Macro Lights (DIY)

Close up and Macro photography is a very exciting way to extend your interest in photography. Bugs look like monsters and your garden can be turn into a mini zoo with little creatures that you never bother to examined before. Your watch face shows up intricate lines you never knew existed. In order for you to go into Macro or close up photography, the easiest route would be to get a dedicated Macro lens. True macro lens have 1:1 magnification, meaning that the image captured on the sensor is life size to the object. Some even goes 5:1 but alternatively there are other ways to  do close up even with your regular lenses and I have tried them both. First is the addition of extension tubes. These are basically hollow tubes that joins between your camera and your lens thus extending it. Now your MFD (min focusing distance) can drop down to 3 inches depending how much you extend your tubes. However you cannot focus on infinity and you can't use you AF. What I usually do is to to move my MFD till I get my object in focus. You'll have to crank up our ISO and have steady hands. The other way is to use close up filters which are basically a magnifying glass. Inherent to all macro lenses is slow AF and you usually have to revert to MF. The other problem is shallow DOF, so you will have to close up your aperture. Doing so will reduce the light going into the lens and you may need high ISO to stop camera shake. So you will need need to use flash but because MFD is so close on camera flash or mounted flash don't do a good job an you need a dedicated macro flash. Now that flash cost even more than your regular flash. So what can you do? You improvise,like me. All I need is to light up the area I wish to shoot and don't want it too harsh. So my contraption is using those clip on led lights and mount it on the hood. You can use as many as you want. Be forewarned that you will be walking around with a camera that looks like a weapon from Star Trek!!!!

Village House

Was recently invited to a house warming and blessing of a place simply called the Village House. This is a lodge at the foot of Mount Santubong fronting the South China Sea. Opened by my dear friends, a husband and wife team who are avid travelers and photographers as well. This is their second place after Singgahsana Lodge in Kuching town. Set is a peaceful and quaint little malay kampong, you can sip pina coladas whole day in the inviting pool with a bar just steps away. I highly recommend both these places to 'singgah' if you are ever in this part of Borneo.

Finally got my first L lens

 Yes folks, Santa Claus came early and I got myself my 1st Canon 'L' lens. L for Luxury, top of the line professional grade Canon lens. Not just any lens but a 70-200mm F4 IS USM lens, the white colored lens. I have been longing for this lens and poured through every review there is about this lens. It gets a 9.9/10.0, any better would be the holy grail for a zoom lens. Hot from the oven I got a photoshoot and what exciting opportunity to try this baby. Went straight to location and open the boxed in the car and snapped it on, boy does it feel good. I am not going to do a review because there is nothing I can say thats not been said already. I just want to say I am simply delighted and excited with this wonderful acquisition. Anyway the photoshoot is a PR shoot for an up and coming MP. If he wins the election, this lens is worth it! 

Art on Horse

Was out to town Saturday with a friend to look at some computer stuff. Went to a spanking new mall called the Pavillion near Bukit Bintang. It's massive, clean and airy. It's an upmarket mall and at the 5th floor there a Apple reseller called epiCentre, you can try out all the new iPods and iMac. On the way to Low Yat Plaza, stopped for lunch at the sidewalk cafe and there was this row of life-size horses all painted in beautiful colors. What a opportunity as I got my camera with my 85mm on it. These horses were painted by an art academy sponsored by Samsung. With those colorful shots I did a slideshow using Photopresenter and my favorite singer Andrea and try to upload it here in video format (took ages). Enjoy.

Canon Customer Care Experience

Canon slogan is 'Delighting you always' and let me tell you how true it was after my experience at their Customer care center in Peremba Square,Subang. I had just got a new lens, the EF85mm 1.8 and by experience prime lens are inherently sharp.However after the 1st evening trial shots were reviewed I detected that this lens was back focusing, I conducted further test and confirmed my suspicion. So after posting on shutter asia forum unavoidablyI need to sent it for recalibration. Called the CCC on Tuesday morning and was given directions, went straight there together with my camera as well to checked. Since I got international warranty I may still have to pay handling fees after the repair which they estimated to be a week. It was a pleasant affair and was out of there in 30 mins. Thought I would wait 3 days to find out the status but surprise surpise, early Thursday morning  I received sms that my camera ready for collection and its FOC!!!!!! Is that great or is that great? Well I went to collect it and tested it and the autofocus is now spot on. Now I am totally delighted at Canon's commitment to customer care and other established companies should emulate this. You leave with a feeling that with Canon product you don't have to worry and this feeling breeds brand loyalty.Syabas, Canon boleh.

