so in the end, i finished only one roll of slide film(120 format, 6×7, so ten pictures in total :p). it was also the first time i used my Mamiya 7II (w/ 80mm lens; equivalent to 39mm in 35mm format), so i’m actually posting a test roll here. the pictures aren’t all that great, but they’re still okay(sorry Sebastian! i know i should strive for more (blog) quality, instead of posting entire test rolls :D). i’m more disappointed in the way my scanner can’t correctly reproduce the colors of slide film. i’ve experienced this before with slide film. the colors simply don’t match up with the colors seen on the slides. quite a shame, ’cause i like the colors of Ektachrome 200… especially with the slightly yellow cast due to expiration of the film).

photo geek info:
Mamiya 7II, Mamiya N 80/4 L, Kodak Ektachrome 200 (expired in 2004)

when i saw the scene below, it immediately reminded me of the heated discussion about banning headscarfs in Belgium. i think it’s a pretty pointless discussion though, which is generally fed by xenophobes *slash* Islamophobes… the Belgian flag with “nostalgia” written on it, reminds me of the people who keep whining about how good everything was when there weren’t so many immigrants around yet… *sigh*

note to self: stop walking before taking a picture next time ;)

this picture looks better on slide, because my scanner has cut off the lower part of the picture. the woman’s elbow isn’t really cut off on the original picture. Ektrachrome slides have this big border at the top and nearly no border at the bottom, so the neg holder overlaps the bottom part of the slide, hence a part of the picture is cut off…

i need anti-Newton ring glass for my scanner so badly, so that i can finally scan the WHOLE negative. i best buy it before i start scanning this shitload of film, ’cause otherwise i’m going to end up with cropped pictures again :-/

at some point, i even found a random building site more interesting than Belgium’s national day.

this is my favourite picture of the roll. i stood next to him for a while; observing him, setting up my camera, pretending as if i was going to take pictures of the soldiers behind him to finally strike when he looked in my direction :D

he looks quite surprised, yet curious…

… and here, he already looks rather annoyed with me taking pictures haha :’ )

these poor fellas stood there like this for soooooo long. you can tell by the guy in the middle that it was pretty tiring. they each looked up like that from time to time.

little guy watching the soldiers with their flags suffer.

there i stood… completely locked in by the crowd and barely able to move. and before i even realized King Albert flashed by in his “pope mobile like” jeep. i didn’t see him coming, so i quickly had to guess at the correct camera settings et voilà… still a miracle that i was able to take a picture, as it all happened so fast.

cropped to square format. looks better this way…
somehow wished i had such a nice chess pattern on my ass though :(

there… my first roll with the Mamiya 7II. i especially used slide film to check how accurate the light meter(center-weighted, not ttl) was. i’m so used to ttl metering, but exposure was pretty accurate *yay*! i just love my Mamiya 7II!

ps: i excluded one picture because it was completely unsharp. sometimes i get too enthusiastic and then i tend to forget that i’m taking pictures with a rangefinder… and i simply forget to focus *n00b* :” )

cheers.
bert

hmm seems like my blog has suffered a near-death experience, so i’m going to post a quick update on what i’ve been doing lately… just to let this blog rise from its ashes somewhat.

so… what have i been doing lately? my studies(exams and school assignments) have taken most of my time. meanwhile, i also invested quite a lot in new photo equipment. i finally bought a Mamiya Sekor C 50/4.5(equivalent of 25mm in 35mm format) for my RB67 Pro-SD. lovely wide-angle lens with a minimal amount of distortion. just love it!

i also bought a Minolta Auto Meter VF(hurray! finally accurate light measuring when shooting with the Mamiya, instead of having to guess settings), a Metz CL4 flash and a NPC polaroid back for my Mamiya.

to be honest, i’m not too fond of polaroids because of the “cool” and “(f)arty” label many people tend to attach to it(not to mention the complete idiots that put polaroid borders ’round digital photographs… just to be cool *sigh*). i’m not going to use polaroids to be “cool” whatsoever, but rather to make proofings before i shoot with film. it’ll be handy in some situations to check on exposure, dof, composition,… in advance. i’ve already seen results of polaroids used with medium format(a great set on Flickr – both 4×5 format and 6×7 format) and i must say.. i’m really impressed by the overall image quality of polaroids.

when i woke up this morning, a USPS package was already waiting for me on the table. it was the polaroid back! i immediately cleaned the rollers and then popped some Fuji FP-100C in the polaroid back. so hereby, my first “cool” *slash* “(f)arty” polaroid!

