Past time paradise

Lamai beach is a nice resort area with white sand and a bit more peace and quiet than Chaweng, the main tourist area on Koh Samui. Parts of this laid back beach are perhaps a tad too laid back:

Lamai Beach, Koh Samui, 2011 - Ferrania Solaris 100

All aboard!

Hua Hin, 2011 - Ferrania Solaris 100

Cats through lenses

In my latest post, there are five cat photos from Amorgos and one from Crete where I could not previously identify the lens used. I went back to them, studied them, and now have some conclusions. The photograph of a cat lying on a concrete wall was taken with the Leica Summicron-M 50/2. The same lens was used for the cat fight photo (on Superia 200) and for the cat sitting on ground. The photographs of the cat with the man fishing and the cat on the roof of a car were made using the Voigtländer 35/1.4 Nokton SC. I believe this is the case also for the photo of the cat walking behind a fence, but I may be mistaken there.

Anyway, here is one final cat photograph for this year (with the Leica 50/2):

Amorgos, 2010 - 1/4, f/2, Kodak BW400CN

More cats from the islands

Nothing more than a bunch of random cat photos from the Greek islands.

Oia, Santorini, 2007 - Canon EOS-30D, 1/320, f/5.6, ISO 400

Amorgos, 2010 - Leica M8, 1/250, ISO 160

Amorgos, 2010 - Leica M8, 1/500, ISO 160

Amorgos, 2010 - Leica M8, 1/250, ISO 160

Amorgos, 2010 - Fujifilm Superia 200

Amorgos, 2010 - Leica M8, 1/360, ISO 160

And finally a more urban cat:

Iraklion, Crete, 2010 - Leica M8, 1/90, ISO 160

The photograph with the Canon was made with the Canon EF 70-200/4L lens. The rest? Your guess is almost as good as mine. I think I see at least the Voigtländer 35/1.4 Nokton SC there. The film shot is a pretty heavy crop.

Super wide angles

Wide-angle lenses can be a lot of fun. Super wides are super fun. I liked the Voigtländer 15/4.5 Super Wide Heliar the moment I tried it, and it has since become one of my favourite lenses. It's tiny, sharp, and gives that extremely wide view on film — or a full-frame digital Leica. Using a wide-angle lens is however often quite challenging. They are pretty much the worst enemies of simplification, which is an important tool of good photography. If you have a single point of interest in your scene, a wide-angle lens can easily make it too small and distant. Let's look at a few photographs fresh from the scanner.

In this following photo, the temple entrance is very distant and occupies a rather small part of the resulting photograph. It is however the pseudo-symmetry of this image, the reflections on wet ground, and the leading line of the people that still make it work fairly nicely. I don't know if I like the helicopter in the sky, but I didn't want to remove it as it seems the people are looking at it.

Tokyo, 2010 - Kodak BW400CN

In the next photograph, I wanted to show the size of the fortress. It gets somewhat cluttered, however the clutter is created by repetitive shapes. That's not a no-no in my books.

Iraklion, Crete, 2010 - Kodak BW400CN

Wide-angle treatment can be effective for close-ups, too. You can either put some distance between your main subject and the background, or you can play the clutter card to your advantage. In this photo, I wanted to show the large pile of Hello Kitty's inside this UFO catcher.

Tokyo, 2010 - Kodak BW400CN

This is a nice lens on the digitals, too. Here's a past post featuring a photo with the Leica M8.

The colour and the shape

Three cities, three cameras, three photographs.

Hamburg, 2009 - Epson R-D1, 1/450, ISO400

Paris, 2010 - Leica M8, 1/360, ISO160

Tampere, 2010 - Kodak BW400CN

Amorgos City

Following the visit to Naxos it was time to see Amorgos. This small island, the easternmost part of the Greek Cyclades island group, has a population of perhaps 2,000 or so. Amorgos is a great destination for some peaceful beach life and nice hikes. Here are a few pictures from and around the town of Amorgos (or Chora).

Amorgos, 2010 - Fujifilm Superia 200

Amorgos, 2010 - Fujifilm Superia 200

There are cats everywhere on the Greek islands. This one was a bit annoyed after an invading photographer ruined a perfect moment of relaxation.

Amorgos, 2010 - Fujifilm Superia 200

I believe the alleyway above is pretty much downtown Amorgos. This is however not the peak business hour. During the peak hour you may actually see the cat above walk through here.

Amorgos, 2010 - Fujifilm Superia 200

All these photographs were scanned from the negatives using the Epson V700 scanner. Not much was done in terms of post-processing, basically just some straightening and removal of a few dust particles. No cropping, as you can see from the uneven borders.

Film shots from Naxos

Some more pictures from Naxos. These are all unedited, uncropped, almost straight from the scanner. The obvious tweaks are removing of most dust spots and resizing for web. That's it. I used an Epson V700 flatbed scanner for scanning. It is a fairly affordable option for film scans and it sings with larger film sizes. These images were made using 35-mm film in my Voigtländer Bessa R2A, so for optimal quality one should use a dedicated film scanner. For medium size prints, a good flatbed such as the V700 will do. For web images like these, it is even seriously overkill.

Less talk, more pictures.

Naxos, 2010 - Fujifilm Superia 200

Naxos, 2010 - Fujifilm Superia 200

Naxos, 2010 - Fujifilm Superia 200

Waffle house, Naxos, 2010 - Fujifilm Superia 200

Did someone tell you film is dead? Perhaps they meant some other film.