double exposures

It took me a while to get it. Previously most of my attempts ended out with a negative that was blocked out like what happened to part of the second frame. However, figuring out that with the Holga, the correct exposure of the and ISO125 film was at F11 made it easier to figure out what combinations of exposures would work. What is needed now is patience and a bit of luck in finding two compatible subjects that can be super imposed so that a multiple exposure can be done successfully. © 2006 Bangkok, Thailand, daddywasabi, all rights reserved.

la roue de paris

Going home from work I noticed that a structure was being built at the corner of Suan Lum Night Bazaar. It was strange because for sometime it was reported in the news that the Night Bazaar is going to be torn down and in its place a new shopping mall, hotel etc complex is going to be built so it was odd that a new structure is being built. A few weeks later, the imposing structure revealed a huge ferris wheel. Not as big as the London Eye but definitely much bigger than the ferris wheel in the ferias I saw back home in my youth. When it was about finished, I excitedly dropped by with my Holga in tow and took some pictures. I suspected that what I was seeing in the viewfinder is not what was being translated into pictures. So I took notes in a notebook on how I had composed my picture in my viewfinder. This is where I found that there are still a lot to spare to the right and below of the holga viewfinder. I went back one more time with better knowledge of what to expect with the viewfinder. This was when I was able to take a picture of the wheel and the tower of the new L&H Bank building. The result was more or less what I wanted except of the additional foliage below. One of these days I will go back during sunset when the lights of the wheel are turned on just as the sky had turned bright orange as the sun is setting.
© 2006, Bangkok, Thailand, daddywasabi, all rights reserved.

royal barges II

I was glad that the lunch at the embassy was finished on time. These things have a way of going longer than expected especially if delicious food is plentiful. Food that reminds me of Manila. I went back home and changed to my yellow shirt. Yellow is the color of Monday which happens to be the birth color of HM the King. I took my Canon 10D because I did not want to leave anything to chance. While I am an avid film user, in situations where I need to be sure of the outcome of my picture and in situations when the picture I need to take is a fleeting event, I always go for digital. It was 1:30 PM when I reached Pra Arthit near Khao San Road. When I got to the fort area, all the places beside the river had already been taken and there are at least 15 layers of people behind them so I will not get a good vantage point. On the way to the park, I recalled that there was a restaurant that was selling tickets for river seats for THB900.00. When I got there, the guard told me that the tickets are sold out. But there are motorcycle drivers there and he told me that they can take me to a place beside the river and a seat would cost me THB600.00. Since the Royal Kathin Ceremony of the Royal Barges is a once and a while event, I did not hesitate to take the offer. Luckily, I was one of the first to get there so I still got a good choice of a seat right beside the river. By 3 pm the house beside the river where I got seats was literally filled with people so I had to brave the heat and claim my seat to be sure that no one else will take it from me. I do not want to give up my vantage point. After the heat, the sky became overcast and the rain fell very hard. As if on cue, right before the start of the parade of the barges, the rain stopped. To commemorate this event, I posted pictures of the barges that I took weeks ago when I accidentally discovered the barges. This picture was the only decent one that came out from the film where for some reason most of the pictures I took were blocked out. The film had a good density based on the contact print so I will be making a silver print of this one day. Below is a photoshopped picture of my favorite among the pictures I took of the Royal Barges.



I almost forgot, all photos © 2006 by daddywasabi, all rights reserved.

old bangkok buildings

Bangkok is a very vibrant city with new buildings going up all the time. However it is also fascinating to find buildings from different periods still around in the different parts of the city. Near where I live, I find a lot of buildings perhaps dating to the early '60's and late '70's. In Chinatown there are buildings from the early part of the 20th century. It has been overcast the last few weeks raining most mornings with the rest of the day being cloudy. Last saturday, I did the contact print of the test I did of the Holga weeks ago. The best result for the Kodak 125 px came from the one taken using an EI 80. At that the print looked more of a zone IV rather than a zone V because I was taking the photo based on the assumption that the aperture is set at f/8. The result confirms that the Holga is set at f/11. The bright sun and the cloudy day setting is meaningless. This explains why I was getting mostly underexposed pictures. At any rate, taking pictures with cloudy skies gave me the opportunity to do multi-exposures. Metering is simple. Once the reading is done, it is a matter of taking enough shots for the frame to build up enough exposure that would be equivalent to exposing the frame to an f/11 light. I have figured that it works on multiples of 2 So F/11=2x F/8=4xF/5.6=8xf/4.0=16xf/2.8 and so on. One can even do a combination of different light, provided that you keep track of the light allowed in the camera. I think one time I took a frame as follows: 1xf/8 + 2xf/5.6 and you will arrive to the same exposure as F/11. The density of the film after development should be in the right range that it can be printed on normal contrast (grade 2 or 3). Figuring this offers a lot of exciting possibilities in taking pictures with multiple exposures. #&169 2005 Bangkok, Thailand, daddywasabi, all rights reserved.

