While some of you are in Malacca partying, I took the less tiring route - Halloween night at Zouk, 27th October 2006. It had been a while, since the last time I was there was for the Paris Hilton album launch in August 2006. Was I going to break my paying-entry-to-Zouk-virginity?

No.

People who come dressed up in costumes get in free.

So I went to Ruud's (say it aloud, it sounds cooler than Ruums), and Diane worked her magic. YK was in town too.

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What'd I do? A sadako ala cheeserlando? (I didn't have a white robe.)

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The before. (YK on the right with intentionally misaligned buttons.)

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Awww how sweet.

Kel Li is very scary. Natalie looks like a sleepy murderer. I don't know what Yoke May's costume is, but I like it anyway. ;)

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Kel Li is scary even when not in costume. (She just jumped in the frame when I was taking a picture.)

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Zouk mainroom was quite empty at that time, so we adjourned to good ol' The Loft (upstairs from Zouk) for Twilight Action Girl, those four deejays who got me started on the whole British rock invasion last year. JUICE Magazine declared it electro night. I love electro, but some people find other methods of entertainment.

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Back to main room. (Middle picture's colors were inverted.)

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The haze is in here too. ARGH!

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Visibility under 10 meters. Death in 10 minutes.

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The decks.

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Cool props! Some dudes danced with them.

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Fire dwarfs.

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Thanks Diane! I have never camwhored with so many strangers in my life before! I didn't take a lot of pictures though.

I walked and heads turned, trying to read what it said. I now knew what it must've been like to be some cele-brie-ty.

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I had to wash it off in the toilet, as I didn't want to give a poor cabbie a heart attack. Well, one taxi driver did speed off when he saw Jack Sparrow. (I didn't have make up remover so yeah.)

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Free lighter!

I will get back to scheduled geek programming soon. Yes, I have at least two super macro posts coming up.

Oh, and Happy Halloween! Happy scaring some chick's panties off.

Here comes a non-macro filler post.

One fine day many many moons ago, I decided that it would be fun to take a picture of something exploding or shattering into pieces.

We had plenty of free expired Vitamin C bottles in the office, and smashpOp and I set out to an abandoned field to capture beautiful shots of destruction.

I wore my safety goggles, and smashpOp hid behind his (then) Panasonic FZ-5, zoomed all the way in, to capture the explosion without getting hit by the shards.

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But first, clear out the expired Vitamin C tablets! (Okay, in retrospect, this would've been better shot from under my hand.)

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Not enough tablets exited the bottle's neck in one swing, so I poured them into the box. I'm not sure how we got the cloudy effect though.

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Now that the bottle was cleared, we had one shot! I practiced by tossing a rock and seeing how far it went, so smashpOp could frame it. (The bottle is about to land on the far right.)

Of course, it didn't just land. It bounced!

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Alas, it did not break, so gravity might bring in more impact!

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Mission failed. This was one indestructible Vitamin C bottle. Safety glass. I'll know where I wanna keep my valuables next time - in such thick, bouncy glass.

Here comes more of that supermacro shiznit.

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Velcro.

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Bedsheet.

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Dust bunnies. (The next instalment will have something even more gross.)

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The Nikon Coolpix 2200 I broke.

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High strung.

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Okay, so this is with smashpOp's old Panasonic FZ-5 at 432mm full zoom.

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Infrared version of the first shot.

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Wet head.

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Whee! (Had to use the flesh-colored flash technique.)

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None of these shots were cropped. This ruler shot is to show the scale of how small an area I could capture at full zoom (140mm equivalent).

According to this:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0210/02100402sensorsizes.asp

My Canon Powershot A520 sensor should be a bit wider than 5.3mm. 5.3:15 = 1:2.83 macro, technically, not impressive. However, a dSLR with 1.5x crop factor would have a sensor 36/1.5 = 24mm wide. 24:15 = 1.6:1 macro. So, to get 15mm to fill a dSLR frame would need a 1.6:1 macro lens.

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140mm film equivalent focal length. In other words, zoomed all the way in on my camera, but using the reverse macro trick I can focus that near.

