First shots. (Updated)
Alright, I’m now updating this article properly as I was in a rush yesterday to get this first pic up. Here are the first batch of pics from the super GT event.
I have return from Super GT 2008
After spending the whole of Monday recovering from Super GT I will now begin editing as well as uploading the pics. But first something I got to take away from my time at Super GT 2008!
A signed photograph of the Race queens Ayami and Kotomi! Which I’ve scanned here and will keep the original locked away safely!! (I also gave them each a set of photos I took of them in Sunway).
How I spent THIS last weekend
I had a photo expedition on Sunday morning and a roadshow to shoot on Saturday. Did I have fun that weekend? You be the judge, a shot taken by fuminari
Need I say more?
Day 7: Kyoto part 3
16th October 2007.
I decided to today that I would again travel to the Eastern are near Gion and the slowly make my way to the Western side of Kyoto as I wanted to see the life and culture here. Though I would first go to that Tower and get the perfect sunrise shot! That would HAD made my day.
I woke up again at 3am in the Morning, all was quiet, so I began once again the ritual of cleaning up and the cleaned up my gear and set up to go at 4am.
My plan today would go like this:
- Go back Shijo Kawaramachi point. But this time walk south ward on the until Kujo street.
- Then make my way to Toji temple
- Then finally head to Kinkakuji Temple.
Fujiflm Velvia 50
I’ve done an older report before about Fujifilm Velvia 100 so this time I will be reviewing Velvia 50, which is the original legendary landscape film. This film has an interesting history, it was used as the primary landscape film due to its beautiful colors/saturation as well as sharpness and fine grain.
Some KL shots
Taken on one of the few days where it had not been raining 24 hours, tip here when taking pictures using a zoom lens like a 70-200mm, be careful of looking into the Sun as the lens will as like a magnifying glass and WILL hurt your eyes if your not careful. I have heard of people who actually managed to start camp fires using their zoom lens when they did not have any means to start a fire.
New lessons learned from figurine
Here are some shots I had taken before I left Penang in my small studio that I’ve just uploaded.
Fujifilm Fortia SP
Here are some of the new shots from my newly developed roll of Fortia SP.
These were taken from the to of Komtar, Penang. I went there at about 4pm and waited till 7:30pm to get these shots as I was hoping to get some great sunset pics since I felt it would be my last time living in Penang. Entry into the top of the tower cost about RM15 at the 60th floor.
I was kind of sad realizing that this would be the last time I would be living in Penang officially but I guess that’s how things are.
Fujfilm velvia 100
I took these shots recently of Penang using my dwindling supple of Fujifilm Velvia 100, but that’s alright as velvia won’t be seeing the end anytime soon since supple is still strong along with demand.
Only 2 shots came out alright, the rest seemed rather like another repeat of what I have already done. So no point in considering the repeated shots keepers.
“A shot from a distant world” I took this shot using center metering while forcing it to underexpose a bit as well as took it from a low angle. I like how it turned out even though this isn’t what I had expected.
“Shimmering in the wind” I think this has been done to death! I need new inspiration!~
Revoltech Saber sculpted by Enoki Tomohide
I picked this one up when I was in KL last month at the model shop located at Pearl point. I’ll have to say this, Saber here is sure one hard to pose figure!
I only managed to get her into 2 poses before I realized that if I tried any harder I may accidentally break one of her joints. The other one I have of Rin Tohsaka which is also a Revoltech unit was a lot easier to pose.What compounds this problem further is when you try to pose her with her sword excalibur (I think that’s what it’s called).
Anyway the detail and color are pretty good on this model and the cuttings on her are very fine and accurate. I have friends who collect these things solely for the collector’s value and wanting to have a complete set or something. I usually buy them base on their quality of workmanship so my collection is very haphazard of different figures from different series where as my friends try to collect everyone of them for each anime series.
ilford Delta 100
Well after fixing a major problem that was hindering me from scanning film, I then decided to rescan most of my film shots since all the ones I had before the problem was crap.
Sakura in Penang
Would you believe? I figure you wouldn’t and you’re right, it’s not really a Sakura tree but it sure looks like it.
This was spotted on my way back from the Epson seminar that day. When I saw it I knew I wanted to take it, I asked my passengers if they wanted to stop there so we photograph it but they all had matters they needed to finish up. So I dropped them all off at home and went back home first to rest a bit anyway as the light then was still too harsh (afternoon).
At about 5:30pm I went out and picked up pointNshoot since he also wanted to shoot the sakura.
We parked right across the road from it and started to shoot outside as the compound where the tree was located is actually private property
Day 6: Kyoto part 2
15th October 2007
So after a good rest (and making some adjustment to my plans) I decided to visit the East side of Kyoto today and the West side tomorrow.
I woke up at 3am that day and went through the routine of cleaning my gear and plotting my route. It was also the first time I slept in a futon since arriving in Japan and I must say the experience was great! it was comfortable and absolutely relaxing!
I took a shot of the view outside of my window at 4am to test my gear.
More shots from the long range sigma (70-200mm)
After using the Sigma for so long, I am still impressed by its performance although I have notice some of its evident weakeness especially at 200mm as it becomes very soft when the aperture is opened all the way to f/2.8 (closing it down to f/4.5 seems to fix the problem).
Here are some shoots from it
I also realized that doing post-process sharpening on pictures taken from Fujifilm S5 pro where the image setting has been adjusted down to 6MP or “m” on the camera instead of “L” are a lot better then post-process sharpening on 12MP or “L” JPEGs. As the sharpening does not introduce a lot sharpening artifacts, in fact it’s almost nil.
So until then pleasant dreams~!
