Pseudo Panorama with Olympus XA and Kentmere 400 film

Stitched digital panoramas have become popular, especially after Photoshop CS2 or CS3 introduced stitching in software. Back in the day people used to do it simply by aligning the images and trying their best. I guess the misalignment adds to originality.

Street Photography with Olympus XA1

A week or so ago I bought a 100-foot long bulk roll of Kentmere ISO 400 black and white film (made by Ilford) and started shooting bw film that I also develop at home (or in the lab). I take this little camera with me (Olympus XA1, 35mm fixed lens f/2.8) and shoot whatever looks interesting. The nice thing is - people don't feel intimidated by this tiny camera.

The whole idea is shoot randomly, find something interesting and then try to recreate it again later. With better framing.

Restoring a Roamer II Folding Camera

This was my pet project for the past 2 weeks. Here are three photos: one before and two after. More at: http://panic.berkeley.edu/~ghe/DIY_Camera_Restoration/

Shooting with a Cellphone

I have a generic Tmobile phone with a crappy 2Mp camera but sometimes this is all I have on me. Of course your iPhones and Droids can do better. One is of Toyotaka and Pim talking about polymerase in the 6th floor of Stanley. Another one is from the Istanbul airport in late October.

A Walk in the Golden Gate Park at Sunset

There was little light at this point, so I guessed 1/30th of a sec exposure at f/5.6 (iso 400 BW film). The negative was a bit underexposed, but it came out ok.

Hipster Central

From a trip to SF this weekend. San Francisco hipsters are much nicer than Berkeley hipsters. Just my opinion.

Late Afternoon on a Friday in October

Shot with Horizont russian camera from the '80s on generic pharmacy film.

Another 120 Film Photograph

This is one of my favorite shots on Fuji Velvia. Shot in 2007 with a Moskva 2 folding MF camera early in the morning in the Eastern Sierra Mountains (~late October). You might think that I juiced up the colors in Photoshop, but it's not true. In fact I had to take down the saturation of the scan to make it look more natural. Velvia colors can sometimes be too much.

New film scanner

I couldn't live like this (without a decent film scanner) anymore and got a new Canon 9000F. I am very very impressed with the colors that it gives when scanning color negatives (those are notoriously difficult to work with). Resolution is enough, and the fact that it accepts 120 film is the icing on the cake. Here's an old photo of Alice from Technique shot with a Mamiya MF film camera (80mm f/2.8 lens most likely). There's still some dust visible because the scanner can't do dust/scratch removal from BW silve-based film.

Panoramic Camera Revisited

I have become obsessed with panoramic cameras recently (caught the bug in 2006, then lost it, then caught it again). Here's a recent panorama shot on the Berkeley campus with a 1980's Horizont Russian swing lens panoramic camera. It's not a great photo or anything, I just like that there's a lot of stuff happening in the frame.

My First Self-Published Photo Book

I stopped shooting with a dSLR for now and started organizing and scanning my library of film images. I hope to slowly make photo books and store memories that way. I debated between Blurb and AdoramaPix for a long time but finally settled on AdoramaPix because they have higher printing quality (and paper thickness). This comes at an additional cost. I made the book available for anyone to view and even purchase (highly unlikely though). Here is a preview of the book: http://www.adoramapix.com/ghe/book.mvc/mit-in-panoramas-8x8. I will post more once the book arrives.

Sunrise in San Francisco

It's rare that you catch a breathtaking sunrise. For some reason sunsets are more colorful (at least that has been my experience). Anyway, I made a really early trip to SF on the F bus and caught a very spectacular sunrise on Velvia 100 with a toy camera (Superwide 22mm). I digitized the film with a 100mm macro lens (more about that in a later post).

Cake

I have been making cakes for a while. I like it, but I end up making cakes only when our lab has a party, a birthday, or a potluck dinner. I have mastered the Tropical Carrot Cake, Lemon Cake, and now, a Chocolate Raspberry cake. I usually make the same cake 2-3 times in a row until I feel confident that I know everything there is to know about it, then move on and try another cake.

Here's my second chocolate cake, I made it for Yara's leaving party.

Olympus OM1+50mm f/1.8 on Kodak 400 ISO film

I shot some photos and then forgot that I had film in the camera. Just developed the roll and got some nice ones. Surprisingly good for such an old camera/lens combination.

More Photos from Over the Weekend

Engineering Graduation @ Cal

I got a press pass to shoot the event for Blue & Gold, but I was also there to cheer on Yara (labmate). My knee was hurting, so I didn't make it to the reception. I shot with Canon 200mm f/2.8 L II, mostly at 2.8. My favorite is that of a professor dressed in pink. Tell me that's not gay (I'm all for it, it's just funny).

Pac 10 Track and Field Meet

I managed to get a sunburn this Saturday while shooting this track and field meet for the Blue&Gold yearbook. Oh well... Pretty much everything is shot with the 200mm f/2.8 prime. The last one is @ 10mm though. Everyone there was shooting with 400mm f/2.8, but I only needed to get a few good images, so no big deal.

Shooting Cal Rowing Practice.

The Cal women's crew coach was very nice and offered to take me on the water to shoot one of their early morning practices. Lighting was a bit harsh in some places, but the weather was nothing short of amazing. The National Championships are coming up, so wish them good luck.

I shot everything with a Canon 200mm f/2.8 prime (@ f/2.8 or f/4), and a Sigma 10-20mm (@ f/8). I used manual exposure and underexposed quite a bit at first, being afraid to blow the highlights. More images are posted on my Picasa albums online http://picasaweb.google.com/gheghe/CrewPracticeEdited# .

Panorama from the roof of the house

The roof of our house has a reasonably good view to the Bay and the Campanile. Here's today's procrastination panorama. 200mm f/8.

Campus Flowers

By the music building in the afternoon.

Sigma 400 f/5.6

This lens can produce good images if you know what you're doing and are careful to focus in advance. This is am image from a Cal-Stanford track meet.

Panoramas from Carlos's House

We had a party at our prof's place and took these there. Shot @ 85mm, stitched panorama.

Softball vs Arizona (State?)

Another attempt at shooting a sport game over the weekend. The weather was too nice to stay home. I tried using my old and crappy Sigma 400mm f/5.6 but almost nothing is in focus... I shot the rest with 100mm and a few at 10mm (the wide angle one is my favorite).