The 50/1.8 is back! Yep, I got it back from the shop this morning. The aperture blades are now working properly. I was excited to try it out on... D50? Well, my initial try-out of this lens with digital that night was kinda ruined, and I haven't tried it out in daylight, so... yeah. After I got back from ADVY (and today was kinda cool since Pak Aam brought some different types of camera to the class, including a worn out view camera and a TLR), I rushed back to UGM hoping to find some good ol' faces there... which I did. :)
Dunno why, but even though I no longer study there, I still find the atmosphere in archi campus a lot more enjoyable than in ADVY. I mean... don't get me wrong; ADVY's cool, I get to study something I enjoy the most, the teachers are cool, but... everything is just different. I guess I'm just not used to how things are yet. After all, I've been with my archi friends for the last 3 years, while I've only been roughly 3 weeks into ADVY.
So anyway, what did we do this noon? Just the usual pointless shit --which we enjoy anyway, like taking self portraits with those pocket digicams...
Got absorbed doing whatever you're doing...
Setting a dinosaur on fire...
While of course, just plain chilling out.
All of the above pics taken with D50 and 50/1.8 in f/2.8 except Satriyo playing guitar which is f/1.8. Someone I look up to recently told me not to switch between digital and analogs too often, something about keeping my feeling of analog camera. While I can see what he means with that, I can't help but to keep my digital around, along with the analog. Film gives me something nice I haven't felt before, i.e. I can sense life better with film than digital. But digital also lets me experiment with things that sometimes are hard to learn with analog camera. 
Yep, weird shit like that sometimes amuse me. ;D
And before I finish this, here's the killer for today:
It wasn't mine though, Sasha took it. f/1.8, wide open. Cheers! ;D
Yup, that's right. Bought a second-hand Nikon FM2 last Monday, along with a 50mm f/1.8 lens, also a second-hand. Both still in a good shape, though there's a little problem with the lens, which I'd tell later on this post. Anyway, the wishlist has now been fulfilled. :D Went straight to the old campus from the shop, to find out there's an expo over there. Loaded with a TMAX 100, I started to try out the new toy... The handling is really good, the camera feels just right on my hands. With the 50mm attached, it's pretty compact. Which is good when you don't want to attract too much attention. Still have to get used to the metering method though...
Sasha tried a few shots too:
She mentioned about her sight being slightly decreasing lately, and judging from the last frame, I guess it *is* about time she visits an optician. ;p
You might say my shots aren't exactly in-focus either, which is true. The reason for this was... f/1.8. Yup, fucking wide open. Why didn't I use a smaller aperture, you ask? So here's the story:
I didn't notice it earlier at the shop, or when I took the above pictures (well I used it on an analog, there's no way I could see the results right away), but when I got home and tested the lens on the D50, I found out something weird... I got pretty much the same shallow DOF no matter what aperture I used. I thought that it couldn't be true, so I made another test. I took a few frames with the same ISO and speed, but with varying apertures. If everything's okay, not only the DOF, but the exposures should have also been different right? But guess what, THEY WERE ALL THE SAME! Gaaaargh. And that was when I realized that the aperture blades weren't moving when I turned the aperture ring around... So all that day, while I thought I'd been using different kind of apertures, in reality I had actually only used f/1.8... @_@
Wide apertures are cool (with all the nice bokeh and whatnot, mmmm), but they can be pretty hard to handle in manual focusing. Even when you look at the viewfinder. I thought I had nailed each and every pictures above, but as you can see they're rather soft. Gotta practice a lot more. But the focus on this one is pretty dead-on, I say:
And aside from technicality, I also love how they all look... well, cute. ^_^
So anyway, the next day I returned to the shop and they agreed to repair it without additional cost. Gonna take about a week though. So what to do with an analog body without a lens? Well there's the 18-55... Though it's clearly stated in the manual book that the lens isn't recommended for use with a 35mm SLR camera, I tried it anyway out of curiosity. I thought as long as there's a lightmeter it wouldn't be too hard to make a good exposure without knowing the aperture. Boy was I wrong. x( Half a roll with that lens was ruined. I intend to use the kit lens with the FM2 again though, just because the 18mm without a crop factor is just the shit!! Albeit the heavy vignetting.
I haven't hit the street for quite a while, and since tomorrow we're entering Ramadhan, I might not be able to walk around too much either. :( My last street hunting didn't give anything decent. Just one frame that I really like. Pardon me for the bad quality scan. Ricoh XR500 + 35-70 + Lucky SHD 100. Oh, and this one was a hipshot.
That's all for now!
