Canon QL-17 first roll in New York

[xichlo]

First of all, I would like to thank G'man for his super help, Dave did a great CLA and sent back to me in a shortest time, so that I was able to bring along the Canon QL-17 to New York . After the CLA, the finder is very bright, all functions worked great.

The Canon QL-17 was very delight to use, and surely created some attentions.

I don't have a dedicated film scanner yet, so I used the flatbed Epson to scan. The quality could have been better because I don't know how to fine tune the result with Epson software yet.

Here are few shots with TMAX 400.

Thanks
Anh

 

[einolu]

Great shots, thanks for sharing! You should upload them to the RFF gallery (its not very hard to use once you get the hang of it). Beautiful model you have there 🙂.

 

[ch1]

Nice shots.

I see the last one was shot in the subway (looks like 34th St./Penn Station - IRT?).

Interesting given one of the other threads going around tonight. 😉

 

[yossarian]

So much for the conventional wisdom that good portrait shots can't be done with
shorter focal lengths. Fantastic.

 

[iggers]

Super portraits. Nice model, too.

 

[cpranger]

Wonderful! Did you have the camera on "automatic" or did you set it manually? Did you have the film processed commercially and then scan the prints?

Frank

 

[dmr]

I see the last one was shot in the subway (looks like 34th St./Penn Station - IRT?).

I'm trying to place that one too.

I think it definitely looks IRT-ish. 🙂

At first it looked to me like 51st, East Side, since I know there they have "Street" written out on the mosaic tile sign, but this one looks like express runs thru the center of a local station. 34th/Penn is express/local. Also, I don't think 34/Penn says "Street" on the mosaic signs.

Ok, xichlo I give up, which station is it? 🙂

 

[CraigK]

Portraits with a QL17?

Why not?

I lead a lighting workshop the other week and while my students hauled around huge DSLR's on tripods, I snapped away with my QL handheld, wide open at 1/30th or thereabouts.

I am sure that not one spectator in the area that saw the group of well equipped students imagined that the skinny guy with the garage-sale camera around his neck was actually the instructor.

Click below to see the QL17 images.....

QL17 Portraitist

 

[Damian]

Anh and Craig,
Those are terrific! I'm marvelling at the contrast and sharpness of those images. I *just* finished my first roll of film in the QL17, and I'm waiting to have a chance to develop the film. I'm excited about this little gem of a camera.

 

[xichlo]

Thank you all very much for your kind words.

The model is one of the models in New York Fashion Week 2006 that I covered. I took her photos during the break between fashion shows.

@George and dmr : 😀 I am not a New Yorker , I think it's 14street Union Sq.

@Frank : I used A mode, I believe I used 1/500s to force the camera use the large appeture for narrow DOF.

@yossarian and craigK : I think any lens can take a good portrait as long as we choose the right lighting and creative angles, craigK 's shots proved that Canon QL-17 can do really good portraits.

I ordered the Dimage Dual III , it will be here soon, so I hope to scan few more to show you later.

Thanks again guys.

Anh

 

[dmr]

@George and dmr : 😀 I am not a New Yorker , I think it's 14street Union Sq.

Hmmm ... It doesn't look like Union Square. Union Square has a pronounced curve and "island" platforms. It also has some old walled off side platforms with blank walls and no mosaic signs, at least that's the way I remember it. 🙂

Maybe farther uptown? 77th maybe? Some of those have "Street" spelled out, IIRC.

Hmmmm ... I'm curious. 🙂

 

[amateriat]

@George and dmr : 😀 I am not a New Yorker , I think it's 14street Union Sq.
Anh

If you were on the East Side, it's likely north of Union Square (23rd, 28th or 33rd Street). On the West Side, it's 23rd or 28th Street, among other possibilities.

Wonderful photos, BTW!


- Barrett

 

[amateriat]

Portraits with a QL17?
Why not?

Why not, indeed?

These are simply stunning images. You clearly know your light, among other stuff.


- Barrett

 

[ch1]

I'm trying to place that one too.

