Random (Street) Photography

Few random shots:

There is a shopping complex in Naharlagun called Takar Complex. They usually sell various clothes and home articles imported from Thailand or China. It is like a flee market. Goods here can be bargained and are cheap but they are still more than their retail value. I went with my Mom to get few things and since I had my camera with me, tried few shots.

The below shots are taken with CCTV/ Fujian 35mm f/1.7 lens on Olympus E-Pl2.

Fujian/ CCTV 35mm f1.7 lens is a fun lens and not for serious Photography.

It has only centre sharpness and also it is not smooth or easy to focus beyond certain distance.

It does well with near distance subjects.

There was a lot of haze and lens flare too.

I tried to correct them in Photoshop PS6

Below Photos are taken with Pentacon 50mm f1.8 lens on Canon 40D.

I've read various lens reviews on Pentacon 50mm f1.8 lens and none of them were very positive about the lens.

I LOVE the lens! Pentacon 50mm f1.8 lens is a sharp and fast lens. The colours are also punchy and nice.

Photos taken with Olympus E-PL2 and Fujian/ CTV 35mm f/1.7 lens.

 The above photo shows the irony of Idol worship and superstition in India. You can see a small temple of Goddess Kali. The Goddess is locked inside and there is this large Donation Box which reads "Daan Pantre" in Hindi which means Donation Box. It was captured with Olympus E-Pl2 and Fujian/ CCTV 35mm f/1.7 lens

 Construction of temporary pavilion of Goddess Durga for Durga Puja.

Below Photos taken with Olympus E-Pl2 and lens that I don't remember....

Kids on the back of a pickup truck... Looks like they are from a Karate school.

 Decorations during Durga Puja at night

Ziro Festival of Music (September 2012)

Ziro Valley is known for it's scenic beauty and a well known place of Arunachal Pradesh. A music festival and a joint Art and culture festival was organized by few people I knew. My friend Dinu and I planned on going for the 3 days days music fest (14-15-16 Sep'12) to Ziro. 

I carried my Olympus E-PL2 with Cimko MT 28mm f/2.8 lens and Pentacon 50mm f/1.8 lens. Both the lens doesn't give me infinity focus and it was a very bad idea to carry them for traveling to a place which is known for lots of beautiful sceneries. Cimko MT is also particularly not a very nice lens. The one I have is on MD mount. I realized my folly much latter when I struggled for infinity focus. I tried my best with the lenses and tried "focus free" technique most of the times.

M43 Olympus gives 2X crop so Cimko MT 28mm f/2.8 lens becomes 56mm focal lens (kindly correct me if I am wrong). I post processed some of the photos in Adobe Photoshop CS4 and tried retaining the details of the sceneries and also by sharpening the photos.

We stayed in Dinu's uncle Mr. Tilling Dole's lodge. It was a pleasant co-incidence because Mr. Dole was also a Govt. commissioned photographer but now turned organic farmer and Entrepreneur.

A friend of ours had set up tea stall. We helped her run the stall and meanwhile I also did Tarrot reading for fun. The music was great. We had our own North-East celebrated artists (barefoot rock singer-Lou Majaw) and other performing. There were bands from Delhi and other part of India such as Manwhopause, etc. My favourite was the punk-rock girlband- Vinyl Records where 4 of the members are my juniors from Arunachal Pradesh. It is my bad that I don't have their photos or much of the concert photos since I was helping in the store and had limitations with my lenses...  

We also went sight-seeing to a local Hindu (Shiv-ling) temple.

I had lots of fun but I do regret not taking much photos or doing much. 

On

Zenit 11 : Camera review and test photos

I am not any camera expert but I decided to do a little review on Zenit 11.

I got the camera with 5 lenses and couple of other things in a brown leather box from the old camera market in Chandi Chowk, Delhi for Indian Rupees 5000 (around USD $100)! Quite a deal! The camera and the lenses were in pristine condition without any use marks or dust or fungus. I guess the previous owner hardly used it.

The stuffs that came in the box are: 

Zenit 11 Camera

SOLIGOR AUTO-ZOOM 1:4.5 F=75mm-260mm lens
HELIOS AUTO 1:2.8 f=135mm lens
HELIOS-44-2 2/58 lens
HELIOS-44M-4 58/2 lens
PENTACON auto 1.8/50 MULTI COATING lens
M42 Macro extension 3 rings tube set

67mm lens hood
52mm lens hood
49mm lens hood

Cokin 49mm mm kit with A.061, A 056 and 58 mesh filters.

Above all in pristine condition. Quite deal for Rs.5000!

Getting into the bit of history behind Zenit 11, it was produced from 1981 through 1990 by KMZ and MMZ in Russia. Zenit 11 is the last of E series of Zenit cameras. 

I don’t have much experience in film SLRs having my Canon 40D and Olympus EPL2 and couple of other electronic toy cameras. This is my first film SLR camera and I think that Zenit 11 is a pretty little robust camera. The camera has black glossy finish and on hold feels heavy and metallic. The ergonomics are neat and the camera is quite pretty to look at. The buttons are placed where they should without any obstruction. It is coupled with a selenium meter which works perfectly fine. The shutter speed varied from B, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/1250, 1/500. It has 50, 100, 200, 400 and 500 ASA (ISO) film speeds. The camera makes a loud clunky sound when clicking pictures. I got the camera in April 2012 and it has not been even one month but I see slight paint loss already on the camera. 

I took few photos with the lenses and realized that it needs lens hood/ FDL/ ND filters on the lens because the strong Indian sunlight leaves a white smoke like lens flare on the photos when taken towards bright sky. Also in almost all the photos the sky usually came over exposed. 

I used 2 rolls on the camera- Kodak ISO 200 and Kodak ISO 400 and didn’t know any better while taking photos. Even though it has a selenium meter, in indoors the meter hardly works so taking photos was solely intuitive. I did some search online and learnt about Sunny 16 rules and tried applying it. I felt that the lens focused much better outdoor than indoors. The reasons could be many- such as my first time shooting, my eye sight, not knowing from A to B initially, lens, etc. It will take me couple of more clicks to actually know how the camera and the lens work and understand their strength and drawbacks. 
I got the negatives developed and scanned and was super excited with the result. At first I was actually happy that the photos even showed! I was afraid that the roles were all blank… After my initial excitement waned, I actually saw the photos in a new light. The photos are less saturated and being a digital user I thought it could do better with the colour saturation and contrast but the again it could be various reasons- the film roll or the way it was processed and scanned. Also the photos were exceptionally sharp on few photos and soft on others which again could be because of various reasons. I don't mind the soft pictures, in fact I've learnt to love it in a different way. 
Over all I am in love with Zenit 11 at the moment and the lenses. The 5 lenses are also quite an addition to my Olympus PEN EPL2.

I am a happy owner. 

Last March I went to Delhi for some personal work with my family helper Tulsi. So after getting the camera and the lens we went around shooting in District Park and these are the photos from there...

Pekinese name: Milan. Unsharp and photo which was hard to focus in the dim light

I set my aperture to 8 and focused to infinity/ 30 and shutter speed to 250-500 with ISO 400 Kodak roll to just point and shoot in Chandni Chowk.