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J-rock night! Project Bazooka catered to the otakus on the 15th of March 2007.

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Haze. Hot. Looked majorly tall but was shorter than me when she walked past.

The rest of the band were called Miniature Garden. How... un-apt.

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Strawberry Jam.

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I'm usually not a fan of Japanese culture, but I appreciate how J-rock is very technical and progressive, and hooray to them for setting up some thrash metal rhythms.

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50mm F2.2 1/13s ISO400 with flash. The key is to set the exposure so enough colored motion blends in with the flash.

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Played around with Hue/Saturation/Lightness for this.

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Mage, the famous band from UCSI. Most solid with loadsa crunchy solos (but then again, UCSI does offer music courses...)

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Moon (yes, names of members stolen from kittenly muka-chop-camwhorer ChingChing.)

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Ichiro wins the award for best goth look.

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Fisheye on my Canon Powershot A520 was about right; just turn on macro mode and all is good. On the Sony A100 the fisheye part of the Pro Tama 0.45x wide angle adapter is badly close-focused; I'd usually have to shoot at F22 to get any sharpness.

I borrowed smashpOp's Sony HVL-F56AM strobe flash unit for a test run in Laundry Bar, for Moonshine!

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Reta! Flash bounced.

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Jerome Kugan, bouncing about like a happy monkey to the programmed sounds from his laptop. It was then I realized that he sounded like Depeche Mode meets Morrisey (vocally).

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Auburn! (Wireless flash, just activate Wireless flash mode on camera and flash, detach flash (by pressing button, no tedious unscrewing needed), raise flash head on camera to command flash, and fire away!)

I can attest that every wireless flash shot I took was spot on in exposure. No manual settings or compensation required. Also, dialling exposure compensation on the camera would also be transmitted to the flash, so it would power up or down accordingly.

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Strobe mode, 3 strobes, 3 Hertz, 1 second exposure.

Oh and Auburn rocks. They play progressive rock with frail vocals courtesy of Izuan Shah.

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Wireless from behind. I couldn't figure out just yet how to eclipse him.

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Lightcraft, indie rock darlings. How many times have I used these three words?

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Muck around with white balance to intentionally cause the flash to appear blue. Wireless again.

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Tempered Mental! One of the most solid, hardworking progressive/alternative rock bands. (Yes, no flash.)

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Jack the shredder.

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My favorite bounce flash camwhore picture featuring an interesting specimen. A pink-colored receipt was tied with rubberband to bring some light forward. Ignore the fact that we look like weird cartoons here.

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Retaaa!

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Xian Jin (the photographer formerly known as The Pink Frog) does something crazy - he uses his Nikon SB-800 wirelessly during a gig, to produce dramatic light, with the intent of killing off gig lighting, leaving only the performer appearing to perform in the dark to a torchlight.

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Alaling, featuring Chaiiineeese people! (Right-side picture has me using the SU-4 optical slave mode of the SB-800... which is smart enough to ignore preflashes. Awesome!)

I first met Ching-Ching of Alaling outside Rock The World 7. Chak, rockstar vocalist of Superbar, was going around, on the lookout for Chinese people (since RTW7's crowd was mostly Malay.) He spotted Kingsley and I and exclaimed, "Hey look! It's... Chinese people!"

We then went around, pointing at Chinese people whenever we spotted one. Our numbers grew!

(He also found Yi Jian, who I was supposed to meet.)

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Ching-Ching gets Adlin the band slut to advertise the band's URL.

Check out Ching-Ching's site, and her blog. (With a URL like intergalacticgalacticgalactic you can't help but go white-rapper-boy hyper, yo.) It's hilarious and cute and funny and brings a smile to my face.

Wai Fon was gushing over Alaling's songs earlier; little did I know I'd met them before.

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Long Story Short, with my Sony A100 with my DIY sync-flash connector to Nikon SB-28, then triggering the SB-800 in SU-4 optical slave mode. I think.

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No flash.

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Well, to cut a long story short...

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...we think we look good in gig lighting anyway.

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Me and Xian Jin's Nikon D80 with vertical grip and the famous Nikkor 50mm F1.8D. Silver 52-58mm step up ring adds a touch of class to the front. Since the SB-800 was placed on a speaker, turning the camera sideways or upside-down would hide its commander flash from getting to the SB-800.

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Lipel. Or Lipet. Or whatever.


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Asyraf Lee and rabid fan.

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Paolo Delfino!

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Paolo and 2 strobes from the Nikon SB-28.

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Paolo and a few more strobes. Not so pretty. But he sings songs about 16-year old girls. Isn't that pretty?

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Silent Scenery. Kit kicks ass; he plays post-rock intros and sings wistfully.

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Joined by Paolo and Lipet/Lipel/Lipei.

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The old flash setup, Generation 2.

I remember back in school, at the back of the class, when Mojam whipped out a guitar and played the intro riff to Sugar Ray - Every Morning. He then doubled it with bassline.

