This is my blog, details of my life and my thoughts are here, if you can take what I write, go ahead, if you're not happy with my blog, no one is forcing you to read :)
So yea... Again nothing much happened recently. I tried to help Rizal get his laptop working with the programs but apparently it didn't work... I got my camera back from Madinah. Basically nothing much. The other day, I got this 2 surprises. Nothing special, just surprised.
26 e-mails and 15 notifications. Quite surprising to me. So I may not be able to post tomorrow night cause I might be shooting fireworks.
Things that I'm grateful for 2010, in no particular order, just what comes to mind.
1. My mentor Clifford for always guiding me in my life both personal as well as a photographer 2. My ITE grades 3. My "sister" Jia Zhen for inviting me to her birthday, Hilwah and Melanie for inviting me to Justina's birthday. The last party was when I was a kid, goes to say much XD 4. Justina for always disturbing me and allowing me to disturb her 5. My kids in ITE for being my friends 6. Being able to express something that has been on my mind for years and knowing that I can live on without regrets about this particular event which I shall not name 7. My family for always being there 8. My "brother" Hong Yao for always being an idiot but lovable 9. My buddy Malathi for being a great bud 10. My 2 students Lijuan and Zheng Yan for wanting to learn under me hahahah
There might be other things that I have not said cause I can't remember. So sorry if I didn't say or remember!
My new year's resolution!
1. Survive NS (VERY IMPORTANT!) 2. Learn to be a better printer (in photography) 3. Get more books for my shelf 4. Improve as a photographer 5. Get into Singapore poly and into a course of my choice 6. Do slightly more jobs as a photographer
Might have left out other things, but these are the ones I remember. That's pretty much all. Good night world! 2.
First of all, most importantly, I want to give a shout out to my friend Siew Mei, who's like a very noisy sister (XD) to me! Happy Birthday dear Siew Mei! Wish you to have a good year in the coming year!
Nothing much today, went to Jurong West library and borrowed a few more books on printing and rangefinder cameras. Came home, went to buy whipped cream, came home, left for Ngee An Poly, celebrate birthday, that's all. Good night world! Happy Birthday Siew Mei!
P.S I know I keep wishing her happy birthday everywhere, but I like it! Deal with it! XD
How was your Christmas? I hope it has been a good one. I didn't do much except hide in my room watching videos and reading. And more recently... I've been munching a lot... Probably due to the cold weather...
I didn't do much the past few days other than that. I shot my second panoramic image though! Its in HDR though its not a very nice HDR because of the weather. Have a look!
Then today... I met my sayang Aryani! XD! We went down to Bukit Timah because she wanted to eat ice cream... And well... I just regretted eating the berry ice cream... I had Broaster at Bukit Timah as well! It was nice!
Then we walked down somewhere... Forgot the name... To NTUC to buy stuff and this is what I bought!
Lucky this is a temporary munching problem that will be gone as the weather warms up. And no I do not eat everything in a day if that's what you're wondering.
Anyway... That's all for today! So good night world!
So yea... I somehow feel that its an unlucky year for me, today, I dropped my bag and my filter broke. I'm like "OH MY GOD! MY FILTER BROKE!?!?!? ITS GONNA MAKE ME BROKE!" and true enough I am broke. Gotta start saving again...
So today I caught Gulliver's Travels with the lead being Jack Black. It wasn't too bad a movie but it was funny. I watched it with my student Zheng Yan! We met at Harbor Front MRT before going to get tickets. But there was a lot of people. Honestly... I thought it'd be quiet, but then again, come to think of it at this moment, it is the eve of Christmas eve so why would it be quiet? So we went to the GV version of AXS machine and got ticket.
Here's the funny thing, the machine is standing near the entrance, all alone, without anyone to love it(that's just rubbish, the love part) and then looking at the box office, its like, a riot could just start anytime. So Zheng Yan and I walked there and bought our tickets, easy as pie. Except there wasn't much place and we ended up between the center and side on the 2nd row from the front.
