I write what I think

Sony Wireless Flash : Ratio with F42am & F36am

2011-10-25T18:04:00.000+08:00

So, you don't have a F58am or a F43am, but you have a F42am and a F36am, this does not mean you can't do wireless flash ratio setting with these two flashes. Yes, I am talking about a manual flash of Sony HVL F42am and a semi-auto Sony flash the HVL F36am.

A little introduction of this flash, the HVL F36am. It is a flash that was "carried over" from Minolta's flash, the 3600HS(D). Sony basically didn't change anything at all of this flash when it "migrate" from Minolta to Sony. The only thing that is obvious between these two is: the branding.

A little bit intro about HVL F36am

Sony HVL F36am is a semi-auto flash where the user has certain limited setting on this flash. The only manual setting for the flash is its zoom. The flash power output is entirely control by Sony's TTL or ADI system.

This flash is compatible with Sony HSS system and it listen to Sony WL flash language.

We can have certain control over this flash's output power by adjusting in-camera flash compensation level. If you do notice at your camera, there are two set of exposure compensation: one is for normal exposure compensation and the other one, which is shown under the exposure compensation scale, is the flash output compensation. Depending on the camera model, the flash compensation, similar to the exposure one, can be adjusted from -3 to +3. By adjusting the flash compensation, we could manage to control the flash output.

How does it work ?

Assuming the Sony's ADI system work flawlessly. First, we measure the exposure of the scene we wish to photograph and got a reading about it, say 1/60s, f/3.5, ISO200. Took the shot, and everything look ok. Then a F36am in WL mode, zoomed at 85mm, placed about 2 feet away from the subject, about 2 feet higher, on a flash stand, is added to the scene so to create a key light onto a model. I wished that the face of the subject would about 1/3 stop brighter than the ambient. What I do is simply set the flash compensation to +1/3.

This is what been done in the camera: first, a preflash will be fired to calculate the exact flash output amount. Due to the command from in-camera flash compensation is set to +1/3, hence the flash output power would add another 1/3 stop. As simple as that, everything is calculated and done within the system.

Let's talk about flash ratio with a F42am

A Sony flash HVL F42am does offer a manual setting for the flash. Couple with F36am, flash ratio can be done with in-camera adjustment as I described above. I can show you the result of flash ratio done similarly as above.

Let me welcome my model of the day. She is the Goddess of Venus, if I am not mistaken. Well, let's call her Ms V then.

This shot was taken with ambient exposure with no flash. Flashes will be added next. The ambient exposure was recoded at 1/8s, f/2.0, ISO200. And the colour was a terrible tungsten yellowish colour !

Then a flash F42am was added into the scene. The flash was set at power level 1/8, zoomed at 105mm, placed about 3 feet away from the model, at camera left.

A control shot with flash fired from camera left, set at power 1/8, 105mm zoom.

The second flash, which is the HVL F36am was placed at camera right, about 2 feet high from the model, zoom at 85mm, pointed at the model's left face.

Control pic with HVL F36am from camera right, high up.

(Flash F42am from camera left was turned off.)

So, how do we play ratio with these two flashes ?

Assuming the F42am from camera left is the "right flash exposure" under this condition. What if I set my in-camera flash compensation to -3 ? Would the output of flash F36am would deducted to -3 stop from the F42am ?

Looking at the right side of the face of the model, the face is constantly illuminated by the flash F42am by comparing to the control photo as shown above. But on the left side of the face, however, is about 3 stop lower than the recommended (TTL flash output) flash exposure by comparing to the 2nd control photo as shown above.

So, does the F36am flash output is -3 stops lower than the F42am's 1/8 level? I couldn't confirm as I don't have a flash meter to measure it, and flash meter can't do the measurement because of the pre-flashing of Sony WL system. However, by eyeballing between the illumination between both sides of the faces, it's a different ratio about 1:2.5 or something like that. Nonetheless, there is a ratio between both sides of the face.

Next, I set my in-camera flash compensation to -2, -1 and 1 respectively and the results are shown as follows:

F42am (level 1/8) Camera left, F36am (in-camera flash compensation -2) camera right.

F42am (level 1/8) Camera left, F36am (in-camera flash compensation -1) camera right.

F42am (level 1/8) Camera left, F36am (in-camera flash compensation 0) camera right.

I stopped my "experiment" at in-camera flash compensation at 0 since the effect of flash compensation +1, +2 and +3 is not easily distinguished under my in-door condition.

One may say, when he/she wishes to play wireless flash photography, he/she may have to set the flash power manually as TTL system isn't trustworthy. I beg to differ though, because sometime, a TTL system may free us from technical aspect of photography, and we could concentrate on composition, and light direction of the subject we are photographing. Of course, this is only my own personal thought; I am just a lazy man to do the setting, and would trust the technology in giving me the best result. :p

My Very Own Review on Sony Wireless Ratio Flash System - Part II

2011-10-03T00:18:00.000+08:00

I did my very own review on Sony Wireless Flash Ratio system way back in 2008. Sony's flash HVL F58am, when couple with a right camera body, could be a commander for Sony's Wireless Flash Ratio system. I was amazed by the this powerful function that Sony is offering, but this function is very much ignore by many Sony Alpha owners. This is understandable as Sony's WL flash ratio functions is not easy to master: It is not well explained in the user manual of HVL F58am itself, is only available in limited Sony's huge line of DSLRs, one need two flashes to enable him/her to enjoy the function and there aren't much article that can be referred to explain more on Sony's WL flash ratio system.

The cameras that are compatible with F58am's WL flash ratio functions are Sony DSLR Alpha A700, Sony DSLR Alpha A850 and Alpha A900. I am glad to know that Sony's new SLT camera A77 offers this WL flash ratio function. Another good news is that Sony's latest flash, the "mini cobra", HVL F43am could tag itself and ready to perform into Sony's wireless flash ratio system.

My first review was done based on auto modes for the camera and flashes, i.e. P-mode for the camera, and TTL mode for the flashes. However, there are other combination of settings that can be done for this flash ratio system. One of the possibilities would be what if one of the flashes in the group is set to manual mode, would the flash will be ratio'd out? I will show the result afterwards.

The Preparation

I am using my workhorse, the Sony DSLR Alpha A700 to perform the test. I have one Sony flash HVL F58am and one Sony flash HVL F42am. Hence, I could only carry out a two group ratio flash test, which is [CTRL] and [RMT]. The "model" chosen for the test for this time is the famous Beethoven !

Please welcome, Mr Beethoven !

Is he Mr Beethoven??

Anyway, let's call him Mr B then.

Mr B is chosen since he could maintain his pose for a very long time, he never charge me a cent for this test out and the most important thing is: he works overtime with no extra charges.