I thought he was God.

There isn't going to be any consistency in this blog post.

There are only two things that really depress me to the point that I am incapacitated. The first, I have already settled with some major wrist-aching capacity; the second, I have always been in a quandary.

Just when you find you can achieve something, you find that it cannot be used in the current situation.

Like a nightmare, you run from one corner to another, in search of an elusive item. The thing that matters to you most. Weird things happen. The second floor disappears. You do a MacGyver, or Lara Croft, depending on your gender and how well you are blessed.

There really is no need to reply this, because I understand how hard it is to reply something like this which has no definite hooks to weave strings of text around. However, if you can do so profoundly, I salute you, and will probably copy take inspiration from how you do it.

Maybe I should pay more attention to girl friends who write emo posts like these. It takes me quite a lot to get me to this point... so I can't imagine how you guys girls take it.

But here's something that you can reply to:

I watched 300 and Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer in cinemas recently. Of course, having watched 300 way after everybody else's cajoling (I didn't want to watch it because I don't go out of my way to watch gory movies like Saw 3.) Yeah, you know they're gonna kill some, and they're gonna die too. Yeah, you know what's to become of them in the end. I didn't feel a strong sense of empathy for them especially when things were going too well. It was good, but I did not feel the same compulsion to tell everybody to watch it.

I have a feeling that at least 300 angry people will come after me.

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Random Photoshopped-to-censor-MSN-addresses screenshot!

With Perfume, however, you root for the murderer! The show is full of real, non-CGI-ed French slum grit. It felt like Edward Scissorhands (ironically, Tim Burton turned down the job) meeting Powder (at the ending).

I love predictable endings. I love wack endings. As long as they're good endings.

Wide-angle goodness with the Pro Tama 0.45x wide angle converter on my Sony A100 with 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 lens.

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I walked around downtown KL with the wide-angle converter.

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I like how the arch roof coincides with the vignetting caused by the converter having an exit of only 67mm.

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Guess that trashcan! Not.

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Somewhere near Choon How's place.

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A satellite dish uncurves itself.

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Bukit Jalil LRT.

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Masjid Jamek.

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The view from the Maharajalela monorail station.

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...down there.

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The reduced size of these landscape-oriented pictures represents how significantly I think of them. Or maybe I just felt a pang of guilt for everyone's bandwidth.

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From the Pasar Seni LRT station.

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From inside an LRT, a few meters away from previous picture.

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One of the Star LRT stations. (From this picture onwards I was using the Olympus OM-2000 with Vivitar 24mm F2.0 lens.)

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Sungei Wang!

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Artsy Nine Inch Nails-style album cover.

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Shophouses near where I live. The exposures are all screwed because the lens aperture lever was misaligned, causing the meter to suggest overexposure.

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Optimus Prime, on my Canon Powershot A520 (35mm equivalent) using only the fisheye element of the wide angle converter.

I was cruising down the road
and this racecar driver zoomed by
Into the horizon they rode
So I said, "Imma gonna get myself some racing stripes!"

I watched some DVDs from last year
And it got me thinking loudly
Was there something wrong, dear?
With the person who lent them to me

I heva discovarad how to sound Spenish.

It's aesiar then you think!

Just swep ell your A's end E's end viole! You era spaeking Spenish.

Nicola, you'ra right; it is e baeutiful lenguega!

(Okey, I must cradit this chick who kapt mixing up "than" end "then", who otharwisa hed parfact Anglish! It wes har raterdad spalling thet inspirad ma to writa this blog antry.)

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Guess what lens this was shot with. (1/50s)

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Homer J. Simpson would love this. (1/15s)

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There is something mysteriously alluring about the Sony 500mm F8 auto-focus catasdioptric mirror lens. (Yes, it's the only mirror SLR lens that can auto-focus.) It's very, very light, with a rubber grip to focus, and looks deceivingly shaped like a wide-angle lens. However, when you look down the front you are greeted with a hollow chamber of reflecting light. (1/8s)

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Note the out-of-focus double-lines, especially around "FFEE". (1/20s)

It is also constantly at F8. No, you can't stop down. You can, however, unlock a little tray at its back and pull out a transparent filter, to replace it with a 2-stop Neutral Density filter (which does not give you more depth of field... just 4x slower shutter speeds.)

With Super SteadyShot on, I'd theoretically be able to get 1/50th of a second sharp. The second shot at 1/15s was probably a fluke in crispness, while the out-of-focus-ness of the third picture at 1/8s hides possible handshake.

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Are the donuts really, really, honestly ugly? I don't know. I found it more pleasant than expected. It would make for great effects, if properly used. I can imagine lights lining a road leading to the horizon... and you'd see donuts growing larger and larger. (1/80s)

Maybe, the thirst haunts me because I did not buy that 500mm F8 for M39 mount (for RM50!) back in Buy Sell Trade, Old Town, and returned to find it gone.