New lens & Flash!

I love taking portraits an is looking for a lens that fulfills my need in that category. Of course if money is no object than I will definitely get the Canon EF 85mm F 1.2 L lens. That will cost a bomb and I just cannot justify acquiring it just yet as a keen amateur.The next best thing is the one I just received.I love it already.There are plenty of reviews and I can definitely agree with all the positive rating. It's solidly built and pictures are just crisp with the kind of contrast and saturation I love. The bokeh is really smooth andmakes your subject stands out like 3D.
Another required gear is the Canon 580EX ll Flash. Nowadays most people including myself will check out all the reviews of the products before buying it. You cannot go wrong when the reviewer is a professional and also ratings by people who are using the product already.It may seem cruel but these reviews can actually make or break the product.So in this case I am going for top of the line professional flash.I rather have saved and have this flash now rather than going the route of upgrading.In photography your gear plays an important part.Knowing it an getting the maximum out of it brings out the best in you and your gear.Check out my album using this lens.

Added new gear!

I have acquired a couple of new photographic equipment. It's a Canon battery grip BG-E2 with 2 generic BP511A batteries. This grip will extend shots to at least 1000 plus shooting in portrait mode is easier. There are times that I swore I wish I had more juice and the grip also give it mass to better balance my future acquisition of  the long zooms. Of course I also need a bigger bag to put all these new gear in so I got the Bagman Snapman  Trekka. Lots of rearrangeable padded compartment and space for my Macbook too.I got a Mocha colored bag knowing how dirt will definitely show up on brightly colored ones. This bag is also less assuming than  a shoulder one that I have been using. Heard camera bags have been snatched around KLCC area.So it's better to be safe than sorry.

Mac OS 10 Leopard

Finally upgraded to Leopard!!! Well there's 300 reason why you should but a couple of new cool stuff really is the reason why I did. The cover flow view in finder with quick look is so useful. I am sure there lot's more really cool stuff as I am still exploring. Oh, here's one, in iChat video mode you can have an animated background or any background you want. There one with fishes swimming behind you too. Yes it can now support bluetooth stereo headset. Although I find that there's interference oif you are having a few devices connected on bluetooth. Maybe apple will sort this out with a service pack.So if you have not upgraded, don;t hesitate!  

P990i Crashed & Burn!!!!

Suddenly as I was sending out a sms simultaneously call came in and it set off the phone to continously vibrating mode. Oh oh.......pulled out the battery to stopped it. Unfortunately the phone could not be started again,it just gone bonkers and continously vibrates every time we switch it on. Brought it back to the shop and after a few days they said it's a major  problem and need to be sent off to be repaired. It would be  a long while and so I cannot afford to wait that long. I decided to trade it in and get a trusty Nokia instead, the Nokia 6120 classic. Like the name implies, a very straight forward smartphone minus the bells and whistles. A phone trying to be a PDA or the other way round just cannot hack it. I am better off with this phone and get a PDA! Sigh.....well I was hopeful.

Anyway, you cannot go wrong with a Nokia. This little baby packs a punch. It's a 3.5G with the latest symbian S60 3rd edition. This one is a keep! So RIP SE P990i.

New Instrument!

When do you call a watch an instrument? When the watch is a Bell & Ross BR01-92 Instrument. There a few watches specifically designed for the purpose of work namely diving and pilot watches! Some of the very well known makes have been producing these watches and they play an integral & specialized role to the wearer. From the image above( sorry for the poor quality,taken from my SE phone) it looks similar to the many instruments inside my cockpit, it is as if I just took it out from my cockpit panel and strap it to my wrist. This is 46mm in diameter,Panerais,IWC are 44mm, so it seems big is in! It's fashionable and professional watches are never cheap. If your work depends on it you'll understand, nevertheless BR01 instruments are selling like hot-cakes and only a fraction of the owners are  professional pilots.  You are buying into a lifestlye and only discerning

 collectors knows what you are wearing. I love mine!

