new york and new website

here's another shot from new york, taken with the lubitel and cross processed from positive film.
since i'm also doing digital photography, i have finally gotten around to gather my works, both analogue and digital, on a new website: http://www.splatou.com so check it out! and don't forget to leave a comment. all tips/tricks/feedback is much appreciated :D

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weird wall, amsterdam

took this in amsterdam about a month ago. i'm not sure what message the wall is trying to give, but it's still very lomogenic. i'm also happy with the red lightleaks. the photo was taken with the lubitel 166 on an expired kodak GPH100 film.

i am these days home in norway, but i'll be moving to ho chi minh city in vietnam the 8th of august. have no idea how it is there with photolabs etc, but i really hope i'll be able to get a hold of a good negative scanner and find a good lab for development so i can keep this blog going. i'm sure there'll be tons of lomogenic things to shoot there!

i've also been really into urban streetwear lately, so check out this shop

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flatiron building, nyc

another one of my new york lomos, this time of the famous flatiron building. it was originally called fuller building, and is located at 175 5th avenue. the building was finished in 1902, and was then one of the tallest in manhattan.

the picture was taken with the lubitel 166 at f/22 and 1/60 sec exposure on velvia 100 film, cross processed.

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grand central, nyc

while in new york, of course I had to stop by grand central station (which actually is called grand central terminal) on 42nd street. even though it was in the middle of the day, the terminal wasn't too busy. this picture is scanned from a cross processed velvia 100 negative. it was shot with lomo lubitel on aperture f/16 and 1/15 sec exposure.

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central park, nyc

here are some shots from central park in new york, all done with lubitel 166b. they were all shot on fuji velvia 100 slide film, and cross processed. because of the cross-processing, my scanner didn't "understand" the colors in two of them, so that's why they're in monochrome. the exposure on all three is f/16 aperture and 1/125 shutter.

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brooklyn bridge, NYC

after 10 amazing days in new york city, i'm back in amsterdam. i came back with a total of 9,5 rolls of 120 film, with 7,5 of them on positive 100 film and 2 on b&w 400 film. since i've never done it before, i decided to get the positive films cross-processed. cross processing is when positive/slide-film is developed in chemicals meant for negative films. this is a popular process with lomo photos, as the result is often vivid and crazy colors. another advantage, at least at the photolab I use, is that when using C-41 (negative) chemicals, the development only takes one hour, as opposed to 4-5 days with normal positive. however, the results are a bit mixed. one of the reasons is that my scanner doesn't understand what is going on. some of the photos turned out really cool, while others were just monochrome read, and I had to turn them into b&w.

anyways, here are two shots from brooklyn bridge, new york. both are shot with the Lubitel 166B, with f/22 and 1/60 sec.

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studying in the library

i got really bored while studying for my last exam in the Openbare Bibliotheek in Amsterdam, so i started playing with my lubitel. took this picture of my friend hugo, who was studying for the same exam. i really love how the picture turned out, with the exposure and the focus. the lighting is semi-bright in the library, so i used f/5.6 and 1/30 shutter, and it was shot on ISO 100 film. thus, five stops up from "Sunny 16". i think the soft focus and light really represents the atmosphere when studying in that library.

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the sunny 16 rule explained

(written by splatou)
when dealing with old cameras like the lomo lubitel 166b there are no fancy functions like light-metering. therefore, the photographer has to manually estimate the light, and choose a combination of aperture and shutter-speed, given the ISO value of the film to get the correct exposure. as this can be quite hard, some genius came up with the so-called "sunny 16 rule".

in short, the sunny 16 rule say that in sunny conditions (broad daylight), when the aperture is set to f/16, the shutter speed should be set to 1/ISO-value seconds. So if you are shooting with ISO 400, the right shutter speed for aperture f/16 is 1/400 seconds. if you take that as a starting point, you can begin adjusting to your preferred aperture or shutter by adjusting in "stop". in the table below are the normal available apertures. each step up or down in the table is one "stop" up or down. the lower the aperture number, the more the light

f/4.5

f/5.6

f/8

f/11

f/16

f/22

when it comes to shutter-times, every double or half (approximately) of the shutter speed, is one "stop" down or up. the slower the shutter speed, the more the light

250/1

125/1

60/1

30/1

15/1

and here comes the method of applying the sunny 16 rule, using an example.
let's say it is sunny, and you are using ISO 100. but instead of shooting f/16, which would have given shutter speed of 1/100, you wish to shoot f/8. this means you are adding two more stops of light compared to f/16 (see table above). this means you need to balance with two stops LESS light using your shutter speed, in this case 1/400. this can be summarized in the following table, combining shutter speeds and aperture (using ISO 100):

f/16	1/100
f/11	1/200
f/8	1/400
f/5.6	1/800

so, in sum, if it is sunny, start at f/16 and 1/ISO, and work your way through stops on aperture and shutter speeds. keep the balance, so if one stop brighter aperture, use one stop darker shutter-speed.

there has also been developed several expansions of the sunny 16 rule, so that it can be used in more conditions than just sunlight. here is a table summarizing this:

Aperture	Light Condition
f/22	Snow/Sand
f/16	Sunny
f/11	Slight Overcast
f/8	Overcast
f/5.6	Heavy Overcast
f/4.5	Open Shade/Sunset

the way this table work is: you start with the light condition, and choose aperture thereafter. then set the shutter speed to 1/ISO, and start working your way from there upwards/downwards using stops and keeping the balance between light from aperture and light from shutter speeds.

and to finish it off, here are two shots where the sunny-16 rule is used to determine the exposure. i know they are not great picture-wise, but at least they are well exposed. (the pictures in the previous post are also according to the sunny 16 rule, btw).

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first pictures from lomo lubitel 166b

a couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about the awesome lomo lubitel 166b I bought on ebay for only $1 + $27 in shipping (link). super excited I hurried up and shot a full roll of Kodak 100TNX B&W film with the lubitel and handed it in for development. today I picked up the negatives in Hema Fotoservice, and I was thrilled to see that the camera works perfect! it is a lot more manual than the lomo diana, and shutter and aperture must be controlled 100% manually. I am therefore extra happy and surprised that so many of the pictures turned out good! however, i'm a bit surprised there were only 9 shots on a 120mm film (which usually has 12 shots). all the pictures are shot at various places in amsterdam, mostly outdoors in sunny conditions.

let me know what you think!

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lomo lubitel 166b review

I just received this beautiful russian camera and I am super excited about it. this exact model, the 166b came into production in the 1980s, and I doubt it has changed much since then. it took a while to figure out the functions on the camera, but after some testing and experimenting, I think I've figured it all out.

the camera has shutter speeds ranging from bulb mode to 1/250 sec, and the aperture range from f/4.5 to f/22. the most characteristic feature with the lubitel is its twin lens system. the two lenses have the same focal length, and are intertwined, so when you look through one and control the focus, the same happens on the other lens. the camera has a waist-level viewfinder, which works mirrored, so it's kinda confusing in the beginning. lomo lubitel is 100% manual, and have quite a lot more setting possibilities than the diana.

I was lucky enough to find this beauty on ebay, and I didn't pay more than US$1 for the camera, and US$27 for the shipping. the low price made me pretty sceptic, but the camera seams to be in great shape (considering the age).

today i'll test my first roll of 120mm in the camera, and I will get back to how it went. hopefully I'll be able to upload some photos taken with the lubitel soon. there was actually a really old exposed film inside the lubitel when I got it. really not sure whether I should have it developed. would be awesome if it was some great old pictures, but would suck bigtime if it was full of child pornography or something!

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