Here goes more random pictures.
Yes there is a problem, there is no automated teller machine!
Guess where. (Intentionally dark.)
Alright troops, I want you to stand tall. There’s a storm coming.
What, the fog?
Pasar Seni PUTRA LRT station usually has beautiful landscapes to capture in the evening.
Low clouds are cool.
Fireflies?
Palm springs! Infrared photography works best with trees and clouds.
This infrared webcam project is thanks to Syefri, whose old webcam was used!
From left to right, then top to bottom:
Your webcam may vary; the infrared cut filter may be painted on! This webcam had a manual focus lens; from outside, in order, it would be the manual focus lens, followed by its lens mount (with the infrared cut filter), followed by the circuitboard (with the CCD on it) and another circuitboard, and finally, the back of the webcam casing.
The infrared pass filter is held up to the webcam; as you can see on screen, it is transparent!
Flourescent lamps do not emit much hot infrared light, so I had to use a tungsten bulb so people could see me on webcam.
Now, for more science!
CCDs can capture normal light and infrared light. Human eyes only see normal light. However, infrared light stains the picture with purple highlights, so webcams and digital cameras have an infrared cut filter installed. I had to remove that, and put an infrared pass filter (namely the film negative) to block out normal light and let only infrared light through. On my Canon Powershot A520 however, the warranty has not finished and I do not dare operate on such a digital camera that is not cheap, so I use a Hoya R72 filter (infrared pass filter). Internally, its infrared cut filter still lets a little infrared light in, so I can get sunny exposures in less than one second.
Anyway, does anyone have a cheap old working 1 megapixel digicam? I’d like to buy it from you to make an infrared camera!
More cool pictures!
Scene from Arlia‘s car. I set the white balance to the clouds, making the sun tint. The above branch came into the picture by accident.
This was in KL Plaza.
So I went to see Afdlin Shauki‘s Why You Still Fat?. It was a good laugh. He hit hard at certain new pop stars, taking oppurtunity to show that he could sing. At least he could sing well.
Towards the middle some jokes got a bit obscure, and I laughed not because of the brilliant snideness but because of his facial expressions, in a way, like Rob Schneider. However, he still fell flat when trying to fit George W. Bush in a joke.
His modified-lyric songs were hilarious, and the highlight of the show, for me, was the ending, where he wrote a song about Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers… to the tune of Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody! (I’m not a fan of LOTR but Bohemian Rhapsody is my current favorite rock song.) Pacai, the accompanying guitarist, transposed it lower to something easier for Afdlin to sing, but still, it was a difficult song to sing, as he followed the phrasing and tune to the dot. He ‘forgot‘ the lyrics a few times, stopping comedically. (DJCS reports that in previous performances, he sang the song straight in one go; perhaps his fumbling wasn’t an act, but he covered up damn well!)
This further compels me to properly transpose the piano bits to guitar; I’ve only figured out certain verses.
So I was at Sunway Pyramid, watching Chicken Little, then helping Leech get free calendars, while waiting to watch The Exorcism Of Emily Rose. In between freebie-grabbing time, we grabbed pictures of XOXO models.
Technical terms: I shot most of these at Shutter priority, no flash, ISO 50, 1/125 seconds (so it wouldn’t have to evaluate) and manual focus set at infinity (so it wouldn’t have to hunt all the time). On a camera with less settings, just set your EV to -2. With the bright sunlamps shining on them, I did not have to use flash, and capturing a sharp picture while they were walking was easy.
Mmm.
Confidence is sexy.
You can see how bright the lights from above were.
I recreated the effect my former Canon Powershot A400 had; dark places are desaturated.
She looks pregnant here, but I like the lighting.
Damn they are skinny.
Damn them boy scouts. How do they untie knots?
HOT HOT HOT!
PANT PANT PANT! (Yes this picture is a bit out, but I had to put this picture.)
The hot one again.
Give that sultry pouty lost look and guys will be lost in your lips.
Maybe I shouldn’t add commentary to model pictures. I’m too heterosexual to write something correct fashionably.
While crossing the junction between Desa Sri Hartamas and Sri Hartamas, I found the perfect prop for a nice long exposure shot. This wasn’t the effect I wanted, but the dude waiting there was cool. This effect was brought to you by Manual mode with 10 second exposure, F8.0, ISO 50, and a circular polarizer to drop it one stop.
And this, a successful attempt at the effect – same settings, but I changed to a 15 second exposure because I kept miscounting how long the green light would stay on. I could actually get green, yellow and red in a 6 second exposure, if I took the picture 2 seconds before it turned yellow, but I was lazy to wait (having miscounted a few traffic light cycles before), so I cheated and did a 15 second one so that the chances of me getting a green-yellow-red shot were higher. Pictures were also darkened to add drama.
If you want to do this same effect, I suggest you find a junction which switches lights fast, like a small T-junction out of town. It would help to have a railing or a power supply box to use as a makeshift tripod. Better still, zoom in on a traffic light for artistic effect.