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The wheels stopped turning and the spark is gone. To get this lighting, I had to use flash, and bounce it towards the subject by putting my left hand over it like an umbrella. It gives it a nice warm tone anyway. :D

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Gross.

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Pointing a supermacro setup at spotlights make for interesting bokeh.

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Transformers Cybertron Downshift, also using hand as a flash reflector.

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Three lost screws from the Nikon Coolpix 2200 I disassembled.

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This eye has probably seen more trashcans than I have. (I've tried with a tripod but focusing it is very hard. So hard, I have not succeeded.)

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Hair looms. (This was the only picture that was cropped; the rest were really shot at that magnification.)

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Guess what this is.

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...and you might get this.

Also, check out Paul's macro shots which he took using my Fujinon 50mm F1.4 lens, attached to his Nikkor 50mm F1.8D on his Nikon D80. I'm pretty sure I took that picture of the fly as he had trouble focusing on it. :P

While at it, check out Paul's Railwayday shots for some excellent moods in photos. And there he was, looking as uninspired as I was when I said I didn't feel inspired to shoot anything at the KL Sentral KTM station.

This post is way backdated (June), but will be one of the biggest geek posts I had. Beware the geek attack, get your inhalers ready!

Ever wondered how photographers got shots like these?

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1/100s, F8, ISO50, 85mm film equivalent

They either bought a SLR and put a macro lens on, or they used the cheap reverse macro trick. There are a few ways to do this:

1) Take out the lens of an SLR/dSLR and turn it backwards. Yeah, make it look like you're putting it on... the wrong way. Of course, this is not safe because dust will get in, and you'd have to guess your exposure, and focusing is by moving closer or further from the subject.
2) Same as step 1, but buy an expensive reverse mount adapter.
3) Reverse an SLR lens and attach it to the front of your camera. Your camera's lens needs to have a screw thread (most prosumers do) or a lens adapter that has a screw thread (Canon Powershots and some Sony point-and-shoots have it). Of course, if you are using a SLR/dSLR, your lens will almost always have a screw thread.

The problem with 3), of course, is that when you reverse an SLR lens, both sides are female! One lens has to screw onto the camera's screw thread.

Therefore, you could buy an expensive (and hard to get) reversing ring (which has male screw threads on both sides) and screw the lenses together.

Or... you could go my DIY budget way, which is even cooler.

I visited my favorite camera shop in Ampang Park, Leos Com Trading, to ask if he knew about this reverse macro thing which I'd read about.

"Oh yeah! You mean this?"

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He took out a Fujinon EBC 50mm F1.4 lens, which had been stripped of its casing and wrapped with cellotape. Its screw thread diameter was 49mm. He donated it to me, knowing my experimental efforts in cameras.

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I could see why it was junked; it had 6 aperture blades, and when the aperture was closed, it made a teardrop shape instead of a circle. This would mean that it had lousy bokeh. Its screw thread was also dented, so you could not put a UV filter on it. Finally, Fujifilm's digital SLRs use Nikon mounts... so this lens was homeless.

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The lens could be further disassembled, but I didn't dare do it just to count the number of glass elements in it.

He also had some dirty secondhand UV filters, and donated a 52mm Vanguard Skylight filter. :D

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I wrapped the filter in A4 paper, gave it an impactful hit (no glass cutter needed for this one!) It was then superglued to the outside of the Fujinon lens. (I could not screw any filters in because it was dented!)

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I could finally screw it on to my Canon Powershot A520! The black tube is the lens adapter, which allowed me to attach 52mm-diameter converter lenses and filters on. (I need to zoom in a bit or shoot through a circular window because the end of the lens is smaller.)

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I could also put filters before the lens and keep them that way.

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Because the Fujinon lens now had a 52mm-diameter male screw thread, it could fit on any lens with a 52mm diameter screw thread, like the cheap and well found Nikkor 50mm F1.8D lens. (Paul makes the Nikon D80 look tiny!)

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smashpOp seen here with a Nikon (gasp!) Okay, so it's Rames' Nikon D50 with the Nikkor 50mm F1.8D lens as well. smashpOp is parodying Rames and every other person who buys an SLR, and the very first picture they take, is of the lens cap.

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Pinkfrog need only put a 55mm to 52mm step-down ring to attach the Fujinon lens to his Panasonic DMC FZ-5.

