Feeling angry, a Dave Mustaine kind of angry.

One of my major, major pet peeves is when people do not credit me for pictures that I have taken for free (and they have taken it for free, too.) If you take it for free, please credit me.

I have to watermark my pictures, not because I'm afraid of it being stolen, but because people just keep forgetting to say where they got it from, so I take the trouble to put the watermark in so they don't have to do it.

Heck, even if you paid me for pictures, don't go around saying somebody else took it. (Fortunately, that has not happened.)

Somebody removed my watermark before and posted it. Then in real life he goes "Albert bro, I love your pictures maaan. I love the expressions you catch!" I don't hate him, but if my watermark is that bothersome, you could either:
1) remove the watermark and put it in the text that accompanies the picture
2) ask me for a watermark-less picture while telling me you'd credit me

It costs me money to take your pictures. It costs me time and deprives me of sleep to process them. It costs me hard disk space to keep them. (And I had to buy a new hard disk, total expenses over RM400.) If I didn't take pictures of people I probably would not have to get a new hard disk.

See, I care enough about you all that I don't delete pictures of you! :D

People are surprised when I point out that I took this or that picture. They say, "I thought you were someone who wouldn't mind?"

Well, when I post pictures, people DO comment saying "hey I took THAT picture with your camera!" And I edit my post and apologize for forgetting to credit. I am not alone; people do care about getting properly credited!

Major credits to how Asyraf does it on his blog. On the sidebar it says "Photo credit to Stephanie Chong, for the profile photo".

On a side note, I took my own profile picture on Facebook. Then I remembered that Jason took my blue-haired profile picture on Friendster so I logged in for the first time in years to add credits where credit was due.

Alda, if you're reading this, it pisses me off each time I read an article about Estranged and it makes it sound like Lionel and you never had anything to do with the band. If it's just a article about the current lineup I'm cool but if it's one of those informational historic articles...

Speaking of history, I would raise my keris in anger if I was Hang Tuah/Hang Jebat and found out that I was removed from history books! Same goes for Yap Ah Loy.

My hard disk was screaming for more space, and I knew it was time to upgrade. I wanted to upgrade to a Serial ATA hard disk (Parallel ATA IDE hard disks are no longer cool) but my MSI K7N2-L Delta motherboard didn't support it. So, this is how I upgraded, serially:

Sunday - went to get a 32GB CF card, SATA power cable and SATA controller PCI card. I wanted to get the Maxtor 1 Terabyte SATA hard disk but Digital Mall PJ didn't have stock.

Why do I have a bias for Maxtor? It all started in my school days when Quantum and Seagate were popular choices. Seagate was a crasher among my friends so I bought a Quantum which still works to today.

I then bought one of those infamous Western Digital 80 GB PATA IDE hard disks with 8 MB cache - mine crashed a few years later, as well as 2 of my colleagues' exact same model. Baaad Western Digital!

Then, Maxtor bought Quantum. Maxtor was pretty untainted so I last bought a Maxtor 300GB PATA IDE hard disk.

Ironically, Seagate bought Maxtor! So was I doomed or what? I don't know if buying a Seagate would give me the reliability of a Maxtor or the crap of a Seagate.

So I Googled:
Seagate crash - about 733,000 results
Western Digital crash - about 513,000 results
Maxtor crash - about 296,000 results

My heart was set on Maxtor. Strangely, they just did not carry stock of Maxtor internal SATA hard disks - everybody was selling external hard disks! When did this happen? Back when I was actively buying computer stuff, external hard disks were way more expensive then internal ones. What happened?

I already had an external hard disk enclosure (where my Quantum sits) and I really don't bring it out, so I really had no need for an external hard disk, which would take up more space, make more noise and use an extra power socket.

Monday - went to Low Yat Plaza to hunt for the Maxtor. Alas, they didn't have it either! So I ended up in the tough dilemma between Western Digital and Seagate. I asked the salesman which one was more likely to crash, or had a more recent batch that was prone to crashing. Seagate 300GB, he said, was prone, but he didn't know anything about Western Digital. I knew the Western Digital 80GB was prone.

So, since Western Digital's last crash-prone hard disks were much longer ago than the Seagates, I bought myself the Western Digital 1TB internal SATA hard disk.

