Farewell? and Journalists

After many, many months of guilty contemplation, I have decided to sell off my Leica CL.

Its not him, its me.

I just cannot, for my sake and his, get used to handling a rangefinder. Yup, I am an single / twin lens reflex nut. And incurable. So for his sake, I hope he finds a better owner than me, someone who will have the time to bring him out and take some genuine street shots.

): I can't believe I posted the sale too. But its okay, at least I got the guts to admit he needs a better home.

Okay, I sound crazy here, but getting attached to your camera gear is VERY easy. I have had yet to sell any away and gah, it hurts.

Well anyway, let's move on to something more fascinating than my attachment to inhuman objects.

Look what I found!

An article on Journalists' Secret Lives.

Politico feature writer Helena Andrews says she’s “not the regular Washington wonky reader.” Her first stop is Entertainment Weekly’s online News & Notes. From there, it’s GoFugYourself.com, a celebrity-skewering blog that Andrews calls “quite possibly the most awesomely bitchy and brilliant blog in the history of the world.” It puts her in the right frame of mind, she says, to write about pols.

I don't know you, but she's cool.

There are some other cute tidbits, like this one:

CNN’s John Roberts fell in love with motorcycles as a kid—he tried making one by attaching a lawn-mower engine to his bicycle. It worked. Years later, Roberts is the proud owner of two Harley-Davidsons.

I think, I need to do one about Singapore's journalists. Although I'm not sure if their lives might involve more than just working, and overtime.

Leica CL

I keep wanting to sell off my CL, but I can't seem to bear parting with it.

And I keep thinking that I can't get many good shots with it, due to not being comfortable using it. Then I look at the flickr pool and see so many rubbish shots and I wonder if I'm being too hard on myself.

I still think of the leather case on ebay that would go beautifully with the camera, but if I sell it, the case will be a waste of money.

Brought it out for a spin again recently, and the believed-to-be-dying meter became alive again after some wiping of the battery and contact points. The shutter was so soft and quiet too, it seemed like the camera was making me reconsider.

But, I need the money, and I need to buy a film scanner too with my load of film piling up...

Decisions, decisions.

barber

Dying Trade?

Leica CL / Nokton 40mm f1.4 / Velvia 100F

Lala

Hodeeho (: I have gotten back my latest slides from the CL! Their fine, but looking at some of them just makes me think of how irritated I was, not being able to focus close enough. I HATE THAT! I wonder if I'll ever get used to that moot point rangefinders have.

Otherwise, bokeh's looking good, and velvia, as usual, makes EVERYTHING look good (: I love velvia. Maybe I should start looking at other chromes...

AND!

I got the x'mas presents ordered from USA, the fella ordered the wrong thing for my mom which is making me want to tear my hair out, but I have to resist, seeing as how my hair has been dropping of its own accord.

I AM ANGRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!! So angry that I have to use caps and drag out letters. What do I do now! ):

Oh well.

Anyway, up later will be a series of photos taken in Macau. Quite a few, in fact (:

BAH

I don't know whether to feel consoled upon seeing lousy photos (taken by others) using rangefinders. Cos its not consoling.

I dislike not having "what you see is what you get" and the distortion when you tilt the camera, as the frames do not always show you what gets on the film.

More cons appear with RF. Where are the pros when you need them?

Perhaps when I get the latest roll of velvia developed I'll feel better (:

Yesterday

Yesterday, I saw the most beautiful thing I'd seen in a long time.

My heart stilled, for a moment.

A Leica CL in a perfect unmarred black coat stared back at me, making me long to run my fingers down its smooth body.

AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Its more beautiful than an M2 could be. I still think of it... (:

Anyway, got the slides yesterday. I'm glad to say that MY CL meters perfectly. I shall console myself with the knowledge that mine is working fantastic, even if it might not resemble a newborn baby.

Used Fuji Velvia 100F, the colours were stunning as usual. Sad to say, when I used Prince Hairy to digitise them (apologies in advance for lousy focus), he couldn't bring out the colours the way they really were!

Anyway, here's most of what was taken. Some photos were burnt out cos I opened the camera to look at the battery haha (:

First shot was the bitchy.


sis cut off by cherieamour on Zooomr

She doesn't like being in front of the camera - I guess many people conscious about their looks aren't.

