Author Archives: 2konbla

Rock The World 11: The Crowd

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Rock The World 11, 10th December 2011, back at the perennial venue – Merdeka Stadium!


Before we cut to the bands, however, here are some pictures of the crowd!


There was a stage outside the stadium, with a smaller crowd and some indie bands.


The performances took a break for some drifting action! Yes she is a champ.


There was also a graffiti area where cars would be sprayed, as well as a Volkswagen Beetle gathering. You know, the real Bumblebee.


I got to familiarize myself with the Samyang 35mm F1.4 that I just got, at that time.


Of course, I darkened the midtones a bit, to give the car its proper black sheen.


Later at night…


Spotted on a Beetle.


In between the outdoor car park and the stadium itself was a walkway, where I saw this. I guess the spirit of Merdeka Stadium believes this, too.


On stage, TuneTalk’s Mat Tune mascot, rocking out! Very catchy tune, indeed.


It was also a lunar eclipse that night, not that anybody cared.


The world’s biggest SIM-card-shaped balloon.


Man, why do people who go on stage during Rock The World to play the Guitar Hero challenge always suck? It seems odd at a rock concert. Especially so when hipsters at Urbanscapes are a lot better at Guitar Hero (better than me, even!) By better, I mean, a gripping head-to-head challenge where we alternate between 1st and 2nd a lot in one song, and the audience is not sure who to bet on! One where both players play Hard difficulty, but in fact play Expert casually at home!

Of course, that is emcee Fadhil on stage – very odd that this iteration didn’t have classic emcee Harooooon!

SmooTF!

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I finally got the grand master of bokeh – the Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 Smooth Transition Focus! This is the undisputed king of rendering a smooth, clean and undistracting out-of-focus area.


It brings my number of primes to 8! Left to right: Peleng 8mm F3.5 M42 circular fisheye, Vivitar 24mm F2.0 OM-mount, Sony Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 24mm F2.0 ZA SSM, Samyang 35mm F1.4 ED AS UMC, Minolta 50mm F1.4 Original, Opteka 85mm F1.4, Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 Smooth Transition Focus, Sony Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm F1.8 ZA.


And, from above, left to right, row by row: Peleng 8mm F3.5 M42 circular fisheye, Opteka 85mm F1.4, Minolta 50mm F1.4 Original, Sony Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm F1.8 ZA, Samyang 35mm F1.4 ED AS UMC, Vivitar 24mm F2.0 OM-mount, Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 Smooth Transition Focus, Sony Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 24mm F2.0 ZA SSM.


The STF is physically a 135mm F2.8 lens, but because of the apodization filter inside that darkens the periphery of the lens, it effectively lets in as much light as a F4.5 lens. Hence the T4.5 suffix (T for effective light Transmission).

Also, the lens is manual focus only – which makes it the only Minolta/Sony A-mount lens that is manual focus. The reason why is because the apodization filter causes a graduation coming from opposite ends, making it impossible for phase-detect AF to work. I’ve explained this in another blog post.

You can tell immediately that the lens is the STF from the back, from the cross-shaped AF screw drive screw (it stops the AF screw drive from turning) and only 5 pins.

The only Sony lenses with 5 pins are:
1) Sony 16mm F2.8 Diagonal Fisheye
2) Sony 20mm F2.8
3) Sony 28mm F2.8
4) Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 Smooth Transition Focus
5) Sony 500mm F8 Reflex

There shouldn’t be any reason why any of these lenses don’t get a Distance Integration chip, other than Sony not having the resources or time to migrate them from their Minolta versions.

Interestingly, SSM lenses have a flat screw with a small circle inside, although its purpose is the same – to stop the AF screw drive from turning.

This lens is on the end of every A-mount user’s wishlist – meaning you’d get every other lens you wanted, before this one. It is such a luxury (not that it is expensive) but it is such an optional want-to-have instead of a must-have. It doesn’t help that it’s manual-focus only and doesn’t transmit much. I wonder if they could’ve made a 85mm F1.4 with the same apodization filter, which would bring it down to 85mm F1.4/T2.2!


Normal lenses will draw out-of-focus areas with a hard, solid brush (quite like the Photoshop screenshot on the left.) The STF, however, paints out-of-focus areas with a soft, shaded brush (on the right.)


So here’s one from the Carl Zeiss 135mm F1.8, set to F2.8, on the A900…


…and one from the Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 Smooth Transition Focus, set to F2.8/T4.5, on the A900. The difference in rendition should be obvious!

You might also notice that the STF gives a tighter angle-of-view – this is because it extends when focusing, while the Carl Zeiss 135mm F1.8 has an internal focus mechanism. Internal focus mechanisms tend to make the angle-of-view wider as it focuses closer – thus the only time the Carl Zeiss 135mm F1.8 is truly 135mm is when it is focused at infinity.

