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Post by nikkortorokkor on Sept 23, 2011 0:09:49 GMT -5
Bob, this is definitely a case of beauty being in the eye of the beholder, but I also agree. I'm sure others think it has all the style of a biscuit tin! I have yet to see a civvie version in the flesh, but BAW did show them at the 2008 Beijing Auto Show. Here is a 5 seater 1/2 Ton: The interior is basic, but much less so than the old 2020, which was as spartan as a Willys Jeep. A heater is in evidence. This interior is almost identical to the military version. Others have suggested that this would find a small market in Nth America and elsewhere among those 'Grizzly Adams' types who want basic, maintainable bush transport.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Sept 22, 2011 10:38:35 GMT -5
Wayne, unfortunately, I can't see your photo, but I get the scenario. It would've been a security guard - underpaid and full of attitude. If it were the real rozzers, the old street vendor would be long gone. They do a pretty good disappearing act if there is the whiff of a fine or worse.
The SWB Warrior is indeed a half ton, while, the LWB 8 seater troopie shown above is listed at 3/4 ton. I took the pic on long zoom (300 equiv) which foreshortens the vehicle, but the three side windows and high, troopie style roof give it away as an LWB.
BTW, Warriors are powered by a 136 horse Mitsubishi 3 litre turbo diesel which, I'd guess, has been lifted straight out of the old LWB Pajero, of which you used to see dozens in any Chinese city every day.
Like the old 2020, however, the Paj is fast disappearing, as middle-class Chinese line up to buy soft roaders from Beemer & Merc & even Porsche. My employers sent a Buick luxury mini-van to pick us up from the airport. 10 years ago it would've been an 80s-shape VW Sororro.
I know what you mean about boys in oversize uniforms. This column was the same. The scariest guys are the security guards who accompany all cash deliveries. They wear urban camo, lots of kevlar, and carry pump action street howitzers. They take their job very seriously and I studiously avoid eye contact when I see them on the job. The way they move and stand is pure Hollywood and is intimidating enough to quash the thought of doing a bank job!
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Sept 20, 2011 8:44:26 GMT -5
Dave,
I will be going to both HK & Macau (I live on the mainland side of the border) sometime. But the next few holidays will be inland, to see family and things that frankly interest me more than the coastal cities.
To answer an earlier question/comment, Portugal's loss of maritime power did affect Macau and obviously contributed to its decline through the 19th century. But simple geography also played its part - HK simply has the superior harbour when compared to Macau.
Now, HK's star is fading a bit, and not because it is in Chinese control, but because its purpose as an entrepĂ´t has been rendered somewhat obsolete by China's opening up and the advent of the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) (Zhuhai, where I live, developed as an SEZ in the 80s). Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Shanghai are outshining HK as China's doorsteps to the world.
Macau, on the other hand, is on the up thanks to taking a lead from Reno, Las Vegas, Atlantic City and Monte Carlo; i.e., it provides a gambling haven on the edge of a huge population with limited opportunities for a legal flutter. Macau now takes more gambling dollars than Vegas.
The flags on the boats are unlikely to say much about Macau, Heng Qin is definitely the other side of the border. That is the Heng Qin ferry crossing back from Sau Francisco Xavier in the far right of the above photo.
No, the flags are simply net markers - each is equipped with a Styrofoam buoy.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Sept 19, 2011 20:45:35 GMT -5
Confession - this was made with a digital camera. If it is in the wrong place, I hope that the moderators will feel free to move it: This is the eight seater troop carrier version of the BAW BJ2022 Brave Warrior Light Utility Vehicle. I think that it is designated the BJ2022JLC 3/4 Ton, but exact name of each variation can be difficult to decide! If you look these up on the net, you'll sometimes find them called Chinese hummers, and a lot of racial epithets besides. But this is no more a hummer copy than it is a Land Rover copy, and given BAW (Beijing Benz, and the subsidiary which makes these is the old Beijing Jeep Corp) not only made the BJ212/2020 based on the USSR UAZ, & used for 35 years as the PLA workhorse, but also built Jeep Cherokees from 1985 on, this is built from experience rather than facsimile. If the BJ2022 takes the same beating as the old 2020 did, it'll do all right! This is a 212/2020 in the hands of the (then) rebel forces in Libya: I was quite pleased with my photo of the Brave Warrior, which was of the lead vehicle in a PLA Coastguard column. I wasn't going to hang around taking lots of photos - doing so can result in uncomfortable questions and long nights in the cells! One snapshot & I had the camera back down by my waist.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Sept 19, 2011 16:19:29 GMT -5
Thanks Mickey.
