Author Archives: 2konbla

Striking Pictures

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So I met Fazri for more camera geeking out.


This is his decked out FZ30, this time, with more filters and step rings than before. I’m not sure anymore what the order was, but I think it was a (edited) 58mm telephoto lens, 58mm macro lens, 58mm Hoya linear polarizer, 58mm to 52mm step ring, 52mm Hoya circular polarizer, 52mm Hoya R72 infrared filter, (then here comes my stuff) 52mm Hoya R72 infrared filter, 52mm Raydamn linear polarizer, 52mm Hoya 25A red filter, 52mm Raydawn circular polarizer, (and back to Fazri’s) 52mm to 55mm step ring, Panasonic DMC FZ30. Phew.


Similiar setup, on mine.


He placed his FZ30 on a tripod and took long exposures, with the strobe flash used to uh, expose… me. I was chosen because I accidentally wore a bright, easy to expose shirt.


I have reached Duhvana.


Effects of eating a red mushroom.


Fazri and I saw lightning in KLCC Park. I used his Canon Powershot A95 to get this, on a 4 second exposure. He set up his FZ30 on 60 second exposure, but the chances of us striking gold lightning striking when taking a long exposure was very small. Most of the time, the lightning would strike during the noise reduction part (which is as long as the long exposure itself!)


The buildings somewhat look like batteries.

Addendum: From my experiments with circular and linear polarizer combinations, I found that the most useful combination would be camera, circular, circular, linear. Turning the innermost circular would function as a polarizer; turning the middle circular was a warming/cooling filter, and turning the outermost linear would go from neutral density to infrared filter. We did not get a bright sunny environment to test the effects of inserting the red filter anywhere in between. Two circulars would be a warming/cooling filter; two linears, a neutral density to infrared filter.

Feeling Pink?

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Random shots from the side:


The pathway from KLCC PUTRA LRT to Suria KLCC is now welcoming visitors from abroad, especially a certain one from Singapore.


Jolly jellies!

Stock Clearance

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It’s the time of the week month year when I upload all the pictures I promised people I’d upload to my blog.


We start with the 16th of September, with Amber Chia signing autographs for the charity screening of The Longest Yard.


I then hopped over to Berjaya Times Square, for a supposed World Peace… concert?
Clockwise from top-left: Tragiccomedy; Army Of Three featuring Kevin of Broken Scar screaming instead of his usual acoustic guitar crooning (incidentally both guys in the picture are brothers); The Rebel Scum rip out the rap over a Transformers Theme beat; and finally cute dancers!


Poseidon’s album launch was on the 18th of September. I don’t even remember which bands were which.
Clockwise from top-left: Irene; a photogenic screamer; Pallid Sky (good hard rock with solos a-plenty); blood on the dance rock floor.


Frequency Cannon. Left: Captain Kua Chee barking, “Who swapped my socks?” Top: I loved the setup of a bright light installed for a camera crew, with Siva in front of a black wall, totally undistracted rock posing. Except for when Kua Chee pops in nosily asking about his socks. Bottom: Yu-Ri belts a melting solo.


Clockwise from top-left: Vespertine; progressive rockers Polaris; the new lead guitarist for Warve; and Stonebay’s guitarist’s pretty guitar. Yeah, so I used flash on all of these pictures.


Clockwise from top-left: Infiltrated; a guitarist scared shitless, intending to climb on his stage monitor and make a quick exit; Inverted Coma; Moodbox.


Of course, the highlight was Poseidon, a proper metal band with all the flash.


If you were running low on batteries, this would the the guy to record videos of. Fully flashy, fully scaling up and down the fretboard, with all sorts of funky effects.


I then rushed over to Luna Bar for Musiccanteen’s Awards, foregoing the last few bands for free beer. Up at skyscraper level, (33 floors to be exact) a lone Petronas Tower could be seen proposing to the KL Tower. Okay, so they were Photoshopped together.


They constructed a mini podium/walkway on the pool and filled it with blank CD-Rs!


Free beer equates to massive free jam. Edge Of Fire and Dragon Red feature in this one.