bts walkways

I was very glad when the walkways were built underneath the bts train lines. It meant that most pedestrians like myself can walk high above the traffic below. I like some of the architectural details they have added onto the walkways where the lines seem to blend with each other. These were taken when I was figuring out the Holga. A lightleak occured in the top photo, not because of the Holga itself but because I did not wrap the film with foil before sending it to the developers. When I started wrapping the later rolls in foil or any dark opaque material, the lightleak disappeared. I placed the camera on a tripod in this case, but there seems to be some vibration on the floor causing some amount of blur as it took 4 shots to take each of these pictures. The result is a slight blur. © 2006 Bangkok, Thailand, daddywasabi all rights reserved.

wat po

Wat Po is located beside the Grand Palace. One of its famous temples houses the reclining buddha. These were the best of the bunch that I took that afternoon. I was a bit disappointed because of the way the pictures of the spires came out. This is when I suspected that the Holga's viewfinder is showing me just a portion of what the camera lens is actually taking. Another observation was that the pictures were slightly underexposed, considering that I had set the lens on the cloudy sky setting-meaning something like f/8 on an ISO 100 film. In this case I was using an ISO 100 Fuji Velvia. This may support the assertion I saw somewhere that whatever the setting of the Holga, it only takes pictures at f/11, meaning you need a very bright sun, which explains why I got decent pictures when I took pictures of my friends when they were swimming in the pool before Songkran, the afternoon sun was shining very brightly that time. These pictures at Wat Po were taken. at 5 pm just when the sun was getting ready to set. © 2006 Bangkok, Thailand, daddywasabi, all rights reserved.

how the holga sees

It is June, a start of another month. Last year I went on a camera buying spree. I was able to acquire second hand cameras, a Leica M6, Hasselbad 500C, Rolleiflex, Canonet QL-17 and the brand new Holga. It was relatively easy to figure out most of these cameras with the exception of the Holga. My first roll of film came back blocked out that it was useless. I could not figure the right exposure. When I finally was getting decent exposures with the camera, the picture is coming out not as I wanted it to be. So a few weekends ago, I tried figuring out a test for a camera that has a fixed f stop and shutter speed.

To do an exposure test, I placed the Holga on a tripod (yes the one I got from Hong Kong already has a tripod screw mount, no need for modifications!) Since it is of one exposure, (f/8) then I metered the wall accordingly using the rated speed of the film, in this case Kodak 125PX. That morning I was getting a reading of f/4 at 1/125 sec, the closest to 1/100 sec supposed shutter speed of the Holga. Working on this assumption, I should click the shutter 4 times to reach the equivalent exposure of and f/8 at 1/125 sec. I then did the next two frames at the equivalent of one higher EI and one lower EI. The negatives look promising but I still did not get to do a contact print to judge which was the best EI to use. I will find out the answer this weekend.

The second part of the test was to figure out how the Holga sees. I positioned the camera with the corners of the square covers the Holga's viewfinder totally. The picture at the top of this blog entry shows the result of how the Holga sees up close. It shows that there are a lot of extra space to the right side and the bottom that I did not see when I was looking at the view finder. I suspected this was the case because earlier when I took a picture of the new Ferris Wheel in Suan Lum, I covered the view finder with the entire wheel. Yet when the negatives came back, there was a lot of space available again to the right and to the bottom. This will be useful in figuring out how to compose the photograph.

I am slowly figuring out this plastic camera. I decided that in order that I can enjoy my cameras, I will have to spend 2 months with each of them at a time concentrating on each of them, learning how to use them. I am now learning more about my Holga and finally am starting to figure it out. So this June and July, I will post the pictures that I manage to come up with this fantastic plastic camera. I am sure I will be having fun along the way!

© 2006 daddywasabi