I went home, eager to install it, and... I found out that I forgot to buy a SATA data cable.

Tuesday - went back to Low Yat Plaza to get that darn SATA data cable.

I went home, eager to install it, and... I found out that I had bought the wrong SATA controller - this one was RAID only, meaning it would need 2 hard disks. RAID is used for improving write, read speeds, writing to 2 or more hard disks at the same time in case one hard disk fails, etc. Cool technology.

But I only had one SATA hard disk.

Wednesday - went back to Low Yat Plaza to get a proper SATA controller PCI card without mandatory RAID.

This time, fortunately, it worked! The card translated my hard disk as a SCSI/RAID device. I partitioned it, and formatted each partition, without choosing the Quick Format option, to be safe. It didn't finish when I woke up this morning!

So technically, my story is not done. Anybody wants to buy a SATA RAID controller PCI card? :D

I must be getting old, upgrading in such a tedious series instead of buying everything in one go and upgrading parallel-y.

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MMM chicken! Another colleague series, this time at Souled Out!

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Yvonne our very pleasant secretary.

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Lean on me!

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Abang Best! Muzzamil was supposed to be a Youtube superstar but I don't know how that worked out.

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Joshua and Pei Feng, both successful inductees into the land of the tilting-screen Sony Alpha 300 dSLR.

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smashpOp/Jason shows us how to camwhore. Do note the orientation of the flash head, it is very important!

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Farewell Claire!

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Cheers mate!

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And then on to another farewell, this time to The Apartment at The Curve.

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Life gave Emilie a lemon so she decided to fly on a jetplane.

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KJ is lemon-eyed!

All pictures above used a full Color Temperature Orange (CTO) gel with a slower shutter speed to bring in plenty of ambient light, and a colder color temperature (about 2700 Kelvin if I remember correctly.)

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Moving on to TGI Friday's in One Utama (nice place, never been there before). Shukri ponders.

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This time farewell to Angie but not Faraa in the back (who is always generous with the snacks, too bad I don't sit in the same office with her anymore.)

The lamps at TGI Friday's were nice - we could actually touch them and nudge them to cast light on photographed people! Like our own hanging studio lamps!

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Shot at 17mm F5.6 on the full-frame Sony Alpha 900. Ultra-wide angles should give sufficient depth of field, yes?

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Apparently not, says this 50% crop. Then again, focusing somewhere deeper into the crowd would've helped a bit. I used F5.6 to allow some ambient light in since the flash would not evenly light the scene otherwise (unless I bothered to place a wireless flash at the back...)

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Let's get drunk on iced lemon tea!

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Ross Hadi, a light (and easy) voice.

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Kok Way, who sat himself in between two lights, getting very nice light. Busy dude as all system engineers are.

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Having spotted this, Rames sat in the exact same spot.

Here's something you don't see on my blog regularly - shots of my colleagues!

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Farewell Pei Feng!

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Farewell Danny! (The Carl Zeiss 135mm F1.8 has an unrealistically shallow depth of field for isolating the subject.)

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Farewell Danie, Nurul (but not Rames on the right.)

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And as always, we have our farewells at Bumbu Bali. That's smashpOp in the background. He will be referred to as Jason throughout this post.

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Rames loves the window light.

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Ee Sze does too!

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Thanks Jason for taking this Rembrandt lighting shot! Come to think of it if he shot more to my right there would be more of my right face.

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He almost looks like he's going to Rick Roll me.

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Apa cerita bos?

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Our creative director Noor, who can be heard blasting the Guitar Hero 3 soundtrack.

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We also went to Caff for Jason's birthday. Interesting outdoor fan!

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Zoey the radiant!

Each time I peek over the cubicle (she sits opposite me) I am greeted by her fantastic multi-coated glasses which reflect a very pleasing green. Perhaps it is her choice of desktop wallpaper color that complements her skin tone, I don't know.

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Jason loves the chicken soup. We do, too!

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First round on an all-you-can-eat - pepperoni pizza. Light enough for a second round, which I had!

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Jenifur is on the phone via 3G.

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Joot the expert cake cutter.

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Lemon chicken at Mines Shopping Fair, best I've ever had!

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All thanks to Mr. Shaz.