So we went walking about. We went to Challenger so I could get a hard disk for my desktop (more on this later). We were looking and for some reason, the selection didn't seem complete, because there was more inside, and I was standing there thinking "where are all the 1 terabyte hard drives?" because at the entrance, they were mainly 1.5 teras or 2 teras though HP did have a 1 tera though I don't trust it. So I went in and found a Free Agent GoFlex desk hard drive that is 1 tera. For $125 bucks, more expensive than the HP by like 40 bucks but knowing its Seagate makes me feel better.
We went into Pageone book shop so I can have a look at books I could buy and I saw it... Mastering Digital Panoramic Photography, the book that I've been considering to get to learn pano photography. I didn't really browse through the right way but was a very quick browse through, and I might be getting Lee Frost's Panoramic Photography which is mainly film but contains digital. I like variety and learning from more is better. But of course! I'm still looking around before I buy.
So we went for the movie, after which we went to Macdonalds for a drink before we left for the city where Zheng Yan is meeting his friends for dinner and I'm buying a new filter. After which I got home. So here are my goods!
I feel sad that my filter broke, but ah well, my camera dropped in my bag as well, but so far, both my E-1 and 14-54 (which are the camera and lens I dropped) are working fine. New filter has been installed as well. Though for some reason, the auto focus beep sounds off to me, but not a big deal.
Also... Zheng Yan's lens seem to be broken, it can focus at the 18mm end as well as the 55mm end but not anything in between. Weird eh? I also had a hard time teaching Zheng Yan what is crop factor -.-". BUT! I'll go through with him again once I put together a power point, its easier to understand. Or at least... I hope...
Okay... So why did I get a hard disk? Recently, my mother accidentally kicked my computer, which a few days later, which is also yesterday, I keep hearing noises... At first I thought it was my wiring which I went through 3 separate times but my wireless are spaced so it can't be the wire touching the fan. So I decided that it could be the hard disk having problem. Not wanting to lose my data and having to find all of it again in various ways, I decided to get an external hard disk to backup my data of which currently, I've backed up 215GB worth of data. Tomorrow I'll be continuing.
Before I wrote today's entry, I was looking at the date, then the day, and realized that its Friday and I wonder what did I do the past 2 days, it is only now that I realize that this entry is meant for Thursday and Wednesday was spent at home doing nothing much. Silly me... So its Christmas eve today! As in now, at this moment that I'm typing, 1:01AM! Tomorrow is Christmas day and I have no idea what to do. Either way, I'm going to sleep soon... After updating my photography book list so I shall bid everyone a good night. Good night world!
Wow... So fast and its been almost a week since I last blogged! Again ,the reason why I didn't blog is because I've been tired plus nothing much to say hence combine a few days of blogging.
On to business! Nothing much happened on Thursday and Friday where I had to go to school on Friday because my classmates couldn't finish their project on Thursday and even on Friday, they couldn't finish. In the end, we didn't do presentation meaning I wasted my time going to school on Friday. And those who did presentation after school on Thursday have their efforts wasted.
Saturday was my dear "sister" Jia Zhen and her cousin's birthday celebration. It was interesting to see her family and shooting for them. I was there till like 1am before going home, I think its 1am. Sunday was a pretty quiet day spent editing photos for her.
On Monday I went down to my attachment office to show my boss the videos I did in school and was told to improve myself and learn more. So I asked my sonny boy Nyiyaz about some video standards and formats. I went to the national library after discussing about the work I'm to do when I start. When I went there and located the video section which is next to the photography section, I was shocked to see the number of photography books. Now I know to go there for "research" on photography books. I borrow 3 books and was reading while walking to Plaza Singapura to look for my ex colleague who is an auntie by the way.
After that I took 14 to Bukit Merah and walking home.
Today I went down to Bukit Merah to return the video book and I borrowed another 7 books! But none to do with video, because a lot of stuff in the video books I already know, things that I do not know aren't in the books that I see. So yea... I have to refer to the internet. The reason why I borrowed 7 books is for my own "research" on what books to get for my personal library as well as looking at the way the photos are composed to have a rough idea on composition for video.