Also, I have been eating donuts more often, after not eating donuts for 5 years since college. What's happening to me?

Anyway, while on the subject of photo geek:

Question on 1.4XII converter and D60 (forum post)
Read through the replies, and you'd find little golden nuggets, like how a camera's auto-focus works, and how to tape over the contacts on your lens.

Canon EF-S 18-55mm to EF mount
This guy changed his Canon EF-S 18-55mm to a Canon EF mount! I someday inspire to do Dr. Frankenstein with other lenses!

Third Party Lenses with Cult Followings
Old-timer stories of third-party lens makers including Tokina, formed by former Nikon engineers!

Oh, in case you're wondering; I didn't buy the 500mm F8. I just asked to try it. I love the Sony KLCC staff! (And yes, you don't even have to waltz in with a Sony A100 to get to try it.)

Estranged - In Hating Memory Album (re)Launch, at Laundry Bar, 28th February 2007.

Yes, once upon a time, it was called Estranged - In Hating Memory the EP. Back when it was launched in The New Paul's Place. Now it includes a new hit single, Itu Kamu, and remastered sound!

Once upon a time, it was also one of the bands I saw at my first ever No Black Tie gig. I even went up to the then bassist and started lushing praises.

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Bel C the emcee! Where's my free tee?

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Guest bands included Triple6Poser, with Khai on guitar.

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Eddy on blues harp and vocals. How'd I do that effect? Whenever I flash I shoot in Shutter Priority, and adjust the shutter speed to let in enough light. The camera will balance the flash accordingly, and it helps to hide the effect of harsh direct flash. This was 1/10th of a second, F5.6, ISO400.

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Breakin' string blues.

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King of the low end.

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Stonebay, grunge outfit.

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They Will Kill Us All, kickass indie rock with vocalist dancing about. Excellent showmanship!

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Slap that mike.

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This is one of the rare times I use Photoshop's Hue/Saturation/Lightness to boost magenta saturation.

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And then there was Estranged!

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1/13s on Hanafi.

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Andy weeps that he never gets the limelight. Well at least he appeared on giant billboards before.

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It's the Abang Rom of ROTTW Magazine!

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Richael croons.

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I thought Itu Kamu was a suspiciously Indonesian-rock-sounding song. I say Jual Keluar!

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We still rock, you know.

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CK slaps.

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One of those rare zoom and flash slow-synced pictures that work. 1/13s for subtlety.

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Bel: Okay guys show's over now go check out my travel show on 8TV 9:30pm Wednesday nights!

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"Kami bukan black metal. AFUNDI RICH!"

My first ever picture on the Sony A100 with internal flash causing red eyes! A rarity indeed.

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Fast forward to 17th March 2007, Khai-Lee's housewarming/secret singer-songwriter/open-mike gig/party.

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This picture cracks me up every time! Doesn't she look like a certain Towke Cina of a live music venue?

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It was a fun night. We all played rock covers, sang along, especially to the solos! Dave Grohl and Jack Black would've been proud.

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Sing yourself to sleep. I finally got to see Yu-Ri's amazing human jukebox capabilities. He can figure out the chords to about any pop song!

You might've spotted my site being pimped on MyC! magazine. Wow, they actually dug into my archives for pictures!

Flashback to shots from my beloved Canon Powershot A520!

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The thing that goes klakklakklakklak on the wheels all night.

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Infrared in Sunway.

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Saviour Gundam ZGMF-X23S.

These are circa 2005. Thanks Gary (and Mystery Wolf, I think?)

What: KL JamAsia's 2nd Anniversary
When: 24th March 2007
Where: JamAsia, Desa Sri Hartamas (behind the Maybank)
How Much: RM30 (9-10pm free flow), and after 10pm, RM20 with free beer/soft drink
Who: Crosstown Traffic, Beat The System, Indka, Stonebay, V3, Carbolic Smokeballs, Ask Me Again, International Groove Collective

Crosstown Traffic is a kickass classic rock band! They played a Cream cover and made me cream... (well okay they didn't, but figuratively.)

There is also free flow of beer from 9pm to 10pm.

I was there on their first anniversary, and it really was true free flow of beer. None of that Oktoberfest in Malaysia nonsense.

Oh, and if you're just there for the music, well last year's one had bands playing special birthday-request songs and extended solos.

What: Zubira Like Never Before
When: 8:30pm 25th March 2007
Where: JamAsia, Desa Sri Hartamas (behind the Maybank)
How Much: RM12
Who: Zubira, Triple6Poser, Cats In Love

Zubira is a shredder with pop sensibilities.

This gig is very much bluesy hard rock. (Cats In Love shares a few members with Crosstown Traffic.)

I love Fujifilm Superia film. Before you reach the end, try to guess the ASA of each shot!

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Olympus OM-2000 with Soligor 70-220 F3.5 lens at 220m with its macro ring turned all the way. 6pm meant the sun was going down. 1/60th of a second (I never had such supernatural powers of stabilization before I swear!)

