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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Dresden at midnight...

A midnight stroll around Dresden Aldstadt (Old Town) resulted in these images. All captured with the HCD28 on tripod.

Only a very small adjustment in Photoshop is done to touch up...mostly using the ruler tool to straighten the horizon.

The ever glorious, and beautiful church of our lady...Frauenkirche.



Walking over the Dresden Castle, I was in the Semper Opera House's square...turning one way, the Semper Opera House...magnificent as usual:



And the other direction, we see the Hofkirche and the Clock Tower of Dresden Castle



Two of these photographs are used in my book "A. Lange & Söhne: The Pour le Mérite Collection".

Friday, May 27, 2011

Affordable watches: Eberhard Traversetolo Vitre

Continuing on the series on affordable watches. This watch was a minor sensation at www.timezone some years ago (um...13-14 years ago...) and achieved a cult status there.

I have owned this piece for almost that long...quite a nice watch, Unitas movement, decently finished.

Beautiful dial, with raised printed Arabic numerals with quite strong superluminova.



I love the grace of the beautiful swallow hands. Very legible. The watch case is 42mm, quite large in those days, though quite di rigeur these days.

The movement is rather nicely done, though sourced from Unitas:



Perlage is applied generously to cover almost the entire upper surface of the bridges, and a nice circular polish to the flying barrel.



A closer look at the movement, showing the perlage, but chemically blued steel screws. Note slots of the screws are not blued, as blueing is not done the traditional method of heating and cooling, but by chemically dying the screws. The slot is cut after bluing, so the part remains un-blued.



Final look...



I owned this watch, probably 14 years, never serviced. Runs well, accurate to within 2 seconds a day. Looks very nice. Even the strap is original, and now beautifully patinaed.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Affordable watches: Reeds Co

Some readers have written to tell me that the watches I feature are almost always very expensive, as they usually are top range luxury timepieces. Though I understand you, my dear readers, enjoy the super watches...like readers of car magazines enjoy seeing photographs and tests on supercars, you would also like some more down to earth watches for a change of scene.

I will feature a series of more affordable watches...starting with this piece, which looks like the Radiomir from Panerai, but made from parts which are manufactured in China...including the Chinese made Unitas lookalike movement. All for a princely sum of less than S$300.



The dial is hand made by Reed Tan, and because it is hand made, you can choose any colour you like...if Reed can come close to the colour, you can have it. You can also have pictures or drawings incorporated on the dial. I chose a rust, brown dial, stained so that it is full of character and patina. Note this is a sandwich dial, and it glows very brightly in the dark after exposure to light.



The movement is nothing to shout about, but it keeps good time, and is relatively good looking.



Detail of the balance wheel...what do you think? Value for money?



p.s. the watch is worn by my 17 year old son, so has collected some scratches on the mineral glass. But the movement is strong, and despite the abuse of a teenager, it runs well, and keeps good time.

Reed Tan is a great young fellow, and a pleasure to work with. His website is here.

Friday, May 20, 2011

FS: Hasselblad HC 50-110 f/3.5-4.5 zoom lens

For sale, my much loved, but too little used HC 50-110 f/3.5-4.5. Excellent lens and workhorse for fashion photographers (which I am not). I shoot mainly product macros, so this beautiful lens is sitting most of the time inside my dry cabinet.

Condition, excellent cosmetically (very light usage marks. All prints are still intact, none rubbed off) and optically perfect. Operationally perfect as well.

See the pictures for information on serial number and shutter actuations.











Asking US$2900 (B&H lists this lens at US$4395 and is currently temporarily out of stock).

Paypal ok but as gift (you pay the PayPal fees).

Will ship in carefully packaged double box from Singapore to Worldwide. Shipping estimate, package approx 4kg (lens is already 1.6kg (58oz) on its own), please see this link.. I can also ship FedEx or UPS but at your cost.

Book progress

Final reviews of the content of the book was done last week in Dresden.


from left to right Peter Braun, translator German to English; Arnd Einhorn, Director of PR Lange Uhren, Kirsten Hulzsch, also from the PR Dept, and myself author and photographer. Photograph taken by Timmy Tan, Editor

Tough day...starting at 9am, ending at 7:30pm...but I am glad we did it...gave us an opportunity to scrutinize the text for accuracy. But it was hard...one of the many servings of espresso from a little Lavazza machine in the pantry:



This is probably round 4 of the coffees...we perhaps had 6 rounds...:-)

We were almost totally exhausted when we finally finished, and rewarded ourselves with a nice meal at Karstenmeirs.

And a view of the Frauenkirche not normally seen...taken from the window of an office on the 3rd floor of the QF.

But with this review, I will do the final edits, and produce the proofs by end of this month. And we go to press early June.



And the more usual view of the beautiful church...from the ground...

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Grand Seiko: Spring Drive SBGE001

Apologies for falling slightly behind on my postings. I was in Dresden for the final review of my book last week, and some blip with blogger.com caused the Friday post to disappear.

But today, I go back one of my favourites...the Spring Drive...



The bezel is in sapphire. Long before Rolex or anyone else started using sapphire for the bezel, Seiko was there. Very beautiful watch, and wonderful to watch the seconds hand sweep, smoothly, silently across the dial.





The watch belongs to a good friend of mine, Dr. Mycroft who wears and enjoys his watches.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Faces

Continuing on the series of rally photographs...a series of candid portraits













All photographed with Panasonic Lumix GH-2 with 14-140 lens.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Photographers in a rally

It was election time in Singapore last week...though as I write this blog entry (Saturday afternoon) the polls are still on-going and results will not be known till later this evening. I happen to live in the only constituency where there is a walkover...so sadly I won't get to exercise my right to vote this election.

But it didn't stop me from attending some rallys held over the week...interesting to see that there are so many photographers in a typical lunchtime rally...here are some shots

Girl with Canon 7D and a fellow with a Nikon behind her:



Another girl with a film Canon...though with an Olympus strap



Hidden camera-woman...with Olympus EP...not sure if its 1 or 2.



And the guys...press cameraman, with his pro Nikon D3 (not visible in pic) and very well used, seasoned Hasselblad X-PAN. Very cool.



Fellow doing video with his Iphone, on special holder...I believe there is a lens in front of the Iphone lens, and external microphone:



And Press photographer with his battered EOS 1ds3



All photographed with Panasonic Lumix GH-2 with 14-140 lens.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Freak Diavolo: minute of silence for the late great Rolf Schnyder

The latest iteration of The Freak...with Rolf's signature on the plate attached to the dial at 6. The plate releases the lock on the bezel, which also serves as device to set the time.



The watch is amazing in simplicity...no crown...set the hands by turning the bezel. Wind the watch by turning the rear bezel. No hands, just the bridges, moving to show the time. Freaky!





In memorium of a great personality in watchmaking. May he rest in peace.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Kari Voutilainen Minute Repeater MR10

Just pictures of the piece unique Minute Repeater from Kari Voutilainen. This piece was an entry to the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève Complicated Watch catagory.