ashraf azlan photoblog

Singapore + Fuji X100

2011-08-04T14:47:00.001+08:00

I recently spent a week in Singapore with my family. We went to the usual tourist attractions, Universal Studios, Night Safari etc. Definitely enjoyed the place, but the people? Not so much. We had a particularly nasty encounter with a shop owner at Orchard Road, but I’ll save that for a later post. What I really wanted to talk about was a new piece of gear I acquired during the trip, the Fujifilm X100.

There are already plenty of reviews available online, but I recommend reading Jonathan Fleming’s and Zack Arias’s take on it. To sum it up in one word? Incredible. You really have to experience the hybrid viewfinder yourself to truly understand why everybody’s raving about it, and the IQ from this thing is superb. Despite looking like a camera from the 60’s, this thing is loaded with so many technical doodads it’s almost overwhelming. Once you get the hang of it though it becomes a joy to shoot with, and shooting street is almost as pleasurable as shooting with my Leica’s.

Despite these praises, the X100 does have a couple of issues. The most apparent being the manual focusing system, which has such a long focus throw that you’re better off just using it to fine tune the AF (which has it’s own issues as well). It’s not the fastest camera either, the menu can be a bit confusing and the camera was prone to locking up in certain modes. That said, Fujifilm are aware of these complaints and have been cranking out firmware updates to fix this. I’ve recently upgraded to the latest firmware (1.10) and that seems to have fixed the lockups.

I’ll post some more thoughts on this camera as the weeks go by. As of right now I’ve only had it for a few days :)

LASALLE College of Arts. Limkokwing on steroids :)

The X100 produces some of the best OOC jpegs, almost to the point where I don't even bother shooting RAW. Skin tones are pretty accurate too, good Fuji colours.

The lady managed to hide her face under the umbrella. My bad, I fumbled with camera menu for too long :)

Pretty cool that these two buildings were right next to each other.

Pretty intense glare from a guy selling handbags, but then again that's pretty much the standard response over there.

I thought it was pretty sad seeing old people having to work, from what I'm told it's hard to make a living there.

Reminded me of an old friend from school.

Taking the train..

Stopped here to take the bus to the Night Safari.

Probably bad news?

Skin tones hold up even under weird white balance.

Night Safari was pretty good, but walking around the compound was even better. Pretty packed too, and it was a week day.

This kid was part of a school trip and non of his schoolmates wanted to sit with him. Caused quite a scene too. ISO 6400.

Wish they sold replicas of these skulls, would be pretty cool to have one on my desk.

Heading back to the hotel. Reminded me of my trips to Japan a few years back, everyone has their phones out in the train.

Quite a number of people were sleeping in McDonald's, but the staff didn't mind.

Breakfast.

Best ice cream ever :)

Took a walk through Bugis Street, pretty mad stuff. Definitely need to go there again someday.

Dinner at McDonald's again, they have a few interesting menu items that we don't. Still weirds me out that it varies from country to country.

Last night in Singapore, this was our hotel for the past week.

At the airport getting our tax refunds.

The X100 has a built in panorama feature that's pretty cool. It automatically stitches together a panoramic image as you pan from left to right (or even up to down)

Saw this kid looking at me right as I finished the panorama. Couldn't help but take a snap :)

Finally! Airplane food that doesn't suck. I'm glad I went with the roasted chicken.

Back in Penang, and very happy to be back.

Blank

2011-08-02T02:38:00.000+08:00

Sums up my feelings on getting this blog post done. Full post soon..ish?

Towards the end

2011-06-07T01:52:00.000+08:00

Revisiting

2011-03-23T02:08:00.000+08:00

Overdue

2011-02-27T13:35:00.002+08:00

*Checks last post date*

Ok, 3 months since I've last posted anything on this blog. It's been a pretty busy year, work and other crazy shit has made it difficult for me to pick up a camera and shoot. Lets just say 2011 hasn't really been good to me.

Hopefully I'll get to shoot more, but I'll likely disappear again for another 3-4 months :)

You'll find cars in the oddest places..