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I think this was at 70mm. For some reason, exporting the scanned JPG directly from the file (without first copying and pasting into a new document) causes a color profile shift to occur. However, I like this color more.

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I find that my OM-2000 exposes grays rather brightly.

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Olympus 50mm F1.8, at F1.8. 1/60th of a second!

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I can't remember how long this exposure was. Looks like the Vivitar 24mm F2.0. Photoshopped.

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Originally, long sky exposures looked like this. 4 minutes.

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With film, you can expose for as long as you want! This is 45 minutes, with the Olympus 35-70mm F3.5-4.8 lens with Pro Tama 0.45x wide angle converter lens. Man, I gotta clean the wide angle. I was disappointed that the trails were straight lines. :(

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Soligor 70-220mm F3.5 again! 220mm goodness.

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Vivitar 24mm F2.0, at F5.6.

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Soligor 70-220mm F3.5 at 1/30! (The image was originally slightly soft, but shrinking it made it look sharp.)

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Baaa run away from the dangers of opening the film back too soon!

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Sometimes it looks pretty. I swear I heard the click and felt the tension release while winding!

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The Olympus OM-2000 with the Auto-Chinon 135mm F2.8 lens. Yes, the lens is for the Pentax K-mount! I held it in front of the camera, while focused at infinity, moving it closer and further from the camera until it was in focus.

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The Soligor 70-220mm F3.5 monster has its own tripod mount. I added a Vivitar 2x teleconverter, and it gave me this after a 10 second-delayed shot!

(Yes, I made sure the moon was in the center of the frame before shooting.)

And now, for shots from the Sony A100.

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Cowbell spotted at the last Crossborders gig!

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If you don't have a shutter release cable, you can always wrap your camera strap around your shutter and weigh it down with a camera bag.

Here's the other interesting thing; all the shots before the bench in the park are shot with Fujifilm Superia ASA1600! It can be gotten at under RM20 at KL Sentral. All the shots after (except the last two) are shot with Fujifilm Superia ASA100.

Frankly, I felt that at ASA1600 the color saturation pulled through just as much as it did at ASA100. Which means, buying ASA100 film just for the color wasn't worth the speed hit for me. Also, ASA100 wasn't that grainless, either. ASA1600 was noticeably more speckly, but in the age of Photoshop, the Despeckle filter alone kills a whole load of it. All pictures from ASA1600 had a dark strip on the bottom (it might be because I got an expired roll from YS Camera, SS2?)

ASA1600 let me freeze gigs at 1/30s, but I'll just go with underexposing slower film. So for now, I think I'll stick to the easily found and cheap ASA400 film.

But first, my first ever Youtube video! Watch it to understand this entry.



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This is the mysterious red box, next to a film canister for size comparison.

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Okay, so there's no more mystery. A, B and C are the pins on the Sony Alpha A100's remote shutter release. Shorting A and B activates auto-focus, and shorting A, B and C together activates the shutter.

There are two switches; the left-side one activates auto-focus while the right-side one, a single-pole-double-throw switch, closes B and C as well as the PC Sync connection to the Nikon Speedlight SB-28, thus causing the flash to fire!

Thus, I have made a remote shutter cable release and a wired flash trigger!

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But first, a visit to the first-generation version. From left, a single-pole-double-throw toggle switch taken from a Turbo switch of a 486-class computer, cellotaped wires (I didn't have a soldering iron then) and a rudimentary way to connect to the PC Sync Connector of the Nikon SB-28 using the back of a female RCA socket and a bent pin. But this is really too much effort, if you can find a PC Sync Connector cable!

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Generation 1 remote shutter cable release/wired flash trigger. It did not have an auto-focus switch, so I had to half-press the camera before pressing the shutter/flash switch.

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One major problem faced was that in normal flash operation, pressing the auto-focus switch, then pressing the shutter/flash switch would trigger the flash and camera at the same time. Problem was, the flash would fire before the shutter would open, thus causing dark shots like the one on the left (exposure F18 1.3 seconds ISO100 at 20mm.)

The one on the right has a difference; the flash is set to strobe mode, with 2 strobes at 7 Hertz, 1/8th power. I found that 7 Hertz was the fastest that the flash could strobe to be captured by the camera. Picking a faster strobe speed like 8, 9 or 10 Hertz meant dark shots as well.

The only downside to strobe flash is that it would be at lower power and requires longer exposures.

Trial and error, really. No math for you folks. Heck the circuit is simple without resistors and capacitors and transistors and all that. (Adding capacitors and resistors could introduce a delay to the flash, which means I could flash at full power with one single flash!)

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Generation 2, with a connector. No more cellotape! Also, featuring an auto-focus switch!

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Left: A PC Sync Connector cable to mini audio jack (which was cannibalized in Generation 2.) Right: Generation 3, sealed up thanks to my friend in the engineering department of the office. Unfortunately he swapped one connection, so it doesn't work as it should, and was too busy to redo it.

