craftedbyben.com

Saturday Night Frogging.

29. April 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Lenses, Macro, Mamiya F4 120mm Macro, Nature, Photos

Greetings,

Saturday night was wet and stormy. My friend Ross has been suggesting to me that we go out shooting some frogs when the weather is right.

So apparently extremely wet is just perfect for frogs and all that water was just what the frogs wanted / needed to start their breeding calls. We trawled down Brookton Highway, stopping at various wetlands to listen for frog calls. After following the calls to the areas where the frogs had burrowed we saw some surface frogs.

Over the course of the night we saw some Whooping Frogs, Moaning Frogs, a Sand Frog and a Granite Froglet.

Saw a Tiger Snake dipping into a burrow for a feed, almost stepped on him. Exciting

Anyway, here are the better pics for the night.

All shots were taken with a Mamiya 645 120mm ƒ4 Macro Lens, adapted to fit my Canon. All the shots were taken at ISO 400, 1/125 or 1/200 at ƒ11.

‘Till next time.

South Perth Film and Digital.

17. April 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Film, Fuji, Helios 44-6 F2 58mm, ISO 400, Landscape, Lenses, Photos, Rangefinder

Hello!

I’ve decided to upload a bunch of shots that I which at Sir James Mitchell Park, near the Causeway. The digital shots are taken on a Helios 44-6. I’ve had nothing but trouble trying to get this lens to swirl. I FINALLY got the thing to display some swirl. I find that I rarely use because of its speed, ƒ2 is just too slow when I shoot a lot at night, however it lends itself quite nicely to daytime shooting.

The film shots were taken with the left-over film from my work birthday cidery trip to Pickering Brook. Again, with the Zeiss Ikon Contessa.

Of course as you all know I have balls of steel and have no problem shooting into the sun, this meant that many of the shots taken with the Contessa required their exposures to be repaired. 400 ISO film in afternoon sun is a touch too much. My hit rate with the film was probably less than 50% this time around. Being that I had my digital camera on hand I didn’t mind experimenting a touch, if nothing else to see how much I can push this film before the shots are unusable even after post-processing. Turns out about 2 stops is doable.

On a side note I was pleasantly surprised that the Tessar displays very little lens flare.

In either case, I was fairly happy with the results, here they are:

Till next we meet.

-Ben

Work cidery visit.

18. March 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Film, Fuji, ISO 400, Portrait, Positive, Rangefinder, Tessar F2.8 50mm

Ahoy mateys.

I finally got around to scanning my film that I used on the 18th of March. I took my workmates to a fantastic Cidery in Pickering Brook, “Core Cider House”. It was sort of an early birthday thing.

These shots were taken with a Zeiss Ikon Contessa LKE. The camera has a ƒ2.8 50mm Tessar lens (which is fungus affected), but I don’t think the fungus adds too much softness. I played with the exposure of most of these images in post processing, however the colours were not adjusted. I shot using Fuji Provia 400X film.

I finished the film in South Perth, I also shot with my digital there, so I have some comparison shots.

Ciao,

Ben

Fremantle Film Day (B&W)

14. March 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Around Town, Film, Ilford, ISO 100, Photos

Hello again internets,

I finally got around to scanning my black and white film that was shot on the 3rd of March. The results were mixed, some nice shots, some ordinary. The hit rate was probably up around 60 percent though, so I’m reasonably happy with that.

I only did a little post processing with these shots. The film used was Ilford FP4, using my Minolta SR-T and the MC f1.4 lens. The chairs and handstand statue was taken with a w-rokkor 28mm f2.8.

Images below

Fremantle Film Day.

04. March 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Around Town, Film, ISO 400, Kodak, Photos

Went shooting with some friends in Fremantle yesterday. We did some street photography and shot a little in the markets. I used my Minolta SR-T paired with a 50mm 1.4. and a 28mm 2.8.

I shot using Kodak Ultramax 400. The images came out extremely grainy, with some red shift. This could be due to the age of the film which is use-by this month.
I also shot some black and white afterwards using Ilford FP4+ 125. I’m waiting to have these processed so I can see the results.

Serpentine Dam Astrophotography

19. February 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Astrophotography, Photos

Just a quick post of my Saturday night.

Ilkka, Suzie and I went to Serpentine Dam to do some astrophotography. Here are my keepers… Don’t mind Ilkka’s head in that last one =D

South Fremantle Powerstation.

05. February 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Abandoned, Graffiti, Photos

Early Saturday morning, bleary eyed we arrive in Fremantle. The order of the day, to document the demise of this once grand industrial complex.

This place is dangerous. If you feel that you must go, a dust mask is a really good idea, also there structural of portions of this building that are heavily worn and rusted. Enter at your own risk!

Most shots were taken on a Tokina 11mm-16mm F2.8.

Australia Day film emulation.

27. January 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Around Town, Photos

So some friends and I decided to go shooting the morning of Australia Day. Everything was closed, so it was the perfect time to get some quiet shots near the city.

The theme we set ourselves was “film emulation”. We weren’t allowed to look at our LCD, had to pick and stick with one ISO speed, and shoot less than 36 shots. All post processing had to be basic stuff that could be done with film.

I played around a little with exposure, and cropped one or two shots, but that’s it. The results were underwhelming, I shot manual and (as usual) missed focus on many of the shots. The difference being that I couldn’t check to see whether I had hit focus. C’est la vie.

Here are the results.