After a couple of delays i finally have my Voigtländer Bessa R3A Setup.
I originally ordered a secondhand camera but my order was accidentally sent to another person!… I was obviously pretty disappointed. In the end however, i was sent a brand new R3A for the same price of the used one.. I immediately felt better again
I have to say,  out of the many cameras i’ve owned and used, this camera feels the best.. I dont know what it is, but its the type of camera that makes you want to fire off a few rolls of film just by holding it. I cant wait to start using it. I’m bringing it to work tomorrow, haha
After i put a couple rolls through it i’ll post up a proper review and take a few “beauty shots” of the camera.
For now, heres a quick shot of some of the gear..

Well, that’s a bit dramatic actually..
The other week i got some Fuji Neopan SS (100iso) as it was super cheap, and i’d never heard too much about it. Felt like trying something different. I decided to shoot a test roll this wee as i couldn’t really wait to use it on something special, i just wanted to see what it’d look like. I was half way through the roll when i noticed something wrong. My camera was set at 400 ISO =/
I initially got annoyed with myself, but then thought it’d be a good opportunity to try and push process the film a little (i’d never tried it before). So i shot the rest of the roll and started looking for some recommended development times. To my astonishment there were hardly any… Well, there were dev times for 100ISO, but nothing for 400.. I started looking at times for other developers but found hardly any info at all.. Thinks weren’t looking good.
After hours of searching i thought i’d just give it a go making an “educated guess”… Actually, it was more of a plain old “guess”.
Somehow, it worked. As you’d imagine i was pretty happy about it all. Actually, it produced some of the nicer results i’d got.
Here they are. Fuji Neopan SS developed in Rodinal at 1+50 @ 21C for 18 minutes, pushed to 400 ISO.

I dont know what happened with this shot, but thought it looked kind of interesting anyway..

A couple friends and i were talking about how we haven’t really taken any photos lately. It’s Just been hard finding time with so much other stuff on at the moment. So we challenged ourselves to take atleast one photo today, of anything at all. We were all going to work so couldn’t really dedicate too much time to it. I ended up almost finishing a roll of film, but wont be able to develop and scan it before our “deadline”, so here are a couple sunset pictures taken from the car. There were some amazing colours in the sunset, so i waited until the sun went behind a cloud and shot a couple of pics with my digital p&s Fuji F10. They’re nothing amazing, but i think they turned out ok considering the limitations of the camera, the time i had, and the fact i was trying to drive at the same time =/ . Atleast i completed the challenge, i’ll see if the others have though :p
I just did a resize and cropped out soem of the bottom on the second shot, no other processing.

Haven’t taken any photos for about a week now… Well i’ve started a roll of Fuji 100SS, but havent got around to finishing it yet. Just have too many assignments and things on at the moment. Cant wait until its all finished. Im sick of studying…
Oh, also im waiting on some new gear from the U.S. Got half of it, but there was a stuff up with the other half and it’ll be taking another week to get to me.. So frustrating. I wish i could just buy this stuff from a regular shop instead of relying on Internet and postage =/

Just some shots from the other day. Tried some 400 ISO HP5 out this time, i quite like it. Developed in Rodinal 1+50 for 11 mins. The damn flare killed the second shot, should of expected it though. The shot with the flowers was taken with an old red filter i was testing out. Oh, and check out my ghost photo at the bottom :p

OMG A GHOST! :p

found an old red filter in one of my camera bags today and thoguht i’d try it out with the remainign film in the camera. For a while now i’ve been wondering what differences it can make to black and white photography, i decided to shoot two identical shots to see the difference with and without the filter (i was looking for ways to finish the roll off, haha)
I have to say i was quite surprised by the boost in contrast it gives. I never imagined it’d be that much.
The example shots below probably didnt have the best subject matter or setting to see the full advantage of a red filter but i took some photos afterwards that really benefited from it (will post them later).
I think a red filter will be living on my camera most of the time now.

Been trying to install this piece of shit(cs3 master colelction) for 6 hours now. Never had this many issues with one piece of software before. After reading many threads of people with the same issues and no real solutions, i’m about to give up. How can it be so hard to install something??
=/

Last year i won a photo comp on an Australian Photography forum. The prize was an A1 sized print of one of my photos. It took me ages to send in the photo i wanted printed out (mainly because my hard drive died. Plus the fact that i was quite lazy over the Christmas break).
I finally got around to sending the printer a pic last week and received the finished product in the mail yesterday. I was really happy with the result. The printing was terrific so that was never an issue, i was just concerned about the post processing work i’d done to the photo. It was bit of a gamble, but turned out looking really good in the “flesh”.
I’ve made prints of my photos before, but never at A1 size. It’s pretty impressive.
I took a quick picture of it below. I haven’t mounted it yet on the wall, so will hopefully sort that out today. Oh, and the print doesn’t look all flat like it does in the photo below.

Got some new film this week that i’ll be shooting tomorrow hopefully. I want to try and use up my Rodinal so i can test out another developer too.
But, onto another subject. I was meant to post this up a while ago but never got around to it.
My brothers girlfriend brought back this little figure from Fiji. How good does he look!
I dont know what it is, but i just think its terrific. He looks quite comical and has alot of character. Havent named it yet though :p
Oh, and before anyone asks, yes it was declared at customs.
Posting this little guy up was sort of an excuse to test out a couple new features ive finally got to work on the blog. Click on the image and watch it magically appear larger ooh..
If it doesnt work, let me know

Ok, i’ve been cutting back on my camera collecting, but this little gem was going very cheap so i had to buy it. I mean, for less than $20 you cant really go wrong.
Its a Canonet 19 from the mid to early 60’s. Sort of a beefed version of an Olympus trip bit with a faster 45mm f/1.9 lens and manual control. Oh and a funky bottom film advance lever too. I wasnt too confident on the condition as it was really cheap (they’re not worth a great amount anyway), but i was plesantly surprised when i received it today. Aperture and shutter are all working, and even auto mode seems to be going good which means the light meter is ok. Cosmetically its in top condition too. It also came with its original eveready case and yellow filter which look great. But what is even cooler is its original box. I think it looks great with the fancy “Canonet” typeface, and canon logo with colour design etc.
I have a little time off soon, so will put a roll through it and see the results. It looks as though someone changed the light seals not too long ago, so im quietly confident that it’ll work.
Heres a shot of it below. I didnt take it in my light box as i couldnt be bothered setting it up. I just put it infront of a window on white cardboard and put some white paper behind it. You obviously cant get the same lighting control you would with a proper light box, but this is a decent quick/temporary solution.