Saturday, March 31, 2007

OMW to A'Dam

I learned, that there are Flickr clubs all around the world. Would be fine to have an expat-flickr club here in the Netherlands. OK, I will improve my Dutch and find a local one, but would be nice in the meantime.

There are only 1 1/2 hours for the end of the day at work (damn shifts). A beautiful sunny day in Amsterdam. I have packed my Pentax and my Minolta and are looking forward for a productive photo-safari in the city.

WTC_Hilversum 027Amsterdam WTC, ABN Amro tower
WTC_Hilversum 044Interior Patio on another building in A´Dam WTC
Amsterdam_weekend 013Damrak, on a holiday weekend
Don´t take it wrong: In Amsterdam nobody feels hostile against tourists as in other touristic towns. A-Dam´s centrum is kinda giant shopping mall also for us locals, even for the inhabitants of the other parts of Amsterdam. Plus, 2/3 of the population of the city are expats, predominantly German and British... there are more expats than immigrants from outside of the EU (!).

Friday, March 30, 2007

First Entry on the revamped blog

I finally decided to revamp my old blog, erase it´s (little) content and use ti for something real useful: Instead of ranting about something I will use it as a way to fix my ideas and rething the stuf I a am currently engaged in. And that´s photography.

Both, digital and film.

Thus I will begin with a list of my gear:

  • Digital:
    • Pentax *ist DL2 (with only a 18-55mm Pentax DA zoom)
    • Kodak C300 Easyshare (3,2 Megapixels, but very handy)
    • HTC-Wizard´s 1 Mpix phonecam
  • Analog:
    • Minolta SG 1(m) (Minolta SX 28-70mm and Tokina 80-200mm)
    • Holga 35 AFX (that´s a Lomo type with plastic lens)

I use film mostly in BW and shoot almost only color with my *ist DL2, as it lacks a way of directly shoot in BW. Well, you can apply a filter ¡, but this isn´t quite handy when you want to make a dozen shots in a row of a building while you walk through a crowded Amsterdam a Saturday evening. But it shoots astonishing color, it would be pity to alter them.

Thats where I use film: BW. The only problem I have with flm right now is that the developement is darn expensive: 19.50€, plus 10€ each Ilford HP5+ film, plus 50 eurocents each scan from the negatives. They make  a real professional work at my photostore, but I am not this rich that I can afford to get all the stuff developed that I am able to shoot in a normal session. But thanks to the modern technologies I have my nice Pentax.

The solution is obviously a scanner and learning to develop myself. I already have a comby Epson Stylus DX6000 capable of 9600 bpp resolution, witch is ideal as a size but needs some extra work setting it propperly up.

My next film adventure will be using a cheap 400  ASA BW film from HEMA (9,5€ a pack of 3) and let it be developed as if it where normal film at a 24h service. Stay tuned ;)








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