Such contrasts are not hard to find here. 'Seeing' them is sometimes more difficult, especially when they become one's 'normal'.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Sept 18, 2011 20:34:10 GMT -5
Thanks all for positive comments. One thing which pleased me about the photos, or more correctly, the photo-taking process, is that the second image is the one I wanted to get. I took the telephoto image first, but wanted a more contextual image. I took a second, wide-angle, image but new that the composition wasn't how I wanted it. The 3rd image (the second shown here) looked right in the viewfinder, and the result matches what I saw. Yesterday, my wife and I caught a city bus all the way down to Heng Qin Island, where the sea breeze ensures clearer air and dramatic light. This shot looks back up from one of the Pearl's many river mouths, past the Heng Qin fishing fleet to the incongruous glitz of Macao's waterfront casinos.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Sept 17, 2011 18:44:05 GMT -5
No luck finding good film stock in Zhuhai yet. Here are a couple of digital photos instead. And an ethical question. My wife and I were out last weekend on a bike ride on the intriguing Guangdong Greenway - a system of multi-use paths and back roads in the province of Guangdong. The route files through tertiary campuses before suddenly arriving in the countryside of 'old China', just a few kilometres from hi-tech factories, golf courses and an international motor circuit. We came across a field of eggplants and while my wife stopped to buy a basket full of veges for about US 50 cents from some women packing up to go to market, I watched a man and woman (husband and wife?) patiently watering their plants with plastic dippers wired to long poles. The irrigation was a border-d**e system, and they were scooping water from between the rows and pouring it onto each plant. It was the personification of timeless hard work. So, here is the ethical dilemma - I 'sniped' three photos - one on tele (300mm equiv), the other wide angles. I didn't want to stop the guy's work to ask permission and wave a camera in his face, and as it was he was too busy to notice a Laowai on the side of the road with a camera. Are either of the resulting photos 'ethical' (or any good, for that matter)? Enough waffle, here are the photos (I prefer the wide angle):
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Sept 17, 2011 17:39:38 GMT -5
There are so many stories circulating about Fangio's brilliance. (Fangio, of course, never circulated, but raced). I like the one about the time at Monte Carlo when he slowed in time to avoid an unseen (to him) crash on the next corner. Asked how he knew to slow, Fangio replied that normally when he came into a corner he'd see a sea of faces on the barrier as the crowd watched him intently. This time, there was a sea of black - the back of the crowd's collective heads. They were not watching Fangio. Something more spectacular had caught their attention, ergo there was a crash ahead. All this analysis made in a split second entering a corner.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Sept 12, 2011 19:02:41 GMT -5
Wayne, ASA 12 and f2 - tough (?) indeed. Did you ever think that you'd see usable ISO/ASA of 3200 and above? Or, for that matter, digital cameras or, for that matter, pixel peepers who complain of a DSLR's noise at ISO-3200?
I was always torn between Ektachrome E100 and E200 - the grain of the former was so much finer than the latter. Since February, Kodak have made the choice easier by dropping E200 altogether.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Sept 12, 2011 7:10:47 GMT -5
Yaniv,
nice story and a superb selection of photos.
I'm now after some more information.
What film did you use? Colour reversal (slide film) or colour negative?
Did you do any post production digital editing?
I ask these questions because I love the colour rendition in your 21st century images, which have a beautiful 'vintage' feel (I can describe it no other way).
No matter the answer, I think that lens is lovely and you are showing plenty of talent in the grand old art of zone focusing.
Michael.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Sept 12, 2011 2:14:53 GMT -5
Hello again everybody.