My grandfather, during my uncle's wedding. After this it'll be our (grandchildren) turn, not me though :)

Back to airports..and delays.

Friendship..

..and companionship.

Finger licking good.

I can't resist taking a snap at slanted objects. OCD?

Last one, beautiful sun rays..or in the gaming term, god rays :)

Next post will probably be about MMU's Under One Roof accoustic night..hopefully.

Raya Haji

2010-11-19T00:19:00.001+08:00

Left Cyberjaya at 10.30pm, not too many cars and the journey was smooth. Stopped for a toilet break and next thing I new the roads were jammed.

Turns out a pretty bad car accident just happened a kilometer or so away. Thank god I dodged that bullet :)

Ignore the max speed, take a look at the current speed ;)

Arrived home around 7-7.30am, left for Kuala Kangsar not long after that..

Our family was the first to arrive, so not much to do..

Good stuff :)

Passing time..

More good stuff.

Thats it for now. Bit hard to take photos with a rangefinder with one hand..so probably have to rely on af after this :)

Last roll?

2010-11-06T21:40:00.001+08:00

Probably..

HP5 has wonderful tonality under the right light (sunny/directional) It's has less contrast than Tri-X and the grain is tighter too. I'll probably stick with Tri-X and FP4 for now, both seem to handle diafine better and is suitable for almost every lighting condition.

FA's peer crit, where we have to tell our story to the whole class. Nerve-wracking if you're doing it alone, like Dhikong...good thing I'm in a group. Here you can see how poorly HP5 souped in diafine reacts to artificial lighting. Very low contrast, and compensating for it in post exaggerates the grain. Tri-X would be better in situations like this.

Definitely not the right combo for flat lighting..

Back to Tri-X..wonderful :)

Thumbnails for our FYP. Acap, Adit and Ghazi handling the bulk of the drawings..lucky to have them cause I can't draw cartoons to save my life.

Maybe I really do need a 50 :) A planar would be nice..

My M6 is starting to act up, problem with the rewind knob where the film advance will jam whenever I reach midroll. It seems others have faced this problem as well, and there are diy instructions on how to fix this. Don't know if I would it myself..might send it to Solms and get an MP viewfinder upgrade as well.

Makes for some interesting scans though..

Studio session..

And that's it. I'll probably continue with my M8 for now..at least until I figure out what to do with the M6.

Cheers!

New Semester Pt. 2

2010-11-06T00:14:00.000+08:00

Part 2, some shots with Tri-X but most with FP4 (gorgeous film, too bad it's more expensive than Tri-X here..)

Must have been something pretty interesting for all of them to look that way.

Shooting street with Khairul Anwar.

Rangefinders ftw.

Sometimes I wish I had a 50.

My lifelong dream is to join the Rich Club.

One thing I love about Malaysia? No laws against jaywalking (I might be wrong, but if there is it sure as hell isn't enforced)

Taking a peek inside..

Not sure what Bruce Lee has to do with lozenges...

Been having some killer cravings for durian lately...too bad no one's selling them in Cyberjaya :(

Had a nail go through my sandal not long after I took this shot.

The fragility of film. Probably something wrong with my developing reel, I've noticed the same marks on another roll.

Meter started acting crazy at this point, and I've been unable to get the battery cover open (don't have a plier atm) On top of that my M6 seems to be falling apart, film advance keeps gets stuck midroll...cla time?

Progression.

Rained pretty heavy in the afternoon...

...and I had no umbrella.

Cheers :)

New Semester Pt. 1

2010-10-30T17:39:00.001+08:00

Starting off with a few negs from the Feringghi roll, and yes, another bathroom-mirror shot :)

One reason for not waking up early? Boring tv shows.

Had an interesting conversation with this man, we talked about sewers and mutated fish..

Changlun, Kedah.

Meeting with Adit, Ghazi and Acap to discuss ideas for our FYP. Good thing we have Adit for the creative stuff, I'm pants at anything other than tech.

Back to classes..