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"Take me to the bridge."
"Okay, I did, now what?"

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Take me to the hair care expert! Shaz makes an appearance at the Bukit Bintang Monorail station!

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Last Hari Raya, I went to the village full of house numbers that didn't make any sense - it looked like you could just number your house any way you like!

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Left to right: Me, William, Jason, Faraa the hostess.

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Moonshine: A Homemade Music Show at Laundry Bar, 12th February 2009, this time in monochrome! Here is the excellent Shahrider and Nizam P. They played my favorite Sighyoung (back when Shahrider went by the name Sherry) and the very fun Babi song!

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Nizam P. has all the percussion below his waist. He even sits on a kajon!

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Sundae, a lighter, poppier band.

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When was the last time you saw one of these?

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"Wow I have two drumsticks now!"

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Yet another band slut. Happens to the best bassists. But he might not be one by the very sole reason that he does not have the bass-player's belly. N. Rama Lohan, if you're reading this, feed him more beer!

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Strings.

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She sings.

Gotta love them red Ibanez Artcores!

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Azmyl Yunor, you know, started with his classic folk about sitting on the highway...

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..playin' his blues harp...

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...and then he turned punk!

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Yes, like totally jumpy and rock and roll and shouting punk choruses!

When did our favorite 3-chord folk rocker turn into this?

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This isn't the Azmyl we know, right?

I wonder how many in the audience were his students, having a new impression of their beloved Mr. Azmyl.

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That said, he totally rocked out in a way that blew everybody's mind. I'll have what he's having!

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But of course, it had to come to an end.

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Then it was the grunge boys of Stonebay.

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3-uh...

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I quite like how I handled the highlights and shadows in all the pictures. What do you think?

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Amazing finds of the century at YL Camera, Pudu Plaza! Left is the rare Minolta 80-200mm F2.8G HS APO, right is the Sony 70-300mm F4.5-5.6G SSM, both amazingly fast-focusing lenses! (Bottom-right corner shows the Minolta's blemished hood; the Sony doesn't even come with a hood which might explain the price.)

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Minolta 80-200mm F2.8G HS APO at 200mm F2.8.

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Sony 70-300mm F4.5-5.6G SSM at 150mm F5.6.

I'd have to say it's a fair tie in image quality. Other factors like practicality start to take precedence - the Minolta is nearly twice the weight of the Sony, and has a poor minimum focus distance of 1.8 meters. The Sony does 1.2 meters close no matter what. Of course, the Minolta can do F2.8 at all focal lengths.

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And then I went to Sony Style KLCC to find out if the Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 Smooth Transition Focus was affected in image quality by the Sony 2x APO Teleconverter.

Top-left: Sony Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm F1.8 ZA at 135mm F1.8 1/200s ISO320
Top-right: Sony Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm F1.8 ZA through a Kenko 2x MC4 teleconverter at 280mm F3.5 1/125s ISO800 (minor swirliness at the bottom, not always obvious)
Bottom-left: Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 Smooth Transition Focus at 135mm F2.8 (transmission factor T4.5) 1/125s ISO800
Bottom-right: Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 Smooth Transition Focus through a Sony 2x APO Teleconverter at 280mm F5.6 (transmission factor T9.0) 1/80s ISO3200

Yes, the Sony counts 135mm with a 2x TC as 280mm instead of 270mm for some weird reason, but I'll refer to it as 280mm anyway for the rest of this entry.

So, I could conclude that the Sony 2x APO Teleconverter does not degrade the bokeh of the STF lens.

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Does it degrade sharpness? Not by much of a noticeable bit for me. 100% crop of the 280mm T9.0 1/80s ISO3200 shot.

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However, it does bring out some chromatic aberration. 100% crop of the 280mm T9.0 1/80s ISO3200 shot.

I shot X-Fine Large JPG which isn't the best way to bring out the image quality of the A900 but this was a quick snap, all other factors the same.

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Left: Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 Smooth Transition Focus with a Sony 2x APO Teleconverter
Right: Sony Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm F1.8 ZA with a Kenko 2x MC4 teleconverter

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Height comparison to my Minolta 50mm F1.4 Original.

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Physically though, the Sony 2x APO Teleconverter has its front element sticking out further nearer to the mount, while my Kenko 2x MC4 is quite deep inside.