So what about SLR lenses that have bigger sizes?

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Pinkfrog has a Tamron AF 70-300mm F4-5.6 lens (from his Nikon F90) which has a 62mm diameter screw thread. He also recently got a Nikon D80 with that Nikkor 50mm F1.8 lens. It was my job to marry them. How? The 70-200mm was fitted with a second-hand 62mm Sakure UV filter (also had its glass broken) and the Nikkor 50mm F1.8 lens was fitted with a 52-58mm step up ring.

We then superglued the rings together!

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On top is the silver 52-58mm step up ring, superglued to the female side of the 62mm UV filter. Yeah, you could say that they were lesbian.

The rings must be differently sized, but close in diameter. It might not stick properly otherwise. Common sizes are 49, 52, 55, 58, 62, 67, 72 and 77mm. I suppose that the difference in diameters must not exceed 5mm so that there would be enough contact surface.

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If you don't mind not having a lens cap, you could leave the DIY lens reverser on.

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It's a step up so there's no vignetting.

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BAMF!

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How close can you get? Safely under 5cm. Of course, this was on the 300mm (450mm film equivalent) side, so it became a very long magnifying glass. Through this setup, I could see the texture of the keys... and I had to move the lens about to look at the arrow he was pointing at. Yep, half the arrow filled up the frame! (The more observant of you would notice that the camera was off because he ran out of battery power.)

Aperture was controlled by the camera (on the 70-300 lens) or on the reversed lens (which fortunately had an aperture ring.)

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One could also swap the lenses' positions. Of course, this is a dummy shot, because:
1) The camera is off.
2) The lens hood is pointless in macro, as it will block out well-needed light, and perhaps scare off insects.
3) The lens hood only fits when the protective cap on the SLR side is on.

Anyway, on to a teaser shot.

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Even at dark apertures like F8, this flower still had a very shallow depth of field.

Precautions
Do not use auto-focus! The lens that is reversed is heavy, and you might wear out your camera's auto-focus motor by making it spin that. I'd go for manual focus. Focus on infinity to shoot further from the subject. On cameras without manual focus, half-press the shutter (it probably will not be able to focus anyway) and then move nearer or further from the subject to get it in focus. A darker aperture would help to get more of it in focus.

Budget
Oh, right. How much was it? The 52-58mm step ring was RM25. The 62mm UV filter was junk and was free. :D The superglue was RM0.60. So yes, you get a reverse macro adapter for RM25.60!

More shots... later.

...or at least dark places.

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Hard Rock Cafe.

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Flowery lights.

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A spider hangs from a roof...

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...so I flash it.

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This was after somebody saw a figure as we were walking in a group back to his house. I walked faster, seeing if I could get a sorta panning shot by chasing him. (The somebody, not the figure!)

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No head, but it's green to go down there.

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Stopping for air.

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Golden shower.

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Long exposure, with camera on ground.

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Brick-walled road.

What can you do in 15 seconds?

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Use a flourescent table lamp as a lightsaber, that's what.

How?

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I used two lights for this; the lower lamp has a switch, and I turn it on and off with my toe. The flourescent lamp also has a switch.

1. Turn on the lower lamp (tungsten lamps are instant).
2. Run to camera on tripod.
3. Turn on 10-second-timer.
4. Press the shutter.
5. Run back to lamps.
6. Pick up flourescent lamp.
7. Turn off tungsten lamp with toe.
8. Turn on flourescent lamp and wait for it to start.
9. Swing the flourescent lamp like a light saber (after the camera has opened its shutter).
10. Turn off the flourescent lamp when you reach the end.
11. Turn on the tungsten lamp with your toe (for about a second) and then turn it off.

The tungsten lamp should be pointed at your face.

Alternatively, if your camera has second-curtain flash/rear-sync flash (which means that the camera flashes after the 15 second exposure) you don't need the tungsten lamp.

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Swinging the flourescent lamp while it is starting has an interesting effect, too.

In other random linkage, there's this awesome mash-up, where The Silence Xperiment has mixed 50 Cent's rapping with Queen songs. I've never been a fan of 50 Cent, but having Brian May shred in the background while 50 Cent raps has never sounded better. You get to download the entire album here:

Q-Unit

Do check out the label covers too, they're hilarious!

