spiderbraids

Here's a very special one... In 2024, my father showed me that he had a Pentax Spotmatic F, a classic 1970's film SLR as opposed to my usual point-and-shoots, and told me that if I was interested, I could go have it cleaned... I finally got it cleaned at Mega Plaza (near the roadway arch seen in a couple previous rolls) for something THB1500 in January 2025, and loaded it with Kodak Vision3 250D for THB260 :-) Chris Chinnock called the Pentax Spotmatic F "very well made and very simple camera with no bells and whistles, it just does what you need it to do without getting in the way." While Jim Grey called it "Pentax's ultimate achievement, M42 screw mount at its best. And for me one of the top 3 Pentax cameras ever built." High praise, and well-deserved :-)
It took almost the entire year to get through this roll, since the camera was too large and heavy to take to uni every day for use as a daily beater, though I did do so for a few days early on, but I mostly took shots near and around my home, with the camera making a larger thunking sound than my usual point-and-shoots... That said, even as a "basic" SLR, having a light meter, adjustable shutter time, and a focusable lens opens up opportunities that my daily beaters could never hope to achieve, like closeups, great indoor/nighttime shots, or freezing quick sports action, and many of the shots look so much better (and sharper :-)) that either of them would have made :-)


( Spot-On )

November saw Thailand host two straight international WT20I tournaments, The Quad Cup (officially, the "Women's T20i Quadrangular Series in Thailand") and the inaugural Women's Emerging Nations Trophy, with only a few days' gap between the two events, followed by the SEA Games in December...

( One tourney after another )

Time for another look into the local cricket scene in Thailand, with some relevant international news...

"I feel like ICC in general doesn't give much thought to Women's ODI cricket, otherwise we would have had Thailand and Scotland at the World Cup already." -- Dizzydan015

I would have settled for a spot in the 2022-26 Women's Championship cycle, or even a chance to have that last spot decided on the field by playing Ireland; Thailand weren't supposed to simply miss out on that and the World Cup in one fell swoop immediately after making the Super 6's in 2021 :-\ (That the ICC didn't offer this same opportunity in 2025, thus keeping the Championship a closed-shop for full members, just feels like an extra insult to injury; I would have even been okay with Scotland qualifying for the Championship instead of just giving the new spot to Zimbabwe) Anyways, here's what's been going on in the local scene lately:

( Warning: Link heavy )

Time for another cheap film, this time the Chinese-made and recently-relaunched Lucky SHD 400, retailing for THB220 (<7 USD) at my usual lab, in the Kodak M35 :-) Despite the name, things weren't always so lucky with this one: while the outdoor shots mostly looked great, indoor shots were not so good, and even some outdoors shots lost plenty of low light details in shadow... In short, you get what you pay for with this film

( Not always so Lucky )

While the Winx fandom is looking forward to a new era with the CG reboot, another quietly ended this past week...

( Feeling a little wistful )

Time for another Howzat :-) (Warning: Lots of statistics stuff)

( A look at the local cric scene )

Given March-April is peak summertime around these parts, and having previously tried Kodak Colorplus, I decided to get Kodak's other ISO 200 film, Kodak Gold (THB 360 or about USD 11 at last check) and took it through its paces in my Kodak M35, taking in the last days of the uni employee sports festival, followed by student sports :-) Plus flowers, and even a little bit of stargazing at the end as well :-) Analogue Wonderland gushes plenty about its versatility, and though I mainly aimed it at shots taken outside, I did manage to get some okay shots indoors too (albeit still looking slightly underexposed, even with the wide aperture of flash mode) Let's see what turned out :-)

( Good as Gold )

We bring season 37 to a close with my 100th post in the TAR tag (whoo!)

( Of pizza, laundry, tiles, and sailing )

In this edition: Looking ahead to Thailand women's cricket's next qualifiers, an interview with the captain in the media, plus a quad-series :-)

But first, a meme :-)



( Read more... )

Vibe 400 is the cheapest B&W at my usual lab, sold alongside other speeds of similarly cheap Fomapan (THB 220, USD 6.5)... which is just as well, since it's apparently Fomapan :-) Since this roll was in my Kodak M35 during university employee sports, most of this roll comes from sports, and as expected from a cheap film, indoor shots needed flash to be remotely presentable (That said, one of the indoor venues does have plenty of light to make film photos work to some extent, and many of the photos are from there :-))

( A sporty Vibe on the cheap )