Amil of Dragon Red is seen on bass again! (For the first time, Alda was also publicly seen playing electric guitar!) At one point there were three people on the drums!


Kevin came back from Australia and played at Hartamas Square again on the 22nd of September. The joy of Hartamas Square gigs is that you never know who will play! From left to right, then top to bottom:
Admonition with a hothothot new vocalist; Tragiccomedy again, this time with a pretty Line 6 Variax guitar, probably wondering if the crowd is looking at him or the screen behind; Kevin; Jasemaine; Quizzicals; Seven; Edge Of Fire impromptu; a car with no bumper!


It was a return to Desa Sri Hartamas, this time, Jamasia, for the Xcited Screamers album launch. From left to right, then top to bottom:
Fathulistiwa; Zack of Cosmic Funk Express playing for Broken Scar; Epiphone SG, Emily Strange edition, of Kevin of Broken Scar; a black Epiphone SG hangs; Auburn, with cool rock progressions/riffs; Xcited Screamers.

Okay, I’m beat. October and November pictures will come another day week month. Yes, being September shots, these would all be with my old Canon Powershot A400 and not the A520.

Meet Where, Lee?

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Here goes, more attempts at being artsy.


One word: Midvalley. 🙂


It’s always nice to walk when it’s rainy.


When it’s less sunny we head to Telawi.


“Back in those days, the rink was filled with people.”


Where’s the party at?


I could not resist the infrared charms of bright, sunny parks, like Lake Gardens.


From left to right, top to bottom:

  • It looks like it’s the tow truck that’s broken, not the car.
  • I can now play guitar with both hands on an MSN Voice Clip, by using a Rubik’s Cube to press F2! (Answers: Madonna, Queen, Metallica – Nothing Else Matters, Metallica – Fade To Black, Franz Ferdinand)
  • I think the ultraviolet Zouk stamp says KISS with lips. We were debating this, so I said, “I’ll take a picture, and we can all compare when we’re sober, okay?“
  • Happy Birthday! Please donate to her corrective eye surgery. She’d be way cuter with both eyes aligned, donchathink?

Anybody noticed that Dunkin Donuts and Speedy Video did a switcheroo at the lower ground floor of Midvalley Megamall? For a while, I thought I was heading the wrong direction, and that my head was screwed on backwards. Or maybe I was staring at my friend’s picture for too long and contracted misalign-eye-tis.

What, The Frog?

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This is what happens when you work in Xfresh – you sit in an office with glass windows facing the lift so you can see people walking in and out.

Sometimes, frogs come by. Crazy giant ones, too!

He was here to give us free ice-cream. For a while, I forgot my afflictions, and dug in.

For more pictures, check out Jason‘s blog as well as Cherrie‘s blog.

Kau-kau Cowbell!

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As of late, I’ve been listening to songs with the almighty cowbell in them. Why? I gotta have more cowbell, baby!

COWBELL, BABY.

Blue Oyster Cult – Don’t Fear The Reaper also has a menacing, killer solo, something you’d never quite hear anywhere else.

I also searched for songs with cowbell in them. (Click here then search for all.) Well golly gee, Fatboy Slim – Weapon Of Choice, which also had Christopher Walken in it, has cowbell, baby!

Someday, when I have a belly and a blonde afro, I’ll join my favorite band, with cowbell in hand.

Philler Fotografy

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Here’s some filler photography.


Clouds, in black and white. Unlike all you Photoshoppers, I only use black and white when necessary to save the picture. In this case, I used the red filter to increase contrast, but it also soaks the picture in red, so black and white saves the day. Some old gig pictures were in black and white as well because there was no way to save the color of the picture.


I have a heart of ice.

CPL + LPL = IR + ND

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So I bought a 52mm Raydawn linear polarizer for yet more photography experiments. Who cares that I went to Zouk on Wednesday, Hartamas on Friday and Saturday, and Midvalley on Sunday? Who cares that I wassup guys that girls had major crushes on since Form 2 (no, not you, stim-girl)?