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Take a good look at the image and guess what I'm about to talk about here.

(No, the Japanese bento meal I had earlier had nothing to do with the choice of colors or shapes in this illustration.)

If the geniuses in you haven't figured it out already, I am talking about the party game called Spin The Bottle.

Spin The Bottle is usually played with a bottle.

The bottle is usually spun.

Players sit in a circle but do not spin.

The bottle is spun by a player, and the spinning player player who spins the bottle will have to kiss the player who the bottle is pointing at. This player then has to spin the bottle.

WHOA, DID YOU SAY THAT THERE WAS KISSING?

Now, on to less exciting matters. Statistics.

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Ideally, everyone should sit in a perfect circle, perfectly spaced apart, to give everyone the same random chance of getting pointed at by the bottle. The further away from the circle, the lesser your sector is. Hence, those sitting in the corners of a room are less likely to be infected with cooties!

I am a self-proclaimed champion of fairness and justice, and I believe that everyone should have a fair chance. I plead all of you who organize parties and play such games to ensure the perfectness of the circle.

Spin Doctors

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Then, there is also another lesser-known way of turning the chances to/against your favor; spinning the bottle such that it would stop off the center of the circle.

The black lines cut off sectors, and as you can see, there is a 50% chance that the four players to the top of the graphic will be pointed at. Players who spin may intentionally spin it such to/against his/her favor.

I thus ask gamemasters to ensure that the bottle is spun on the center, and stays in the center. Punishment to players who intend to put a spin on things would be, perhaps, to get kissed by the gamemaster. Ideally, the gamemaster should have bad breath, braces and be unattractive. All the more incentive for the gamemaster to spot spin doctors and corner huggers!

Once again, pictures from the 12th October 2006 edition of Moonshine.

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Tan Sei Hon, acoustic singer-songwriter.

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Lightcraft, indie pop darlings.

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Guess which band this is!

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Yep, it's Rhapsody, now with a funky soloing guitarist, funky-basslining-bassist, and Jimmy of Tempered Mental (not in picture).

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Tragicomedy, singing songs from his album, Songs That Won't Sell... which is ironically, (credible) pop rock songs that will sell.

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My attempts to replicate the distortion of a wide 27mm lens, by doing the angle bit of it. (You can brag that your kit-lens-wearing Nikon d70s/Canon 350D does 18mm... but sir/maam, it's 27mm after throwing in the crop factor.)

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Stoned Revivals from Singapore plays funky jazz rock. Somewhat progressive, with very interesting chord progressions.

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...though technically, he's from Men Under Zero Effort, a Malaysian band, and he plays octave/fifth-ful basslines on guitar.

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...so is this drummer, also from Men Under Zero Effort.

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We (I always fail to identify who I went to a gig with but is it relevant?) were sitting inside, and were chased out at 2am as Laundry Bar was closing. Outside, we found this on a table. Seems like some people couldn't wait. In case anyone wonders, it is not the prophylactic itself; it is a ring that clips on and vibrates for 20 minutes, with a sealed battery inside.

Just as soon as I thought I finished posting all the gig pictures, here comes another event:

What: Project Bazooka
Where: Laundry Bar, The Curve
Who: Dragon Red (my favorite Malaysian nu-metal band), Edge Of Fire (channels falsetto hard rock), Seven (funk/jazz fusion with saxophone)
When: 9:30pm, 19th October 2006
How Much: FREE ENTRY! Just buy me a drink. :D

More details here.

Yes I'm going; I've never truly headbanged at Laundry Bar because there wasn't anything really intense to mosh to, but Dragon Red is hard enough. *cracks neck*

Ever taken night scenes, only to be frustrated how the pictures turned out? If the buildings were dark, you'd increase the EV setting to make it brighter... but the lights would become too bright. If you decreased the EV setting to show the beautiful lamps, the buildings would disappear into blackness!

Fortunately, there is a way around it, by shooting the same scene, with different EV settings, and combining the best of those pictures. This trick is commonly known as HDR (though it isn't technically correct.)