The Sony is fussy - you just cannot physically mount most lenses in front of it because of the front element. On the plus side, it's optically better because of this.

It fits all the non-black Sony lenses, with the exception being the STF. So that means the white Sony 70-200mm F2.8G SSM, Sony 300mm F2.8G SSM, Sony 70-400mm F4-5.6G SSM and Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 Smooth Transition Focus.

My Kenko, meanwhile, accepts any lens or teleconverter. So I could stack it!

So does that mean I can stack the teleconverters? Of course, though only in a certain order.

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So here's the result, 560mm F18 1/40s ISO1600.

Stacking order: Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 Smooth Transition Focus - Sony 2x APO Teleconverter - Kenko 2x MC4 teleconverter - Sony A900

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Also at 560mm F18 1/40s ISO1600. The STF gives 1:4x magnification, and putting a 2x teleconverter doubles the magnification. Obviously then, putting two 2x teleconverters quadruples the magnification to give 1:1x life-size magnification!

Okay, so shooting macro with a full-frame isn't all that great.

However, you might not want to use the STF with a 2x teleconverter, because:

- the STF is manual focus only, without a focus confirmation light (refer to my findings here why it just cannot detect focus)
- the light transmission ends up being T9.0 which is quite dark
- on an APS-C body, 280mm gives the equivalent of 420mm which is long and hard to use. Already the STF without teleconvters is hard to use on APS-C for portraits due to the length.

On a side note, how do you secure your camera from flying paintballs? Using a thick plastic bag!

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Left: Put the hood in the corner. Right: Carve out a hole using a knife or a pen.

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Finally, tape it to the hood! Here's my Carl Zeiss 135mm F1.8 with my Minolta Dynax 7, all inside a Borders plastic bag! Not rain-proof completely as the back is still exposed, but it is covered enough for splashes and paintballs!

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Timeout KL's On The Up, 21st January 2009 at No Black Tie, with George Wong of TwoStoreyHeart!

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Unsuspecting Omar in yet another unsuspecting moment. 135mm F1.8 ISO6400 1/25s.

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Kevin of Broken Scar with a ex-presidential expression.

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Gotta dig the hair!

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I stared at the stairs and got Intan. 135mm F1.8 ISO6400 1/4s.

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Wow, I can get a hairlight even on an unlit stairway. 135mm F1.8 ISO6400 1/5s.

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Rohnie Tan loves the smell of a Sennheiser Evolution hehe.

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Broken Scar is one of those few bands where I get to see Paul Chuah do some serious shredding. Well besides Qings And Kueens but I haven't seen them around in ages!

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Kevin does a South Park character.

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Izzy Mohd the serious singer songwriter, who is really not all that serious in real life. I remember realizing that her vocals are very dominant in her songs, much more than most performers, and that is a good thing.

I often subconsciously tune out to lyrics and don't realize what people are singing about. Oh yeah nice riffs and chord progressions, I'd say.

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Red beam of death.

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Secret Love Affair does funky, very funky indie!

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Oh come on, cover me with your green blobs of coverage already!

Yes, it's one of the rare nights that I can connect to Streamyx. The phone line dies completely whenever it rains so I'm glad it didn't rain in the evening so here I am, online!

Epic fail, is what I think David Kilpatrick really meant to say about the Nikon D5000, when you put it on a tripod here.

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Don't get what he means?

So, I Photoshopped in my own tripod to see what it would look like:

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That said, it's half as exciting as the D90 (12.3 megapixel CMOS, 720p 24 FPS HD video, 11-point-AF, Kelvin WB) and half as handicapped as the D60 (requires AF-S/AF-I, few buttons, low-res screen, pentamirror, lowest viewfinder magnification of 0.78x, no Creative Lighting System support.)

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Random samplings from lenses from decades ago - the Super-Takumar 50mm F1.4 in M42 mount!

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This is what it looks like on the A700. (All shots with the A700 unless otherwise specified, in case you're wondering about depth of field and field of view considerations.)

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Unitor 200mm F3.5 in M42 mount...

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...and a random shot of someone sitting far away at a mamak.

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My former Industar 61L/Z 50mm F2.8 in M42 mount got real nice and close!

