Roll 292
Film: Ilford XP2 Super 400
Developed & scanned: DEP Lab 2025/9/5
Camera: Ricoh GR21 21mm f3.5
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The scooter at home has been struggling lately. The first-generation Gogoro is just too small for me — every ride is a workout. I keep thinking about buying the family a new one, but then I remember the debt I'm still carrying and I stop thinking about it.
At the start of this year (2026), the debt had come down to just over a million NT. A slow but real reduction compared to when I first entered the workforce fifteen years ago (2010), when I think it was around two million — though I never kept precise track of that figure. I just knew it was the family's debt, I lived under this roof, and it was mine to carry.
Then this year the government's sewer infrastructure project reached our area, and we were suddenly hit with a bill of nearly 400,000 NT. I nearly coughed up blood. The debt level that had crept down to just over a million bounced right back up to nearly two million. Deeply demoralizing.
After fifteen straight years of paying it down, I've realized something: I genuinely don't know how to save money. Because I've never had spare money to save with. I don't know what that process even feels like. Every month the salary comes in, the debt payments go out, and whatever's left is living expenses. I've been living paycheck to paycheck since I started working. Still am.
It was relatively late that I understood the concept of making money with money — that if you have some capital and deploy it, it compounds faster than any fixed salary ever could, and the rate keeps accelerating. Meanwhile I watch friends my age making serious returns on investments, and that's when my artist soul speaks up and says: "You should keep doing meaningful things for the world, so that whenever death comes, you can face it without regret."
I tell myself: that's an awfully romantic thought. A very warm piece of self-consolation for someone who missed the savings window fifteen years ago.
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The reason I'm going into all of this is that I recently wanted to get the family a new scooter but had no money, and I started eyeing the GR21 as something I could sell to raise some. The funny thing is that sorting through these photos makes it very clear what this camera is worth to me — another part of my brain told me firmly: do not sell this camera.
This GR21 is the only one I have now. I used to own two; the other one has been sold. This one I intend to keep. The only thing I genuinely dislike about it is the manual lens cap — you have to put it on and take it off every time, which I find tedious. You can use a lens hood instead for protection, but with the GR21's retractable lens, external pressure risks damage, and adding a hood makes the whole thing bulkier in a bag. So I've resigned myself to the lens cap routine.
That one complaint aside, everything else about the GR21 is perfect to me. Unlike most people whose first film GR was the GR1 or GR1s, my entry point was straight to the GR21 — and that impression was so strong that I later went and bought a GR1s and a GR1 as well.
After shooting nine rolls over roughly six months with the GR21, I've come to a conclusion: to get the best out of it, you have to do the opposite of what you'd expect. You have to not be trying to take a photo. That sounds paradoxical, but it's genuinely how it feels. When you consciously try to capture a specific moment or scene with the GR21, it almost never comes out the way you wanted — the lens is so wide, there's so much information, and you can't quite pin anything down through a 21mm frame.
But if you forget about photography. Forget about composition. Forget about waiting for the moment. If you just press the shutter casually, in various situations, with the mindset of testing the camera — that's when the GR21 surprises you. The lens is so wide that having too much information flips from being a weakness to a strength. You get the photos back, and you start carefully examining details you never noticed when you pressed the shutter. You see things you didn't see at the time. You imagine what else was happening just outside of your awareness.
This particular pleasure of "post-facto photography" — I think only an autofocus, uncropped ultra-wide camera like the Ricoh GR21 can deliver it this completely.
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#1
Setting out to test this newly acquired Ricoh GR21 21mm f3.5.
#2
Close-focus test. The GR21's minimum focus distance of 30cm genuinely doesn't look close when you see the result.
#3
Night light source test.
#4
A lot of people complain about Shopee's rising fees, but honestly — isn't that just the platform getting what it's owed? Nobody can force a for-profit business to run a charity. I used to sell camera gear on Shopee, but I've gone back to basics and now sell directly through Facebook Marketplace. Price it right and things move. The Marketplace keyword notification feature is genuinely excellent — if you're looking for something specific, subscribing to a keyword is incredibly convenient. Shopee, by contrast, deliberately makes its search terrible so you can't find what you want, let alone subscribe to a keyword. It was through Marketplace that I sold my other GR21 — gone instantly.
#5
The GR21 I sold had been modified — a technician disconnected the flash wire, so the flash won't fire even in Auto mode. The benefit is that the camera is forced to use a safe shutter speed in low light rather than defaulting to flash. This shot was taken with flash switched off in the normal way — and if you do it like that rather than modifying the wiring, you'll get camera shake at night, as you can see here.