I temporary convert a bed-room of my house into a small studio as shown:

The HVL F58am and the camera is mounted on tripod, about 1.5m away from Mr B, meanwhile the F42am is mounted on the light stand, about 1.5m away from Mr B, and the flash head is pointed at the side of Mr B. Hence, the axis of the F42am is 90 degree perpendicular to the camera axis. The height of the camera and the flash F42am is adjusted so that the camera axis and the flash axis is on the same plane. Flash F42am is placed such this way so the flash could create a side lighting to illuminate the left face of Mr B, and create deep shadow to his right face. Any on-camera fill then can be easily spotted and the comparison between illumination ratio can be roughly judge. Light meter is no use in this test because of the pre-flash communication pulse between the commander F58am and off camera F42am.

The General Settings

The shutter speed of the camera will be set to its highest sync speed, which for A700 is 1/200th of a second. The aperture is f/11 and the is ISO 200. With this setting, the ambient would have no chance to deter the final result of my testing.

Ambient : 1.6s, f/8, ISO 200, WB: Auto

The other settings of my camera are: white balance: auto, DRO : off , metering mode: center-weighted and in-camera flash compensation : 0. Lens used is CZ24-70, zoom at 70mm.

The HVL F58am is set to [CTRL] and the F42am is set to WL. Since I have only one F58am, and one F42am, hence I could only do a 2 group flash ratio function (Group 1 is F58am on camera and Group 2 [RMT] is F42am, off camera).

Test Result

So, what does flash ratio 1:1:1 means ? And what does ratio 1:4:1 means ? We will see the result in a short while. At the mean time, two photos was taken as control shots: direct flash in ADI mode and off camera flash shot with TTL mode.

Control shot: direct flash, ADI mode.

Control shot: off camera flash, TTL mode.

Test No 1: All flashes in TTL mode

Apart from the camera is on Manual mode, all flashes, the on-camera F58am and off-camera F42am, are in TTL mode.

First Combination, flash ratio : [CRTL]:[RMT]:[RMT2] = 1:1:1

(Please ignore the [RMT2] setting. Same as follows.)

As expected, the flash intensity of the on-camera and off camera flash is equal. (They aren't much different contrast on the face of Mr B.)

Flash ratio : [CRTL]:[RMT]:[RMT2] = 1:2:1

The off camera flash's intensity is 2 times brighter than the on-camera flash. Hence, there is some contrast on the face of Mr B.

Flash ratio : [CRTL]:[RMT]:[RMT2] = 1:4:1

Off camera flash's intensity is 4 times brighter than the on-camera flash. The contrast is more significant on the face.

Flash ratio : [CRTL]:[RMT]:[RMT2] = 1:8:1

The off camera flash intensity is 8 times brighter than the on camera flash.

And lastly, Flash ratio : [CRTL]:[RMT]:[RMT2] = 1:16:1

The off camera flash is 16 times brighter than the on camera flash.

This is consistent with the test result I did back in 2008 where the flashes and the camera were set in auto mode (P-mode for camera, TTL mode for the cameras.)

Test No 2: On-camera flash (F58am) in manual mode, set at level 1/32, off camera flash F42am (at TTL mode)

For this test, the Commander flash of F58am is at manual mode with ratio command being key in, and the off camera F42am is at TTL mode. What would be the result for such combination ? Would the flash intensity of the off-camera flash be ratio'd as well based on pre-set power level of the commander? Let's see the result.

The F58am is set to level 1/32, the lowest power available on the flash.

A Control shot with on - camera flash F58am power level at 1/32. Off-camera flash off.

Flash ratio : [CRTL]:[RMT]:[RMT2] = 1:1:1

The flash intensity for F42am is equal with the on-camera flash F58am. There is no much contrast ratio on the face of Mr B.

Flash ratio : [CRTL]:[RMT]:[RMT2] = 1:2:1

The off camera flash intensity is 2 times stronger than the on-camera flash when comparing the flash lighting on Mr Beethoven's face. Notice that the lighting on the left side of Mr Beethoven's face is constant when comparing this photo with the one above.

Flash ratio : [CRTL]:[RMT]:[RMT2] = 1:4:1

Off camera flash intensity is, by theory, 4 times stronger than on-camera F58am

Flash ratio : [CRTL]:[RMT]:[RMT2] = 1:8:1

The off camera flash intensity is 8 time stronger than the on-camera F58am.

Flash ratio : [CRTL]:[RMT]:[RMT2] = 1:16:1

The off camera flash F42am flash intensity is 16 times brighter than on-camera F58am. And I could hear the sound of F42am charging up. The sign of the F42am is fired at high power.

From the test result, even with the on-board flash F58am is set to manual, the F42am flash output will be ratio'd accordingly based on flash level of 1/32 of the F58am.

What if when the off camera flash is set to manual, and on camera is set to TTL mode ? This is what I am going to show on next testing.

Test No 3: On-camera flash (F58am) in TTL mode, off camera flash F42am set at manual mode, level 1/8

For this test, the off camera flash, the F42am is at manual mode, the level is set at 1/8, and the on-camera flash commander, the F58am, is at TTL mode. I would expect the result would be the similar to Test No. 2 with the reversed effect. Here are the outcomes:

Exif : 1/200s, f/11, ISO200

Well, a picture says a thousand words, and Mr B tells a lot while doing this test. The result is expected where the intensity of the off camera flash is constant (since it's on manual with fix level at 1/8) and the on-camera flash output power is reduced accordingly.

This is different from Test No 2, where the flash output for on-camera F58am is constant (set at manual mode, level 1/32), but the off camera flash output power is increased accordingly.

So, what if all the flashes are set at manual mode ? Will the off camera flash be triggered and the on-camera flash would provide on-axis fill ?

Test No 4: On-camera flash (F58am) in manual mode , off camera flash F42am set at manual mode

For this test, I would like to see if when all flashes are in manual mode, would the on-camera F58am be used as an on-axis fill flash ? Would the on-camera F58am "downgrade" to a commander only when at manual mode ?

The on-camera F58am is at level 1/32, and the off camera flash F42am's level is changed accordingly.

As expected, manual setting for the flashes are possible, and on-camera fill flash flash can be done. This is particularly useful when a ring flash adapter is used or when an on-axis flash is needed to provide a on-camera fill effect. The F58am on-camera commander could be as the commander for the off-camera flashes as well as acting as an on-axis fill.

Manual settings for the flashes are possible, but would the in-flash power ratio effect the manual output of the flashes? In other word, will the flash be ratio'd accordingly even both flashes are in manual mode? The next test will answer these questions.

Test No 5: On-camera flash (F58am) in manual mode (level 1/16), off camera flash F42am set at manual mode (level 1/4) with different in-flash ratio settings

All flashes, the on-camera commander, F58am, and the off camera, F42am, are at manual mode. F58am is at level 1/16 and F42am is at level 1/4. Such combinations is chosen so the "base ratio" would be a constant between two flashes. Hence, if the ratio function kick in, the effect could be compared. However, since everything is in manual, I wouldn't expect to see the flash output will be ratio'd out.

Well, it's expected that manual modes will overwrite the TTL function and the in-flash ratio setting will not affect the output of the flashes, provided the camera is on manual mode as well. This would not happen on auto modes of my camera (P, A and S modes).