Photoshop CS2 already has a HDR function built in, but CS2 seems to be quite the memory hog, so I kept to Photoshop CS. Still, it is doable with a little effort.

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First off, get a tripod.

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Pick a nice dark place with lots of highlights and shadows.

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Put camera on tripod, on self-timer, on a long exposure. Remember not to move the camera or risk screwing up your shot like so!

If a scene needs 2 seconds to expose properly, shoot one at 4 times its length (8 seconds) and one shot 1/4th of its length (0.5 seconds). If your camera does not have an adjustable shutter speed, just shoot one shot normally, one shot with the EV at +2, and one shot with the EV at -2.

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Load all the pictures in Photoshop.

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Click on the second brightest image. Ctrl-A (Select All) and then Ctrl-C (Copy) it. Click on the brightest image. Press Ctrl-V (Paste). In the Layers bar, choose Difference, so you can align the image over it. Once done, change the blending mode back to Normal. Ctrl-A (Select All) and then Ctrl-Shift-C (Copy Merged) on the top-most layer.

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Click on Add vector mask to add a vector mask.

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Hold down the Alt key while clicking inside the white box (the vector mask). Press Ctrl-V (Paste).

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Do the same for the next darker image until all of them are on one image.

If you're more experienced with Photoshop, adjust the Levels of the vector mask (right after pasting the vector mask). This allows greater control over how much of the lights seep through.

You can also copy any image with lots of shadows and highlights, and do the same method onto itself, to decrease the difference between highlights and shadows.

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Finished product, with a bit of tweaking. Remember to crop off the edges where the pictures do not align!

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Another example, by the pool.

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Masjid Jamek (gotta work on the saturation a bit.)


Click on the image for a bigger version.

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Of course, you could camp around for the right time when the lights turn on, but the building is still lit by sky light.

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Asia's largest high court.

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Giant leaves.

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A pathway to the balcony. All pictures (except Masjid Jamek) shot at Hartamas Regency.

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If cockroaches can survive nuclear holocausts, urinals should not be a problem.

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The lazy way to get a group picture.

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Through a red filter with motion blur.

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Objects that are brighter beyond the red filter will shine through as red.

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"Oh man, what am I going to do?"

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Escalator turned travelator with the help of slow shutter speeds.

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Reflecting in a jam.

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By the pool, alternate orientation.

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What do you call an escalator that is not working? Stairs!

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One 8th of October 2006, I went for Octoven, a gig in Jamasia out of nothing-to-do-ness, and shot all these shots with my Fujifilm Digital Q1 manual-focus infrared-modded camera. I took only the green channel, being the least noisy (I shot without a filter that blocks normal light, so the infrared was mixed with the lights which were mostly reds and blues.)

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Reza Salleh And The Fumakillas. Clockwise from top-left: Melina, from Tempered Mental; Stephanie, from Ground Xero; Hanafi, who rocked harder than I've ever seen than in Estranged, complete with wails and funky space effects; Reza Salleh the acoustic singer-songwriter turned alternative rocker (though was he was from there to begin with? I don't know.)

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Top-left: Vima of Qings & Kueens, also the funny emcee; bottom-left: Kevin Theseira on bass; right: Paul shreds at the speed of light to their brand of royal rock and roll. (Speaking of which, I prefer their older stuff, which they don't seem to play anymore.)

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The Great Spy Experiment from Singapore was next. The Strokes and Bloc Party would have been name-dropped by the audience, as they performed solid indie pop. The frontman/guitarist's strap broke, but he continued rocking, knee bracing his guitar! (Until a strap was lent to him.)

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A change is coming, and those of you who hop over to Laundry Bar for Moonshine will see it. What better way to show The Before than to take dramatic off-camera-light-type shots? (Strobist is an excellent blog about off-camera lighting techniques.)

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October 11th, 2006 marks the second year anniversary of me not getting a haircut. (Okay, so I did get my sideburns evened out...)

Here's to some oversaturated rock show pictures. Specifically that of Project Bazooka's, at Laundry Bar, one 21st of September 2006.

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Looong exposure, with someone walking past.

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Seen a lash? SURE!

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Check out the pickguard! Telebury and their jangly indie-pop. The sound does get repetitive after 3 songs featuring those cutesy single-note riffs.