Well, apparently, nobody, so I’ll just put more trippy pictures. At least you guys tell me you think it’s cool, even though you don’t comment.


Anyway, in the arrangement of camera, linear polarizer, circular polarizer, I was able to get a manual white balance of varying precision! The right-most picture is without both polarizers on. The other two are the extremities of blue-ness and orange-ness I can get by turning the circular polarizer only. Turning both (meaning you turn the linear polarizer) will function as a normal polarizer.


We now bring you to Site A, on the pedestrian bridge of the Kelana Jaya PUTRA LRT station. I took the following pictures between 11:10am and 11:30am. No, I do not go out just to take pictures; I was waiting for the bus. The recorded shutter speed was 1/250 seconds, F8.


Now we get funky! In the order of camera, circular polarizer, linear polarizer you get something like an infrared filter. Turning the circular polarizer functions as a normal polarizer. I had to use Manual mode, F8, 10 seconds to get about the same histogram.


Now, insert a red filter, so the order is camera, circular polarizer, red filter, then linear polarizer. Fiddling around, the infrared-glowing objects are distinguished by varying levels of redness. This was 1/3 second, F2.6 (equivalent to F8.0 at 2.66 seconds).


Note that at certain angles, there is a stain of color on certain edges of the circle. I do not know the science behind this, but snap in black and white and you won’t see it.


I don’t remember which angles they were, so just play around with both dials to get effects.


The only picture with any levels adjustment was the first one. The others are only sharpen and resize. Load the pictures into Photoshop and hit Auto Levels to see what they could become!


In case you forgot what a normal infrared picture looks like, here’s one with just the Hoya R72 filter.


Left: 1/2 seconds F2.6 with camera then CPL then PL, 1/2000 seconds F4.0 (or 1/4000 seconds F2.6) without filters on Shutter priority mode. That makes a 2000x ND, 11 stops.

The geekier among thou would have noticed that going from 1/250 to 10 seconds (in the fourth picture) is a slowing down of 2500x. That would be equivalent to a neutral density filter of 2500x, or over 11 stops! Add that you have the flexibility of dialling in the density! Of course, neutral density filters do not stain the picture or change its color; so, when dialling in, it goes from a neutral density filter of 4x and ends as an violet-tinted infrared filter. The sweet spot in between, where color is not changed, might be less.

Blog Uh

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There has been hoo-ha among Malaysians and Singaporeans online about who is a blogger, and who is qualified to be called a blogger.

Well.

If Google wasn’t so nice, they’d sue all of us, because a quick hop to http://www.blogger.com reveals a little Copyright � 1999 – 2005 Google at the bottom. So people, stop calling yourselves blogg… er, you know, that word.

A blog was originally defined as someone who puts a link and writes a small commentary about it. Right Lionel? Therefore, Xiaxue and Dawn Yang do not own a blog. If we write about our daily lives, we are writing in journals, not blogs, as we do not follow the format. The word journalist already implies underpaid writers with limited freedom of speech and ethics. We don’t get paid, we are free to say anything and make baseless claims, so we’re far off from journalists. Journallers perhaps.

So, who really owns an account on the Internet that can be rightly called a blog? Kahsoon, of course.

I met the hot FireAngel outside Zouk, while waiting for my friends to come so I could get them in on my guest list (as opposed to the other way round, suckers!) Of course, I forgot to take a picture as proof, but Albert never lies on his blog. He may be sarcastic but he never lies!

So where were all the other blogg… I mean, journallers? They didn’t have such a happening social life, obviously. There we stood, two relative journal heavyweights, waiting for friends. Journal heavyweights meaning, we’ve both read each other’s blogs but never acknowledged each other’s presence (or were officially introduced in real life for that matter!)

Meanwhile, 95% of the journal heavyweights were at home, refreshing Project Petaling Street, slinging permalinks and trackbacks.

I think permalink is a very ga… no, even if I was gay, I would not use the term permalink. See the Replies link below? That is the link to this journal entry.

For more annoying terms, Maddox already beat me to it.