And here is the comparison chart of different WL flash ratio output:

(Click for larger view.)

Sony's wireless ratio flash system is a very interesting function that offer limited controls over the flash output ratios when using Sony wireless flash system. Although the flashes' couldn't be adjusted in the commander under manual mode, but by adjusting the flashes' intensity of the off camera flashes under TTL mode, the outcome would be quite similar with that of manually adjusted one. This is particularly useful for a multiple flashes set up shoot in a control situation, such as in-door shooting; the ambient consistency would not effect the TTL system of the camera, hence the flash power could be "adjusted" accordingly.

Next, I will carry out more test on Sony wireless flash ratio system, and hopefully, if God permits, I shall carry out a three group flash ratio test out with a F43am. :D

Charriots of the Gods

2011-03-18T12:35:00.005+08:00

I am not a religious man. But I am not a god-less free thinker. I have a religious teaching to follow with and as a guidance of my life. The teaching from Confucius, Taoist and Buddhism are my guidance. These teachings, however, do not much cover the God chapter. Though I am a God believer that there is only one God regardless of which religion someone is following, be you are a Christian, Muslim, Hinddu or Chinese believers. As I believe God's teachings are to bring goodness to man-kind. And religion blossoms as different people has different cultures, hence such religion fit to such people.

During my teenage, I could keep myself in deep thinking of the existence of one-self, and the God. Once I am boldly enough to assume that there is only one God and He hand down His teaching through different languages, hence religion is created. And I was boldly assume that God is actually aliens from outer-space ! That was when I was 17.

Until recently when I watched the History Channel I know I am not alone to have this kind of "weird" thinking. There is a series of documentary in the History Channel titled as "Alien Astronauts" where the evidence of Earth being visited by alien in the pre-historic time is discussed. From there, I got to know Mr Eric Von Daniken and his book, "Chariots of the Gods".

Shame of me, this is my ever first English book (apart from text book of school and university). With "heavy heart", I started reading this book and got fascinated by the facts and hypothesis he made. He got my imagination runs wild !

First, Mr Von Daniken started his stories with a suppose that in our near future, man would have developed enough to travel to outer space out of our solar system into deep space. Then our astronauts found a Earth-like planet with alien creatures live on the surface. Due to the need of refueling the spaceship, our astronauts land on the planet, and started to build bases and harvesting minerals that required for the fly-home. The humanoid creature that live on the planet is so under develop that they resemble pre-historic human age. Few of the brave locals approach our astronauts who came from the sky with gigantic flying spaceship. Our astronauts were kind enough to interact with the locals, and hence the brave ones were elected as priests, or even kings. The local treat our astronauts as gods with advance technology. Our astronauts teach them simple knowledge of sciences, arts, numbers and mathematics. When the minerals required for a fly-home is enough, our astronauts left the planet. Since then, the locals treat our astronauts as Gods with powerful power!

Of course this kind of assumption so science fiction like, but it sounds logic to me. From the number itself, we, human or homo-sapien, can't be the only intelligent species in the vast universe! Someone, or something must have habitat one planet out there, unknown to us, that may one day we would contact them.

The book continues with stories and finding and paintings and writing from ancient civilizations such as Egypt, Sumerian, Greek and Hindu. Surprisingly, the stories of how God decent from sky is so similar in the holy text of these civilizations. That could be explain, in my opinion, that geographycally these civilizations are quite near to each other. People may travel from one place to another, carrying with them their legend, and been translated into language and culture that fit to them.

But what been written down and drawn by the ancient people of Latin America is really an un-explain. What Mr von Daniken says are quite logic as no way the ancient people would produce such a precise workmanship that require very precise accuracy! How would the ancient people move that gigantic rocks ? Why are the faces of that rock so alien-like ? Why pyramid?

One thing I don't understand is that Mr von Daniken never consider the myths told by Chinese as part of the "prove" that alien did visited Earth. For example: there is a myth about flooding in ancient China. There is a myth about how earth and heaven was form by a giant awaken from an "egg". There is a myth about how human been made from dirt. And the the myth of a princess flew to the moon. I myself had studied these Chinese mythology and felt convinced that our ancient Chinese did interact with the alien! Then why the story of God of the Chinese myth is so different from the near-by civilization ? Can this be explain as geographically China is separated from India and the Middle East by the Himalayas? Hence the story of God descending from heaven with gigantic spaceship is much different from the Chinese one.

The whole book writes about alien-traces in religion texts and ruin city walls of some major civilizations. It is a fun book to read. Many things seems to be un-explained can be explain by von Daniken. His points are some how valid and logic to me.

It's a nice book to read. I don't consider this book as an anti-religious book as it never challenge the existence of God. You can treat it as a science fiction story books, but what is written inside is too real to be fake. It's a fun book to be read.

Ad-hoc Connection Between PC and Mac with Internet Access

2011-01-02T23:04:00.019+08:00

I am always a PC user until I bought myself a pre-own MacBook Pro some months ago. I don't call myself a total shift from PC to Mac as my main working station is still my Dell computer which run under Windows 7. I do, however, found out that both Windows 7 and Mac Os X has lots of similarities that I have no difficulties switching between my PC and my Mac.

I used to run a virtual router on my old XP desktop computer which I could create an internet shared WiFi hotspot in my home with a Asus WiFi adaptor. The virtual program come together with the adaptor. Some clicks away, and my old XP desktop computer could turn into a WiFi hotspot. With this setting, I could have internet access for both of my desktop and laptop computer.

However, after I upgraded to Windows 7, the virtual router program no longer useable as that program is designed for Windows XP. The reason why is not known; I've tried to install the program, but the program just couldn't run. This drop me to the idea of direct computer connection via ad-hoc connection.

Back then when I was a PC user, my mind was set at that PC and Mac would not communicate in a direct or in-direct way. I didn't know that to connect both PC and Mac through ad-hoc connection is possible. Even with some settings on PC and Mac would make an ad-hoc connection with internet access for both PC and Mac is possible.

I am using Celcom internet broadband service with my PC as my main computer. My PC, which is a Dell computer would be connected to Celcom broadband, and my Mac would access to internet via ad-hoc connection through my desktop PC. And I will show you how to set up an ac-hoc connection with internet access between a PC and a Mac.

Preparation

This is my Asus Wifi adaptor. This adaptor would be plugged onto my PC as my WiFi transmitter. My Mac has its own AirPort as its WiFi receiver. Once the adaptor is plugged onto the computer, Windows 7 will set it up automatically. A wireless network connection will be created under my computer's network connections.

Network Setting Up

On my PC, I will set up a private network by bringing up the network windows as shown below:

Double click on "Set up a new connection or network". Under "Choose a connection option", select "Set up a wireless ad hoc (computer-to-computer) network" and click "Next".

One friendly explanation what is an ad-hoc connection is all about will be shown. Read it, or skip it by clicking "Next".

In the next windows, the name of the ad-hoc network shall be named, and a password to be assigned for this network. In this example, select security type as "WEP" and I've named my network as "ExampleAdHoc". Give any name to your liking. A password has assigned to it. Check "Save this network" as well before click "Next".