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Khai-Lee shows us how to enjoy a rock show; with ease... and slippers.

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SingleTrackMind, doing quite a few rock ballad covers.

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Solid band, but for some reason did not hit it with the audience.

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One Buck Short, a punk rock band I saw the previous Thursday.

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Count the frets!

I think I've finally honed the gamma levels to look nearly oversaturated, with (darker) dark mids on a CRT monitor at maximum brightness, while looking decently saturated with dark mids looking... dark on a minimum brightness LCD monitor. A compromise between both brightness levels, though technically, my CRT is calibrated properly, and I haven't figured out how to calibrate correct gamma on the office's Radeon X300 video cards connected to LCD monitors. Are these pictures too dark/bright for you? Leave a comment.

What: Moonshine: A Homemade Acoustic Show
When: 9:30pm, 12th October 2006, Thursday
Where: Laundry Bar, The Curve
How much: Free!
Who: Stoned Revivals (from Singapore), Tan Sei Hon, Lightcraft, Rhapsody, Tragicomedy

More details here.

...now I am blue.

So these pictures will have to do.

I shall do this in the style of The Pink Frog, with some connectivity in the story.

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Remember before the haze?

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When you could spot Genting from near my house?

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Where KL was clear? (This is Masjid Jamek.)

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Colors were nicely saturated (okay so this doesn't count because it's indoors.)

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Shooting with a polarizer through a car window gave the sky a cheery color!

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Crossed polarizers gave Kingsley's yard a hint of purple.

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But alas! A freakish square-shaped cloud was brewing!

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"We're down, dude. No power, dude."

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Birds were getting confused by this weather change. "Have you seen my flock?"

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"Grab... my... branch... we... will... survive..."

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The next day, I found the skies amazingly blue upon coming up the KLCC PUTRA LRT station to take a bus to Bintang Walk. The haze hadn't kicked in yet.

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"Finally, somebody appreciates me and doesn't treat me like a Siamese twin!"

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"Dude, I am your half-brother."

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Yes, I was here a while, since the bus drivers were breaking fast and would only resume at 7:30pm.

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Coca Cabana!

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The Maxis Tower, with the eyelet, reminds me of Quake 1's grenade launcher for some reason.

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And this looks like the Thunderbolt/Lightning Gun, also from Quake 1.

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For some reason this looks like it was shot on film.

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Fujifilm should pay me. Maybe in ISO400 chrome film. Or a Fujifilm S3 UVIR, which can shoot infrared without modifications.

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...or at least in mooncakes. I love mooncakes. This was shot on mooncake festival evening.

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Little knew that I bought William's old Nikon Coolpix 2200 camera to modify, into an auto-focus infrared-enabled camera!

From left to right, top to bottom:

• The Nikon Coolpix 2200, with 3x zoom and a variety of scene modes e.g. Landscape which would be the closest thing to focus at infinity and a dark aperture.
• It is also the same size as my Canon Powershot A520. Minus the manual controls, sadly, or even an adjustable ISO sensitivity! I detest Nikon for discarding manual controls on entry-level cameras, when it used to have it.
• I opened it up, and touched the flash capacitor at least three times, getting a nice numbing zap each time.
• Spot the SD card slot!
• The auto-focus gears.
• The cursed item - the infrared-blocking filter!
• Upon reassembling, I found it very challenging to reinsert the circuit combs.
• The optical viewfinder is dusty.
• The infrared-blocking filter, removed.
• The tripod mount, plastic, but at least it is not part of the camera. Fazri would appreciate this!

So what happened to it? Why don't you see me carrying it around?

I killed it. I popped in batteries and a SD card, and it didn't turn on.

Upon reassembling it, I found two extra pieces that I could not figure where it belonged to/dropped out from. I also had three extra screws!

For some reason, Nikon and I just don't get along well. I've held a Nikon D70s which randomly refused to focus despite having a bright f1.8 lens, and not too dark conditions. I've also touched Paul's new D80, which had some weird inability to autofocus until he reset something. Not to mention that I am not a fan of the D50's noise levels, or Nikon's mellower colors, or the fact that Nikon is not playing catch up or bothering to include newer features the same way Canon did when they came out with the 400D.