Well look at that, it's been more than a week since the last post. It had been a slow week indeed. So here's just a quick sum-up of things which have been happening around here:
- Minggu pertama kuliah di ADVY. Mostly baru pengenalan matkul + dosennya. Matkul umum (trio Pancasila - Kewarganegaraan - Agama) ternyata terbukti lebih membosankan ketimbang dulu di arsitek, jadi akhirnya diputuskan untuk transfer nilai aja. :D Lumayan, udah kurang 3 matkul! As for the fellow classmates... I'll get to them sometime in the future. ;)
- Proyek esai punk bareng Ivan kayanya bakalan delayed. Kita sebenernya udah ke sana dan ngobrol² dengan mereka, dan mereka pun udah confirmed bahwa mereka nggak keberatan kalo kita motret² kegiatan mereka. The thing is we haven't got a good time to do a full-day coverage... tambahan lagi mereka lebih sering nongkrong malem, which is a big hit to our kit lenses. Well, that wouldn't be for long though. More on that later. ;) Yah, mudah-mudahan ntar ada waktu yg enak buat ngunjungi mereka lagi. Mudah-mudahan juga mereka masih nerima nanti waktu kita ke sana lagi --walaupun udah molor jauh dari jadwal.
Fast forward ke malam ini... makan-makannya ultah Anis, walaupun dia sendiri ultahnya udah Mei kemaren. Setelah ditagih-tagih terus selama... what, 4 months? akhirnya jadi juga. Hahah, we're such pushy people. ;p Tapi ini juga katanya untuk 'selametan' ibunya yg mau naik haji dalam waktu dekat ini. Well, congratulations. :) 
Yg punya hajat... beserta menu utama. ;))
Acara makan² tadi juga cukup istimewa karena kebetulan kita kedatengan 'tamu kehormatan' di luar anak² yg biasanya... namely, pak ketua angkatan beserta nyonya. ;) 
I didn't notice it before, but Dina's hair has gotten a bit longer. She looks good with that, I think. :) Setelah selesai makan tentunya masuk acara utama: petantang-petenteng di sana sambil ngobrol² nggak jelas. Dalam waktu yg lama. ;D Nggak berapa lama kemudian ada serombongan SPG nawarin Marlboro... nobody fell for the pretty faces though. None this time anyway, hahah!
Lots of hilarity as usual. Well, sitting near the group's jester, you just know you're prone to be cracking up your brain out sooner or later. :))
Tapi ada juga yg nggak banyak suara malem ini... 
wes Kam, ra sah kelewat dipikir...
But Anis was being somehow generous, biar tagihannya ngepas dia mesen beberapa es teler yg nggak lama segera meluncur ke meja... sambil menunggu pada selese ngabisin ituh bermangkuk-mangkus es teler, satu ciptaan pun dibuat:
.....Ada yg langsung kepikiran catchphrase Bondan Winarno di acara Wisata Kuliner? "Mmmm." God do we all loooove that line.
But wait. As pretty as the above dish *seems* to be, that... uh, THING, doesn't even qualify as a food. That, my friend, is a leftover dish. Sisa aer dari es teler + sisa jus tomat + kecap + daun kemangi + timun..... Ambyar specialty! :D
Dan kalo itu belom cukup, setelah itu tulang gurame pun juga ikut dimasukin... I'll leave it for your imagination to make up how it looks like. ;p
Ciao for now!
Kemaren sore aku ngambil cetakan foto² di Ngasem yg rencananya akan kumasukin di pameran (yg masih nggak ketauan kapan pelaksanaannya... jangan² nggak jadi lagi @_@). Btw aku nyetak ini nggak di Central seperti biasa, karena di sana lagi keabisan kertas yg lebih besar dari 3R. Karena mereka nggak yakin kapan kertasnya bisa available lagi, kuputusin buat nyetak di Artha yg katanya juga bagus buat cetak film. Yg kumasukin tentunya hanya foto² pilihanku, karena ini kucetak 5R. The results vary. Beberapa keluar persis seperti yg kuharepin, tapi beberapa lagi... well, not too disappointing, but they still make me itch. Ada dua foto yg pas kucetakin 3R di Central hasilnya bagus, eh pas dicetak 5R di Artha hasilnya beda. Lebih gelap. Ternyata emang bener bahwa yg namanya fotografi itu nggak hanya sekedar proses motretnya aja, tapi juga terus sampe ke tahap post-process (developing untuk film, software editing untuk digital) dan printing (mencetak). Untuk mencapai hasil yg sesuai dengan visualisasi seorang fotografer ketika memotret, semestinya dia melakukan semuanya sendiri. Because it's his vision, and he's the only one who has the idea how his pictures should come out. Thinking about this make me even more excited to learn about post-processing. :) Aku nggak tau apakah aku akan nyetak ulang kembali foto² yg hasilnya kurang memuaskan itu di tempat lain... Aku bener² ingin nampilin yg terbaik di pameran ini, tapi di sisi lain, duitnya man... ;p
Abis ngambil cetakan di Artha, aku ke Central buat nyetakin film Lucky yg hari minggu pagi kemaren dipake di Malioboro. Milih di Central, karena di sini bisa nyetak 3R murah dengan make kertas foto yg aslinya buat foto berwarna... cukup 500 perak satu lembar. If you're only printing a few, the cost is pretty cheap. Setelah itu ngelanjutin perjalanan beli sepatu pengganti yg kemaren ilang itu... I bought exactly the same type of sneakers, only bigger, mwahahahah! Hey I like that sneakers. ;p Abis itu baru inget, tadi pas naroh film di Central lupa pesen supaya nggak dicrop... Balik lagi ke Central maksudnya buat nambahin pesenan itu, eh nggak taunya cetakannya udah jadi!! Wtf, that was quick. Paling cuman sejam. Ugh, it would've been great if I had remembered to tell them not to crop the prints. -_-;
Oh ya, siangnya Ivan maen ke rumah, ngajakin buat bikin esai foto tentang komunitas punk di jalan² Jogja. Interesting. Besok abis jum'atan rencananya mau survey. Kalo kami bisa mendekati satu kelompok, maunya sabtunya kami akan seharian bersama mereka... wish everything will go smoothly.
