoot was taken at a local public park. The whole photography session gave me a total new lesson. Here is what I have learned after the day. Shooting animal portrait is quite a different thing compare to human portrait photography. First of all, you can communicate with human easily and they can pose according what you think the best, but not for most of the animals. Unless the animals are trained to follow orders, most of them are just hard to stay still and pose for you to take a photo. When comes to such active animal like the poodle, the situation gets worst as they can’t even stop moving, they are just so actively moving around, probably due to the excitement the animal has at the moment. Lucky for me, the poodle got tired soon, become less active and moved less so I can take more time to capture a photo, or maybe the dog just got familiar with my presence.
Nevertheless, the photo session was a satisfied one and here are some photos captured on that day.
With the owner.
Nikon F100, Sigma AF 28-70mm f/2.8
Kodak Portra 400
Kodak Ektar 100
Fujifilm Pro160S (Expired 2010)
Developed and scanned by ColorDotCom
Wei
For the past two years, I had been taking quite a number of photos ever since I picked up photography as my hobby. I rarely reviewed the photos I had taken, especially those disfavoured one. Once I had selected and edited those worthy images from what I had taken, I just leave all those unpicked images in my storage devices. Until lately I came across with an article, suggesting that reviewing the old images might probably helps to find out the gems that for some reasons weren’t chosen at the early time. Well, since I was a bit bored and was looking for something to do, I decided to go through all the old images in my hard disk, hoping to find some interesting images. Here are some images I found after some post-process work.
Nikon D40, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G
Nikon D40, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G
Nikon D40, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G
Nikon D80, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4
Nikon D40, Sigma AF 17-70mm f/2.8-4
Nikon D80, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G
Nikon D80, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G
Nikon D80, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8
Nikon D80, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G
Nikon D80, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G
Nikon D80, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G
Nikon D80, Sigma AF 28-70mm f/2.8
Nikon D40, Sigma AF 28-70mm f/2.8
Nikon D40, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G
Nikon D80, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8
Nikon D40, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G
Nikon D40, MD Minolta Celtic 135mm f/3.5
Nikon D40, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G
Thank goodness I didn’t delete those “unworthy” images. I simply tweaked the exposure, contrast, tone curve and converting them to black & white using Adobe Lightroom, and everything was done. New lesson learnt, be careful with deleting the images you have taken, and give those ignored images a chance by reviewing them after some time. You never know what you will discover in the future which might surprise you.
Wei
Lately, I was contacted by a teenager who wished to purchase my Leica Mini. At first, I didn’t have any intention to sell my camera, as it was a great camera and served me without much failure. I was planning to keep the camera as part of my collection and use it occasionally. However, after some consideration, I decided to let the camera go, where right now the camera is in the new owner’s hand (Hopefully still).
The main reason for me to sell off this fantastic camera was that I had found a replacement for my mini compact film camera, Rollei Prego Micron, which I had been using it more often compared to my Leica Mini. The Rollei Prego Micron is much smaller and slimmer than the Leica Mini, with almost similar features, plus a strong point which I love the most: Close Focus (min 0.35m focus range). So instead of letting the Leica Mini sitting in my room, why not give it to someone else who really uses it and creates awesome images?
Before I let go the camera, I managed to squeeze some free time for my last photo shooting with the Leica Mini.
After reviewing all the photos taken with the Leica Mini, I was a bit regret letting it go. Maybe I shouldn’t have sold my Leica Mini after all…
Leica Mini
Kodak ProFoto XL 100
Kodak Pro Image 100
Fujifilm Pro160S (Expired 2010)
Developed and scanned by ColorDotCom
Wei
Kok Yi (the guy) and Jia Yi (the girl), both my close friends, are also a funny couple who never runs out of laughter. Since the girl is going to further her study in London soon, I took the chance to capture the happy moment of the couple before she leaves the country. Here are some shots from my second portrait photography session.
Nikon F100, Sigma AF 28-70mm f/2.8, Tokina AF 19-35mm f/3.5-4.5, Minolta Celtic 135mm f/3.5
Kodak Portra 160
Kodak Portra 400
Developed and scanned by ColorDotCom
Wei
This was my first outdoor portrait photo-shooting session with my friends Eong Xien and Maggie. We brought our own gears to Perdana Lake Garden, Kuala Lumpur at around 5pm. Thank you to the model who had endured the sun and bugs bite throughout the photo session. Really appreciate her patience and participation with us.
Here are a few shots of the day.
Nikon F100, Sigma AF 28-70mm f/2.8, Tokina AF 19-35mm f/3.5-4.5, Minolta Celtic 135mm f/3.5
Kodak Ektar 100
Kodak Portra 400
Fujifilm Pro400H
Developed and scanned by ColorDotCom
Wei
Sometimes, a small and simple auto point and shoot compact camera does make photography fun. Shooting in “Auto” mode is the only thing available with such camera as most of the entry-level P&S cameras do not come with the manual features we crave about on our expensive gears. Just let the camera to decide the exposure settings, and you only have a job to do: Just point and shoot. This can be an advantage as you can focus on composing your image instead of spending time worrying the correct exposure (useless to worry as you can’t control it), and more importantly not missing any interesting shots.
In my opinion, shooting with an analogue auto P&S camera is more fun and excited. You only can decide what image to capture, but can’t control much to obtain your expected result. It’s like gambling, you only can decide where to throw your money in but can’t control the outcome. Either you win or you lose. Of cause gambling tends to make you lose more but not in photography. A decent P&S camera usually comes with a proper light metering system, whether the system is “intelligent” enough to meet your expectation is a different story. Therefore, the only thing you can do when you shoot with analogue P&S camera is to put in 100% of your faith, trust your camera and hope the results are great.
I brought my newly bought Rollei Prego Micron along with my recent trip to Thailand, as my secondary film camera. Whenever I loaded my main film camera with colour film, I loaded my secondary gear with a black and white negative, or vice-versa, so I could capture images in colour and B&W at the same time. The camera is compact, even smaller than my Leica Mini, so that I can simply slip it into my pocket while holding the main camera on my hand. Eventually things did not turn out exactly what I planned for, as I was lazy to swap my camera most of the time. I only changed the camera after shooting a while with the main one, not due to the situation. I used it more when I was lazy to set and compose the exposure manually, and on the last two days of the trip, it became my primary camera. Anyway, I enjoyed my photography session with it and the best part was, the results were great.
Rollei Prego Micron
Kodak Tri-X 100
Lucky SHD 100
Fujifilm C200
Developed and scanned by ColorDotCom
Wei
Ka Chiak 