If everything has done correctly, the next window will inform you that the network you have just created is ready to use.

To check if the network that has been created just now is ready to use, simply double click onto the wireless signal icon on the bottom right taskbar. A pop up windows will shown all wireless network that is available.

A "Waiting for users" prompt indicates that the network is ready to use, and waiting for any computer that want to connect with it.

Proxies

The next step is to set up the proxies for the PC. This step is important as proxies will ensure that all computers within the same network would have a fix IP address and made internet access for other computers within the network possible.

To set the PC's IP address, simply double click "Change adapter settings" that is located on the left hand side of the "Network and Sharing Center" window. A windows of "Network Connections" will be brought up as shown :

Right click on the "Wireless Network Connection" (in my case, "Wireless Network Connection 2"), and select "Properties", under "Networking" tab, select "Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)", and click on "Properties" button.

Check "Use the following IP address:", and key in the IP addresses as shown:

Leave the "Default gateway" and "DNS severs" blank, click "Ok" and you are done with the proxies.

The next step is to share the internet connection via this wireless network that been created. This can be done by sharing the internet connection with the broadband services that is connected to my PC. I am using Celcom broadband service, hence what I did was under "Network Connections", left click the "Celcom" icon, choose properties, select "Sharing" tab, and check "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection". Select the "Home networking connection" by choosing "Wireless Network Connection" as shown:

Click "OK" and you are done with my PC. My PC now is ready to be connected as a router for other computers as well.

Setting on Mac

Since my Mac would share the internet connection via PC, hence what I should do is to assign an IP address to my Mac and to assign the router IP address, which is my PC's IP address into my Mac's network setting.

To start, simply select the "System Preferences", and select "Network" under "Internet & Wireless" section.

Under the Network window, select "Advanced..."

Select "TCP/IP" tab, under "Configure IPv4", select "Manually" and key in the IP addresses as shown below:

Click "OK", and click "Apply", and you are done !

Turn on your AirPort, and you should be able to find your network name under "Devices". Select and join the network that you've created, key in the password, and walla, you are ready to surf the internet from your Mac.

Group photo with flashes.

2010-12-06T01:02:00.002+08:00

Shooting a group of people under bad lighting condition is a tricky job to do. I read one article about taking a group photo with 3 flashes in strobist.com, I wanted to try out the method explain by strobist. I has this golden opportunity when I and my wife were invited to attend a bloggers gathering in a local restaurant.

I used 2 flashes instead 3 as mentioned by strobist.com. Strobist explained that a cross lighting method should be adopted to provide a 3D-ish kind of group photo. Flash on camera left would positioned in such a way that the flash light would feather out so to provide a soft-box type of lighting, and the flash on camera right should be fired from behind the group for separation purpose. A third flash suppose to be fired from on camera axis with low power to provide some fill onto the crowd.

Since the flash from Sony camera's pop-up flash commander is visible under shutter speed of 1/250s (HSS speed for A700), I should make use of the flash fired from this pop-up commander, with shutter speed set at 1/200s, instead using a third flash as mentioned in strobist.com.

The result isn't that promising though. Although the flash from the pop-up acts as fill, but I feel that the flash isn't strong enough to bring up details of the shadow. Still, some faces are still in dark shadow. Perhaps I should use the third flash as advised by strobist. :p

New Gadget in the House

2010-11-29T01:10:00.002+08:00

I didn't iPhone myself although I have a chance to do so. My old mobile phone decided to call it a day and refused to accept power charging when I do so. I was happy and sad at the same time; happy as I finally has a valid reason to get myself a new mobile phone with straight approval from Home Minister, and sad because there aren't enough money in my bank book for me to own an iPhone.

I could own an iPhone with credit cards easy payment,instead burdening myself with interest free monthly instalment, I choose not to. My first mobile phone was Nokia, it was the trusty little blue colour Nokia 3230. :D Nokia made reliable handphones, and I bet this one would serve me well.

Once again, the familiar Nokia ring tone rang again. :D

Some recent update

2010-11-22T02:20:00.005+08:00

I knew I've been not maintaining my English blog. Blame to the work load that come to me. After moving back to Penang from KL, I lost most of my free time I used to have when I was in KL. From 5 days work per week to 6 days work per week, from nothing to do in the office back then to a practically no rest working hours, I have no much time for me to think of blogging.

Once in a blink of my mind, I wanted to stop blogging, that includes my Chinese blog.

Of course I don't wish to stop blogging. Just I might take out some time to write a post in my blogs.

So, what I am up to these days ?

I Mac myself. LOL.

Not a new one of course. I bought this 1 year old MacBook Pro from a friend of mine who he wished to upgrade to iMac. I was exited with my first ever Mac. Been using it for a month and am surprise to see how fast it turn on and turn off when compare to my brand new Dell Inspirion desktop. This Mac is just a 2 core Intel processor, where my Dell desktop is running on i5 processor.

However, Mac isn't that Godlike after all, it do hang occasionally. LOL. Look like bite an apple a day not always kick a windoz away. :p

And blogging with Mac is a headache for a windoz guy like me. I find the HTML codes from Safari browser is not understandable with extra lines and extra commands. Look like a Mac machine isn't that friendly anyway.

My son is 2 years old now, and he started to speak more words. He could already speak out a simple sentence in object-verb-subject format. He has learned lots of things from the adults by just observing what we do and what we speak. And he likes been photographed.

My soft box DIY project has been put on halt although I've drawn out the plan and the materials are ready. One word : lazy. LOL

Anything else to update? No. As my life isn't that interesting after all. LOL.

Jupiter and its moons.

2010-09-24T10:13:00.003+08:00

Jupiter is the closet to Earth from 18th September till 24th September. It can be easily been spotted by naked eye. If someone has a binoculars or a small telescope, Jupiter's 4 Galilean Moons can be seen easily.

I shouldn't missed this great opportunity to photograph Jupiter with my own camera and lens. 400mm super zoom lens is good enough to photograph this giant gaseous planet and its moons with ease. The distance between Jupiter and Earth is shortest on 21st September 2010, but the weather is not that encouraging; raining whole day long, and even when the rain stops, thin layer of cloud is still overcast the heaven. However, being the next brightness object in the sky after the Moon, the cloud could not stop the light from Jupiter creeping through.

There was a small period of time when the cloud is thinnest and the rain stop at night, and the light pollution was minimal I could point my camera to the heaven to witness my very first time, to see the King of Planets of the Solar System. Quite disappointing to see through my 400mm lens that what I saw was only a small white dot, not quite I imagined as a clear picture of Jupiter with its red spot. Although disappointed, I continued my will of photographing Jupiter and let the camera do the job of capturing the light from heaven. To my surprised, not only Jupiter is enlarged in the photo from a small dot to a decent size, 4 of its 63 moons can be easily seen on LCD of my camera ! :D

What setting do I need? High ISO, big aperture and long exposure. Shutter speed less than 1 sec is ideal so not to encourage "star trail". Hence, high ISO and big aperture would compensate the limitation of the shutter speed. Closing down the aperture with provide a star flare effect.