Gee, do you think we should join him? He looks kinda lonely…
Uh dude, I think we should go. There’s a storm brewing.
I took this by moving my camera back at the same rate the bike was moving back in relation to the bus. Of course, if you can get a vehicle that is moving at the same speed, it would be better!
And now, for the Mazda 323 that Mr. Miyagi was going to Zhng!
Wow, Mr. Brown’s Zhng Your Car! show has reached Malaysians, including this one that had a Kuala Lumpur-registered license plate (censored).
I ille… aiya, don’t say illegal lah, I quote the show at 17 minutes 50 seconds:
Johnny: So we go and change the badge for you.
Mr Miyagi: Change to what?
Johnny: Honda lor. Honda 323 lor. Ahh. Don’t worries, people dunno wan. They put the sticker finish already ah, say, “Eh what car that wan ah?” “Oh the logo say ah?” “Oh the badge ah? Honda!”
Mr Miyagi: Ohhh… okay…
Johnny: No need to scared wan. The badge you put already, your car is changed. New car! Zhng your car! Aaah. Hond… Mazda also become Honda.
Gee whiz, I didn’t know you were driving a Honda City, dude, so the gawdy Honda sticker really helps a lot.
Here goes a free-flowing story. (To differentiate who is saying what, what I say will be italicized while what anyone else said will be underlined.)
So it was a Friday night after Tracy‘s gig. I had to pee, so I walked down from Plaza Damas to Desa Sri Hartamas, as Plaza Damas was closed and there were no other toilets around. I did not intend to flash anybody at the playground so I kept on walking.
Since I had a good holding capacity, I reached Coffee Bean and bumped into two dudes I knew. Went to Breakers to pee. Came back out.
“So how come you guys are hanging out here instead of there?” *points to Hartamas Square*
“Oh it’s very crowded man. Plus this place is less noisy.” (Cue thumping music blasting out the balcony of the infamous Soda Club.)
“Hmmm, but the scenery there is better. Here we get the Soda crowd… it doesn’t feel like the Hartamas of before, y’know what I mean?”
“Yeah but here you pay a bit more for the quiet.”
“Hmm yes, but I think I’ll head over to Hartamas Square and see if I bump into anybody. I almost always do! There are always a few regulars there… plus, the international school chicks!”
“Well fine then, leave us then. Don’t blame us if you don’t bump into anybody.”
And so, I walked to Hartamas Square, and sure enough, the first table I see had two familiar faces! (And a hot chick!)
“HAYYY ALBERT!”
“Dude! I see you every time! I saw you here yesterday, and here you are again…” (I came the day before for Alda‘s Low End Assasins gig.)
I told him how my other friends said I wouldn’t bump into anybody, and he forced me to sit down instead of surveying how likely I was to bump into more people. I was introduced to the chick. YAY!
They were smoking shisha, and I took the oppurtunity to sample it, repeatedly. The shisha shop dude then came over, saying how he could blow shisha smoke into a bottle and change its color.
I whipped out my digital camera to take a picture of the yellowed bottle.
The guy to my right went, “Cool! A digital camera! Can I see it?” I then passed it to him.
The chick went, “Wow, you carry a digital camera around wherever you go?” “Yeah I do!” “Cool!”
The guy fiddled around with my camera and asked, “Dude, does this have shutter speed?” I said yes, and showed him that it was the Tv mode on the dial.
He then took pictures of everybody smoking shisha, YAY!
Now you may wonder why I would be overjoyed. Simple! He saved me the trouble of finding an excuse to make the chick do something photo-worthy with the shisha. (Of course, all I wanted was a picture of her, shisha or not.) Inside, I was thinking, “YAY thank you for taking pictures of her, with flash even!” Since he knew her, it wouldn’t be so awkward.
My friends from Coffee Bean passed by. I went, “Wassap! What did I tell you? What did I tell you, huh? You said I wouldn’t bump into anybody! Haha!”
She then looked at the pictures. All this while, I didn’t, playing it cool. We then played foosball at Breakers till they closed the coin change counter, and we all went home.
It wasn’t until I reached home that I realized I should’ve checked the pictures.
Dammit! He set it to night scene, which meant a flash, followed by a show exposure. In normal mode with flash, it would be clear. Damn you, you half-white French-speaking shisha-smoking boy!
That is all for the free flowing story.
Once again, yet another photography experiment. This time: What is the aperture range of a human eye?
I took the average naked human eye, without any contact lenses, perfect 20/20 vision. Aye, it was I!
Left: In the darkness, my iris opened, making my pupil wider. I flashed to take a picture. The aperture was calculated by measuring the diameter of my iris (109 pixels on the original image) and the diameter of my pupil (63 pixels). 109 divided by 63 gave an aperture of F1.73.
Right: I pointed a table lamp at my face and took a picture without flash. This was F4.48. Thus, I could conclude that my range was approximately 3 stops.
What about shutter speed? It is said that humans can only really distinguish up to 30 frames per second.