Yashica MAT-124G @ Old Library, NTU 台大圖書館舊館

2007.10.25

The rainy weather was not suitable for shooting color film, so I took a roll of 120 black and white negative film and a camera and walked to the National Taiwan University campus to shoot historical buildings (note 1). Because of the rainy day, the sky was almost white, and the buildings themselves were very dark due to insufficient light. The result of trying to make the buildings themselves normally exposed was that the sky was obviously overexposed. Perhaps the effect of underexposing 1 f-stop would be better.

Note 1: National Taiwan University Library was founded as the Taihoku Imperial University Library in March 1928 by the Japanese colonial government.

陰雨綿綿的天氣實在不適合拍正片，索性拿了捲120黑白負片與相機，走路到台大校園拍攝古蹟建築。因為陰雨天的關係，天空近乎白色，而建物本身則因光線不足而顯得非常昏暗，盡量讓建物本身正常曝光的結果，天空部分明顯地曝光過度，或許再少曝光1 f-stop的效果會比較好吧。
使用器材:



Yashica MAT 124 G is a reasonably priced camera with good optical and mechanical quality. I first got it in 1997, but then sold it to raise money for a Hasselblad. Last year (2007), I decided to buy another Yashica MAT 124 G from an online auction to relive the experience of shooting 120 black and white film.

YASHICA MAT 124 G 是一台價格合理，光學與機械品質均佳的相機。第一次入手約昰1997年，後來因為籌錢買哈蘇，就賣掉了。去年(2007)，因為想再來回味120的黑白底片，所以又從網路上標購了一台品相尚佳的 YASHICA MAT 124 G。

This time, I decided to digitize the black and white negatives instead of printing them as usual. The tools I used are as follows:

這次拍攝120黑白負片，除了沖片以外，並未如往常的習慣去印樣。而是將它數位化，我準備的工具如下：

1. Canon EOS Kiss DIgital N
2. Contax Makor-Planar 100/2.8
3. Standard color temperature light box 標準色溫燈箱
4. A piece of non-reflective transparent glass 不反光透明玻璃一片
5. Adobe PhotoShop

Smart readers will probably guess by now that I used a digital single-lens reflex camera to directly digitize the black and white negatives, then used Photoshop to convert the negatives to positives. The subsequent adjustments to the shades and contrast were all done in the digital darkroom. Here are some of the results of my experiments:

看到這裡聰明的網友，應該會會心一笑，原來我昰利用數位單眼相機直接將黑白底片數位化，再用PhotoShop 將負片轉為正相，之後的濃淡與對比的調教全都以數位暗房來達成。


Photo 1:  Old Library, NTU  台灣大學圖書館舊館 (Yashica MAT 124G, Yashinon 80/3.5)



Photo 2: An 120 B&W film digitalized by Canon EOS Kiss Digital N 拍攝120黑白負片

Other photos can be found in the Old Library, NTU album.  

其他照片請參閱 相簿-台大圖書館舊館。

Contax S2 + Carl Zeiss Distagon 2.8/25 T* @ College of Medicine, NTU 台大醫學院

2007.8.7

The CONTAX S2 is the only all-mechanical CONTAX SLR camera in the CONTAX SLR era. It inherits the lineage of the CONTAX S single-lens reflex camera from East Germany in the late 1940s. Many people like to compare it to the Nikon FM2n. The biggest difference is that the CONTAX S2 has a spot metering mode (which can be both an advantage and a disadvantage, depending on the user's habits. Later, the CONTAX S2b was released with only central-weighted metering). Additionally, the inability to add a film advance motor is a major difference.

The Carl Zeiss Distagon 2.8/25 T* is one of the so-called Zeiss legendary lenses. The one I have is a German lens, which is colloquially known as a "German lens". Because of the discontinuation of CONTAX, the second-hand price has dropped from 18,000 to 12,000, which gave me the opportunity to buy it at a good price. I won't say much about the so-called creamy color tone because there are many predecessors discussing it online

CONTAX S2 是CONTAX SLR時代唯一的CONTAX全機械式相機(當然測光還是需要電池)，繼承了1940年代末期的東德CONTAX S單眼相機的血統。很多人喜歡拿她來跟Nikon FM2n比較，最大的不同在於CONTAX S2測光模式為點測光(昰優點也是缺點，端看使用者的習慣，後來又出了CONTAX S2b僅有中央重點測光)，另外無法外加過片馬達的功能也昰一項極大的差異。

Carl Zeiss Distagon 2.8/25 T*昰所謂的蔡司銘鏡之一，手邊的這顆昰俗稱的德鏡，因為CONTAX的停產，二手價從18,000跌到12,000，讓我有機會用善良的價格購入，所謂奶油味的色調因為網上已有諸多前輩討論，我就不多說了。

On a summer afternoon, I took a camera and a lens to the old campus of National Taiwan University Medical School. The old campus is located on the south side of the new campus of National Taiwan University Hospital. It looks like it has been renovated recently (the paint is new, and there are still templates left over from the workers' construction on the ground). It was about 3 to 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The front of the building just happened to be at an angle of 80 to 90 degrees to the sun. When shooting, I deliberately let the sun into the frame to test the spot metering and anti-glare capabilities of the CONTAX S2 and the Distagon 2.8/25 T*. The results are the following works, which are quite satisfactory!

夏日的午後，帶著一機一鏡到台大醫學院舊校舍拍攝。舊校舍就在臺大醫院新院區的南側，看起來最近有整修過 (油漆昰新的，地上還有工人施工後遺留下來的模板)。時間約莫3~4點，建築物的正面正好與陽光成80~90度角，拍攝時故意讓大太陽入鏡，可以同時測試CONTAX S2的點測光與Distagon 2.8/25 T*的抗耀光實力。結果就是以下的作品，算是很滿意啦 !



Photo 1: College of Medicine, NTU 台大醫學院


Photo 2: College of Medicine, NTU 台大醫學院

Other photos can be found in the College of Medicine, NTU album.  
其他照片請參閱 相簿-台大醫學院。