It focuses to 87cm close with a maximum magnification of 1:4x – interestingly, the Carl Zeiss 135mm F1.8 also does a maximum magnification of 1:4x, but when focused to 72cm close (obviously, due to the wider angle-of-view.)

The STF also uniquely has 2 sets of aperture blades – it uses the set of 10 blades in manual aperture control mode, from T4.5 to T6.7 (stepless, but with clicks), or the set of 9 blades when set to A (auto). However, I have not tested this extensively as I have had no reason to stop down the lens!


Meanwhile, this is from the Carl Zeiss 135mm F1.8 at F1.8. I think you should be able to tell the difference between the STF and any other lens by now.


The background just melts into creamy goodness here.


You can try to put a distracting background, and it smoothens out nevertheless!


How about some harsh sunlight?


Magic hour. Here, the shading of the out-of-focus highlights is obvious. Also, the lens is remarkably free of cats-eye bokeh – where out-of-focus areas on the side become cats-eye shaped instead of perfectly round circles. This might be because the lens is much bigger in diameter compared to a regular 135mm F2.8.


Another street shot. Many would say that T4.5 is unliveable but I would not fear high ISO and a competent RAW processor!


I have to admit, I haven’t been shooting much street photography with a telephoto.


In the right kind of light, it can still get by!


Another indoor shot.


I have always had a shot like this in my mind – I just need to find more appropriate locations.


And then, I took it out in bright daylight…


Congratulations Syazwan and Nadiah!


Unfortunately, as the bush on the right was at the same distance to me as they were, it was in sharp focus. Photoshop CS5.5’s Content-Aware Fill is magical, yes, but it didn’t work so well for this!


This would be the day debut of this lens.


The classic Minolta color is all there.


Note how the sky peeking through the trees is not distracting.


By distracting, I mean like this – this was shot with a Minolta 50mm F1.7. So you see what I mean by bad bokeh? That sharp outline, around out-of-focus highlights, is called brightline bokeh.

Stringing Along

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How much slower is a Java String object comparison, compared to a primitive int comparison? I was curious, so I made a little Android app to compare an array of integers and Strings 10 million times each.

package test.benchstring;


import java.util.Random;


import android.app.Activity;

import android.os.Bundle;

import android.util.Log;


public class BenchStringActivity extends Activity {

	int MAX = 10000000;

	int[] arrayInt = {0

It’s The End Of The World, Boom!

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The occasional theater goer such as myself would often delight in plays that unravel slowly and fill the audience in with clues to what is happening. A good play surprises the audience by having them assume something and then break that assumption later.

boom, written by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, is such a play. Add a lot of humor, and you have this, a very entertaining piece! It’s about Jules (Jon Chew), an archetypal nerdy marine biologist who posts an ad on Craigslist – “sex to change the course of the world”. This ad lures Jo (Sharon Lam), a feisty, sex-charged journalism student with a sailor’s mouth. Comets hit the planet, destroying everything and everyone except them (and a fishtank) because they are safe in a bunker.

What is there left to do, but to re-populate the human race?

Easier said than done, since these two are polar opposites, and Jules is possibly gay due to his “non-random erections on exposure to members of the same sex”. Jon is hilarious in his role here, as an absorbed scientist, much like Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory.

There is moderate wit and punnery, a lot of cursing (to comedic effect) and there are sexual scenes. This is where theater uses self-censorship to build mystery and a puzzle (as opposed to TV or cinema where a lot more is laid out to the viewer… and censorship is applied externally.)

BB Ostella Adam plays Barbara, a narrator who breaks the fourth wall by talking to the audience, and provides very subtle clues as the play progresses. She often defuses the tension by pausing the scene and saying something random, with great comedic effect.

The humor is accessible, and the plot/puzzle factor clever enough for a casual night out. A good play to bring a date to! I don’t know really what else I can say, without spoiling it for the audience, but I’d highly recommend you watch this.

It is no wonder then, that this was America’s most produced play in 2009-2010. The characters still identify themselves as being from states in the US of A (and the Craigslist reference), though even if they localized it, it wouldn’t have made any difference to the story.

Of course, there are other plays about the end of the world – I remember Samuel Beckett’s Endgame – what an overwrought, overserious, draggy play that was.

Anyway! Here’s the official site.