Jupiter could still be seen by naked eye till October. This is my hope that the weather condition would be promising for astro-photography.

Baby Ver 2.0

2010-09-22T19:00:00.005+08:00

Three years ago, we got married.

Two years ago, he came and joined us.

And she will join us in a few months.

Welcome, Baby Ver 2.0. :D

Camwhoring again....

2010-06-25T09:21:00.000+08:00

Camwhoring again ! LOL
I think I need one extensive face-beauty treatment.
I believe only a high air pressure sander would smooth-en my face. >.<

The Universe is in my hands !

2010-06-23T23:02:00.002+08:00

..... not quite, and not yet.

Two months ago, I discovered this interesting magazine in a book store, it's "Built A Model Solar System". I said to myself:"Wow, how cool is that! We can actually built a model of our Solar System !" With all the gears, mechanisms, calculations, moving parts etc etc and it's so engineering !

The magazine talks about our Solar system: Sun, planets, moons, asteroids etc etc. Printed in high quality glossy paper, and printed in the UK, I find this is very educational.

Without much thought, I purchased the first issue. Inside the first issue, there is a form stated if I subscribed this magazine through the publisher, I could get some free gifts and also a free next issue. With no hesitation, I faxed in the form, and waited happily for the magazine send to come.

Few weeks later, I received a parcel from them, and yes, I got one free gift (which is a holding file so I could keep all my magazines in this file) and two books with some parts of the model I am going to built.

Not bad, huh ! And the "Sun" is actually made of bronze! I can feel the weight ! :D

Months has passed, and I should be building up my model, right? No, I am not. Why ? Because I haven't receive any magazine from the publisher since last month. LOL.

I think the respond of getting the magazine is not so great and the publisher decided not to continue sending out their magazine. Even now I couldn't find the latest issue in bookstore.

I guess I have to stop dreaming building my own solar system then. :(

Or I should optimistic enough to assume that the publisher would actually accumulate some issues before sending it out to us.

Let's wait and see. I do hope I could continue this project. My hands are getting itchy, I need things to do !!!

Stamps

2010-06-18T01:15:00.002+08:00

Stamps for sale.
Anyone?

From Macro to Infinity ~!

2010-05-05T00:02:00.006+08:00

These two lenses occupied my almost empty drybox few weeks ago, and I am now no longer limit myself on shooting normal zoom range. Now I can go macro with Sigma 50mm F2.8 Macro, and go extreme tele with Sigma 400mm F5.6. Thanks to my 2nd elder brother who is now in UK who brought back these two lenses for me. He used to speak Minoltan, but now he speak Canonian. These lenses technically can't understand what his Canon camera body tell, hence he better send it over to M'sia and let his youngest brother's Sony body talk to them.

Sony camera speaks Minoltan, anyway.

Shooting into sky with long lens is not new to me. I've done it before, and I've shot moon pictures numerous times. But macro photography is a total new thing to me. Never try, never know that macro photography really takes out much attention and patient to do so. Again, although I had done this many many time, I salute you guys who has the patient and attention in macro photography.

This is my very first macro photos from a true 1:1 macro lens. These ants basically stay there, hence I could able to go near them without disturbing their routine life. A flash was placed on camera left slightly behind the ends at level 1/32, triggered via Sony on-body flash commander.

Although it's a 1:1 macro lens, still I need to crop my photos. Is that normal?

I admit I got hooked by macro-ing now. I am really a little late to do macro-ing, but hey, is there a age limit for learning? No, right ?

I have no idea what is this thing, but it's motionless while I was taking its photos. Some body told me it's a larvae of a ladybird.....

Anyway, plant portrait is much much much easier than insects!! At least they don't move, if there is no air movement. :D

I think I like macro-ing as well. :D

It's been awhile ....

2010-04-21T23:34:00.007+08:00

Since my last update to this blog. Well, since I'd change my life completely, I don't have the "free time" luxurious as I used to be.....

The biggest shift of my life so far is to move back to Penang from KL. 9 years ago I went down South to KL alone, hoping to be a modern city boy with happening life. 9 long years had gone, and I couldn't enjoy this so call "modern city boy" living style; all I went through was rather a poor little guy struggling to get a space in this big city.

I came back to Penang not empty handed. At least I brought back a wife and a son. :)

This photo make me proud. And because of this photo being featured during the recent Sony Expo in Mid Valley, KL, we had a pretty crazy 24 hours KL trip! Ee Young's photo is printed into a poster size and framed with high quality Aluminium frame and been feature as a photo in Sony photography workshop ! How cool is that !

Too bad my current work load had taken much of my time. I could feel spider had found its place in my dry box. I think it's time for me to take out my camera for UV screening under the sun. :p

I'd taken moon's photos for many many times, but this is my very first time shooting moon with a 400mm lens ! Cool lens it is ! Too bad it's AF is malfunction, but who needs AF function when shooting a moon ? :p

I finally found a very good advantage of owning a high mega-pixel camera: I could crop my photo for zooming effect without losing much detail ! The lizard was having its sun-bath while I was in my room about 3 metres away. With only 70mm "tele-zoom" lens I have, I took this shot, then I post-zoom again by cropping my photo. Not bad, huh. :p

So, what am I up to now? This photo tells it all:

Something to do with furniture, and I finally got to put my gears into very useful manner. LOL

The Reunion Dinner

2010-02-22T22:57:00.009+08:00

The reunion dinner on the CNY eve is a very important dinner for a family. All family member will have to make their way back to home to re-unite with the rest of the family member. It is the time where everyone update their latest happening in their life; from work to love, from health to wealth.

It's our tradition to have steam boat for our re-union dinner. Why steam boat? Since we are living in such a hot and humid country? The reason why steam boat is chosen is beyond my understanding, but I reckon that preparing steamboat is much easier, and of course it's healthier. :D

This dinner is so important so I wish to keep a photo record of such reunion dinner. Photographing a dinner event under yellowish bulb condition would be a nightmare to me. The only light source available in the room is a ceiling hanging yellowish bulb. Low light means I have to bump up my ISO and shooting at very low shutter speed. Yellowish bulb means I have to custom set my WB.

Slow shutter speed means I have big chance to capture ghosting effect. Wrong setting means I'd have a very yellowish skin tone and everything would look "hot"!

I've read how to light in a big room in strobist's Christmas Game Plan. I was sceptical about Dave's way of lighting his living room with two flashes. Since I have a reunion dinner event to shoot, why not give it a try.

I was depending on my memory about the settings and where to set my flashes. All I remember was to position my flashes across the area where I was shooting the event.

With my light stand, I mounted my two F42 flashes position in such a way that the flashes are aiming to each other, but slightly pointed upward toward the ceiling.

A test shot as can be seen in the photo on the left, you can see a single flash could actually light up the whole dinning room ! With the flash at the same position, I could have "side lightings". Cool, eh ?