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I'm guessing this was at F11.

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The Sigma 14mm F3.5 on the A900!

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Goes crazily close, too! (As is the nature of wide-angles, needing only to extend a little to get good magnification.)

A 20mm lens, for example, only needs to extend 20mm from its default position at infinity, to focus at 1:1x magnification.

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And here's one from the Minolta 28mm F2.8 on the A900!

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Mmm, lovely Minolta 24mm F2.8. I wish I grabbed it for the A900 then. Still, F2.8 is lacking for what I shoot.

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The old classic Minolta Rokkor 50mm F3.5 1:2x Macro (which needs an adapter to achieve 1:1x.) Also seen on it is a Minolta MD to Minolta AF adapter (and my Sigma 17-35mm F2.8-4 EX in the background.)

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A tiny Tokina 28mm F2.8 in Minolta MD mount.

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Another classic, the Minolta Rokkor 50mm F1.4 in MD mount.

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Tokina 20-35mm F3.5-4.5, an early ultra-wide angle zoom.

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Left is the Vivitar Series 1 100-300mm F4.5-6.7, one heck of a light push-pull, while on the right is my venerable Minolta 70-210mm F4 beercan.

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Star power! How?

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The cheesy star cross filter.

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The Minolta 500mm F8 AF Reflex! Special mention to AF in the name because it's the only reflex lens in the world that can auto-focus. Light and small for its focal length!

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The subject of this picture is the orange out-of-focus highlight from the Minolta 85mm F1.4G - compare this to the somewhat bright-lined Nikkor AF-D 85mm F1.8 and this picture will make sense.

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The chunky Tamron 28-105mm F2.8 on my Minolta Dynax 7, the way it was meant to be.

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A fungused Minolta 28-85mm F3.5-4.5, one early zoom from the first generation of Minolta lenses (at 28mm F3.5 on the A900.)

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This is the 85mm F4.5 end.

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And finally, one from the pocket rocket, the Minolta 135mm F2.8.

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It's yet another geekout session with Albert, starting with a night in Titiwangsa Lake Garden.

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Interestingly, the Eye On Malaysia has shifted to Malacca!

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KJ sits on a power box.

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I don't know what he sees.

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This Casio Exilim F1 sees at 60 FPS. No, not video - continuous bursts! Unbeatable for capturing sports action, really!

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Size comparison, left to right: Minolta X300 with Seagull 50mm F1.8 lens, Olympus E-420 with Zuiko Digital 14-45mm F3.5-5.6 lens.

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Though for me I'm not excited about the Four-Thirds system as much as the Micro Four-Thirds system; here's the mirror-less Panasonic G1!

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Then there's the Olympus Micro Four-Thirds prototype with a possible 20mm F1.7. SWEET!

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Sunpak Auto 16R Pro ring macro flash.

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The Canon MP-E 65 5x-1x macro lens on a Canon EOS 50D!

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Top pictures are the lens at 1:1x magnification; bottom pictures are the lens at 5:1x magnification.

It's not an easy lens to use - changing the magnification then requires you to change distance, too. It's basically a 65mm F2.8 on a variable extension tube. Interestingly, the Minolta 3x-1x uses a 50mm F1.7 and has auto-focus...

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And now rewind to the plastic Diana F+! Interesting that it has focus control.

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Left to right: I'm guessing the icons really represent apertures from F8/F11/F16/F22; the film indicator switch tells you it's 120 medium format; the internal parts are all plastic.

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Here's another medium format camera, the Pentacon six TL!

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Fitted with a Carl Zeiss Biometar 80mm F2.8 lens, which is a normal lens on medium format, similiar to 50mm on full-frame 36x24mm.

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Shot with the Minolta 70-210mm F4 beercan at 70mm F8.

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I tried holding the Biometar in front of my A700 and focusing manually.

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I then tried to tilt the lens upwards to give a shallower depth of field. Of course, the light leaking in from below would cause this loss of contrast and add flare...

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This was a far more challenging shot at 80mm F2.8 - it was tilted downwards. Note what is in focus.

And now, for a gratituous set of pictures of lenses to show relative size comparisons!