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VGA Ultra gives me a stern warning.

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You can get your own 3-pin motherboard connector from a electronics parts shop. This reads 2561H Series Crimp Terminal Housing (pitch: 2.54mm). Get the 3-pin one for the Sony A100, and a standard mini audio jack for a Canon dSLR.

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Generation 4; I finally got a project box and two new switches. The previous ones malfunctioned after a while.

I had to tape it up because the project box was too small and would not seal completely. I could not fit the big switch in fully!

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The same shot in the video.

This is dedicated to all the people who say things are impossible. More hacks to come!

Also, read the good reasons why Minolta changed their flash mount.

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To avoid this! This is a living dead example.

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Woe is the poor beheaded Canon Speedlite 580EX flash. Often with big flashes, your flash may tilt forwards and crash into things while you walk sideways in cramped spaces. (Or worse, your flash makes your camera do an obscene nosedive; the Nikon SB-28 did that a lot to my Olympus OM-2000.) Taking it off is hard with the old hotshoe mount, having to twirl the ring to release. Minolta/Sony made it damn easy; just press a button to release!

Thanks to Yin, Lau, Jeff, Wai Fon, Andersen and Jason for some of the items in this blog entry.

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My collection of non-interchangeable-lens cameras; from left:
Canon Powershot A520 digital camera; Sony Cybershot P72 digital camera; Kodak Easyshare CX6230 digital camera; Fujifilm Fotonex 210ix Zoom APS film camera; Minolta AF50 35mm film camera; Pentax PC-30 35mm film camera. (Technically, some are in my custody till I fix them.)

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Okay, there might not be hope for this one.

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My collection of interchangeable-lens cameras; from left:
Pentax P30t 35mm film SLR with Auto Chinon 135mm F2.8 manual focus lens; Olympus OM-2000 35mm film SLR with Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm F1.8 lens; Sony Alpha A100 APS-C digital SLR with Minolta 50mm F1.4 lens; infrared-modded Fujifilm Digital Q1 digital camera with DIY-52mm-to-Minolta-MD-adapter and Seagull 50mm F1.8 lens. These are the brightest lenses I have for each camera.

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Same, this time with as much zoom as I can get; from left:
Pentax P30t with Vivitar 75-205mm F3.5-4.5 manual focus lens with matched-multiplied 2x teleconverter (making it a 150-410mm F7.0-9.0 lens); Olympus OM-2000 with Soligor 70-220mm constant aperture F3.5 manual focus lens with Vivitar 2x teleconverter (making it a sweeet 140-440mm F7.0 lens); Sony Alpha A100 with Minolta 70-210mm constant aperture F4 "beercan" lens; Fujifilm Digital Q1 with DIY-52mm-to-Olympus-OM-adapter and Olympus Zuiko 70-210mm F4.5-5.6 manual focus lens.

Believe it or not, the one with the furthest apparent reach here is the Fujifilm Digital Q1. With its 6x crop factor it gets 1260mm equivalent focal length! 2640mm can be gotten if I mount the Soligor 70-220mm F3.5 with 2x teleconverter on it instead.

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Big big flashes, from left to right:
Sony Alpha A100 with Sony HVL-F56AM (guide number 56m at ISO100); Pentax P30t with Canon Speedlite 580EX (guide number 58m at ISO100); Olympus OM-2000 with Nikon Speedlight SB-28 (guide number 36m at ISO100).

This does not mean I have become full-time flasher. I'm not completely against the idea of using flash; I just think it's stupid to be unable to take pictures without flash. I liked playing with wireless flash (and Minolta/Sony's implementation works perfectly) but I will not die without it.

A blog entry about the HVL-F56AM's wireless flash capabilities will come soon. Yes, Minolta (now swallowed into Sony) came up with wireless flash before Nikon started getting all these annoying CLS fanboys whose brains are incapable of using any other camera.

I find myself perfectly able to use any common camera brand system. Hello it's not that hard! The EV icon looks like a -/+ icon all the time. The flash icon is always a lightning icon. Is it that hard to pick up a camera and turn it around in your hands to look for buttons?

Same goes for point-and-shoots. Some brands may require menus to access certain functions, but it certainly is not impossible to find, if people say the feature is there.

And what if you can't find the ISO setting on old Nikon Coolpix point-and-shoots? Set the EV to underexpose, then bring the exposure back to zero in Photoshop and you have a higher-ISO image!

Go figure out a bellows medium-format camera. I'll shake your hand.

Ah yes, I'm whining about whiners.

...I also think by the time you have gotten past these pictures and brand alphabet soups that I'm all for all mount compatibility and defying the limitations set by proprietary brands. Peace and unity!