I adopt how strobist explained where to position his flashes. During the dinner event, I put my flashes as shown in the sketch on the left. Flash A was set to a corner near our dining table, and another flash B, position almost opposite to flash A as shown. Both flashes were pointing upward onto the ceiling.

Both flashes were fired wirelessly using my A700's onboard WL function.

Wait a minute, don't we need the sight of light to trigger the flashes? Strangely I do not need so. I could able to trigger the flash even it's behind me. Well, I guess the flash pulse from A700 is strong enough to fill up the whole dinning room.

So, how's the result ?

That's my mother hugging my son, Ee Young with my father in the foreground munching a shrimp. Base on my father's expression, I am sure that the shrimp must be pretty tough to chew.

Well, pretty good for my own standard. With two flashes nuking the dinning room, I could capture everything with high shutter speed at 1/250th of a sec without worrying of blur image because of hand shaking.

In the photo on the left, flash B has become the main light where flash A has become the hair light. Cool, eh !

A very important aspect to look into would be the colour of the ceiling that I am going to bounce. I do find the due to some yellowish ceiling colour, all my photos are hotter that it should be. However, it's easily corrected in post processing.

Later on, after the dinner, we hang out in the living room. Similar lighting set-up for the living room with different flash location as shown in the sketch on the left.

I moved my flash A to the new location as shown. This time, the flash was pointing to the nearest wall so the flash could bounce from the wall hence creating a wide broad directional light coming from side. A soft box effect so to speak.

Flash B was a main fill flash during the dinner event, but it became a back fill light in the living room. This is because most of the time our activity happened in the living room where our face were facing to the wall where flash A would bounce from.

My father and his two grand sons, David and Ee Young. David is my elder brother's and the little fella with red chinese costume is my son. Flash A was position at their front right and flash B was at their back left. I was in the middle of the flashes where flash A was on my left and flash B was on my right.

Flash A bounce from the wall, hence creating a soft box effect falling onto their faces. You can see from the shadow of my father's leg. Flash B bounce from the ceiling above to cast a soft light falling onto their hair.

This method proven work to me. At least I have no worry of shooting at low shutter speed. I guess this method could be very useful for a wedding shoot as most of the great action would happen inside the house. By placing two flashes, or may be three, on strategic locations, shooting a chaotic in-door event with fast shutter speed no longer a mission impossible.

Oh, by the way, Happy Chinese New Year to all. :D

Solar Eclipse !

2010-01-18T23:51:00.004+08:00

Solar Eclipse !!!

Yes, I got my very first astronomical photograph! It is the 2010 Jan 15th's solar eclipse!

I knew the eclipse will happen on 15th Jan 2010 and marked my calendar and got my camera ready for this. The eclipse started at around 3.02pm and ended at around 5 pm. It was the longest eclipse ever happened, and if I missed it, I’ll have to find a way to keep me alive until the next millennia. Because it will only happen once in a thousand years!

How I photograph eclipse? Simple, with proper filter and a digital camera will do the job pretty good. I used two layers of the floppy disk’s magnetic disk as my filter. However, I found I was able to view the eclipse by using one layer of the magnetic disk.

Before I continue to describe how I did it, I must state down the warnings:

WARNINGS !
1) Do not stare at the sun with naked eyes without a proper filter. Your eye(s) could be damaged!!
2) Do not point your camera to the sun without a proper filter. Your camera will be damaged!!
3) Do not look through your camera viewfinder without any filter!!!!!

And finally, you shall perform the steps I mentioned here with your own risk.

Ok, what I did was to cover my lens with these magnetic disks as shown below:

I have some numbers of un-wanted 3 ½ in floppy disks. A little force applied to the disk and the magnetic disk can be easily taken out from the thin cover. Due to the lens diameter is huge, I use a magnetic disk to cover the lens to prevent any light leakage, and cover the middle hole with another magnetic disk as shown above.

Because I have only 70mm zoom lens, the size of the sun capture in my original file is just a peanut size. I have to crop 100% in PP in order for me to obtain a viewable picture of the eclipse.

I followed the whole eclipse event from the beginning till the end, and I am amazed by the wonder of the nature.

I captured a total of about 100 pics of the eclipse and made it into a stop-motion movie as shown below:

Now I know the moon circulate around Earth. :p

Sony's Flash Workshop

2009-12-13T13:35:00.014+08:00

A very typical scene for a flash workshop if there is a model shoot session.

Finally, I got my place for this infamous flash workshop organised by Sony Malaysia. Almost every Alpha user talked about it, and when ever there is a flash workshop out there, the places will be filled up pretty quickly. I had been eyeing to get a place for myself, so to witness with my own eyes how the flash workshop is conducted, and hopefully after the workshop, some of my questions about flash photography could be answered.

The workshop I attended was held in Dorset Regency Hotel in KL on 5th December 2009. About 50 participant filled up the chairs in one of the hotel's ballroom. Refreshment was served and the workshop started with a little 5 minutes delay.

Well, basic flash history and theory were presented, and some sample usage of flash was shown as well. Just not all that been shown is correct, by the way. Not One but two slides that shown on the screen aren't correct.

One particular slide is shown here where the tutor presented the zoom effect of the flash. What was shown on screen is two flashes with different zoom setting so one could see the flash beam. First of course the photo shown on screen is downloaded from strobist.com that for sure, and the photo was meant to show the different between tele zoom of the flash vs snoot flash effect. But what the tutor mentioned in the workshop uses this photo to show the different flash beam between wide zoom and telezoom of our flash.

Well, this is not correct though. There is no way our flash even zoom at 105mm could provide such a narrow flash beam.

Not to mention our the flashes on the photo aren't Sony flashes. Weird though, a Sony flash workshop shows flashes from other brand.

Anyway, this is not a big deal. As long as the message is conveyed and everyone is understand that enough lar.

The flash workshop will not that popular if there isn't a model shoot session. Everyone in the workshop waits for the model shoot practical session. After a very basic and not so educational theory about flash, we went to the model shoot session!

This shot was done with flash zoom at 105mm.
See the different between a snoot flash vs 105 tele zoom?

I took this by accident.
Flash was at 105mm zoom, with the my F58 flash head tilted about 45 degree to the right.
I kinda like the effect of this flash angle.

Same setting like above, different is to balance the outdoor ambient with flash.
Btw, all was done under TTL.

This photo was done by underexposed the ambient to 1 stop and zoom my flash to 105mm for spot light effect.

Same setting as above, just composed a bit.

Two models was employed for the workshop.
Although we were separated into two groups, but basically we moved around freely.

She is a lovely and beautiful young lady. :D

How could a Sony flash workshop be completed without WL flash demonstation?
Stealing light is very easy on the workshop, this is due to the same channel we all using.
In this pic, I stealed the WL flash from camera left with my F58 as commander, ratio on at 1:1:1.

I didn't follow the workshop until the end as I had a dinner function to attend. I was told by my friend that the workshop was ended at around 5.30pm.

