Consider them the DYMO of the 21st century, but with much less stress on the wrist. No stress, in fact, unless you go label-crazy like me and my wife. Then, you’ll develop something very similar to BlackBerry Thumbs. Kidding. Slap in some batteries and the supplied cartridge of black-on-white label tape and you’re good to go.

Each media participant came away from the event with a Labelworks LW-400, the kawaii unmistakably Japanese-designed mid-range model. Here’s an unboxing video.

My wife was thrilled, of course, she who has a special place for everything, she who has to contend with my kalat, she who is a practitioner and fan of zakka. She’s already plotting what color tape she wants to get and what objects she wants to tag. I’ve a feeling we’ll burn through the bundled cartridge in just a couple of days.

Meanwhile, I’ve got a few rolls of film from FUSION to get developed. Gimme a few days.

Video shot and edited entirely with an iPhone 3GS. Scoring via YouTube.

The world can be an ugly place if you let it have its way, so I find it essential to expose myself to the good, the beautiful, the pretty, the cool. Tonight I paid a visit to interior decor/furniture store Heima to attend the opening of Southern Stories, a two-man photography exhibit by Charles Buenconsejo and Aleyn Comprendio. Wistful, nostalgic, subtle, their photos have a distinct childlike mood, which is I think what the artists were going for. Both sets were shot on film, which gives the photos their subdued quiet character.

My wife and I were happy we went. Since Diego was born, it’s been harder for us to join events like this since we don’t have a stay-in nanny. Tonight, we took him along, his first “hipster” shindig. He was, of course, too cool for school and slept through the entire thing.

"Grace" is our favorite piece.

This is Aleyn. Wasn't able to take Charles' photo.

Wall of Prettiness

Flippin' through records

My type of mood lamp

Tools of the trade

Show window

More photos may be found here.

For my upcoming May column in the Philippine Edition of Esquire, I write briefly about the HTC One X being something I was keen on reviewing. The darling of the recently held Mobile World Congress, it was HTC’s flagship phone for the year and its first Quad Core smartphone. I was invited to the local launch and, lo and behold, I won it.

While I haven’t yet been able to put it through its paces (yes, this will go through the wringer), I can already say that I love its on-board camera. The usual Android camera apps haven’t yet been updated to run smoothly on Ice Cream Sandwich, but I’m glad to say I’m pretty happy with the native app.

Here’s an unboxing video I whipped up.

And some sample shots.

Roadside Mango Stand

The Gates of Kung-Fu Death

Chthulu in Green

Shroom House

Filtered Baby

I recently received a shipment of expired slide film from a seller in the States, and among the rolls of old Sensia and Provia I found several rolls of Photo Porst ChromeX100. I’d never yet shot with this film stock before, though I’d read many good things about it from local users. I was eager to try it out.

Loading a roll into an Olympus XA3, I took the film for a spin in and around Manila, Lemery and Taal. Below are some of the results.

Sky over Taal

Sidewalk Nap

Ex-house

Leggy Wife

School Zone

Intramuros Skate Park

Inside Orale!

Mother and Child

 Not bad for film that expired in 2003, no?

When you analyze the photos in Photoshop, you’ll see that the age of the film has caused it to lose image data from the low end of the red channel and high end of blue, resulting in the distinct color tint  you see in the photos. There’s almost a Mello Yello-Mountain Dew quality to the shots.

I tried to find out more about the film but didn’t learn much more. It was sold and distributed by Photo Porst, Germany’s largest camera retailer at one point but is sure to be a rebadged film stock from Japan. Some folks say it’s Fuji Sensia under all that Deutsche-ness. I can’t tell. What I can tell is that I have only two rolls left.

Gotta make those count.

For the full set of photos, go to the Travelomo Facebook page.

Details in both shadow and highlight make this a properly exposed photo

Definition of Exposure

So, what is exposure? The definition of exposure, according to Wikipedia, is “the total amount of light allowed to fall on the photographic medium  during the process of taking a photograph.” In simpler words, it’s the amount of light that hits your film to produce an image.

Three variables determine a photograph’s exposure. The first is aperture (which is just another word for “opening”). The second is shutter speed (the amount of time your camera lets in light). The third is ISO (the sensitivity of your film to light). The first two variables regulate the amount of light that enters a camera. The third determines how much light is needed to burn an image onto the recording medium (the higher the ISO, the less light needed for a shot). Understanding the relationship among these three variables is fundamental to our understanding of what exposure is and how to control it.

The Drinking Glass Analogy

The Drinking Glass Analogy

There are several analogies used to illustrate this relationship, but my favorite is the one that uses a drinking glass, a faucet and some water.  You can actually go and do this in real life, just to drive the point in.

The drinking glass represents a blank frame of film, while the water represents light. In order to create a photo, you have to fill that glass up by opening the tap and letting the water flow. Now, you can open the tap just a little bit to let the water drip out slowly. Or, you can open it wide to fill that glass up fast. The tap represents your first control, aperture. The second control is shutter speed, which is represented by the time you keep the faucet running. The third variable, ISO, is represented by the size of your glass. If ISO 50 is a huge Slurpee cup, ISO 800 is a shot glass.

In general, a properly-exposed photograph adequately shows detail in both the shadows and highlights of a photo. This means your skies aren’t a blank expanse of white nor your shadows an impenetrable field of black. Going back to the analogy, proper exposure means your glass is full. Pour water to fill up just half the glass and you’ve got a photo that is underexposed. Keep the tap running until the water flows over the brim and your photo is overexposed.