So I went home with 7 books which were pretty heavy so next time I shall carry a bag instead! Came home and didn't do much except watching videos and doing quite a bit of browsing of the books.
One book in particular, is a book I saw that is recommended to me by Amazon UK, Lee Frost's Panoramic Photography. So I decided to try pano photography. I tried in my room and in a way, failed in doing a 360 image. That was after viewing on my computer. So I decided to try it later which is just now when darkness covered the sky. And I shot once before I saw lightning and decided to shoot the lighting.
When nothing came out, I decided to check my images and well... They had long exposure noise, so I deleted everything and shot once more before waiting for lightning. Waited for a few minutes and all the time lightning struck, it was behind clouds so I gave up and went back home.
This is the final image shot with my trusty Olympus E-1 and Zuiko Digital 14-54 lens. 12 Images stitched together at ISO400, 3.2 sec at f8.
Kinda sad that its small but well, the final image is ok, probably could be better with more experience. But I shall not stitch that many images again unless absolutely necessary.
Here's a video of Joe McNally shooting some grid thing, not really sure what it is, but even with natural light, his photos never fail to amaze me, not really the camera though it does play a part.
That's pretty much all I wanna say. I'm so excited for 10th and 11th January next year because Joe McNally will be giving talks! Seems that only Hilwah likes my pano image though my student Zheng Yan thinks its nice too. But I feel I can do better. Oh well! As the saying goes, practice makes perfect!
That's all I have to say so till the next post, good night world!
So its unofficially the last day of school! Again I didn't blog the past 2 days because nothing much really happened, plus I was busy playing Spider-Man Shattered Dimension! It wasn't too bad, quite nice actually, incorporating the web zip attack from Spider-Man Web Of Shadows was a nice touch though, very useful! Fighting Mysterio was interesting considering I've never really fought against him in all his glory before, only fought him in Spider-Man 2 the movie game.
So anyway! Today was 3D modeling, the final lesson and this is what I did in school, I kinda combined version 1 and 2 to get this!.
Exterior
Wall removed
Anti/evil/bad Diamondhead/Albedo/whatever
Vilgax's drone and Diamondhead
Nothing spectacular but for some reason, everyone likes it but me, I admit I do like Diamondhead's head which I did, and the "battle" arm as well as his normal arm, but other than that, not really.
So yea, I went to Youtube and was looking at the recommendation and again, I heard this song by Switchfoot!
Your Love Is A Song By Switchfoot
So yea, that's the live version. If you like it, go buy it, otherwise, errmmm... Shoo? Ok... Lame...
I was looking at Nikon's website today, as mentioned in a previous post, I might be switching in the event Olympus changes their marketing strategy. And only a few lenses state that they're sealed against moisture and dust, some I know without reading such as the 14-24, 24-70 amd the 70-200. So... What about the rest? I'm like "OMG! NO WEATHER SEALING!?". I looked at the D700 and D3/s image of the body on DPRevie, thinking back when Clubsnap Live@SAM was on, holding the D700 at the time as well as another time, and the D3s, the ergonomics were very much better than D200 and D80 of which are the only other Nikon cameras I've used and carried long enough to have an impression of. And I do like the many buttons available on the camera. HOWEVER! The important ones were not within reach of my thumb and index. Which at the same time, many buttons were at the other end of the camera, making it very difficult to do a one hand operation.
The lenses are expensive and not as heavily sealed. Optics aren't as good as the ones that I have. While the D3 and D700 felt like tanks like my E-1, my E-3 felt really durable too though not really having the same tank feeling as the D3, D700 and E-1. And in a way, I somehow feel that I can reach my potential using the current Olympus gears that I have because of the combination of weight, sharpness, image quality, ergonomics and layout. Not to mentioned that for all that, the price is lower. In a way, its perfect. I honestly and earnestly hope that the modular system will allow me to have my E-system layout and ergonomics and weather sealing to use as well as still being able to utilize my Zuiko Digital lenses in years to come.