So, here are my conclusion on the flash workshop:
1) If you wish to understand the very basic of flash, this is the workshop you will attend.
2) If you wish to understand the usage of flash, don't waste your time there. Internet has more better tutorials for you.
3) Don't expect to learn about on-camera flash photography from this workshop. Because they don't teach you how to bounce.
4) Wireless teaching is minimal, and they straight jump to WL without much further introduction how to play with WL.
5) Of course, if you wish to do portrait model shoot, this is the workshop you must attend.
6) This is the basic flash workshop. No intermediate of advanced flash workshops to be conducted.
7) It's a waste of time.

And if you are not "fierce" enough, you might not get a good position for the model shoot session. I had difficulty to squeeze myself to the front to make a decent shot of the pretty model, and most of my photos here are crop ones. How sad.

Anyway, I had fun playing with my cobra F58. :D

The Octopus Saved My Flash !

2009-11-23T22:17:00.010+08:00

.... from falling from my lightstand. :p

The story behind was like this: I was doing one photoshoot of my wife's latest masterpiece of cake. She would wish to share her recipe of her cake in her blog. I had planned my lighting would be a F58 with my DIY ring flash adaptor bending down 90 degrees facing down to the cake so I have a vertical flash direction. I wanted my flash to be radio trigger'd and hence mount my flash onto the modded YungNuo receiver with the SC-6 adaptor, screwed the set-up onto my lightstand, and turn the whole thing 90 degrees downward.

This was the part where my heart was merely fell out from my chest when my flash + ring flash slipped down and fell onto the table below ! I was lucky that my DIY ring flash adaptor acted as a cushion to absorb the falling impact, hence my F58 didn't hit anything hard below.

I was careless to check the connection direction between the SC-6 adaptor and the YongNuo receiver. The SC-6 adaptor doesn't have the screw to lock tight to the receiver; the spring connector between the SC-6 adaptor and the receiver could not hold the weight of my flash that for sure !

Turning to the wrong direction, the flash basically slip out from the receiver !

Upon close examine on the China-made receiver could easily find out that the receiver is not built to take the weight of the flash. Although the receiver has a metal screw mount on its bottom, but the flash hot shoe mount is basically a part of its plastic cover. I believe a small force apply to the receiver could break it into pieces.

Not until the octopus hit the shore of Malaysia !

It's the Octopus FA-CC1AM+CS1AM off camera shoe cord for Sony Alpha. It's a TTL flash cord that has the iISO hot shoe on both ends. This is what I need to cable-sync my YongNuo receiver to the flash.

What I do here is to mount the CC1AM end of the cable cable to the SC-6 adaptor and the receiver, and I mount my flash onto the CS1AM end of the cable.

The cable has a screw mount on the bottom of the CS1AM end, and it could be screwed tightly onto the flash stand. The whole set-up is shown in the first photo of this post.

Since the size of its CS1AM end is small and strong, it is indeed LOT better than the plasticy YungNuo receiver mount in the case of holding the flash on the lightstand.

I could just leave the cable hanging like what is shown in the first pic, or I could velcro the receiver onto the flash head. Since the weight of the receiver + SC-6 adaptor is negligible compared to the flash, hence it doesn't slip out so easily. Thus, I am no worry anymore when I wish to turn my flash into any angle I want.

Of course the set-up doesn't look nice and neat, but it works for me.

Nothing....

2009-11-19T00:50:00.003+08:00

Trying to be artistic again.

Lines, sun light, shadow, moving girl, passer-by, nothing.

How to: Stop Motion for Alpha Camera (A700)

2009-11-14T15:19:00.017+08:00

I realised that old Minolta DiMAGE cameras used to have an intervalometer built in. Newer Minolta DSLR and Sony ones have no such great feature. This mean that current A-mount owner wouldn't have the ability to produce stop motion video. Well, we can technically by spending time pressing the shutter button at intervals if we wish to but that is not cool at all. Imagine if I wish to capture a stop motion picture for every second, or to capture stop motion pictures of evaporated salt water that might take 1 day. Staying there pressing the shutter button for every hour just not practical at all.

I knew that Sony A700 has a cool function that call "Remote Camera Control" that enable us to control the camera from a PC. The program could be installed from the CD provided together with the camera.

Although I could not change the shutter speed and the aperture from this remote control, but I could take photo just by clicking on the "shutter button" (shown as a camera icon of the program). And the picture taken will be directly saved into the computer. In order for this Remote Control to work, I need the cable:

This cable comes together with my camera.

Now I have the remote. What I need to do is to create a script that can periodically press the shutter button at the interval time I want.

Where should I look for this script ? I asked my good friend, Uncle Google and www.dyxum.com, and both of them return an answer that I am looking for. What I need is "Automate and Script Windows Tasks - Autoit". It's a free program that could download from here.

Technically speaking, it's not a program. It runs script. The script should be written in Visual C++ language. What is this script do is to ask the computer to perform tasks automatically without our input. The most cool thing for this small program is it could actually "move" the mouse cursor to any place within the screen and perform right click left click.

The problem is: I don't write Visual C++ programming language. I was hoping it was Visual Basic....

I guess the Autoit programmers reckon the problem I faced. Hence, they introduce SciTE ! See here.

Download the SciTE add-on, run the ScriptWritter. A windows pop up as shown in the pic above. What this fella could do is to record all mouse move, mouse clicks and program run whatever task I want to do. And it translates all my movements and tasks into Visual C++ language. This recording can be done just one click on the "Click to Record" icon on the program. How cool is that !!

So, I wanted that my computer would perform task of the mouse selects the Remote Camera Control program, and click on the shutter button. What I need to do is click to record on SciTE, select the Remote Camera Control, right click the shutter button, and return to SciTE, save it. This is what I got:

The script is basically telling what should the mouse do. Quite easy to understand from the script. But this is not done yet. What I want is repeatedly doing this task for, say 1,000 clicks at interval of, say 30 seconds.

I studied C++ programming language when I was in University. But I am more pronounce in BASIC programming. Hence, some reference back to the text book solved my problem: A for-next command, and a sleep() command are what I need to make my very own Intervometer. The codes should be added as highlitgted:

What I have done here is to include a command line that tells the mouse repeat the "clicking exercise" for 2000 times (for $a = 1 to 2000 ... next), but before every click, delay for 30 s (Sleep(30000)). Test run, and my camera clicks for every 30s ! Woohoo ! I have my own intervometer ! :D

Save it and I am ready for my Stop motion pic !

Of course a Laptop would be a better one than the desktop because it offer mobility. Be sure that the laptop has sufficient disk space to store huge amount of pictures from the stop motion action. If I ask for 2,000 pics, and each pic is 2MB, I'll need 2GB of space just for the pictures !

Another very important thing to have is tripod but optional, if you need one. A sturdy and strong tripod is recommended for this stop motion task. Because for stop motion, the camera is left alone there for a long period of time, and I don't want my camera falls down hit by wind etc.