That’s where the relationship of aperture, shutter speed and ISO comes into play. Your job as the photographer is to regulate the amount of light that enters your camera and make sure you don’t put in too much or too little. At this point it isn’t too important to know how long you should keep the tap open or how wide you should open it. All that matters is that you fill up that glass.

Here are some samples of “good” and “bad” exposure from my files.

Good: Average exposure thanks to the Fuji Silvi P&S

Good: Point & Shoots typically expose for even results.

Good: Nice even colors under diffused sun

Underexposed: Carpark details lost in shadow

Underexposed: Neither subject nor background are adequately lit

Underexposed: Totally lost the subject's features

Overexposed: Manual shooting means mistakes will be made sometimes

Overexposed: I underestimated the morning sun and got burned

Overexposed: I meant for this to be slightly underexposed but made an error in aperture selection

Hope these samples help. If you’ve got any of your own, feel free to post them in the comments so we can talk about them.

To recap:

Drinking Glass = Frame of Film

Water = Light

Faucet = Aperture

Time Faucet is Open = Shutter Speed

Size of Drinking Glass = ISO

The wider your aperture, the less time (faster shutter speed) you’ll need to properly expose your film.

The slower your shutter speed (shutter is open longer), the narrower your aperture needs to be to properly expose your film.

The lower your ISO, the more light is needed to properly expose your film.

Now the big question is: How much water does it take to fill up that glass?

We’ll save that for next time. Class dismissed.

Be honest, now. We all identify.

Gaaah! I want to kick myself.

Here are a few photos I took with Lomography’s Redscale XR 50-200 film. I bought just ONE PACK of this last December when I visited South Korea, an afterthought to my splurging on T64. I thought, I DIY my own redscale so why buy lots? Since it’s on sale, let’s try one pack.

So, one pack = 3 rolls. The first thing I did when I got back to Manila was sell one roll and give another one away, leaving me with just this one roll. I’m in love. But I’ve no more! Gaaah!

All shots taken with a Konica C35, variable settings on the ASA.

Must find more of this film stock. Now na.

Animal Appeal

There’s a slight premium tacked on of course. But, then again, you are paying for something quite out of the ordinary. The press release says these are limited to only 2,000 units, but isn’t clear whether that’s 2,000 for each model or all three. In any case, these will still make quite the impression on whomever you’ll gift these to.

What’s your favorite?

Personally, I like the Fisheye 2, with the green adding an almost amphibian quality to the otherwise reptilian case. Plus, it’s the only one among the three I can pull off carrying around.

You’ve probably already shot the hell out of your new toy. Are you pleased with the results? If this is the very first time you’ve used a camera, a film one at that, you may be wondering: where are all the awesome shots I was expecting? Where are the crazy colors? What happened to the vignettes? Why’s it too dark? Why’s it too light? Why’s it all black? This is, of course, if you’re honest. Many new photographers like to convince themselves that their photos are award-worthy, even though they’re just photos of random clouds.

We all want to be better photographers, and the first step towards becoming one is admitting there’s a lot to learn. That means you. That means me. Photography requires us to understand some things, the basics, before we move on to the meatier stuff. To help everyone along, especially the beginners, I’ve decided to embark on a series of articles on the fundamentals of photography. Rather than go all technical, I’ll be focusing more on the basic principles of the art and craft.

I’m not a professional photographer, just an avid amateur, so this serves as a refresher course for me as well. I don’t live and breathe photography the way folks like Scott Kelby or Kevin Meredith do, so a return to beginnings can only serve to deepen my own understanding of this hobby.

We’ll tackle topics like exposure, shutter speed and aperture. ISO/ASA as well. Basic composition and framing, depth of field, panning, the Sunny 16 Rule of course. If I can find guest bloggers, that’d be great, a breath of fresh air to be sure. All that and more. But, I am asking for your forgiveness in advance. I can only write these when I find the time. Some weeks, it’ll come fast and frequent. Other times, it’ll be an agonizing drip-feed. Gotta prioritize writing that puts food on the table, heh.

Well, that serves as our introduction to the course. Now let me go and prepare the first lesson. Cheers.

Fifty years ago, Olympus released the PEN D, a small half frame camera with a brilliant 6-element 32mm Zuiko lens. It had a selenium meter, uncoupled so you wouldn’t have to be a slave to its whims (or be stuck with a dead camera after the selenium went dead). Aperture went from the fast f/1.9 to f/16 at its most narrow, shutter speed from 1/8 to 1/500 a second, including a bulb setting for really slow shutter action. Like the Olympus 35 UC, the PEN D had a clever way of setting exposure, based on EV, which made it easy to maintain proper exposure settings while tweaking aperture-speed combinations. Focus is, like the other PENs (except the PEN F series), by scale focus guesstimation as well.

Of the PEN D, I have two, one with a meter that still works. The other one is easy enough to use via Sunny 16 rule or with a handheld meter. As always, image quality is stellar. Being half frame, the camera gets you 72 shots for a 36-exposure roll, which is great if you’re on a tight budget. The contact prints are just so retro cute.

Thought I’d shoot a bit of camera porn for the fans. For some reason the soundtrack won’t play at 360p, so just play it at 240p or 480p. At 360p you hear the koi pond waterfall in the background.