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This is the widest I've ever got with my Fujifilm Digital Q1 using a 35mm-format SLR lens. The Vivitar 24mm F2.0 paired with a Pro Tama 0.45x wideangle converter (which feels more like a 0.7x) gives a... 24mm * 6x crop factor * 0.7x wideangle = 100.8mm F2.0 equivalent. Add the fact that it is sensitive to infrared, and you get much higher shutter speeds!

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I eventually returned to the Pentax K-mount. (The first SLR lens I bought was a Cosina 19-35mm F3.5-4.5 AF K-mount.) I've already identified these lenses earlier so spare me the alphabet soup!

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Pentax P30t, with PASM modes. Set Aperture and Shutter to Auto for Programmed Auto-exposure. Gotta love the separate flash-sync speed on the shutter speed dial!

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Pentax flash diffuser, Pentax-K-mount-to-49mm-filter-thread reversal ring (oddly, a sticker on it says Pentax-M49 which is not true because the M49 mount has a different screw pitch (aka the thickness of screw threads) than a 49mm screw filter thread) and silica gel in a microwaveable plastic container. Microwave them for 7 minutes at low heat to turn the gels blue. When it turns pink it loses its effectiveness.

Yeah, with all these I got a non-electric dry box.

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I also got this; it plugs into a wall socket (with adapter) and heats up the silica gels inside it. This is great if you have an air-proof box which you can then use as a dry box. The silica gels absorb moisture and keep the insides dry, to protect your lenses from getting fungus.

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The good ol' shutter release cable! Top-left: Unscrew the ring, and when you press down it will lock. Press the ring to unlock and release the shutter. Top-right: Screwed in, it does not lock. Bottom: This is where the shutter release cable screws into; sadly, digital SLRs don't have this anymore. Pressing on the shutter cable makes the pin extend by hydraulic pressure, activating the shutter.

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A shutter release cable is useful for bulb mode, when you want to do long exposures. You'll tire your fingers holding the shutter down for over a minute! In this case, the Olympus OM-2000 has the Soligor 70-220mm F3.5 lens with Vivitar 2x teleconverter. I might add that the monstrous Soligor has a tripod mount (my only lens with tripod mount) and a macro extending ring (though macro is questionable because it doesn't go to life-size magnification).

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Mounted on the Fujifilm Digital Q1...

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...the lens eclipses the camera!

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Looks like a mini telescope. How cute. The front takes 72mm filters. It's a bit screwed up though; at 70mm it cannot focus on infinity.

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Hoya filters are really made by Tokina! Who the heck are you guys now?

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And now, for stuff that is not in my custody. Kodak Retina Reflex with 35mm F4.0 lens. This is great fun to figure out, It has two sets of lenses and rings!

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Please download this file and check its EXIF data. From the picture, you'd be able to tell where you can get this gem of a lens, at a great bargain, too. I'd have gotten it if I had the money (and use such focal lengths often).

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Okay, so these are delayed season's greetings. Midvalley on my Minolta 50mm F1.4 at F1.4 with Pro Tama 0.45x wide angle converter for extra softness (oddly, softer around the center.)

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50mm F2.0.

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The Curve. 50mm F5.6. I prefer subtle out-of-focus where you can sort of see the background. (This is a note to those stuck on a 50mm F1.8 at Aperture Priority, F1.8 all the time. :P )

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The Minolta 70-210mm F4 beercan lens returns! I don't bring this lens out often. This troupe was rather unacrobatic, so I'll omit their performance at Berjaya Times Square.

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Rewind to my office. The lion swallowed a man trying to grab an angpau as his only escape!

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Lions watching National Geographic on Astro MAX in the office.

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Fully electronic with noise and lights!

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God of something. Uh, the knowledgeable and wise shall comment.

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Now that's what I call a good lion dance! Proper jumping acrobatics and stuff.

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Amazing. They both jump and land on the poles, while keeping correct distance.

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There is a risk of wardrobe malfunction should the front guy jump before the rear guy does.

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Hooray confetti!

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And then, come midnight 26th February 2007, fireworks were blasting all over my neighborhood. I ran all over with just my Sony A100 and 50mm F1.4 in bulb mode, holding down until the sound of fireworks stopped. I held it too long and ambitiously, so I'll omit them fireworks shots. :(

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Fire, flare and ghosts.

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My neighborhood gave THX a run for their money. By the time I ran close to where I suspect fireworks were being launched, it had already ended. Fireworks were then heard on the other end! I must've went each corner twice. This is one of the few rare ones where I get to catch firecrackers.

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The Chinese celebrate their famous invention - gunpowder.

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Finally, I found a launch spot. Alas, it was too late.

Hey Albert, so what kind of music do you listen to?

Geez, I thought the hair was obvious. I am a rocker! Heavy metal flows through my veins.

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However, Google seems to think otherwise; Google Image Search says I have an emo hairstyle.

Thanks suelingz for finding me, smashpOp for alerting me, and Jed for taking the picture.