I think it definitely looks IRT-ish. 🙂

At first it looked to me like 51st, East Side, since I know there they have "Street" written out on the mosaic tile sign, but this one looks like express runs thru the center of a local station. 34th/Penn is express/local. Also, I don't think 34/Penn says "Street" on the mosaic signs.

Ok, xichlo I give up, which station is it? 🙂

You might be right on 51st and Lex - which happens to be my "work" station - darn it!

I live at 33rd and 2nd so usually walk to work but in lousy weather take the 6 up two stops. And looking at it again; it could well be the 51st Street station!

Nice catch.

Oh, I do think I was wrong about 34th/Penn because that has the express platform b/w the two local ones.

 

[JoeFriday]

excellent photos.. gorgeous model!

 

[dgray]

Beautiful shots - I hate when this happens just after I sold my last remaining Canonet.

 

[CraigK]

Thanks for the compliments everyone. I am glad you like the shots.

I am quite enamored of my little Canonet. It is a gem of a camera. I have a growing collection of rangefinders from Minolta's to Yashica's....even a Leica llla. However, among the 35mm bodies I have I find that I am most comfortable with the canonet. It is my shoot-whatever-I-feel-like camera. I take it almost everywhere and never heistate to snap away at anything that floats my boat.

I feed it a steady diet of XP2 that I have developed and scanned at a local pharmacy for $2.99/roll!

The results are always pleasing. The lens is sharp, the camera pretty close to silent and always a pleasure to use. I could be talked into selling or trading just about any camera I have....but not the Canonet. It is a keeper.


Anh, your shots are excellent! I especially love the image of the maniquin in the window....very nice.

 

[dmr]

You might be right on 51st and Lex - which happens to be my "work" station - darn it!

I'm *really* curious now, for some reason this is bugging me. 🙂

Maybe you can answer this then, at 51, do the express tracks run thru the station? I know they go way down to a lower level at 59, but I forget if they are that high up at 51. I used to be very familiar with the architecture of those stations, but really not with the way the tracks ran.

I live at 33rd and 2nd so usually walk to work but in lousy weather take the 6 up two stops. And looking at it again; it could well be the 51st Street station!

Oh, I do think I was wrong about 34th/Penn because that has the express platform b/w the two local ones.

Curiosity got the best of me and I did a quick check on www.nycsubway.org and I don't see anything that is a definite match.

The more I look at it it doesn't look like 51. It's really hard to tell, though. From that attachment it looks like the pillars on the platform are the old round kind, but it's hard to see clearly. The attachment does look like 4 tracks, local and express in the middle, but again, hard to tell for sure.

Oh well ... 🙂

 

[xichlo]

DMR ,
Here is the story about the subway shot .

I got to NYC at 6:30 AM , got a starbuck at Time square about 8:30 AM , stoped by ABC Good Morning America and waved to the camera . My wife saw me in TV 😀. My first fashion show was 11:30 AM , I still have sometimes so I called my wife and asked her the address of B&H store , I wanted to buy the UV filter 48mm for Canon QL-17 . She told me "xxxx 9th street" , she was wrong, it should be 9th Ave. So the closest station to E 9th Street is Aston PL and 8street NYU.

So I jumped in 42nd street Time square Ave - Yellow line . Went directly to 14th Steet Union Square , then changed to green line to go to Aston PL station or stay in Yellow line to 8street NYU (I don't remember exactly) .

In short , in that morning , I went to 42street Time square , 14 street Union Square, and Aston PL (or 8 street NYU), I got there around 9:05 AM so you still see a lot of people waiting for a train to go to work. The subway shot must be one of those 3 station during the time I changed line or exit . 😀

Hope it clear your curiousity 😀 😀

Regards
Anh

 

[kbg32]

It is not Astor Place, because it would say so on the wall. Your post above is a bit confusing. B&H is definitely 33rd/34th Street and 9th Avenue. Are you sure you wern't on the Broadway "R" line? That shot looks like 23rd Street or 8th Street, which is just a block west of the Astor Place #6 train stop. The amount of people reflect that as the style of their clothing. There are mosaics on the wall as well. They are only on certain subway platforms. They were done to reflect the character and history of the neighborhood where the subway stop is. The ones that can be barely seen in your photos seem to be somewhere on the R train line. Hard to tell.