National Service... in JPEG!

Mum's friend needed some photos of National Service, so I finally did what I said I'd do over two years ago but never got down to doing: I had 11 rolls of NS film scanned. Couldn't find the other two rolls.

The results surprised me: these are low-resolution (about 3 megapixels) scans of negative film, but the sharpness, highlight control and colour rendition is pretty good! Mind you, these were not shot on an SLR or rangefinder, but on a Ricoh compact with a fixed aperture, fixed shutter, fixed focal length (35mm), automatic flash and automatic date imprint.


At the rapelling/abseiling site.


Time-out after some evening activity; it might have been drill practice.


That's me on the flying fox, with Cikgu Zack, an ex-commando, flying backwards in front of me.

One of my favourites. I think it was shot by the guy we called Badang (but I will have to check my NS diaries to be certain).

Digital would have failed miserably. Shutter lag would have resulted in the missing of the moment, while the film camera just fires when its shutter is pressed.

Also, having a real viewfinder (even one that is not through-the-lens) helps the photographer follow movement much more accurately than through an LCD screen.


Morning walk/march from the barracks to the padang kawad.

The early morning mist was lovely; we were surrounded by quite a lot of forest.


Victorians at Kem Pinggiran Pelangi, Muadzam Shah, Pahang.