Unfortunately, I have perfect 20/20 vision and have no reason to wear glasses. Who knows, I might look hot in emo glasses.

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For the record, this is an example of what an emo hairstyle looks like. George of Dreaming To Sleep on vocals sounds exactly like an American emo vocalist. Syefri plays bass in the background. (Taken from an old blog entry. Hello Natalie the hot dancer!)

In the meantime, I have come up with a breakthrough discovery in the hidden language of women.

Many a time I have been out with a chick, and I bump into another chick (or congregation of chicks).

Chick to chick: "Hey, nice shoes! Where did you get them from?"

This almost always happens!

I'm not sure if that is a snide hint to me to replace my starving artist shoes. However, I have surveyed around, and this phenomena does not happen to every guy I know. However, the one coincidence I can concur from this is that it seems to happen to relatively uh... good-looking guys. (Unless there's another variable I have not noticed.)

Therefore, I suppose that "Hey, nice shoes! Where did you get them from?" really means:

"Hands off, he's mine!"

(I have discounted the possibility of the chicks all being fashionistas, because some of them are laid back T-shirt and jeans wearers.)

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Outtakes from Shelley Leong and Az Samad at No Black Tie, January 10th 2007.

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Regina and Tracy!

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Mike, on the strings.

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5 second exposure. I'm not sure if this was Reggie's artsiness or Shelley's.

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This was Reggie's work; she rotated a long exposure to get the effect on the candles. Just when you think you've thought of everything!

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Checking the guestlist.

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Why isn't anybody here?

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No Black Tie is the most beautiful regular gig/live music space I know of.

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Some gigs crowd up the stairs.

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4 seconds rear sync. Spot the Vignes!

Oh and I've finally updated my links! Added Punkstereo, Norman and Avril-who-really-is-named-that-in-her-identity-card. More will come later once I'm done pruning.

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What do you do when you see blistering hot skies?

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You shoot infrared, of course! (This was with my Canon Powershot A520, circular polarizer, red filter, linear polarizer using this method.)

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I turned it so that enough light would come in to expose the reds, to balance out infrared rays which appear purple. This was 0.5 seconds.

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Slow-shutter stuff! 0.6 seconds.

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0.5 seconds.

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1/3rd of a second.

Anyway, the 52mm Hoya R72 infrared-pass filter had been adequate for my Canon Powershot A520. However, when fitted to the Sony A100, it was a different story - the exposure times were now in seconds, and it was predominantly red. What I did not realize then, was that the red is actually the little red that the R72 lets through!

The Hoya RM90 infrared-pass filter is a true infrared-pass filter; it blocks all natural light, letting only infrared through.

The Hoya R72 infrared-pass filter lets very little red in instead. However, on older point-and-shoot digicams the infrared-block filter was weaker, so in long exposures more of the infrared purple appears than the red.

The circular polarizer, combined with the linear polarizer, and turned so that it was darkest, was mostly black... but let in some violet!

The smarter of you might realize what I figured. :)

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That's right, combine the Hoya R72 filter with the two polarizers to kill off all natural light! The R72 took care of everything except red, while the two polarizers removed everything but violet (which is on the other end of the color spectrum from red.)

Note that the filters are screwed in reverse, because I did not have a 55-52mm step-down ring to fit the 52mm filters on my Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 kit lens. :( I used two UV filters, 55mm and 52mm, superglued to each other, instead.

The orange tape is there to show alignment; when the two tape markers are aligned, the polarizers do not let any light through (except a bit of violet.)

I then made my maiden voyage to Digicolor, Jalan Ipoh, where I discovered they had the same thing - a China-made, brandless infrared-pass filter! The price? RM55 for a 77mm true infrared-pass filter!

The 77mm Hoya RM90 infrared-pass filter would've been RM600 from some sources.

They also have 77mm warming circular polarizers for RM55 too! If I got any lens with anything larger than 55mm I'd get a set of 77mm filters. :D

And so, I got Grace one, plus a 58-77mm step up ring for her Canon 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 kit lens. I got to take it for a test run. :)

Oh, and they have loads of step up and step down rings, all on a huge rack! Mount reverser rings (to put a lens front first on a SLR body) and reverser rings (to make two lenses face each other, to do super macro, albeit without superglue) all for under RM30! China-made madness!

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From left to right, top to bottom: Sony A100 at 50mm F3.5 1/2s ISO1600 using Hoya RM90 equivalent; Sony A100 at 50mm F3.5 1/10s ISO1600 using Hoya R72; Sony A100 at 50mm F1.4 1/4000s ISO1600 using Hoya RM90 equivalent; Sony A100 at 50mm F11 1/320s ISO100 no filter; Sony A100 at 18mm F3.5 30s ISO400 using Hoya RM90 equivalent; Sony A100 at 18mm F9 1/80s ISO100 no filter; Canon Powershot A520 at 35mm equivalent F2.6 1s ISO200 using Hoya RM90 equivalent; Canon Powershot A520 at 35mm equivalent F2.6 1s ISO200 using Hoya R72.