The good news is, the official censor does has not deemed all you good folks at CC to be a threat to impressionable young minds, so I can access the board from behind the Great Firewall.
Some of your photos I can no longer see, however, since some photo-sharing sites are infra dig here including, it seems, Picasa web. Picasa even tells me I haven't an online account anymore!
In the 8 years since I last lived in the Middle Kingdom, the lads have got cooler (ill-fitting sharkskin suits have been replaced by basketball casual and lots of expensive haircuts) and the lasses have got *erhem* rather more daring - showing leg and cleavage that would've got them all sent to a nunnery only a decade ago. Many towns and villages have become remarkably tidy and the age-old practise of noisy expectoration has, mercifully, all but disappeared among the young.
Cycling has become a middle-class hobby as well as a working-class mode of transport. We are well served here by the Guangdong Greenway, a system of leisure-targeted cycleways and routes. Great for a Laowai (foreigner) who is not in the car and driver set (a wit once remarked that there are 2 kinds of Laowai in China - those who have drivers and those who ride bicycles - I'm definitely among the latter).
Less welcome is the absence of photo-processing equipment. I expected it, but it still bites. I've seen one dusty minilab fronted by a case of well faded Fuji Sensia cartons, and that's it. Today I spotted a little shop with fresh boxes of Kodak and Lucky. I'm heading back after I write this to stock up. If it comes to it, I can send the film off to one of the good pro labs in HK.
Why am I bothering with film? Well, until I can afford an M9 (ha-ha) or at least an X100, I'm stuck with either an old digital compact or one of my vintage rangefinders (I brought 2 with me). The shooting conditions (lots of action everywhere, crowded buses or a bicycle for transport, heat, humidity and a real danger of thievery) make me hanker for the speed, silence, low weight and low profile of a rangefinder.
So, watch this space. Once I get some film and find a reliable processor, I'll try and post some shots of my new world.
Cheers,
Michael.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Aug 24, 2011 4:31:36 GMT -5
Finally the long-alluded-to move is on the way. What's left of my camera collection is sealed away, the house is almost packed up, and we begin our somewhat wending path to China tomorrow.
We'll visit my mother in Christchurch before flying to Guangzhou via Auckland, and then on to the seaside resort of Zhuhai, where both my wife and I have taken teaching posts with a technical institute.
Hopefully I'll still be able to log on to CC from behind the great firewall of China. If not, I'll 'see' you all again next time I hop the border (I'll be a short walk from Macao and a slightly longer boat ride from HK).
Michael.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Aug 24, 2011 4:24:02 GMT -5
Glad that you guys are getting some of the action, and even gladder that from the reports I've heard so far, everyone seems shaken but not stirred. I hope the good news continues.
Mickey, there are worse things in life than sleeping through an earthquake.
One of my childhood friends awoke in his bed praying to God at the top of his lungs during one of Christchurch's big aftershocks. I'm at the point where I feel guilty for not having frazzled nerves like my family and friends down south.
Personally, I've only felt 3 quakes, even though, living in NZ, I've ;lived through literally thousands. Only one made me a little anxious, but that's cos I haven't lived through a big one ...yet.
Michael.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Aug 23, 2011 2:43:25 GMT -5
To my knowledge, Shanghai Seagull are still churning out Minolta based SLRs. I don't know how many of these are still being made, only a handful I'd guess. Here is a significant portion of their model output from the last 30 years. www.seagull-cn.com/products_more.asp?it=%B5%A5%B7%B4Phenix is, to my knowledge, Still governed by Phenix Optical Co. Here is their film camera lineup, though again, some of these look to be historical models: www.phenixoptics.com.cn/cn/product_210.html
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Aug 16, 2011 18:03:08 GMT -5
Lanz bulldogs were a very popular tractor here in New Zealand, and remain popular with vintage tractor restorers - I'm sure their wonderful exhaust tone is half the attraction.
They also have great torque, and can pull a plough up anything. My uncle recalled that as a young contractor in the 1960s, he ploughed a bank with his Lanz that the farmer couldn't touch with his more modern tractor.
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