Kinjo and Chocoretto

I'm supposed to be writing up a summary of some volunteering I did this past week, but of course Mr. Procrastinator has infinitely more entertaining things to be doing with his time - ie: posting photos from sushi at Kinjo's yesterday. The food was so so, and the place was staffed with more Chinese cooks than you typically like to see for an authentic Japanese restaurant, but I did really get a kick out of our server. She reminded me so much of our Japanese friend Yasko, and I especially loved when she gave us a choice of Strawberry or "Chocoretto" flavoured Pocky with our bill. hehehe... Chocoretto. I'm gonna start calling chocolate that all the time now.


Seared Tuna Nigiri


Scallop Sashimi


Tako (Octopus)

-G

Custom 120 Film Cannisters

I had a bunch of empty plastic film containers laying around, and for some reason, decided to muck around with them. A craft knife, a bit of duct tape, electrical tape, a couple printed sticky labels with my photos on them, and a few minutes of manual dexterity later, I'd made myself some custom film cannisters for 120 roll film. Takes about 10 minutes to bang up a decent one (depending on how good you are with a knife, and duct taping two plastic tubes together), so there's no reason you shouldn't get on this if you shoot any 120.









If you can't tell from looking at the photos, here's how you do it. Cut out the bottom of one 35mm container. Then cut off the top 2/3 of another container (or you could actually measure out how much more container you need by checking it against an actual 120 spool). Tape the 1st container to the bottom of the 2nd container. Decorate to taste.

-Craft Teacher Wannabe G

Photowalk Edmonton pt. II

More photos from that photo-adventure with Marc last week. Everyone of these was shot at f/1.2, hence their overall softness.







This piece of sushi was called Kohada, which the menu at Kyoto on 109th across from the Garneau had described as 'Gizzard Chad'. I ordered it purely based on this description.












Is the weekend really over already?!
-G

Photowalk Edmonton

So Marc and I went out on a photostroll this week through a bit of Chinatown, then the Art Gallery, and ending off at Churchill Square. I only had my 50mm, which is awesome, but sometimes you need something a bit wider...


























Quick story about the portrait of the lady in the last photo - she approached Marc as we were walking through the very picturesque concrete slab in Churchill Square, and she requested Marc to take her photo. But she insisted that he had to take the photo at a distance from which she could touch him. Very odd. Anyways, Marc had his 70-300 lens slapped on, which can't focus that close, and so I ended snapping this shot of her. It's blurry cause manual focus in the dark is fricking hard, and the DoF at f/1.2 is really shallow. But I love the way it turned out. Apres photo, she poked me with her finger, and let us on our way. Strange, but fun.

There are few more photos from this night, which I'll post later.

-Comrade G

Red Dot Test Shots

I finally had a chance to spend a few minutes with Anita's new baby, and I have to say I'm thoroughly impressed for a point and shoot (albeit one that cost more than many mid-range DSLRs)... Noise levels are quite low, and the fast 2.0 lens at the wide end makes shooting at ISO 100 - 200 under low light conditions possible. And my favourite discovery so far is that at 24mm and a close focusing distance of less than a cm, you can get some really neat wide angle macros that you'd be hard pressed to reproduce with an SLR. On with the samples.


One of my two DIY pinhole cameras. Obviously, I messed with the curves and levels on this shot so it's not an accurate representation of what the Leica can do straight out of camera.




Wide Angle Macro of some nuts in a tupperware container.


I love papercraft models.


Some fun with wide angle closeup distortion.




Echinaceau capsules inside the bottle.

Our First Leica!!!

I always imagined my first Leica would be some old beat up second hand body... like a used M6 or something. But nope, today, we decided to spring for a limited edition Leica D-Lux 4 (the Safari edition). I haven't had a chance to put it through a full image quality test yet, but will post some test shots when I've gone through that. In the meantime, you can oggle this beauty. Yes, I know, the Lumix LX3 version of this cam sells for a few hundred $$ less. And yes, buying a limited edition version is even more ridiculous considering it's only a paint job difference. But I'll be damned if this version didn't scream BUY ME as soon as we laid eyes on it.