Hope you're all well!
Tengah malem kemaren di-sms Rieva, ngajakin hunting pagi ke Malioboro. Sebenernya aku sendiri udah ada rencana buat hunting ke sekitaran UGM, motretin yg pada olahraga pagi (always wanted to do it but never got up early enough ;p), tapi akhirnya kupikir... okelah, siapa tau di Malioboro juga ada aktivitas yg menarik sebelum daerah situ mulai rame. Paginya Rieva dateng ke rumah, dan di situ aku baru tau kalo kegiatan pagi itu bareng sama anak² FN0274 (FN Jogja, to put it simple). Kinda turned me off a little. Sebenernya aku kurang gitu suka hunting rame² --terutama dengan orang² yg belom kukenal deket. Don't get me wrong, FN0274 is a bunch of cool peeps, I just seem to have a hard time blending with them. : \
Anyway, ngabisin roll Lucky pagi tadi. Nothing really interesting, aku nggak berharap apa² di roll ini. Besok kumasukin ke lab, sekalian ngeliat jadwal kuliah ADVY. Mungkin abis itu bakal ke kampus arsitek, since the usual people are supposed to be back already from Jakarta. ;) Juga nyoba ngurus transfer nilai beberapa mata kuliah umum di ADVY yg udah kuambil sebelumnya di arsitek, kalo bisa.
Back to this morning again... tadi untung bawa D50. Tried my first IR photographs this morning. Filternya punya Corine, tekniknya diajarin Nuke. I kinda get it now why so many people are into this kind of photography. It's pretty much eye-candy heaven for pretty picture lovers. ;) Not really interested myself, but I guess once in a while it's okay to do pictures like this.
Rieva, doing the best pose he can for the camera. ....NOT. ;p
That's all for now folks. Hope you all well. :)
Ugh. Mau nulis ini kemaren malem tapi ketiduran. =_=
Quite a lot happened yesterday. But first and foremost... yesterday was my sis Iin's birthday! :) For those who don't know, she's the one person I really trust the most. When I got troubles I couldn't talk to anybody else, I know I could always turn to her and she'd listen. Definitely one of the most wonderful people I've ever met. I owe a lot to her. She's a good advisor, a best friend, a sister. So... happy birthday to you, dear sis. Wish you live a life full of happiness, always. Love you so much. Mmmuah.
Yesterday I also finally got to see my fellow freshmen of this year in ADVY. Kemaren ada technical meeting tentang pengenalan kampus yg akan diadain hari ini dan besok. To cut it short and get straight to the shocking news... tau nggak ada berapa orang mahasiswa fotografi desain ADVY 2006? Cuma 11 orang. Yap, ternyata cuma segitu dalam satu angkatan. Paling banyak DKV yg mungkin ada 30-40 orang, interior design sekitar 20-an orang. ...Dan fotografi cuma 11 orang. I already know 4 of them, which with me makes up for almost half of the class. I guess the next 3 years is gonna be... uh, interesting.
Pulangnya ngambil cetakan roll TMY di Central. Got few that I like, and the rest sucks. I think I should just stick to cheaper BW rolls for the time being. Anyway, these are what I like:
The rest can be viewed here.
Abis itu ke kampus arsi tapi nggak ada siapa² dan akhirnya balik. Sampe di rumah, di depan garasi ada pemandangan ganjil:
I thought, "isn't that dad's turtledove?" It turned out that the old man had let go all of his pet birds earlier that morning. Ya, jadi ceritanya, pagi itu sebelom berangkat aku baru tau bahwa selain helm yg ilang di garasi (yg sempet kusebut di beberapa posting sebelum ini), Converse-ku juga ternyata udah ikut dicolong maling. Perhaps the same thief, perhaps not. God knows. Dad was pretty pissed about it, he took the theft(s) as some kind of insult to him. What I didn't know was... setelah aku berangkat dari rumah ternyata semua burung yg ada di garasi pada dilepas, saking marahnya dia. All flew away. All, except that one bird in front of the garage. Dia cuman ngendon aja di depan garasi, kaya nungguin dibukain. Tuh perkutut kayanya rada sakit deh, dideketin juga cuma cengo gitu... lemes. akhirnya dia dikasihin ke tukang koran di seberang jalan. Heh, poor little thing.
Yowes gitu dulu, mesti siap² buat ntar. Not that there's much to prepare though. ;p