I'm also actually considering being a photojournalist. But I have to consider very very carefully. Very soon I'll have quite a lot of things to do. Birthday shoot for my dear "sissy" on Saturday and helping my buddy Jimmo with his friend's pre wedding shoot on Sunday.
Tomorrow is the unofficial final day of school. I have to ask my lecturer for help with my flash which will be pretty quick, after which there will be presentation of project. After that I'd probably be writing in my notebook my plans and goals from now till before start of poly. And I so gotta start researching on courses and buy more books! That's all for tonight, eye getting itchy and feeling a little sleepy so good night world!
So yea... Nothing much to say since I basically didn't do much other than helping my bud Jimmo with his maternity shoot and then rotting at home all day long.
So yea... Olympus disclosed a modular system patent as seen here. And I was thinking of something like this. I know it sucks but its just a rough idea? Its not drawn accurately though
Exploded front Exploded back Front Back
So basically, the idea is the pro spec PEN, whatever it may be, attached to the "conversion" module which then needs a Zuiko Digital lens attached to it. The idea is that, one needs to turn the mount to lock it right? So the connection where the module is locked onto the PEN can be turned. And the lens mounts as per normal. Then it works much like a DSLR, maybe with the option of battery grip? But the thing is, I have no idea how to pull this off but then again, I'm not an engineer.
But I honestly wish for a camera that follows the same standard and size as the E-System DSLRs for comfortable usage for guys with hands like mine. That's pretty much for today so yea. Good night world!
So though its officially 12th Dec 2010, first of all, I wanna wish my dear little "sister" a happy 21st birthday! Now that you're 21, please behave like one ok?XD
So yea... Friday I didn't go to school cause as said, there's a useless year end party.
At night I went down to Marina Square with the intention of buying a sound card which in the end I didn't because kinda like, a waste of money and no money at the same time. So I waited till 7:30pm before going down to MBS with one guy, in total there were 5 of us who went for the shoot, kinda sad actually.
One of the guys tried to poison me with the Panasonic 20mm f1.7 lens but well, apparently I'm immune to it so yea. Just to share some images, all of them are HDR long exposures shot with Olympus E-P1 and the Panasonic Lumix 14mm.
On the Helix bridge on the way to MBS
On the Helix bridge from Marina Square
Construction going on outside MBS
One of the crane machines I think, outside MBS
View of the CBD from MBS
It was a pretty interesting shoot though, and it made me realize just how much I still have yet to learn.
So today, I spent most of my day thinking about cameras because rumors have surfaced again that the E-5 is the last DSLR, so I've already considered getting a Nikon D300s, 10-24 DX lens, something like a 17-85mm lens I guess and lastly would be the 80-400 FX lens, though I may get a 70-300 before that so that I have at least something to use in the tele range. I'll be using my Metz for flash before expanding to SB 900s and or SB 800s and or SB 600s and or SB 700s.
But of course, I hope that the pro spec PENs meant to replace the flagship DSLRs from Olympus will be big enough to hold comfortably. I feel sad if I have to change. I sure hope that I do turn pro one day. Fulltime or otherwise.
I have to seriously say this, I want to thank my mentor, Clifford for always encouraging me and guiding me not just in my life as a photographer but as well as a person. I cannot stress how important this is to me. I have never met and probably might never meet anyone else like him. He's like the father I never had actually. I'd never thought that I'd go this far in photography and am still continuing this journey. Next year I'll be a 9 year old photography, pretty close to a decade, but unlike my mentor who has like 20 over years and Joe McNally who has over 30 years, but I'm only 21, I still have loads of time! :X
So tomorrow I will be helping my friend Jimmo do a maternity shoot for him and his wife. It's gonna be interesting since this would be the first time I actually do this. The studio is as Jurong so I'm about to hit the hay so I can get up early to pack my bag before going. What's going to be in my bag tomorrow?
Olympus E-1, Olympus E-P1, MMF 1 adapter, Zuiko Digital 14-54mm, Zuiko Digital 50-200mm, Zuiko Digital 50mm macro lenses and my M.Zuiko Digital 17mm pancake. As well as my light meter and grey card. I'll try to post images tomorrow. Good night world!
