Contact Sheet: Frame 21 to 26

[raytoei]

It was the 2nd day of Bangladesh business trip,
I brought one roll of Neopan 400 pushed to 1600,
with 36 exposures for 36x24mm negative, I would have
around 72 half-frames on my Olympus Pen-FT camera,
since each negative on the Pen-F was only 18x24mm.

(in the world of 41 megapixel handphone cameras,
a half-frame negative sounded puny. But since
most folks do no enlarge past 8x10", the
72 negatives on this half-frame camera was
quite attractive, plus if you have ever handled
a pen-f or the ft, it feels like the Leica IIIf in size).

These few fellas are two very nice business partners
with my company. They worked for a telco SI company
and provided ICT services to my customers.

 

[raytoei]

After a morning meeting, it was time to rush back to the hotel to get ready
for the next meeting.

I was in the hotel car, and everywhere else would be these
bicycle-powered rickshaw. They ruled the roads and everybody
had to give way or risk the wrath of rick-shaw drivers and their
colorful language.

The street would be fascinating as usual, sometimes I'd see oxen driven bullcarts
in the middle of the road, other times it was not usual to see goats or lambs in
the side street.

The picture above is just one of the many vendors along the roadside selling
fruits, vegetables and even pieces of meat.

 

[raytoei]

Bangladesh is one of the last South Asian countries
to experience a recent economic boom, and everywhere
we went, everybody was busy selling, buying or
constructing.

In the picture above, these guys are filling up
construction material into sacks, presumably to sell
later on.

Despite the economic boom, Bangladesh is a very
poor country, and lacking in healthcare facilities, electricity
and to compound it, inflation and an erosion
of the currency Taka, has reduced the purchasing power
of imports while raising prices of the local goods.

In the picture above, a bare-bottomed baby is playing
along the pavement while the one-eyed mom chatted
with her friends.

(to be continued)

 

[raytoei]

There is little or no functioning traffic lights.

The next sequence of frames shows how we ploughed
into the next lane by making a right turn.

The highlights of the negatives are blown as the film was
pushed at iso 1600 and the max shutter speed on this 1960s
camera was only 1/500s.

What should have taken a 10min drive turned into an
hour of honking, zig-zagging and brinkmanship.

 

[raytoei]

This is the view from the 23rd floor of the Westin Hotel.

Thanks for reading about Negative frame 21 to 26.

FIN

raytoei

 

[hydroburn249]

wow ray, you are going everywhere around the world eh! lucky you.

how did u scan with sprockets while still keeping the negatives flat? glass carrier?

 

[raytoei]

hi,

i scan normally on my v600 as proofs.

as for the sprocket, i simply place the film in the gap usually reserved for the holder.

somehow the scanning sw was able to straighten the lines.

as for the curling, it does not solve the curling issue, if you look carefully, the ends

of the negatives are bent while the centre is more or less flat.

hope this helps

 

[gbealnz]

Wonderful thread, thank you. I recall fondly the Pen FT series, bought one and used it for a while, but got fixated on bigger and better and went to medium format, unfortunately.
Gary

 

[sweat100]

It is also quite interesting to note that half frame was actually the full frame for 35mm movie format. When 35mm still photography first introduced, it was dubbed as double frame. So Raytoei in actual fact you are using full frame. Haha... I like the half frame concept. With the sharp increase in film cost now, who knows that we will be forced to return to half frame.