I don't know what happened here (cos nothing is in focus haha!) but the blurred parts look nice to me (: We were waiting for Lily at Bugis MRT.


bugis mrt blur by cherieamour on Zooomr

Then we went to eat steamboat!


lily at steamboat by cherieamour on Zooomr

Tada, Miss Lily and our uncooked food. V thin DOF as the lighting was bad and ISO was low... But I still love velvia (:

Burnt photo here. That's my bag... and a really cute cupcake I gave my student for Children's Day. I'm not used to the fact that RFs can't focus close-up.


bag at piano by cherieamour on Zooomr

On Saturday, went film shooting with YS (:

Here's the fella who escaped from jail (names evade me).

jackass by cherieamour on Zooomr


jackass 2 by cherieamour on Zooomr

I really liked the flower below (: And its blur because I didn't focus well on the slide.


flower on wall by cherieamour on Zooomr

I'd really love to go inside the vintage shops one day (:


jap vintage by cherieamour on Zooomr

I wonder if these kids were trying to colour code on that day. Thought it was something only couples would do.


girls at haji lane by cherieamour on Zooomr

Wanted to take the guy inside the door, but it was dark inside. And he was dark-skinned, which didn't help.


red door by cherieamour on Zooomr

I'm beginning to see my photos in a new light. Hurried photo-taking which resulted in lousy compositions. Disappointment. Perhaps, not used to the framing was a contributing reason too.


street shadows by cherieamour on Zooomr

Hehe, check out the blue of his shirt! Is that velvia at work? :P The trolley thing is the exact colour I remembered though.


trolley ys haji lane by cherieamour on Zooomr

Composition with chairs...

chairs man haji lane by cherieamour on Zooomr


chairs car haji lane by cherieamour on Zooomr

Along the road


debris roadside haji lane by cherieamour on Zooomr

While I was taking this photo, YS took a photo of me, haha! Will upload that soon.
I have no idea what I thought when taking this. Its so random!

street angles by cherieamour on Zooomr

Pretty curtains

bead curtains haji lane by cherieamour on Zooomr

Wanted to test bokeh here

bokeh haji lane by cherieamour on Zooomr

Burnt out, and overexposed. Bit of salvage done for colours here.


mosque by cherieamour on Zooomr

On the slides for this one, the orange and red lines were so saturated and fantastic. Here, not so much ):


construction by cherieamour on Zooomr

A pretty yellow door (:


yello door by cherieamour on Zooomr

I'm beginning to wonder if the framelines in the CL are a bit wonky cos some shots are coming out differently from the compositions I did.

Litter


can by cherieamour on Zooomr

YS at Haji Lane. He looked very orange here - I doubt its velvia though - so I desaturated it a bit.

YS haji lane by cherieamour on Zooomr

Ending with my bedtime companion, Hippoo.


hippoo by cherieamour on Zooomr

Will be updating my other blog again. Remember to visit here!

**Reminder to self - stock up on more velvia.

I wonder...

I wonder if I should save up for a Leica lens. I've heard quite a bit about their lenses, and especially that its their lenses and not cameras (although darn, they sure are sexy cameras) which are fantastic

However, I'm quite satisfied (and lazy) with my 40 f1.4, and should I get another lens, its prolly a 12 or 15mm voigtlander (: what to do? :P

And I gotta say, I love my FE2 a lot compared to the CL... Gotta start getting out with it more!

Silly

How silly can one get?

Apparently, very.

I've been looking high and low for a missing lens backside-cover... really looking. I've emptied drawers, searched shelves and cabinets. I even looked through my drycabi about thrice.

I had given up finding that cover, deciding that my poor ol' 50mm would have to be Prince Hairy's permanent mate.

And then, today, I decided to take the battery out of my Leica CL and put it together with my FE2's batteries.

Guess what I found? My batteries were all put in the plastic lens cover, and cos my brain had classified it into a battery holder a long time ago (instead of a lens cover), I just didn't notice it each time I looked through the drycabi!

Silly, silly, silly.

And I was looking over my Leica CL carefully too, and found out that someone had used some sort of black marker to cover the brassing all over.

I am rather miffed.

Leica CL

Some things I noted with the CL:

1. I can't focus as fast (or easily) as with my D80 or FE2
2. I'm not used to the knob on the focusing ring
3. Aperture ring not being innermost just flusters me sometimes
4. Hard to do my favourite vertical shots - as being left-eyed, my hand gets in the way of VF
5. Pretty heavy (but lighter than the D80 of course)
6. I keep thinking about the 40 summicron as the nokton is much bigger... and the silver rim is the opposite of inconspicuous
7. Shutter speed is still rather loud... though less than a D80
8. VF is not as bright as my SLRs - does not make sense but for me its true
   
9. I need a comfy strap
10. Not used to vertical lugs
11. Sweaty palms = grip not good - probably need a case too

I don't know, I guess I need to spend more time with my camera.