What: boom
Where: Pentas 2, KL Performing Arts Centre
When:
18, 21-25 February 2012 – 8:30pm
19, 26 February 2012 – 3pm
How Much: RM35 (Concession at RM23 for Students, Disabled, TAS cardholders and UNHCR cardholders)
Who: Sharon Lam, Jon Chew, BB Ostella Adam

klpac Box Office: +603 4047 9000
Online Ticketing: http://www.ilassotickets.com/events.php?event=102

Fairly PC

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Pictures from the PC Fair 2011, 3rd December 2011, at the KLCC Convention Center!


Here’s Monique.


Here’s what you can do with 3 flat-screen monitors, turned sideways.


Garmin girls, because you can get lost in their eyes.


All shots so far with the Opteka 85mm F1.4.


In between halls.


Deck the halls… with the wrong season.


The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1″ and Samsung Galaxy Note.


The Samsung NX200. Nice to see others with a similiar flash albeit one that cannot bounce up, sadly!


I am jealous of her shirt. It was distributed to Samsung employees only.


Surprise, a budget Android Honeycomb tablet!


The Olympus Micro-Four Thirds represent.


The wider-angle shots were using either the Sony Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* 24-70mm F2.8 ZA SSM or the Sony Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 24mm F2.0 ZA SSM. However, this shot has a telephoto perspective (people in the background are bigger) as it was from the 85mm on the Sony Alpha SLT-A77.


Somehow, toy shops were also present.


Lovely… bokeh.


Samsung always has a knack.


The Asus Zenbook!


What a slim beauty.


Cool gadget – a clip-on monitor!


And that ends this series.

L3D

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I have held off buying an LCD or LED monitor for the longest time – it was only because my IBM P202, that had served me well, died when I went out for dinner. RIP IBM P202, 1999 to 1-Feb-2012. (Though I only got it on the 17th of September 2006 – nevertheless, 13 year old monitor, whoa!)

And so, I decided to skip LCDs, plain LEDs for… the LG D2342P 23″ Passive 3D LED monitor! It was a hefty sum of RM999, but well worth it.


If you’re wondering why the picture looks shaky and doubled, that’s because the D2342P is in 3D mode, with vertically interlaced 3D mode. This means that alternating horizontal lines are only seen by one eye. The 3D glasses are passive, meaning that they are not powered by batteries, and do not close on alternating frames (as active 3D glasses do – plus they depend on an invisible timing pulse sent by the monitor.) The glasses are also cheaper because of this!

The screen has a Film Patterned Retarder (FPR) that polarizes alternating horizontal lines differently, and the glasses are also polarized – hence you get two different images.

The only downside is that you lose vertical resolution – instead of the normal 1920×1080 resolution at 60 Hertz, you get 1920×540 resolution at 60 Hertz. Active 3D, meanwhile, requires a doubling of refresh rate to 120 Hertz, and the shutter glasses need to flicker to show an image to only one eye at a time.


Also, losing vertical resolution means you can’t read text easily – so you won’t want to keep wearing the 3D glasses even when 3D is off!

I connected it to my Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5770 via DVI – regretfully I didn’t realize that my display card also had a HDMI output! That said, the D2342P only has one HDMI input, one DVI input and one VGA input, so I used the DVI for the computer, and a HDMI to Mini HDMI Type C cable to connect to my Sony Alpha DSLR-A900, Sony Alpha NEX-5 and Sony Alpha SLT-A77.


Here’s an Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101 connected via HDMI to my monitor. It feels like a life-size rectangular steering wheel! Nicely, audio is also transmitted – though the D2342P doesn’t have built-in speakers, it has a headphone jack for this.

The TF101 uses a Mini HDMI Type C port, though the Transformer Prime (TF201) uses the harder-to-find-cables-for Micro HDMI Type D port (as do the LG Optimus 2X, Acer Iconia Tab A500 and Motorola Xoom.)


Also bundled is Omega Supreme. Nah, kidding. Tridef 3D is included – it includes a viewer that opens videos and pictures and somehow converts them into 3D in real time! Unfortunately, I could not get it to support certain formats e.g. FLV, though it works great with MPO 3D files from my NEX-5/A55/A77 with 3D Sweep Panorama. Also, Direct3D games are supported for 3D conversion, though not OpenGL games like Quake 3, sadly. This is a picture of the screen from Transformers: War For Cybertron.

The 2D to 3D conversion doesn’t get confused and seems to render depth properly, though sometimes there is a bit of a shadow ‘shape’ if you close one eye. You can tweak the intensity of the 3D effect as well as the convergence – though unfortunately, when the video played moves to a different scene, the convergence sometimes changes! So you end up having to use keyboard shortcuts to adjust the convergence again – or by moving back and forward or up and down (this would also fix the convergence.)

