Stang

For a change of pace, later that week I made a random hills run down south, as I don't tend to go down that way very often. I was thinking that it might be interesting and a bit of a challenge to shoot some photos on 35mm black and white film. While digital stuff is really good and more practical, you lose some of the mystery and guesswork by being able to see the photo straight away. And since you don't have a lot of photos to work with on a roll of film, I tend to be much more careful before hitting the shutter button. Instead of spraying 10 photos of something like I can do on digital, I really make sure the composition is exactly right before I take a photo, rather than several that are almost right. Waiting another couple of weeks to see the photos is interesting in its own way as well. So along with my Nikon digital SLRs, I packed my old Canon EOS 33 with a 50mm f/1.8 lens, and picked up a couple of rolls of Kodak T-MAX 400 in Blackwood. So the next few posts will have a mix of the black and white film photos, as well as the colour images from my digital SLRs.

Then she took a few photos of me rinsing the car off. While I'm obviously aware of the fact I don't weigh very much, due to the 'no food for a year' thing, this next photo surprised me a bit with quite how skinny I look. Considering I weigh about 10kg more than at the same time last year, I must have looked like a skeleton in hospital.

The Ceffy was due for another wash, although being clean wouldn't last too long. I was nice and let Sally do the grunt work with the scrubbing brush.

Thanks, and yeah the flashes help make it look cleaner than it is...

I then amused myself taking photos of it in different places on the Ceffy.

Inside, I picked up the turbo teddy, walking past some more sad looking vehicles on my way back to the car.

This Mk3 Toyota Supra wasn't bad either. Less cool was this newer Mk4 Supra, with an overly ornate bodykit. Just outside the office door was this bright yellow 1970s vintage Celica. As well as another MkIV Supra, albeit a somewhat singed shell.

Parking up at Sleeka Spares, there were a few interesting cars scattered around the street. I made a beeline for this tough JZX90 Toyota Chaser after getting out of the car. I've seen a few of them used as drift cars, but it's very rare to see one on the street, particularly compared to the number of newer JZX100 Chasers kicking around.

It's a good bit of road to use for photos as it's fairly quiet, and no reason for the vast majority of people to head down there, aside from the odd birdwatcher you can see above. I've done quite well taking photos in exactly this spot, the main achievement being a Truckin' Life magazine cover photo and lead article that I both wrote and photographed... ...as well as a feature on this cool Ford XC ute in Extreme magazine.

A couple of weeks earlier, I'd noticed a funny looking turbo plush toy on the Sleeka Spares facebook page. I hadn't seen anything like it before, and got them to reserve one for when they came in to Australia. After being told they had come in, I made my way over to their shop, stopping for a few photos near the wetlands on the Salisbury Highway connector.

Nah I like it, and it's not as loud in normal driving as it sounds in the clip.

Short clip of how the new intake piping sounds.

While the Bedford cab was the only bit of machinery next to the road, the property itself was an automotive graveyard; with numerous cars, trucks and trailers sitting around in various states of disrepair. This old Mercedes 1418 looked quite interesting, and I would have liked to get closer for some better photos, but with the fence and no people around to ask permission to go in, I stayed outside and got what I could. Tired and with the Ceffy coated in dust, I called it a day and went back home.

After driving through dirt and dust for quite a while, the Ceffy was looking none too clean.

didn't really have a particular destination in mind for the day, so I just turned down whatever road I fancied, enjoying the improved induction and turbo noises with the new aluminium intake pipework. While I had generally stuck to bitumen roads, the different scenery and grip on some of the gravel and dirt roads was tempting, so I turned down one that looked interesting to see how it would go. With a dust cloud trailing behind, I had a bit of a random drive around for a while, the loose gravel surface and 1.5 way mechanical making corners more entertaining. Trundling past a few properties, I spied the cab of a dilapidated old Bedford just sitting by the side of the road. I couldn't pass up the opportunity for a few photos, particularly as I didn't really know where I was, and would have a lot of trouble finding the place again; I learned that the hard way.

While I was shooting, a man came up on a quad to ask what I was doing. I explained I was just practicing taking flash photos, and asked if I was in his way, being in front of his shed. He said it was fine, and that the whole area was full of his apple trees. He was curious about my car as he didn't know what it was, so we chatted for a bit about cars and apples, before he had to get back to work and roared off again. I was getting quite tired after going back and forth adjusting the position of the flashes, so I packed everything up, taking a shot of the rear quarter before I took off again. Climbing up the slope visible in the background of the setup shot, there was quite a nice view of the rolling hillsides in the distance, with trees lining the narrow road. Another guy working at the apple orchard stopped next to me on his own quad, and again chatted for a few minutes before moving on.

It had been a very long time since I'd shot a car using my Speedlight flashes. While they do make photos look way better in general, given that you have a lot of control over the lighting, it's also quite tiring running around setting up the camera, tripod, 3 flashes and sometimes 3 radio control flash trigger on light stands. But since I was feeling able to, I charged up 12 AA batteries and headed out into the hills. It was hard to actually find a good spot. There are heaps of great locations, but they're all on roads that are used by other cars, and therefore unsuitable. After cruising around for a while, not following any particular direction, I came upon a slab of concrete near a big shed, with rows and rows of some sort of plants in the background. It wasn't perfect, but a safe place to stop for a while and set everything up. I was quite out of practice using the flashes, so I did have to run back and forth adjusting the position and distance of them, while shooting from different angles. After taking so many photos of my own car, I've figured out that Cefiros look sort of odd when using a wider lens closer to the car for some reason. Anything above 50mm is ok, but it probably looks best using the 85mm, which I used for these two photos below. Here's a shot using just the natural light. And one with the car lit by three flashes. You have to be very careful with reflections and hotspots from the flash units, but this lighting technique makes the details on the car pop a bit more, particularly the wheels. This is the lighting setup for the photo above.

Thanks, yeah it is nice simply be able to drive! You certainly appreciate something more when you're not able to do it for a very long time, good to hear you got out there for a nice run too. That wouldn't have been me, but there aren't too many white Cefiros around. Exterior wise I'm pretty happy with it, so going for a bit more power now. Picked up some 550cc injectors a few weeks ago, and will probably go with a Nistune/Z32/Neo turbo combo for maybe 180-190rwkw. Then planning to hit the track for some drift practices, motorkhana, and light general motorsport events if I'm well enough.

Well that's a pain! And yes Dr. Bolt is good.

There is a quite significant difference, with a louder and more pronounced high-pitched intake and fluttering sounds. Still doesn't sound quite as good as Prach's and Daniel's cars, but they're both running 15+ psi. Will include a short clip from the hills in the next post.

Thanks mate, good to hear you enjoyed the story so far.

Looks good.

A few hours later, the car was ready to be picked up. Here's the original rubber piping. The new piping is kind of hard to see, but I took a few photos anyway.

Soon after, I left the Ceffy at Dr. Bolt's workshop to have the piping work done.

We stopped at Vili's on the way for dinner.