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Left to right: Minolta 85mm F1.4G, Minolta 24-105mm F3.5-4.5 (D), Minolta 35mm F1.4G, Vivitar Series 1 28-105mm F2.8-3.8, F&N canned drink.

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Left to right: Minolta Dynax 7 with Minolta 85mm F1.4G, Nikon D700 with Nikkor AF-D 85mm F1.8.

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Left to right: Sony Alpha 200 with Sigma 30mm F1.4 EX DC, Sony Alpha 300 with Minolta 85mm F1.4G.

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Left to right: Minolta 135mm F2.8, Minolta 28-85mm F3.5-4.5.

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Left to right: Minolta 28-70mm F2.8G, Sony Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* 24-70mm F2.8 SSM ZA.

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Left to right: Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 DT, Sony Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* 16-80mm F3.5-4.5 DT ZA. Honestly I expected the Zeiss to be a lot bigger.

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Left to right: Sony Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* 16-80mm F3.5-4.5 DT ZA, Sony 16-105mm F3.5-5.6 DT.

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Left to right: Sigma 17-70mm F2.8-4.5 DC Macro, Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 DC Macro. Both focus to a crazy close 20cm but the 17-70mm has the advantage of focal length to achieve a magnification of 1:2.3x!

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Left to right: Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye in M42 mount, Minolta 50mm F1.4 (in A-mount), Jupiter-9 85mm F2.0 in M42 mount.

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Left to right: Sony Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm F1.8 ZA, Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 85mm F1.4 ZA, Sony Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* 24-70mm F2.8 SSM ZA, Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 35mm F2.4 in M42 mount, Sony Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* 16-80mm F3.5-4.5 DT ZA. It was a pity that we could not get the Sony Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar 16-35mm F2.8 SSM ZA to join this party!

One 10th January 2009 night ago at Cloth & Clef!

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Stonebay, one of the headliners.

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Choon How uses his Nintendo DS to provide background electronic music - cool idea!

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Dude, you were raw and grungy. Definitely a powerful f-all set.

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Fans.

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The crowd.

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Anuar, rippin' it out on lap steel guitar. We don't ever get to see this around Malaysia much!

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This was Az Samad's nephew Afiq (thanks Uncle Az for the info!) He ripped out some groovy, killer thrash metal riffs. I had not heard anything so fresh in quite a while.

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Then of course, it was Az Samad's turn to impress by turning every crevice of his guitar into a sound-making instrument, banging on the wood and tapping the surfaces.

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There was no space to slap guitar body on the Soloette.

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Davina came on to sing a song, or two.

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She did a cover of Bachelor Girl - Buses And Trains.

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And then there was a far more emotional song, Carole King - It's Too Late. (Thanks Davina for the info!)

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"Uh, did I just croak like a Kermit?"

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She rebounds from slips quickly and cutely with a smile!

A video by William here.

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Then Melina (and Stephanie not seen in this picture) are in yet another band...

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Hamster DamnAged! A Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover band.

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Featuring a sexy, dancy vocalist with all the shouts of shrieks of Karen O!

Here's a video of them performing on Youtube.

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A softer change of pace with Rusdi.

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Brainhead.

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The stuffed toy bows.

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Then came one of the most uh, memorable bands of the night - Jenny Rocket! In the sense that they forgot to tune up before going on stage (major boo-boo) and that the vocalist was kicking and punching his band members on stage.

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I think he was trying to get them into the mood to dance about in an indie band manner instead of mostly standing.

The way they sounded, I felt like I was temporarily teleported into a jamming studio!

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Fortunately Auburn saved our ears with some new songs in the language of Malay.

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Still as progressive and rocking as ever!

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Maya Lara was next - this was Jenny Rocket without the vocalist.

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Firasah ended the night with a killer cover of Deep Purple - Burn.

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They were only allocated time for one song as the gig was over, so the vocals were cut off from the sound system for the next song, Iron Maiden - Trooper. That did not stop the crowd from singing the entire song (and the catchy call-and-response riff!)

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Yep, some members of heavy metal revival guys Revenge were in the crowd. Fun night that was!

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7th January 2009, Andrew Netto Live at No Black Tie with opening/closing act, The Ramanados!

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Greg's brother Herman takes over vocal duties due to poor Greg losing his voice.

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And then it was time for the youngest standup comedian in Malaysia, Andrew Netto!