At the moment, I guess my manual focus infrared-modded Fujifilm Digital Q1 will have to do.

This is yet another delayed geek post; a major one at that. Remember the webcam that Syefri donated to me last year which I modified to become an infrared webcam?

I combined it with the Fujifilm Digital Q1 that Bernard donated to form a Frankenstein monster! Previously, I modified it to become an infrared digicam. However, it had a fixed-focus lens, and by removing the infrared-blocking filter, it became permanently near-focused.

I tried to cut and insert a similiarly-sized piece of glass to make it focus back on infinity, but it didn't work.

Then it hit me! Why not put the manual focus lens of the webcam on the digicam instead?

And so, I took it apart again, to:

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Left to right, top to bottom:

• I unscrewed the lens to get this.
• From the front.
• Left: The lens from the webcam, which was a manual focus lens; right: the fixed focus lens that originally came with the camera.
• The webcam lens on its lens mount.
• From left: camera, original infrared-blocking-filter-holder with three holes for screws, webcam lens mount with two holes for screws.
• The webcam lens mount on the camera, but with only one screw screwed in; the other side was filed away to fit in!

I had to file off the top surface of the webcam lens mount also to allow the components on the circuit board to fit on top of it.

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Left to right, top to bottom:

• The webcam lens was blocked by the camera's front plate, so I had to cut a hole to let the lens poke through.
• Swiss Army Knifes can be pretty handy.
• Camera with front plate surgery.
• This also allowed me to manually focus by turning the lens clockwise to bring it closer to the sensor, thus making the focus further, and turning the lens anti-clockwise would bring it further from the sensor, making it focus nearer.
• Left to right: Front plate bit, simple switch to adjust distance of fixed-focus lens to enable macro, the original F3.5 lens.
• The webcam, now without an eye, hangs itself. (How macabre of me.)

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Left to right, top to bottom:

• The first shot I made once the manual focus lens was assembled; this was a macro picture of the front plate.
• The wonderful thing about this lens is that it has no aperture blades, thus keeping it fully circular, for beautiful bokeh! *
• Close up on guitar strings.
• I then tried my door-peephole-turned-fisheye on it.

* Of course, it also means that depth of field is always small. Since the webcam's sensor was slightly smaller, I guess the lens was smaller too, thus giving an even smaller depth of field when moving to the Q1's bigger sensor. I don't know what aperture the manual focus lens is at, though my guess is that it's at F3.5 as well, since the exposure seems to be the same.

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Left to right, top to bottom:

• Artifacts from such a cheap webcam lens are obvious, like lens flare, like from this auto-focus beam from another camera.
• I always catch Broken Scar pointing at things; flare can be exploited in certain angles.
• The sun is black on the Q1's CMOS sensor.
• Very bright lights cause scanlines to appear.

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Another thing about its sensor is that it does not seem to expose everything at once, scanning downwards instead. That is why the camera seems to have captured the motion of the car! (This also accounts for camera phones, when you snap a picture when someone else's camera flash goes off, you might see half your picture with flash and half without. It might explain Sherve's freaky half-blur picture.)

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If the skies are blue enough, you'll still see blue.

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Another thing about this lens is the horrible amount of vignetting and soft edges. However, it can be looked at as a tasteful thing.

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From infinity focus...

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...I manually focus nearer... (couldn't resist changing the hue.)

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...and this is as close as I can get. Yep, those are the tips of those leaves.

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When precisely focused, images have a beautiful pop.

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Vignetting and soft edges make for a portrait lens!

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Shutter speeds are a lot faster, because there is a lot of infrared light in tungsten lighting. Shutter speeds are the same as a normal camera at night under flourescent lighting though, since that has no infrared.

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The lens is softer to the left of the picture (when turned clockwise it blurs the top.)

Despite all these flaws, I love it. It's like a digital lomo camera!

It is also;

- an infrared-enabled digital camera
- a manual focus digital camera (eat that, SLR owners!)
- a removable lens digital camera (though I haven't looked around for lenses that fit.)

All pictures taken after July 19th 2006 were with the wonder of this. I don't know if the flash capacitor is weaker, or there is something about the lens characteristics that makes infrared flash not as bright as before.