#6
Compared to the previous shot — that one was flash-off mode, this one is flash-blocked mode. Flash-blocked means covering the flash with a finger while shooting in Auto, so the camera selects a safe shutter speed but the flash light never actually fires. When I first started doing this I used gaffer tape and tissue as a heat buffer to cover the flash permanently, but eventually I decided that looked a bit rough on the camera and that blocking it by hand works just as well.
#7
Flash test.
#8
Another flash test.
#9
After getting used to the lantern-like glow of light sources on film, going back and looking at starburst effects in digital photos feels somehow wrong.
#10
I once turned a found wallet in to this police station and ended up spending an hour or two giving a statement. I've never brought anything to a police station since. The next time I found something, I put it on the front counter and immediately left — I was terrified they'd ask me to give another statement.
#11
Passing by.
#12
A long time ago, 7-Eleven was the first convenience chain in Taiwan to push its store lighting noticeably brighter than the competition. It built a sense of market leadership in consumers' minds. I've always thought that was a genuinely clever move.
#13
As mentioned, the most obvious drawback of the GR21 for me is manually attaching and removing the lens cap — though this isn't a problem if you wear it on a strap around your neck. The GR21's viewfinder sits directly above the lens, which minimizes left-right parallax when composing, but a lens hood will obstruct the viewfinder. Even without a protective filter, the extended bare lens already blocks around 20–30% of the central viewfinder area; add a filter and it's another 5% or so. My conclusion: shoot the GR21 naked. Nothing attached.
#14
Testing the flash-off vs flash-blocked difference again. This one is flash-off.
#15
And this one is flash-blocked. I personally prefer photos without harsh light sources. A lot of people think flash portraits from compact cameras look great, but I think the subjects just happen to be attractive people — the flash has nothing to do with it. Front-on compact camera flash flattens everyone's features. It's genuinely risky.
#16
Gestalt psychology in action.
#17
If you pull out a camera while waiting at a red light, please make sure the flash is off.
(Flash-blocked)
#18
Same spot, flash-off mode — completely blurred.
#19
Night markets should have plenty to shoot.
#20
Shot another one, though I've forgotten what I was comparing.
#21
Flash-off really does just mean camera shake.
#22
The GR21 without flash is basically unbeatable — as long as you're pairing it with ISO 400 film.
#23
My son once asked me why the lanterns hanging outside temples don't get ruined or fall apart. I said probably because they're weatherproof — but honestly, I'm not sure.
#24
I think the GR21 is much better suited to landscape orientation than portrait. Human eyes are horizontal, after all.
#25
Flash on.
#26
Flash off.
#27
Like a lightsaber.
#28
I haven't heard the classic street vendor calls of the big wooden tub sellers in over fifteen years.
#29
Growing up, we always called this place "Nanya Night Market," not "Nanya Night Market" with the other character. My first New Year's countdown with friends as a student was spent here. Being allowed to stay out past midnight felt like a genuine achievement at the time.
#30
Minimum focus distance test. Almost done with this roll.
#31
I've never tried cai yan — probably because the name has always sounded a bit odd to me.
#32
Key shops often combine key cutting with stamp engraving, but this one pairs key cutting with knife and scissors sharpening — which, on reflection, makes sense, since keys also involve precision grinding.
#33
Minimum focus distance test. The reason I shoot so many close-focus frames on the same roll is to verify whether the camera's autofocus is reliable. The thing I dread most is a false focus confirmation — the viewfinder indicator says you've got focus, but the resulting photo is blurry. The Konica Big mini F 35mm f2.8 was the first camera I encountered this problem with. Skeptical, I bought a second one. Same issue on both. I'm not sure whether it's a design flaw in the Big mini F or whether I just got unlucky twice. Either way, I no longer have a Big mini F — I've also sold the Big mini HG BM-300. The only Konica Big mini I still own is the A4 35mm f3.5, kept for one reason: it's the only fixed-lens Big mini with an automatic lens cap.
#34
In Taiwan, if a hot pot restaurant advertises itself as "Japanese-style shabu-shabu," it means it is 100% Taiwanese-style shabu-shabu. The Chinese language contains multitudes.
#35
A lot of photographers gravitate toward gas stations at night, but I've always preferred bus stops.
#36
Waited for a car to pass and took a second frame.
#37
Finally finished the roll — in under an hour. Time to drop it off for processing.
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That's this roll — Ricoh GR21 21mm f3.5 with Ilford XP2 Super 400. Thanks for reading.