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Full house at No Black Tie, as usual...

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Gotta love his African impression.

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The place was so packed, even the stairways filled up! And ironically even his dad doesn't get a seat. (Obviously, he moved over to the stairs...)

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Over here sir.

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Having taken a look at the month's calendar for a few entertainment establishments, I feel it's honestly a rarity to have stand-up comedy night.

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And now for some drums!

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Greg tries a few bars. Gotta love their cover of Red Hot Chili Peppers - Havana Affair (which was a cover of The Ramones - Havana Affair...)

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Stevie can do it too!

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My Kermit failed.

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Outside No Black Tie, everything was in color!

Processed using my How to make low-contrast black-and-white from digital color photos tutorial.

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Albert returns with a chock-ful of photogeeking!

Yes boys and girls, this is my flash triad - from left to right, the Sony HVL-F42AM, Sony HVL-F58AM and the newly bought Sunpak PF20XD!

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And here's a less flashy picture - from left to right, my Nikon SB-28 (dynamite edition), Sony HVL-F42AM, Sony HVL-F58AM and the Sunpak PF20XD in front.

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The rear is very simple - A1/A2/A3 is auto exposure, and the sync mode can be set to skip the pre-flash. I'm not sure if it skips the wireless signal from an Alpha pop-up flash simply because I don't have an Alpha pop-up flash on my A900 to test this with.

Which is why I got this flash in the first place - as a replacement for my missing pop-up flash. This one of course is more powerful, dishing out 20 meters at ISO100.

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Here it is mounted on my Minolta X300 - yes, it's the standard ISO hotshoe mount, with 2 pins just to trigger the flash. So it's not a Canon-mount or Nikon-mount flash!

It has a built-in diffuser which can be pulled up, which supposedly covers a 24mm focal length on full-frame, but...

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...it amazingly reaches to the sides on my Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye!

I will be bringing this little baby to the clubs where the F42 is simply too big. Bouncing light with the F58 and fisheye is not easy, either! So I might as well go for direct and blend in ambient light. It looks good enough anyway!

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Also spotted at the same shop, dSLR in Subang Parade, was this mega-pack! The Olympus E-520 with the ZD 9-18mm F4.0-5.6, ZD 14-42mm F3.5-5.6, ZD 40-150mm F4.0-5.6, ZD 70-300mm F4.0-5.6! Only thing missing was the ZD 25mm F2.8.

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And then I headed to Sony Style KLCC to find the Sony A700/A900 remote, the RMT-DSLR1!

The case of the manual-focus only Minolta/Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 Smooth Transition Focus (STF) lens

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I've always wondered why the Minolta/Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 Smooth Transition Focus (STF) lens was manual focus only. So, I decided to test this theory by mounting it on my Minolta X300!

First I had to keep the aperture blades open, so I stuck some tape to hold the lever in place. As you can see, inside the lens, the edges are gradually darker due to the apodization filter inside.

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Then, I positioned the lens and body together, with an eraser and CF card holder to keep the lens from rolling.

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I looked through it, and it confirmed my theory - the upper half and lower half of the split prism would never match due to the gradual darkening coming from opposite ends!

This is due to the apodization filter which darkens the periphery of the lens (giving the beautiful bokeh that the STF possesses.) Obviously, the top half is looking through the right side of the lens while the bottom half is looking through the left side of the lens.

Phase-detect auto-focus works in a very similiar way to a split-prism on a manual-focus viewfinder - it looks at the subject from two opposite ends of the lens and drives the lens to focus so that the two images are aligned.

If you've tried a darker lens on a split-prism viewfinder, you might find that one of the two halves will be darker than the other - this just means that your eye is not centered in the viewfinder, so you need to move slightly to your left or right until the brightness matches. However, you would never see a gradient darkening with a non-STF lens!

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This is what an out-of-focus picture looks like through a split-prism viewfinder. You need to focus the lens by turning it until the top and bottom halves of the split-prism align.

This will be easiest to focus on vertical lines and almost impossible with horizontal lines!

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I then tried to see if the gradient darkening happened with a normal lens by moving the camera left and right of the viewfinder - it didn't. Instead, one half got uniformly darker than the other.