RIP Sony Vaio PCG Z505

I think I finally have to abandon any hope of reviving my Vaio even after paying to have it fixed. It seems that the 1st shop that was unsuccessful in repairing it forgot either unintentionally or otherwise to put back the hard disk bracket and harness. Without that I cannot put in a new hard disk. If only I have known earlier I would have either not repair it or go back immediately to the 1st shop and demand the  missing item. How are we to know since that have put back the laptop! I love this Vaio and it served me well. It's really a cool and portable laptop. I am happy with my Macbook now but I am sure this laptop can still be useful. Well RIP and who knows if I can find that spare part I may just revived it.On the other hand, i had just listed them on eBay so that some other people might find it useful.

Join the bandwagon!

My preferred mode of  communicating is sms, call and email. I do all 3 through a mobile phone. Nevertheless nothing beats surfing and getting emails using my laptop.Thats easy when I am at home or at the office. If you are mobile then it's more of a hassle, easiest would be to find a free wifi zone. Most of these are at cafes and so it's not exactly free and after a coffee and cheesecake it will add up.So next alternative is to subscribe to the various mobile broadband available. However why pay so much when we already have broadband at home or at the office? So 'pay as  you use' seems logical but this can be very expensive affair. So far Celcom offers the best package, the RM8 for 24hr, it's still cheaper than a cafe latte and cheese cake. You can even use a prepaid 3G card and connection is quite easy. I am actually uploading this blog on this setup using my trusty Macbook and SE P990i as a wireless bluetooth modem. Alternatively  you can sign up for rm68/mth unlimited package for speed up to 384kbps or rm2+/day. now that is the cheapest offer in town. Why bother with the offer of a USB modem when a bluetooth 3G handphone is the cheaper and better alternative. I may just go for this setup.

New Gadjet

I was in Singapore for a few days of work.Sim Lim square was just 10 mins from where I stayed. Not much difference from Low Yat Plaza KL, infact  LYP is newer and better in my opinion. When you convert SGD to RM there's not much difference. The only thing I found worthwhile getting is the iTech Radio Clip. This is a bluetooth stereo headset for mobile phone with a built in radio. Works great with my SE P990i, sound quality is  good, radio reception is not bad. Unfortunately still does not work with OS X which lacks A2DP, understands that Leopard may solve this issue. Then it will be cool, listening to iTunes on the Mac and answering calls coming in too,wirelessly......almost.

New Phone

I was looking for a new phone because my Nokia 6600 is a little long in the tooth and I needed a new phone with more up to date features. I needed a 3G phone, 3.5G would be better,it must have BT and most importantly be able to be used as a modem with my Macbook. Friends familiar with Mac tell me to go SE because it's connects with a Mac without much trouble. Hmmm I am a Nokia guy and know that their PC suite works seamlessly and I have Parallels. All the other features like megapixels camera, GPS and Wifi initially was secondary features that is good to have but I'd rather prefer a nice big screen. I narrowed down to the Nokia 6233,6110 and SE810i. The 6233 was cheap and got everything I wanted, the 6110 had 3.5G plus GPS while the SE got 3.2mp cybershot camera! Finally I decided to get the 6110 but it has to be black. Unfortunately when you want one it's out of stock, so what the heck, I don't really the GPS. Then I saw the SE990i, initially was dismissed from my list due to the form factor but when it's in my hand it's not actually much bigger than my 6600. It's a smart phone, got almost everything except the kitchen sink. Hmm interesting,what attracted me was that it's got WiFi , it's a music player with limited PDA functionality and super sharp 240x320 screen. Between Wi-Fi and GPS, I reckoned I will use the Wi-Fi more often and still could get a better standalone GPS transceiver. However the best feature was it's price! It's 60% off the original price and I feel getting acquainted with it would be fun,boy was I wrong! The SE990i is not for someone not willing to learn how to use properly and that's why the price has dropped much! it's almost like a mini computer and you have to scour the forums to make it working properly and it took me almost a week to do so. After reinstalling the firmware,upgraded to 2GB memory I can connect it to the Mac either wirelessly or through USB, have tried wifi on it, played music and radio and even downloaded movies to it. Picture turn out great too and I am beginning to warm up to it. For the price I paid I cannot complain and actually it's the cheapest wiFi 3G smartphone around at the moment!