Firstly, I wanna share with you this image or rather, screen capture that shows my blog having 1111 visitors, thanks to all who came here by accident, no idea who is a repetitive visitor or just someone who stumbled by accident, still thanks a lot!
So yea! This week is almost over marking the 2nd last week of school as almost over! My flash project is almost done, I've gotta wait till Monday to get help from teachers because tomorrow there's a year end party which is pointless especially since we as year 2 students who are about to graduate, have little time as it is, and they have a party which interferes with our time allocated for work.
But yea... Nothing much else to say today, spending my time tomorrow trying to solve the problems I'm having in flash at the moment and shooting at MBS tomorrow so expect pictures tomorrow!
That's pretty much I wanna say tonight so till tomorrow, good night world!
So yea... Today was pretty boring in school with nothing much to do. And I went to the Singapore flyer with my dear old friend Vivian!
But it was raining and we had to almost canceled it until it stopped raining which was quite lucky since it would mean that the sky is pretty clear.
We met up for dinner before walking around then going to the Singapore flyer. It was a 30 minute trip which was pretty slow, then again... If it were fast, I think it'd scare everyone. There weren't much people as well. The view was amazing. Not something one will see everyday.
Sadly the glass is a little dirty. They were all shot with the Lumix 14mm and my trusty E-P1.
Here's Vivian! Hahahah! Or rather... Her back
After that, we walked around before going home, and we walked past Helix bridge! Which isn't anything special so probably should just forget the exclamation point behind Helix Bridge.
So yea... That's all, nothing much really. I've been having problems sleeping, I can always fall asleep at night, but I feel tired earlier the past few days and wake up earlier than I want to. Sadly... Friday is the IT Year end party again. Not gonna go since I'd rather use the time to finish up my project. Plus the party ain't fun. OH! We got out log books for attachment already and I though it'd be something like a small notebook, but it turns out to be like... A4 size... And well, my liason officer is my IT's section head, not bad actually, since she's fair.
So yea... That's pretty much it for today, so good night world!
So yea... Nothing much since I've been either going to school or staying at home, now is the project period.
Just to share an image I took that day with clear skies, using the 14mm lens, liking it more except in the corners.
Somehow when exporting out from Lightroom and resizing everything in Lightroom, the colour looks weird, maybe might switch to the old way I do resizing.
Another thing I wanna show you guys is my sister's nail polish collection which is still growing, kinda scary if you ask me.
Just wanted to say, till today... I'm still amazed at the image quality of the Olympus E-1, can't wait to change the rubber and shoot some wet weather!
So yea... That's pretty much all I wanna share for today. Tomorrow got 3D class and I'm kinda tired now. So... Good night world!
Quick update as I'm sleepy, basically I started doing my FYP for IAD by doing the database and a little bit, and I do stress little bit, of my web page design. I went out to meet my "sister" Stella and had dinner with her. We ate Pepper Lunch XD.
So yea... Today's weather wasn't very good so here are just a few more shots taken with the Olympus E-P1 and Panasonic Lumix 14mm f2.5 lens.
So initially my title was ""That has gotta hurt!" and 14mm first day thoughts" but I changed it, hahahah.
Anyway, in case you don't know who she is, she's on Wikipedia Natalie Tran
So yea, anyway, with regards to "That has gotta hurt!", check out this vid! From Joe McNally's blog!
Yikes! Probably if he was younger, he could have dodge it but hey, at least it ain't a seriously collision, just like this morning. I was on my way to school and dropping by BBDC (Bukit Batok Driving Center. I took the train and dropped off at Bukit Gombak, and walked to BBDC, when I was at the petrol station next to BBDC, I saw a bus with some glass on the ground. I saw the bus driving and some guy who looked like they were arguing, my guess is that the pickup and the bus collided, but it didn't look serious so I guess no one was hurt.