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Canon Powershot A520 at F2.6 1/10s ISO200 using Hoya R72.

The Hoya R72 is still very usable, especially on the Canon Powershot A520, where it can separate areas by the infrared intensity; purple for infrared and red for others.

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Sony A100 at 50mm F4 1s ISO1600 using Hoya R72 and two polarizers.

I can get a similiar effect using the R72 and two polarizers on the Sony A100, if I dial in the right amount on the polarizers. Note the slight red tint in the skies!

So what about my infrared-modded Fujifilm Digital Q1?

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35mm equivalent (this was taken with the webcam manual focus lens, before I put SLR lenses on the Q1) F3.5 1/2000s ISO100 using Hoya R72.

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Same exposure, without filters this time. The blue gets to leak into the picture! In most cases the Q1 captures mostly infrared unless it is in a flourescent-lit room.

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Getting all wet!

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Flashback, February 15th 2007.

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Singles' Night, KL Jamasia. As with all singles' nights I'd been for, this was no different, not escaping the curse of ultimately being a fete de la sausage.

Maybe, one guy will leave with the only hot chick and her friend. Lucky bastard. :D:D:D

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Which may or may not explain how I teleported here, to Project Bazooka's Singles' Traffic Light party!

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...albeit quite late, but in time for the band I'd came for - Bittersweet.

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Happy Britpop ala Supergrass. Stuff you wanna pump on your stereo.

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Happy mod people.

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This is why I rarely shoot at F1.4. Softness!

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Smashing time.

So I caught Stranger Than Fiction and The Holiday, two movies featuring two comedians I like doing serious roles; Will Ferrell (best in Anchorman and the Cowbell SNL skit) and Jack Black (best in School Of Rock, and maybe Tenacious D: Pick Of Destiny whenever I get to see it.)

Despite the many questions of the believeability of Stranger Than Fiction, like, "Did her character manifest in real life... or is Karen in her book?", it is certainly more believeable than The Holiday, where Jude Law knocks on your door (wow!) and he has big-eyed kids (awww!) and he is a widower (AWWW.) Bloody Hallmark channel trite.

Those scriptwriters take every chance they get to put an AWWW moment in. Are we supposed to start crying in the first 15 minutes of the movie?

In Stranger Than Fiction, Will Ferrell plays Harold Crick, an IRS taxman who suddenly hears the voice of novelist Kay Eiffel (played by a very sombre Emma Thompson). She then narrates that he is going to die... which freaks him out. Will looks distraught, which really isn't that much of a departure from him, because ALL his movies feature him going through a rough patch. He also always beds a hot chick (except in Kicking And Screaming, I think...)

Stolen from IMDB's Quotes:

Harold Crick: [talking to Ana while holding a cardboard box with multiple small paper bags inside] I brought you flours.

(The joke being that Ana is a baker that Harold has the hots for. That scene was a lot more real and more sweet because he was a gangly nerdy taxman, as opposed to the super suave Jude Law who has everything set romantically, being an editor, which was by far the least romantic job held by any of the characters in The Holiday.)

Meanwhile, in The Holiday, Jack Black is always animated and always gets a singing skit. I tire of seeing it when it's not appropriate.

The ending for Stranger Than Fiction might disappoint, but the irony of that is already stated in the movie.

Dr. Hilbert: It's not great, it's okay.

The movie is the novel! The beautiful irony of that made me realize how brilliant it was.

Both movies have a lot of hidden references; The Holiday makes it most obvious, with each character having a few references to previous movies. Heck, the movie was written with the four stars in mind! Stranger Than Fiction has loads of references to The Beatles.

I wonder now if Sacha Baron Cohen will do a serious role. Yeah, the guy behind Ali G, Julien (he goes "I like to mooove it mooove it!" in Madagascar)

I don't quite know how he would outdo the masterpiece that is Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, really. I loved the hidden irony and parody; Borat is a reporter from a fictional Kazakhstan who comes to America to learn its culture and document it for his country to see.

Random quotes stolen from IMDB:

Borat: My neighbor Nushuktan Tulyiagby is still assholes. I get iPod, he get iPod mini. Haha! Everyone know iPod mini for girls!
Borat: Go, kids! Smash the Jew chick before it hatches!
Azamat: [points to two cockroaches] The Jews have shifted their shapes!
Borat: You telling me the man who try to put a rubber fist in my anus was a homosexual?
Borat: My moustache still tastes of your testes!

Yes, there are some pretty gross scenes there (which came about since Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby, where Sacha plays Jean Girard, a gay racecar driver who kisses Will Ferrell.)

While it seems like Borat is a highly ignorant chauvinist ape from a faraway land, he is really parodying the Americans in their ignorance of outside culture. For example, in his fictional Kazakhstan, they believe that Jews transform into ogres and that they must be killed. (Sacha is Jewish, heh.)