Never Judge A Book By Its Cover .....

In my last post I talked about my "ugly" Quantaray zoom lens which came with a Canon Elan SLR film camera I bought off ebay. There was definitely no "love at first sight". With the signature green lettering at the rear end of the push pull lens barrel, this CN-Tech (Quantaray, made for Samy's Camera?) 75-300mm zoom lens has a max f-stop of 4, a deal breaker in low light. This lens is old, manufactured ages ago! I did not expect much. When I first tested it without film, the focus seemed fast, albeit a little noisy but the noise is not any louder than the Canon EF 70-210 f/4 lens. The lens is light, made mostly of plastic. The push pull zoom barrel is slightly stiff but works nonetheless. The only way to judge the lens is to shoot with it. Armed with a fresh roll of Neopan 400 film in the Elan with the rather unconventional looking lens I set out on foot to the harbor at 4pm yesterday. The harbor was picture perfect as always. There were many sailboats, power boats and a dozen very salty looking fishing trawlers. This is a place of my daily evening stroll except that this time it was 4pm and the sun was a long way from setting. The 400 ISO film was an over-kill but it was the only film I had left. There were a few kayakers and paddle boarders in the water, a group of school kids and their parents with puppies in tow having some family fun. The sea surface sparkled and danced in the gleaming sun.

"Three kayaks at the Rent A Kayak Center, Neopan 400, Adonal, Elan, Quantaray CN Tech 10 75-300mm f/4-5.6"

It was easy to finish 36 shots on the Neopan 400. I could always find photo ops, even the most mundane objects. I am a sucker for lines and shapes, hard shadows. Give me anything and I will find an interesting angle to make a photo out of it. As soon as I got back to the office, I developed the negative (Adonal 1:50, 11 minutes) and was pleasantly surprised. Nearly all the images from this roll were fantastic (if they were not it was my fault entirely). Focus spot on, images sharp. In black and white film, the inferior Quantaray glass almost did not matter. The 300mm focal length was definitely very handy.

"ABOVE - Giant shovels used by harbor fishermen"

An interesting side note on these giant shovels. These huge shovels have a 16 x 12 inch pan size and measure almost 5 ft long with the handle. Fishermen use them to quickly move buckets of shaved ice into 5 ft x 5 ft x 5 ft blue plastic tumblers as hundreds of freshly caught squids come off the conveyor belt into these tumblers. The tumblers of shaved ice and squids mix are then loaded into a 20 ft container, hauled to Long Beach Harbor and shipped to China for processing!! The squids, cleaned, cut, sorted and packaged in some port city in China would then make their way back to the US supermarkets. This sounds crazy but true

And below is my Elan and Quantaray CN-Tech 10 telephoto lens that could produce such respectable results. One thing to note. This is a film only lens, it does not work with Canon dSLR

This Quantaray zoom lens cost me almost nothing, $25 to be exact. It is now a keeper. Work with the limitations of one's gears, one shall be rewarded with good results!!

Olympus XA - Neopan 400 Professional 135-36 film, Adonal developer and Boats in Ventura Harbor

Both neg's were scanned using SVP FS1700
Firstly, the film grain was visible in the scan, I love it! one could never re-create that look on digital. Secondly, the top photo was taken around 8am ish when the harbor was shrouded in fog, it was not quite a sight. The element made for perfect backdrop. The lower photo was shot late afternoon approximately two hours before sunset..... In both situations, the Olympus XA handled both shots beautifully. See last blog post below for a picture of this wonderful little gem of a camera

Neopan 400 Professional is one of my favorite films, I am so disappointed that it is only available in 35mm format and Fuji has decided to discontinued the 120 format. I just reminded myself to order more to stock up on these precious films.

Two scanned negs from Mamiya 645e

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Two images from the very first roll of Neopan 400 I put through my Mamiya 645e. Shot with 55mm f/2.8N lens, no filter (wish I have bought at least a yellow filter). Developed with the very last bit of Agfa Rodinal B&W developer I bought from Kaufmans Camera in San Mateo 8 months ago. I am sad that I have now used up my Rodinal :( Tried to bid on an old unopened 500ml bottle of Rodinal yesterday but my slow fingers let me down and I was outbid.

The Mamiya 645e performed admirably. It was light enough with the lens that as long as I have plenty of light I could shoot handheld (otherwise tripod and MLU do the trick). Mamiya 645 MF lenses are tack sharp (and inexpensive). Currently I have the 55mm f/2.8N and 150mm f/4 N lenses, figure I like to shoot landscape and street/documentary photography, the 55mm and 150mm should serve me well. Still debating whether I really want to get the 120mm f/4 macro...

"Church, Scottsdale Old Town, Mamiya 645e, 55mm f/2.8N lens, Neopan 400 Acros, Rodinal developer"
"Graffiti door, downtown Phoenix, Mamiya 645e, 55mm f/2.8N lens, Neopan 400 Acros, Rodinal developer"
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I am very glad to have "traded" in the monstrous RB67ProSD for the Mamiya 645e set up. It may sound at first glance that I have traded down. It is just the opposite. The goal here is to increase the "utility value" to me. I am thrilled to be able to take the Mamiya 645e with me on my photography outing now..

Came across photography books on André Kertész (1894-1985) while browsing on eBay for more photography stuffs on my wish list (I am now officially an ebay junkie - only for things related to classic cameras and art stuffs though). I could not resist and finally bought myself a wonderful book - André Kertész: The Polaroids
- a treasure of beautiful Polaroid images taken by the photographer with the Polaroid SX-70 camera, a gift from his friend Nash and wife Susan (of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young). These Polaroid images were taken in his Manhattan apartment "literally" in the late 70s/early 80s. Kertész was already in his 80s and had just lost his beloved wife and companion of four decades......It is a very moving photo book, a story of a highly talented photographer who finally found solace in his art and continued to create these beautiful imagery until his death in 1985

I quote now something from the book,

When mystified viewers, many of whom owned the same model of camera, asked how he got such remarkable results, Kertész explained,"You have to learn the limits of the medium, then learn to work on the edges of those boundaries"

How true!! His work speaks volume of his mastery of composition and the magical light.