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The 2nd roll from Zenit 3M proves to be better than the first. The few differences compared to the 1st roll is that this time I used a black & white film in the camera. And I found a place in Melaka which actually develops black & white film. However, this time, the boss printed the pictures on color papers (without my consent), thus I’m having lotsa pictures with hues. He did promise that black & white paper is possible but will take longer, and it is going to be almost 2 times the price that I’m paying for color papers.

According to him, even color films can be printed into black & white. I’m not sure, but I’ll give that a try. Bought a roll of expired film from him, and hopefully it is going to show some good pictures.

These are some of my current favorites.

The hues actually make the pictures special. Having each individual characteristics. But I think I’ll try to transform these few pics into real black & white, just to see how it turns out to be. I personally like the grainy feeling of each pixels. Nothing is better than holding a nice pic in my hand, something that digital could never give. It is the feel of the authenticity. Sheer physics - lights, lens, film, chemicals and photo. No photoshop, no pulling of levels, no curves. Even if the picture is imperfect in term of outlines, shades, exposure and etc, but I guess this is all a part of learning, and nothing beats the next coming good photo.

I learned how to tackle the shutter speed.

Using film is not at all scary. In fact, it gives you the anticipation for the result, something which people in modern life comes to despise - the wait.

This is the 3rd roll of my Zenit and I thought I would have master at least a little bit of the technique but mannnnn… I was wrong.

It had so far been the worst disaster of me and this camera.

Half way down around the 20th+ picture, the dialer got stuck and I couldn’t pull it all the way to load the next coming slide. There is no way I would wanna force it to load with mere force. So I got no choice, but to open up the back and see what got stuck.

The film cascade got stuck with the turning piece. I pulled out the whole thing, exposing a big deal of the film (sigh). Put it back, and tried to shoot some other stuffs, hoping that it wouldn’t turn out too bad by the end of the film.

And worse…

When I was about to finish the film, it got stuck AGAIN. There must be some defect on the way I install the film because I didn’t face this problem during the first 2 times.

I carefully roled the whole thing back, and before it ended, it got stuck, I pulled harder and snap! 1 roll of film turned into 2.

I took the film to the shop, and only 5 pictures came out. The others all exposed.

These are the 5.

This last picture has this red thingy on the side because from this pic onwards, everything is exposed. Sighh..

Anyway, I think I did captured some happy moment. I don’t mind wasting money (RM7.50) for washing and developing 5 pictures. I think this is a learning process. So it is still a beautiful failure (the pictures, not my buddy’s wedding).

Hopefully this learning process is worthwhile. I’m free anyway. hehe.

It is the 2nd roll of film because the 1st one is a black and white which I’m yet to find some special shop to process them. The color ones are easier.

These pictures were scanned. I hope the quality is still okay.

Zenit 3M, f2.8 - 37mm lens, Fujifilm color 100.

I did a very stupid mistake. I didn’t close the lens cap when I was turning back the film! So I guess I exposed some 6 pictures that I took in Malaysia. Luckily those Russian pictures are still there. It means that I have only 24 pics. The first pic is underexposed because I took it indoor with very bad light.

The board in front of my ex-apartment in Russia. Kinda can see the ‘old picture’ feel huh.

My friend Natasha who came to send me off that day. Snapping indoor is tricky. The light is not enough even thou it was relatively bright that day.

Another indoor shot of our bottles collection. I think I took this picture in the ‘B’ mode, meaning I press to release the shutter but it doesn’t close of until I release my finger. I think I took around 1 second for this. Imagine if the dial was on 125 per second. Then this picture will be a goner. The black area up there is a film defect.

Outdoor pics are easier. This was taken in front of the university. But with the bright sky and everything, the old photo feel isn’t really there.

This was taken at the train station in Volgograd where I bumped into Andrei who was sending his friend away. I gotta say that the lens bokeh is actually not very clear. I guess the pic is overexposed, thus making the bright light kinda eat away the ‘colored’ people at the side.

Hopefully the next roll will be more successful! I’m not going to touch this Zenit until I do more read ups. Haha. Long forward to snap with Izad on the Lubitel instead.

Today when I was driving on the street of Kluang, I saw some Malay guys using box cameras snapping at Kluang’s old building. So excited!

My dslr went out of batt today while I was shooting the STK’s talent time. Pictures will be up once the battery got recharged. Guess I need to buy a card reader.

I bought this camera for myself few days ago. On the day itself I had asked the shop keeper to put in a black and white film and was already snapping away in Moscow.

This is my first time snapping with a film manual camera (works without battery). I don’t really know what aperture is suitable and what shutter speed should be set but I used my fren’s camera as reference. Shoot a picture with the normal point and shoot, and try to take the same picture with this film camera according to the settings decided by the digital camera.

This is also the first time using a Prime lens. It is a f2.8 / 37mm prime lens. I think I love prime lens more than zoom one. Anyway, gotta see how the pictures turned out to be.

I hope most of them end up fine.

Of course I tried different settings and speed as well. But too bad the shop which process black n white film is kinda far. So the row of film is still lying around in my bag.

I had now inserted a color roll into my Zenit 3M ;)

Don’t know it will be a disaster or not but I’m kinda positive. This roll of film will be full of Volgograd pictures, a place where I think I wouldn’t come back in the near future. Will let this be the memory..