Brothers

Film Developing Misadventure

I did my black and white developing last night. Last time I was being meticulous and uber careful. Perhaps I wasn't as careful as I should have been, so I messed up this second time. The film was loaded crooked so a few frames touched each other and didn't come out right as they were under developed. I really should have double checked once I finished loading, but I didn't I thought I just did an excellent job in loading the film in one go. And the error occurred in the last mile, I mean the very last section of the film or the beginning of the roll. I am pretty disappointed with myself.

One of the discovery when taking pictures with the last roll was I can get 13 frames out of a roll of 120 film in my 6x6 Hasselblad. It probably doesn't mean much but it's fun to experiment though not so great in filing the negative in a 3 by 4 sheet. I think if I am able to advance past the 12th frame, I am able to press the shutter just by resetting the frame counter. I think I did get the 13th frame but unfortunately I lost the very first frame by loading the film crooked toward the very end.

I need to shoot another 120 soon. I just need to do that right to get the feel good feeling back.

CFV-39 Digital Back Review

A three-part review brought to you by Mr. Oleg Novikov is up.  Much of his review is from his field experience while shooting in Inner Mongolia.

Digital Back CFV-39 For Hasselblad

This is a digital back for Hasselblad V series cameras.  I think.  I don't bother to read the fine prints.  Oleg Novikov is in the process of penning his field experience with this 39MP back.  The site is good old html, and I don't know if it has any perma link.  Anyway, do a search or something, the update is on October 17, 2009.

Boys

Summer of 2009

Pear Orchard

These were shot using FUJI PRO160C, expired in 2006/11. And the camera was a used Hasselblad 500C/M with the 80mm CF lens. Again, I am so impressed with my exposure. Or I should actually be thankful to the latitude of the film. I guess I will never find out. The f16 rule just works for me. (I am full of it, I figure if I don't love my work who will?)

The place is in New Jersey, the orchard is run by Korean Americans. They have these big dining halls there, two of them at least, and you can actually order not so fast made to order food from their kitchen, mainly or only chicken dishes. It's $40 for 4 people. There was this dragon lady manning the cashier and she wasn't all that friendly.... I guess the food is very Korean, except you can order soda. It's whole chicken in soup, a big bowl of steamed rice with some beans, kimchi, raw green hot pepper with dipping paste. My kids wouldn't touch the food except for the rice. The chicken and the soup actually were pretty good. I had some kimchi. I like Korean BBQ better.

The pears were good. They had the brown and yellow ones. That day we weren't allowed to pick the brown ones. They were big and juicy.

Bryant Park

Hasselblad 500 C/M Useless Information

What I found:-

You can't shoot with an empty (pre A12) back attached even both the back and the camera have white dots on their respective windows and the dark slide is removed. It's just the way it is. (I don't know about A12 back as I don't have any to test. Mine is a back that has a peep-hole in the back to check film advance when loading)

To test shoot for fun, you need to remove the film back all together. To remove the film back from the body, you need to have the dark slide inserted. And you cannot remove or attach the film back without the dark slide inserted into the film back.

If your experience is different from mine, please let me know.

UPDATE: 11/14/2009
I think I was pretty good in spreading half truth and rumors.  The above is totally false.  You can shoot with an empty back attached.  I just found out.  The way to do it is to treat it like the back has film inside by turning the knob counter clockwise so the number appears on the frame window.  Once the number goes past 12 you can turn the knob counter clockwise so the 1 appears again and you can continue shooting without any film inside.  And yesterday I found out this old back can actually shoot 220 film, woo hoo.