Iphone 4! Too bad I don't have the budget for one right now (plenty of other stuff I need to buy) :P

Consultations with the lecturers. The wait is long..but still beats having 9-6 classes :)

Diafine (or rather two bath developers) at it's best. Something like this shot on digital would result in an overexposed photo.

One frame from the day spent shooting street with Anwar, next post :)

Update

2010-10-25T03:06:00.000+08:00

Full blog post soon..

Break Pt.3

2010-10-12T20:00:00.000+08:00

Last frames from the diafine roll. Some bromide drag happening here, will need to increase inversions or start using a stainless steel tank.

3200-4000 (can't remember) Very thin, but certainly usable for scanning.

You can really see the contrast picking up from this point on, mainly because the roll is finally rated at 1250 (best speed for diafine)

Actually, there might be another part. Still a few frames from this trip on another roll :)

Cheers.

Break Pt.2

2010-10-11T23:29:00.002+08:00

Tri-X and diafine...the start of a beautiful friendship. Speeds ranging from 400-1250..

Final part soon :)

Break Pt.1

2010-10-09T15:31:00.002+08:00

More to come...

Colour

2010-10-06T05:16:00.001+08:00

Finally got around to scanning an older roll of Kodak Gold (back when I still had a 28mm) Colors are a nice surprice, very saturated red/yellows..not bad for a consumer film.

Won't be commenting too much on these shots, brain is too fried right now for any flashbacks.

Grain is tight too (considering this is iso 400 film)

I'm starting to miss this lens. Not sure if it's the focal length (28mm) or how it renders..but I'm not too happy with how the 40/1.4 performs with color film. Hopefully the 35/1.2 Nokton will fix that, been seeing some killer shots taken with that lens..very smooth and sharp at the same time. Simon makes wonderful use of this lens, do check his blog :)

Orange!

Still can't believe we passed that subject (storyboard). That was one crazy semester..glad I don't have to worry about classes...for now.

Each FA crit session takes away at least 2 years from your expected lifespan, it's that stressful.

Final presentation takes out 5.

Unless you're Ghazi..

..or Adit.

More MMU madness..

Hostel fire extinguisher, useful for many things except for putting out fires :)

I really don't know.

Stay tuned for another short post tomorrow..

KLIA

2010-09-29T16:23:00.000+08:00

Raya post is on hold, these are photos from a roll shot during Farhan's last day here.

First frame from the roll, this was actually from a different day. Paris Hilton exhibition/event at Pavilion, only reason I took it was because I heard on the radio that she cancelled all her promotional tours. Must've been pretty embarrassing if true.

Met up at Mid Valley, I know that it's quite packed during weekends but damn. Sardine can.

It was too crowded and too loud so we went back to Farhan's place (well his grandfather's)

Some things never change ;)

Heading off to the airport. Farhan's aunt was kind enough to let us tag along.

I've always enjoyed airports, mainly because they remind me so much of my childhood days. Half of my life was spent travelling.

Baggage check-in. Finally got to meet Farhan's girlfriend (well, more like see..didn't really have a proper conversation with her)

Spent the remainder of our time at McD.

Fahmi, Farhan's younger brother.

Fikri took this, not bad for his first time..even got the focus right.

All three of us.

Thought this was a nice moment.

And on the other end..

Finally, a proper photo of Fikri.

Getting ready to leave..getting their papers checked.

All clear!

Took the train back, expensive but also fast..we needed to reach KL quickly. Also loving the tones here, not too contrasty and not too sharp. Maybe I need an older summicron, V3 perhaps?

Again.

It wouldn't be a proper blog post if it didn't have atleast one toilet mirror self portrait ;)

New laptop to replace the old one (which fried itself, literally) Catching up on tv shows I missed out during work months.

Still need to work on metering the moon, can't seem to get it right...anyway, I'll end this post here. Photos from raya will be up soon.

Cheers!

New blog!

2010-09-29T13:38:00.002+08:00

If you've been following me on wordpress, this is my new blog address. For new readers, you can visit my old one here.

Changed back to blogger for a number of reasons, and hopefully this time it's permanent :)