Mamiya RB67 Pro SD w/ 50/4.5 lens and Fuji FP-100C(expired; 01/2005)

talkin’ about film… in the last few weeks, i’ve found myself a new hobby: stashing up (expired) film in my fridge (and freezer). i found sooooo many great film bargains on Ebay recently. well, see for yourself… as you can see, i’m much of a Kodak fan boy :p

this picture was taken a few weeks ago, so it isn’t up-to-data anymore.
meanwhile i received another:

- 10 rolls of Ilford FP4(220 format),
- 15 rolls of Agfa XPS160(220 format),
- 10 rolls of TMax(120 format.. don’t like TMax, but i’m going to give it another try :p),
- 5 cartridges Fuji FP-100C(Polaroid)
– 2 cartridges Polapan 100(Polaroid B/W).

i’m seriously considering a dedicated film fridge now, ’cause some people at home aren’t too happy with the fact that there’s more film in the fridge than food :’ )

there, my first (not so interesting) post after a long period of interactivity is a fact! if you really read this blogpost from start to finish, you’ve just earned yourself a virtual lollypop. enjoy!

(a more serious photo blogpost will follow soon. i’ve recently switched to a lcd monitor and i’d like to have my moniter calibrated first ’cause the blacks aren’t too black imo…)

cheers,
bert

as i promised in my previous post, i’m going to post some pictures of the gentse feesten. it was actually the first time that i went to the gentse feesten at daytime. i did have a great time though.

all pictures taken with bessa r3m, nokton 40/1.4, tri-x (for those that care…)

at a flea market…

dogs will take over the entire universe someday. don’t tell me i didn’t warn you…
this dog was already able to drive a car!

funny how the guy on the left tried to cover his face with his hand. he wasn’t very pleased with me taking pictures. that’s for sure :-D

beggin’ for some food.

on the neg, the lady’s arm isn’t cut off though.. apparently the stupid lab that scanned my negs can’t even manage to scan negs properly :-/

how i’ve stalked this dog… :)
poor thing had to wear his woolen jacket while it was quite hot.

soeur sourire revival? :]

overexposed *joy* :-/

it’s beginning to look like a hobby of mine to cut people’s feet off *blush*

fish-creature-things wandering through the streets of Ghent.

a fish-creature-thing pooing a human. great!

dSLR’s.. everyone has one nowadays.

do notice the little fella with the white shirt on the right. he was sort of mesmerized but also gave an impression that he was quite bored :)

they were having a great time playing accordion and drinking booze.

apparently some people still had to work while others were enjoying themselves at the gentse feesten.

very… euhm… rock’n'roll?! *cough* :]
she was sitting there all day long, watching concerts and enjoying her cigarettes. man, you should’ve seen the pile of cigarette ends lying next to her…

he wasn’t very interested in the concert.

these guys were great!

balloons!

an italian guide holding her umbrella in the air to make sure she didn’t lose her ‘audience’ in the crowd.

karate kid givin’ a demonstration at the gentse feesten :’ )

the wall must fall! they had quite a discussion about this.

this guy was soooo cool. i was taking some pictures of him when he suddenly noticed me and said that i had a nice camera…

he: that’s a nice cam you have there mate. is that a leica?
me: i wish it was, but no.. it’s a voigtländer.
he: ah it does look like a leica though. i have a leica myself.

the conversation went on and on and on while he was doing all those fancy tricks with balloons. the people surrounding him gave us some strange looks. i think they didn’t really had a clue what we were talking about :]

these little fellas were quite fascinated by the guy with his balloons.

i made a few attempts to take a picture of the guy in the middle, but every time the girl(or her balloon) blocked my sight. at the moment, i was so convinced that she wouldn’t be in the way. wrong guess it seems…

de nieuwe bellenman! (no i’m not even going to try to translate this :D)

she was impressed by the police who were escorting some wasted guy, but then she saw that i was taking pictures of her and she gave me one of those ‘burn in hell’ looks.