I went into BBDC to top out my bro and my account and then bought gloves for bike lesson, which is sadly, those that is used by fruit vendors to hold durians. As so...
Sucky... But as my brother said, no need spend so much for gloves, plus the only thing I'm wearing when I ride my bike other than my helmet would be my jacket when its raining.
Moving on! Today I got the requirements for the FYP for IAD and I didn't get started on it today cause I was feeling lazy, but it should take too long if I spend most of my time a day to do it. So now I've got the requirements for my projects and I aim to finish it on time!
I took my E-P1 mounted with the Panasonic Lumix 14mm f2.5 lens and looking on my camera screen on the way to school, it was disappointing. Transferring the images to my classmate's laptop then viewed on the school's screen, made me even more disappointed. So I decided to look at the review of the lenses for the lab test. Then I got home and looked at the images. The edited images I'll show at the end of the entry. I was less disappointed though still a little after I got home and got the images onto my own computer with my own screen1.
The lens has a pretty solid design and feel to it which is good. Other good points includes the fact that the front doesn't rotate when focusing which means good news for guys who uses filters. Its compact and extremely light, I hardly felt it there.
Now... For the bad points, the first of which, again is the aperture sound when the light conditions the camera see changes, but its not present in aperture priority and I suspect in manual (not really sure since I didn't use it). Next thing is vignetting especially wide open! Which though I usually shoot around f4 to f5.6, I'd like no vignetting wide open which I might do in low light conditions. Optically, the image is sharp only in the center. The ends of the image have been compromised.
Initially I thought it was cause of the fact that the lens is new to me, but well, turns out that from test, it is the nature of this lens. But probably with more practice, I'd know how it performs. But at the moment, its not a lens I'd spend money for, I'd rather spend on the M.Zuiko Digital 9-18mm f4-5.6 lens instead. But I'd wait for Olympus new lenses to be out. I'm personally hoping for something like M.Zuiko Digital 12mm f2.8. Sorry for the slightly over aggressive post processing of my images today. Will shoot more over the weekend.
That's more or less it for the day. Let me end this entry with images using the 14mm lens. Good night world!
Waiting for the lift to arrive
On my way to the station, across my block
One of the many trees on the way to the MRT station
View from the MRT station
The Panasonic 14mm lens cap
Part of my classroom, workstation as well as my stuff on the table and my water
My Macbook close up, close focusing of 17cm, impressive actually, but the distortions keeps me from doing too much of it
With my fingers in front of the Macbook
Checkout the sharpness, can see my fingerprint, but like I said, center sharpness only, sadly
So just a quick update, nothing much happened in school and I spent most of the time rotting in school.
My dry cabinet came today and it is HEAVY! I could still carry it though ,but it sure gave me a work out, have dumped all my stuff in and there's quite a lot of space, though in time, I'd probably arrange better, things I'm not used to is the tightness of the door. But I really love the digital control! Makes my life so much easier.
Also, I've borrowed a Panasonic Lumix 14mm f2.5 micro four thirds lens to play with so I'll probably be shooting with it over the new few days to see how good it is before I decide if I should invest in one though most probably I'll be waiting for Olympus's version before deciding, would be nice if there is a 12mm f2.8 instead though, so without further ado, I shall show the images and then sleep.
In front of my room door to give a rough estimate of the size
Look at that! 124cm tall box!
In the plastic
In its place!
Lumix 14mm and M.Zuiko 17mm, even without the filter, the 17mm is a bit thicker though not important in "real world" application since I probably won't feel the diff between that tiny bit of difference
14mm!
One thing I hate about the 14mm is the sound of the aperture, its constantly changing and its loud! But one thing that is good for filter users is that it doesn't rotate when focusing! Focusing is fast but a little noisy. Will write my own review here when I've got one up. Good night world!
One of the hardest thing to learn in photography is the eye for details; aesthetics. 10, 20, 30 years down, that is what a photographer should always be working on - Clifford Issac Nathan
A freelance photographer. I've graduated from ITE with Higher Nitec cert in IT and planning to go on to Diploma In IT after completing my national service