Of course, on an phase-detect auto-focus system, the 'eye' never actually moves left and right, and it's always aligned on the center.

So how does a regular phase-detect auto-focus system work?

Each AF sensor has two lines of sensors - one line of CCDs that sees the upper half, one line of CCDs that sees the lower half. It can see how 'far' each line is from each other, and know immediately where to focus the lens.

So, the lens is driven to the focus point, and then the camera looks at the two halves again and makes micro adjustments.

Cross-type sensors

Cross-type sensors are just a pair of line sensors at 90 degrees from each other, so it is sensitive to both horizontal and vertical detail.

So why doesn't the STF work with auto-focus?

As you saw earlier, the top and bottom halves have a gradual darkening coming from opposite ends. So, even if the object was in focus, the CCDs will never say it's a match!

A way that might've worked is that the camera knows that the STF is being used, and compensates for the gradual darkening when comparing what the two CCDs see.

My guess is that the gradual darkening differs with focus range and aperture setting, so it might've been too complicated for Minolta to program into the bodies when they first released the STF.

So what's the big deal about the STF anyway?

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Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 STF at T4.5. Note how the out-of-focus highlights are circles with gradually darker edges.

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Minolta 50mm F1.4 at F1.4 (cropped to give the same angle of view.) Note how the out-of-focus highlights have ugly, distracting borders (especially at the bottom of the picture.) These borders are called bright-line bokeh.

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Here is another example also from the 50mm F1.4. The lights on top really should be out of focus and thus not distracting, but they pop out of the background!

Of course, the 50mm F1.4 and Minolta 50mm F1.7 are very poor examples - a lot of old Minolta zooms and primes have much better rendition of out-of-focus highlights.

And in other news...

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And now, on to the Olympus E-30! I found out why it's said to be the poor man's E-3.

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They still had the clunky way of adjusting Kelvin WB in Live View (an immensely useful feature) but it was slightly easier to hold down the EV button while rolling the rear dial now.

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How about the DCIM Show that happened recently at Midvalley Megamall?

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Disappointing. No, not the Panasonic G1 - the lack of anything really fresh, new or upcoming. The Panasonic GH-1, with honestly the best implementation of video in a digital interchangeable lens system, was not there.

The GH-1 has an external gun mike, a Wind Cut function, fast AF tracking while recording videos (like a proper camcorder) and a lot of other things that make the Canon 500D's video mode even more of a joke.

Oh, and Canon didn't have the Canon EOS 500D there, either!

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Fortunately, Nikon brought some cool stuff, like the Nikkor 24mm F3.5 tilt-shift!

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Then there was the magnificent Nikkor AF-S 200mm F2.0 VR...

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...and the diminutive Nikkor AF-S 35mm F1.8 DX.

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I then spotted a Minolta 80-200mm F2.8G, in black! This is not the HS version which is white.

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People then spotted my Fujifilm Digital Q1 infrared-modded interchangeable-lens camera!

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This is what a fish sees when they see a photographer.

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The Panasonic FZ-28 has a Kelvin WB setting! SWEET!

(The Canon 500D and Nikon D60 both do not have Kelvin WB settings, sucks to be them...)

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Step up for the model shoot challenge!

Uncle G and Aunty W taught me everything I needed to know to sound smart like when I cited the Fail Whale without actually seeing it before.

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Yes, that's what Harian Metro says on the front cover. Full article here (thanks Silencers for the find!)

There is also a bit with a psychologist from UITM here. He does not mention anything about choosing the devil before playing.

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I don't know about devils, but this guy here could be a pirate. He's playing Guitar Hero using a gamepad, instead of the original Guitar Hero controller guitar that comes with the game!

Or he could be a cheapskate, buying only the game, which is possible, but is no fun.

Tou simply can't choose the devil. Unless you confuse King Diamond or Lars ?la? the devil. Lars is just a black metal dude, that's all!

Ironically, the game lets you choose the God Of Rock but not a devil.

You also battle the devil in Guitar Hero 3 with Steve Ouimette - The Devil Went Down To Georgia (which is a devillishly hard song.) Funny thing is, Charlie Daniels, who wrote the song, says the devil very often wins in his blog. Which is quite... true, since it's one of the two hardest songs in the game!

Speaking of which, here's the original.