i’d rather not have a pole poking in my ass! :-p

guess what… the wasted guy from a few pictures ago ended up next to me. the police put him on the bench(next to me). do notice the Rolling Stones tattoos on his arm :]

white sport shoes with white hitched up socks are sooo wrong!
(i was having a beer and i just noticed… not that i’m always checking out people’s shoes and socks :-D)

i wanted to finish off my roll, so i started taking pictures of this lady…

left girl: look that guy’s taking everybody’s picture, expect ours.
right girl: sir, don’t you want to take a picture of us? (yeah people call me sir.. still don’t know why. i don’t look like a ‘sir’. dude would do…)
me: whatever.
right girl: you’re not going to put this picture on the internet or anything like that, huh?
me: euhm… no (okay big lie, but it’s not like they’re flashing their boobs… so big deal) .

this guy was so funny.. but especially wasted.

on my way home…

that’s about it… pretty lengthy post, huh?! it’s more quantity than quality, but who cares.. i had a great time.

anyways.. i’m off.

cheers!

bert

it’s been a while since i’ve posted something new up here… for now i’m going to post some older pictures. the reason why i haven’t posted them before is because i was not too happy with the development and the prints. i had some rolls developed and printed in another shop than i’m used to and they fucked up the development quite bad. the prints… yeah well… the prints came out quite greenish. not much of a surprise, if you know that they print analogue b/w pics on digital photo paper(Fujicolor crystal archive paper) -_- i think they should chop off people’s hands for doing such things.. really!

i was quite gutted about it and it only strengthened the idea of having a darkroom of my own. even though i haven’t developed film before.. i can only try, right? that way there’ll be no one else to blame but myself when the negs/prints look like crap…

ah well.. enough ranting for one day :-D i’ll start posting pictures now…

all pictures were taken with my bessa r3m, nokton 40/1.4, tri-x

a day in Ghent..

things like this might happen when you’re fiddling too much with settings and are too late to capture the scene.. caught in the act! :-D

dogs like ice cream too ^^

i just had to photograph this to make sure that i wasn’t having any hallucinations of giant michelin puppets walking through Ghent.

having a conversation with a pigeon…

cool stuff!

reflections ftw!

some train pics on my way to Sint-Lukas/Brussels for my entrance exam…

quite blurry this one due to train movement and slow shutter speed…

on my way home…

some Antwerp shots…

asians with a strange definition of sightseeing…

meh.. wrong focus :-(

freeze motherfucker! FBI!

enjoying belgian fries

looking at one of the attractions on the Sinksenfoor… as though she’d seen the light :-D

well that’s it for now… i hope you enjoyed it.

expect a new update later this week with pictures of the gentse feesten.

bye,

bert

last week, i finished off my first roll with my new Bessa R3M. i still have to get used to the rangefinder focusing mechanism(never used a rangefinder before..), but i can say that i’m lovin’ it already!

anyways.. some pictures(don’t expect masterpieces for now though…)
the scan quality is crap.. so, sorry about that.

bessa r3m, nokton 40/1.4, tri-x

my name is Bond.. James Bond! watching Bond movies for free is typically something for old people…

after a half hour, i had enough of wandering through the Fnac. so i went back to the ground floor.. and guess what.. the guy was still watching Bond. Bond was just having it off with some of them hawt blond chicks.

there’s not much “nordic” about “nordic walking” through the city on a sunny day(?!). she must’ve thought Ghent was situated somewhere in the Alps…

to give money.. or not to give money…

BOOZE!

this ‘building’ reminded me of Spencer Platt’s world press photo somehow. my photo is not world press photo material though… : )

the guy on the right had enough of being a statue.. so he just took off his mask, put it on his chair and ‘installed’ himself on the side of the street.

sad to see how antisocial people with mobiles are. maybe they were calling each other. who knows… :-p
i hate mobiles *bleh*

nice painting job!

the 2 last shots were taken with my spotmatic II, 35/2.8 and T-Max 100

*imitates a pigeon’s cooing*

better have two ice creams in the hand… than having no ice cream at all!

there.. my first blog entry is a fact! i hope you liked it…