So, here I am, my check list for my stop motion movie:
1) Laptop with Autoit installed - checked.
2) Laptop to be powered by wall plug - checked.
3) Camera click script installed - checked.
4) Cable linking camera to laptop - checked.
5) Camera with full battery power - checked.
6) Sturdy tripod - checked.
7) Moving cloud or dynamic sky - checked !

I left my set-up in my room, run the script, and I'm off for my normal life routine. After about 3 hours, I came back to find out my camera was run out of power ! LOL. However, I managed to get about 300 pics of moving cloud at 30 second interval.

Pardon me for not avoiding the black bar on the upper right corner there. I didn't see this through view finder, but it appeared on my pics. That's the problem of having a non 100% view camera. LOL.

You may notice that there is a skip at around 34 sec. It's due to low camera battery and the a reminder pop up on the computer screen. That stop the script.

There are some pre-cautions need to look into:
1) Camera battery to be fully charged. I started mine with 90% battery confidently thinks that it should able to finish the 2,000 clicks, but I was wrong.
2) Well ventilated place to place my laptop. The above about 40 sec of stop motion took about 2 and half hours to perform.
3) Set camera mode to A-mode. M - mode is not recommended as I might get funny exposure pictures. Let the camera do the exposure job, since it was made to do that, right ?
4) 30 second interval is a bit long. Prefer to set at 5 sec interval.
5) Resize pictures to 640px on wide side. I tried 800px on wide side, and I ended up letting the computer running whole day joining my 300 photos and got a hang mode. LOL
6) Well, a powerful computer is recommended because of No. 5.

I admit my stop motion is boring, but I am exited about it. I call it a success.

I shall plan for a better one. :D

From Russia with Thirst....

2009-10-25T23:57:00.004+08:00

I didn't notice the cup I use to quench my thirst came all the way from the north, and it's a place where I couldn't link this cup to. I didn't notice the words "Made in Russia" until I bottom up my water in front of my computer monitor just a couple days ago !

Apart from 2 cups where I bought from Ikea that are made from Russia, I don't think I could find any other thing that come from this northern country. The watch I bought for my brother from Harbin, China about 10 years ago was made in USSR (WOW ! That's cool !) but I doubt it's a genuine one. Well, I was in China, and I have thousand of reason to doubt it although I was just km away from the border of Russia.

Anyway, it's really a rare occasion where I could get a product from Russia so easily. How on earth I could relate glass making with Russia ??? Why not from China ?? LOL. Well, could it because of Ikea, Russia is just like China to us ?

Maybe.

My First Time.....

2009-10-23T00:35:00.004+08:00

Do you still remember your first porn movie ?
Do you still remember how you react to your first porn movie ???

I couldn't remember mine. LOL.
It could be a Taiwanese, or maybe a Jap porn.
And I probably acted like this during my first porn movie :

LOL.

Yes, I camwhore again ! LOL

That would be my submission to the alphanatics.com's October photo competition. Too bad because of my "special member status", I couldn't submit mine.

Three flashes were used in this shot: one just beside the laptop pointing on my face, try to mimic the laptop's monitor lighting hitting me. Another one from camera right, high up aiming at the wall just to give some touch on the wall, giving a sense of dimly lit room. Another one was actually redundant: it was a F42 with red gel shooting into the space behind me, just to add some colour, which in fact is redundant in my final shot.

Anyway, here are my test shots in stop-motion format.

Nothing fancy though, only made up of 30+ pics for this stop motion movie. :D

A Family Portrait

2009-10-16T01:05:00.005+08:00

One kid, a father, a mother, a camera with self timer, one flash with shoot through umbrella = self made family portrait. As easy as that.

Oh, one very important element of doing this kind of shiok sendiri photographs is have fun ! Having a photo with my love ones should be fun to do so.

I enjoyed the shooting very much. I bet my little rascal enjoyed it too, so did my wife. :D

I am officially turn 33

2009-10-07T00:45:00.005+08:00

I turned 33 some days ago. So, by the time of this post being published, I'm officially turn 33 and how many days already.

What I did during my birthday ? I camwhore ! LOL

I had a bad hair day, again. Could be my gene problem, although I had gone to a nice saloon and pay extra expensive for my hair cut, I still look dumb. *duh* Well, in order making myself suffering not to accept the fact that I have bad hair, why not just accept it with open heart. Who cares I have bad hair ? No one really care anyway.

Time does fly like jet plane. I still think I'm just late 20s. LOL. Not until I took out the calculator and do some calculations. I rubbed my eyes for 2 or 3 times couldn't believe myself I've touch 30s ! LOL

Many thanks to all of you who left the wishing message on my FB wall. I'm really touched. :D

My birthday wish ? Hope all of you happy and well. :D
My birthday present ? Economy bad lar, makan oso got problem oledi liao, no more toys for 33 uncle liao ! LOL

Anyway, wish myself a belated Happy Birthday.

And thanks to my parent who had brought me to life to this world, and had taken care of me for the past 30+ years.

Oh, in case you wish to know how to light myself up like the above one, I did it with one flash bounce from reflective umbrella place behind the camera to act like a diffused on-axis light. ;)

In search of Gods...

2009-09-29T23:26:00.018+08:00

I realised that I didn't finished my Bali posts ! My bad, I should finished it pretty quickly, but I think I was lazy. :p Lesson learned, never leave the job un-done. LOL

Where was I... Oh, the 2nd day of the assignment :"In Search of Gods"

The 2nd day of the assignment was what I call "In search of Gods". Bali is a land of Gods, where the Balinese worship the Hindu gods, but with a strong element of local culture and tradition. I kept reminding myself that I was in a land of Hindu Gods, but I couldn't find a typical Hindu temple in Bali. You know, the Kuil as I usually see here in Malaysia. What I see was the temples of its kind. Balinese could worship the Gods in any form: water, stone, trees etc etc...

We started our search in the Titra Empul temple, which is a very historical temple that build by an ancient Balinese king. I was told that this temple has been there for 800 years. It houses a secret pool where the devotees would come to purify themselves by bathing through the never stop flow of holy spring water. It would bring luck and good will once bath in these spring water.

To complete the whole "praying process", one should start bathing from the first spring all the way to the last one....

I see happiness when a family really enjoying themselves bathing through the chilling spring water....

It's a holy place. The locals would come early in the morning to do their prayers since not much people is around, the devotees would spend time "meditating" under the water.

Very serene, very nice, right ? Nice weather, nice environment, chilling natural spring water, beautiful people etc etc. Did I mention that it was a fashion trend for young Balinese girl wearing a see through Kebaya? Imagine that, a young girl with wet look see through Kebaya praying in the pool........

*ahem*

The serene atmosphere didn't last long, when tourist and school children started to swamp the pool. The school children basically changed the pool from a holy place to a playing ground !!!

We better called it a day before the condition was out of control. LOL

This is the offering. It basically representing the Gods. They have a special way of praying the Gods where they swing the hand in the way of sending the offering to the heaven. Imagine a curvy young Balinese girl doing the hand swinging... sexy, right ? *ahem* :P

How can people hate such a nice place ??

To be continue....

My other Bali posts.