As for 2D regular use, the screen does alright – text is legible, and the Film Patterned Retarder isn’t noticeable most of the time with no 3D glasses on. A simple Windows 7 Display Calibration took care of the gamma and white balance, though I feel it’s still a bit bright. Color shifting does happen when moving to the side of the monitor.


Oh, and what the heck can you do with this box? I remember the days when buying a CRT monitor meant that you’d take out the monitor, and put all your stuff inside! You’d get a free, big, and very useful box!

What the heck can I put in this, again?

My first Android app live – DigiTech Patch Viewer!

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(This post was edited 0209 hours 5th March 2012 +0800 GMT for Version 1.1.)

So I’ve finally uploaded my first (fully-completed) Android app to the Android Market!

Available in Android Market
DigiTech Patch Viewer

This lets you open DigiTech RP155, RP250 and RP255 multi-effects patch files using your Android device.

Ever been jamming at a friend’s place, or a studio, and you wanted to dial in that certain tone, but you couldn’t get it right? Then you Googled it on your phone but you find that in order to get the tone, you need to fire up X-Edit on a proper computer or laptop, and connect the RP255 by USB?

My app lets you view the patch – you’ll still have to dial in the settings manually. For convenience, all the settings are arranged as they are on the pedal!

Now it would be awesome to connect the pedal to an Android device via USB, but I don’t have an Android device with USB Host functionality and even then that might be too daunting a task! (I don’t have a Near-Field-Communication-supporting device, either…)

The RP155 and RP250 have beta support as of version 1.1, in the Android Market now. It may not show certain values, so contact me if you find such a patch file.

The RP255 is the only one I have to test all settings with – hit me an email if you’d like to help to test with your other DigiTech RP series multi-effects pedal! Fortunately, the RP presets are all plain, human-readable XML, so it’s quite easy – can’t say the same about other brand patch files.

If you have trouble opening patch files from your stock browser, use Firefox for Android. I found the Samsung Galaxy Note stock browser, for example, will rename any unknown files to *.bin.

In other news, I have a sample patch file – this is my current go-to metal patch, called “TAPMET”. It’s a high-gain balls-out metal patch with an interesting twist – the expression pedal is set to control equalizer mid levels.

TAPMET – click to download!

So if you push the expression pedal down at the heel, you get scooped mids (bass: 0, mid: -12, treble: 0) for some crunchy thrash metal rhythm, and when you push the expression pedal forward at the toe, you get a searing hot tone (bass: 0, mid: 12, treble: 0) for some tasty lead solos!

From various TT sessions in 2011

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The Nikon F3, with the pentaprism removed.


Hairee through the Minolta 100mm F2.8 Macro on the A900.


Digital Life Expo 2011, at KLCc Convention Center, I think.


Another one from the DLE. There really wasn’t much to see, and the title already hints at a convergence.


Fire in the hole!


Another TT, also at KLCC.


This one at A&W PJ – the Sony 50mm F1.4 on the A900.


The classic Minolta look is gotten through this Minolta 85mm F1.4G on the NEX-5.


This is the Super SteadyShot mechanism.


This is a cheapo Fader ND – obviously made of two ND filters screwed together. Uses the same cross polarizer effect I blogged about 6 years ago.


This was shot with the help of Live View.


The 1Nikkor 10-100mm F4.5-5.6 Power Drive ZOOM VR!


Man, the lanyard gets in the way of me scanning her.


The Olympus 45mm F1.8 through an Olympus EP-3. What a lovely little lens!

In Dear

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So a bunch of us went down to Jalan Masjid India to do a street shoot! (I particularly like how there is a sense of depth in this picture.)


Unregular angle.


The trick is to use a wide lens and pretend you’re focusing on something in the distance. I guess the guy wouldn’t know that I was using a 24mm on full-frame.


Crowds are usually fun – ask them who is playing tonight!


Headscarves.


Men with more cloth than women here (thankfully.)


The Opteka 85mm F1.4 on the A900 for awesome separation! Now that I look at this I wonder how it would look stopped down, to show all 3 flows of human traffic.


This, meanwhile, has human traffic 90 degrees off the axis of car traffic.


We reached the familiar ruins of Dang Wangi.


Even more overrun than before, with far more shrubbery.


A less familiar one.


I have no idea what this means.


Then, just nearby, lay a dead bird – already dead when we saw it.


Coincidentally there was a rubber band, almost as if it was a hint of the murder weapon.


After all that, I walked to the monorail station. Standing in the way of traffic helps people ease up to the fact that you’re there, taking a picture of them – don’t go into their space and take their picture – instead, wait for them to enter your space and then take the picture! As far as she knows, she was just getting in the way of my picture. You might as well fake such an expression while waiting for the subject to leave the frame.