Friday 17, Finally managed to update to the latest firmware R6E28. It was like doing  brain surgery, you foul up you end up with a brick of a phone. Thanks to fellow blogger and other forums,making the 990i much more stable and useable.

Upgraded MacBook & a hand me down iMac!

Finally upgraded my MacBook to 2GB ram after about 60 plus wonderful days with it. I have maxed out and I am happy. I remembered the time where my 1st PC had 1mb RAM, sooner than later upgraded that to 4mb and never looked back since. Now my handphone have 60mb ram which I will blog about later. Anyway had Moorey installed and checked it just incase for I am still in the 90days warranty period. At the same time had him figured how to published this blog to my sub domain.

Another great news, my daughter inherited a iMac from a friend of hers. Still a great machine and so happy she is introduced to Mac at such an early stage.I have converted another friend of mine who was looking for a laptop to go to college with.He went a bit overboard and got himself a Mac Book Pro!I am jealous!

My Len's US.

US means unserviceable,then there's FMC  or PMC,meaning full mission capable or partial mission capable. For the time being my Canon EF 28-135mm F3.5-5.6 is PMC, the zoom is stuck at 50-70mm. Hmm, hope it can be rectified when I send it to the shop back in KL. So far I am very pleased with the lens. This lens stays on my camera 90% of the time because of it's useful range. There are shortcomings which I can live with for the time being. I like to go for lens review here My wish list is the EF 70-200mm F2.8! It's Saturday, 1st Aug and got my lens back.Feels silky smooth and good as new. Jason of J-One in Amcorp mall repaired it for me.Please visit my online album           

Love my MaC

Sometimes, there are somethings that you have reviewed, tried and tested but the moment after buying it you wished you have bought something else. Then again there are things that you have just bought and it's so wonderful that you wished you bought more. The Apple MacBook is such a product for me. I am not entirely new to MaC product,my brother had one which I used because my VAIO broke. So I was in the market for a new machine. Initially it was natural to look for another PC but however it now comes with Vista. So I am looking at  a new hardware and new os to boot,the MaC look mighty close. One turning point for me was that MaC went with Intel, now I can have a up to date processor and that can even run Windows on Mac. For the same budget I could  get a Fujitsu,HP or VAiO. But why follow when you can lead,designwise,nothing compares to the MacBook. Form and function comes into play just like a Porsche. Infact I was not even eyeing the Macbook Pro, the black Macbook have great reviews and size and weight is just perfect for me.Well, I am so happy I went with a MacBook. I have been so productive with it, like they say,with a mac you just do it! So if you are looking for a entry level Laptop,look no further, you cannot go far wrong when a major online computer review site editor makes it his choice!

Not as easy as it seems

I tried whole day yesterday with my very IT savvy friend,Moorey to set up a website,finally got it up loaded. It's call www.phases.com.my. Well designing the site itself took 3 days,built in iWeb. Then you have to register the domain. Unlike setting up www.yourname.com, registering www.yourname.com.my needs a bit more time. Afterwards you have to host your website somewhere out there and to upload it you need ftp. Now  I tried ftp it and it didn't work so I export the folder onto Dreamweaver CS and tried uploading it from there. That's when it got messy. Without Moorey or without any html know how it's the dreaded 404 page! thats when nothing gets uploaded.That's because iWeb has a first line command that directs you to your 1st page or index page which you actually don't need in DW. The site could now be uploaded cept for one page.Found out that I had a typho error in iWeb,I unintentionally left a space in the name of the page which DW cannot understand.Now does all this make sense to you?