The rain dampened the spirits of many on the relatively low-turnout September 14th 2006 edition of Moonshine.

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Kohl started slow and mellow acoustic stuff.

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However, this pro bassist brought up the funk, and they were excellent at it.

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Melina of Tempered Mental looking hotter than ever.

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Jack goes wild, for the first time seen without his red Stratocaster; this time, an aggressive Ibanez. He was making full use of the humbuckers, doing shrieking harmonics. Kinda like Dimebag Darrell (R.I.P.) without the pointy-shaped guitars. Tempered Mental had never been that thrash metal-ish. I lapped up Jack's every palm-muted chug and distorted solo.

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Kluk Kluk Adventure.

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Spot the Duan of Seven Collar T-Shirt in the background!

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Pete Teo, in his first time performing at Laundry Bar. He played his earlier songs because the mood wasn't tender enough. I tend to think of Laundry Bar as a younger version of Alexis Bistro, Great Eastern Mall though.

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One Buck Short started with a very interesting, new, proper anarchistic punk rock song. In Malay.

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Open mike.

And now, to somewhat unrelated business:

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The Curve has plenty of trashcans just like this one.

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I can't pimp her because, while she did identify the exact location of the kiddie ride here, she did not identify the blogger it looked like.

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Shaz, however, got it right, guessing Midvalley and Bryan Chin.

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Why, in the comfort of your own home!

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Pussy just lying there.

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Ginger-blond-haired pussy.

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How much is that pussy in the window?

(Owner's identity withheld until approval.) Also, check out Jasiminne's pussy!

At last, my Star Wars Transformers collection is complete!

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The Imperial Shuttle (yes, I added the cheesy lens flare effect.)

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It transforms into Emperor Palpatine. You better believe it.

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...I suspect Botox was the force at work.

Clone Pilot
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Then there's the sweet ARC-170 Starfighter.

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These figures are now RM65, cheaper than their previous RM75.

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Freeze, space trucker!

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"Boba Fett, I am your father. Jango Fett." (On the right.)

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Then we have the classic space ship; the Millenium Falcon!

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This is a chunky deluxe space trucker that separates into...

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Han Solo!

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...and Chewbacca!

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GRRRMMMMPPPHHHHH!!!

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"Chewie, I know you feel misrepresented, but it does look like you, you oversized wookie."

I don't get why the crappy figures (especially those with lousy legs) get recolors like Jango Fett being a recolor of Boba Fett and Anakin Skywalker being a recolor of Obi Wan Kenobi. God forbid another recolor! Emperor Palpatine has by far the best articulation and balance for the small figures; Han Solo and Chewbacca are excellent, chunky, poseable figures too.

Previously:

Part 1: Obi Wan Kenobi/Jedi Starfighter, General Grevious/Wheel Bike, Darth Vader/Tie Bomber Advanced, Luke Skywalker/X-Wing
Part 2: Darth Maul/Sith Infiltrator, Boba Fett/Slave I, Anakin Skywalker/Jedi Starfighter

Alright, so I've had this since June, but figured I'd blog about everything else first.

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This is a door peephole. I bought the biggest size for under RM40, with a viewing angle of 170 degrees.

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But guess what happens when you put it in front of a camera! (Yes, that's my pocketable Canon Powershot A520. I do not have a big camera!)

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Fisheye, baby.

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The distortion made the satellite dishes on the left look suggestive on the right. I had to get closer to get the dishes to fill up the frame. Note the strong chromatic aberration, or purple fringing.

This can be countered in Photoshop by going to Image - Adjustments - Hue/Saturation..., choosing the color channel closest to the purple fringing (usually Blue or Magenta) and then decreasing the Saturation and Lightness.

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What if you took an already curved surface? More distortion!

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A normal fisheye mirror...

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...seen through a fisheye lens.

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Surprisingly, the fixed focus front camera of my Nokia N70 wields decent results. Another issue with the fisheye is that the brass keeps it a distance from the lens, making it hard to have sharp focus at the center of the image. So I have to focus as close as possible, and choose as dark as aperture (F7.1 is safe) to get a sharper image.