Penang Hill (25th October 2007)
I got a call late night on the 24th from Andytan that they were having an early morning shoot at Penang hill around 6:15am. He asked he I wanted to join. I said yes as I was bored out of my mind that day.
That day was very hazy as usual since the rainy season seemed to have passed and so the haze came back. I don’t know which is worse, non-stop raining or endless haze.
The picture you see here was taken at the top, and I had used only a nikkor 50mm f/1.8. Tip here, while I don’t like the haze but I decided to use it to my advantage by making it look like it was morning mist (Funny I don’t remember mist smelling like cinder ash) and I position myself still there was 3 layer of hills and I purposely included the trees though I don’t think it helped much but still I like how this one turned out.
Photography ethics
Whenever you take a photo especially of the homeless or those down on their luck, do you feel guilty?
Sometimes I do but most of the time I restraint from taking pictures down on their luck. I once did and got a shock when the guy who pretended to be a cripple leaped up and ran away thinking I was some sort of enforcement officer. Talk about getting better.
In any event, if I cannot resist taking photos of beggars, I would then give them about RM5 for the photo and walk away.
I took this one when I was in Japan waiting outside of Yodobashi at Akihabara waiting for my film to be delivered.
I wanted to get a good picture where everyone was moving except him but I guess I didn’t open the shutter long enough. I took this photo “blind shot” meaning I just point my lens with the focal length which I think would have captured what I wanted (Luckily I got it right) without looking through the viewfinder hence I won’t know what I took until after I’ve taken the shot.
I only took 2 shots, the first one was too blurry while this one was tacked sharp but the shutter wasn’t long enough. When I saw this guy I instantly knew I had to get a black and white shot of it along with what mood I wanted to convey.
When I think about it, I don’t know why I felt bad back then when I took the shots. I still don’t know why, I didn’t break any laws or rules. I didn’t exploit the homeless or the unfortunate.
In any event, lesson I learned here is that I should have opened the shutter long enough to blurred the surrounding environment.
So until then pleasant dreams!
Day 5: Kyoto
14th October 2007
The morning was cold and windy, I would be taking the early morning Shinkasen (Hikari) to Kyoto.
Day 4: Kamakura
13th October 2007
Day 3: Tokyo
12th October 2007
After a good night’s sleep, we felt like a million bucks and could take on Tokyo properly. We woke up at about 7am although we had agreed to only go out at 7:30am but I was too excited now to contain my excitement and wanted to make full use of that day.
I had also set myself a challenge that day, I would only use my 17-35 lens on my film building making it truly a wide angle lens (using my 17-35mm on my film body removes the crop factor of digital camera but if you want to know what it was like think of putting a 12mm on Nikon camera and you know what true wide angle mean) and an 85mm or higher zoom on my digital body.
at about 7:45am we set off, the streets were quiet and peaceful. It was at this point CC told me that he would be going to Nagoya for that prefecture’s Matsuri (festival). I decline as I don’t like events with a lot of people. Although in retrospect I should have if I wanted to see actual Japanese culture. I then decided to make a trip to Kamakura if I could see the majority of the places I wanted to go in Tokyo today first.
Here are some shots of the street in Tokyo early morning.
Day 2: In Japan
11th October 2007
We finally set down at Narita airport and had just gone through a lengthy immigration line. Though the wait was made incredibly longer due to the fact I had checked in luggage while CC didn’t.
CC went on ahead while I waited for the conveyor belt to spit out my trolley bag. In retrospect I’m glad I did bring it since I bought a lot of stuff on the day before I came back from Japan and would have died if I had to carry it.
Day 1: Getting to Japan……. (post mortem report)
10th of October 2007
So I got up early that morning at about 4am to go over all my packing details again as I had called the taxi to come pick me up at 5:30am. Since this was an international flight I needed to check in 2 hours before hand.
After going all my details for the 50th time, it was time to get going. The taxi was waiting for me as expected and drove me down to the airport. It was a good thing I did come early as planned as the crowds and line were huge and long. I managed to check in with about an hour and a half to spare. I decided to sit down at the nando’s stand which is next to the departure hall and wait for my friend CC.
Here are some shots of the airport that day.
I gave CC a call telling him he may want to come earlier then expected due to the huge crowd returning home for the coming raya next week. He was already on his way so no worries there.
Nikkor 50mm F/1.8 D
One of my best lens and has always been part of my arsenal of lenses. It’s consider the cheapest lens in whole Nikkor line (when bought new of course). It’s priced at about USD100 (some places can even offer less if you know where to look).
Originally the 50mm was used as the default focal lens for old film cameras as it supposedly mimics the human eye (I disagree, the human eye is wider then this Update: Shortly after making this post, a friend informed me it does match the human eye but only for film and for ONE human eye, not both which would indeed make the human vision wider then 50mm. Thanks les!!) but on this digital, this lens goes to about 75mm which is still consider a fantastic focal length lens especially for portraits.
Unfortunately many assume that simply using this lens would give them good photos, WRONG! This lens is nothing more then a tool and only when used correctly can it HELP you get the pics, not create them.
Nikon AF-S 17-35 f/2.8D aka, "how to make my wallet lose weight"
What can I say? this lens is fantastic! While it cost me a bundle and half of my soul but damn worth it!
I originally had a Tamron A16 and a Tamron SP90 but recently I decide to bite the bullet and sell off those 2 to help me finance my purchase of this legendary gold ring lens.
I managed to get it at RM4,900 brand new from Japan while shops were selling it at RM5,900 and even the online shop I bought it from has increased the price to RM5,100. I had purchase this lens before everyone started to buy it in anticipation of the new Nikon D3.
The benefit of this lens over Nikon 17-55mm is that is a full frame lens and can be used on both film and digital sensor (after digital crop factor of 1.5x).
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