HP5+ test

Okay I don't normally do cheesy mirror selfies, but I recently bought a 100' roll of Ilford HP5+ and a bulk loader, and the only interesting things around the house are some mirrors and a cat.

And just for the hell of it I pushed the film 3 stops to 3200 ISO.  Looks like it held up reasonably well.

In any case, I accidentally opened up the light trap on the bulk loader.  Hopefully the light didn't penetrate all the way in, but I did lose a few frames on the first roll.  Doesn't seem to be a lot of collateral damage, though.

Final Approach

Olympus XA, Kodak Tri-X400@800

The cool thing about little film cameras is, you don't get hassled to put away your electronic devices for landing (though technically the XA does have an electronically controlled shutter).

Arecibo, Puerto Rico

Olympus XA, Kodak Tri-X 400@800

On the Tarmac

Olympus XA, Kodak Tri-X 400 pushed to 800

We flew out of JFK airport on Delta.  To get to our gate, we were directed to a shuttle bus that went across the tarmac, crossing paths with luggage carts zipping back and forth and planes taxiing for takeoff and landing.  I'd never been out there before.  I thought being this close to ground level was only for presidents and rappers.

I figured I'd try out the XA's metering -- there was a lot of inside/outside stuff, and I was wondering how the exposure would come out, since I was pushing the film, which would mean some loss of dynamic range.  However, it caught some of everything!  I was expecting everything in the foreground to be a complete silhouette, but it still managed to keep plenty of shadow detail.

Pretty good for a pocket film camera.

Dragon Boat

Oh hey wait I do have something to write about!  I don't think I've mentioned it in the past, but in addition to photography, I am also interested in dragon boat racing.

It's basically a giant, heavy canoe operated manned by 10 to 20 paddlers, a steerer, and a drummer. It's called a dragon boat because on race day, a decorative dragon's head and tail are fixed to the ends of each boat.  During the off-season, they're detached and stored for safety.

There are races all over the country and all over the world wherever there is a calm body of water.  The one in New York takes place every August in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.  The races range in distance from 200 meters and 500 meters to the 2000 meter.  Most of the ones we get into are 500 meters long, but my favorite is the 200 meter, a balls-to-the-wall sprint that is usually (ideally) over in just under a minute.

As I mentioned before, the last race was in Puerto Rico, at Embalse Cerillo.  The drive from Ponce was about 30 minutes of winding mountain road until the trees gave way to a jawdropping basin, dotted with a start line and a finish line.  It was easily the most beautiful venue we'd ever raced at.  The air was fresh and each team had their own little gazebo to hang out in between races.  Our gazebo had a fantastic view of the finish line.

Of course, the best view of the finish line is from inside the boat.  This was why I brought the Holga.  I brought it with me and kept it on the floor of the boat, which usually has some bilge sloshing around in it -- not a good place for nice cameras.  Plus, in the case that we capsized, I could probably have shaken the water out, loaded another roll, and continued shooting.

Also, the sun was blazing out, which meant it would be a perfect day for some Kodak Ektar (100 ISO) in the Holga.  Dragon boat is a colorful sport, and Ektar is a colorful film, so I always make sure to have some on hand for a race.

There was a lot of downtime between races, which was perfectly fine.  I spent a lot of it sitting around in the sun, listening to the sounds of salsa and merengue drifting over from the festival area.

Puerto Rico

I fled the NYC winter this weekend and went to Puerto Rico for a dragon boat race.  I took the Olympus XA and Holga 120 along.  I do have better cameras that take sharper photos, but there would be stretches of time where my stuff would be either unattended or just an outright burden, so I took my smallest, lightest cameras.

I don't think I'll be doing the usual travel photography blogging, as I didn't really do too much in the way of anything of much documentary value.  I considered myself completely off the clock for this trip, but I did manage to grab a few shots along the way.  The ones from the Holga are all light leaked because I didn't even feel like dealing with the mess of gaffing tape I need to seal the camera.

I'll be posting the photos from the trip without much commentary.  Hopefully they wont need it.