Author Archives: 2konbla

The Answer To Life Is 43

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So I got myself the little brother to the Sony HVL-F58AM flash – the new Sony HVL-F43AM flash! It has the same Quick Shift Bounce mechanism, so you don’t have to press any buttons to rotate the flash head from landscape to portrait, from macro to rear bounce, etc.

The button layout is identical, with the only difference being the On/Off switch.

It dishes out a Guide Number of 43 meters at F1.0, ISO100, with the flash zoom head set to 105mm.

This is less than the F58AM, which does a Guide Number of 58 meters at F1.0, ISO100, with the flash zoom head set to 105mm.

The F43AM has the full capability of the F58AM as far as wireless control is concerned – it can be in the RMT2 off-camera group, where the F42 could not, and it can be in Channel 3 and 4, where the F42 could not.

It can even control off-camera flashes, when on the A700, A850 and A900! It has both CTRL+/CTRL1 (3-group ratio wireless) and CTRL/CTRL2 (2-group ratio wireless).

Just like the F58AM, it can trigger the HVL-F56AM and HVL-F36AM, but only when using CTRL/CTRL2 mode.

All Sony Alphas that have a pop-up flash can trigger off-camera Sony flashes using the CTRL/CTRL2 mode. As for Sony Alphas that do not have a pop-up flash, like the A850 and A900, the F20AM can be attached to trigger off-camera Sony flashes.


Comparison of the pouches. The F43AM’s pouch is smaller, obviously! Also, the F43AM can fit in the F58AM flash loosely but the F58AM cannot fit in the F43AM pouch unless you leave it unzipped (bottom-left picture).


The F43AM and F58AM both have the same foldable flash stand. They both do macro (10 degrees down) and rear bounce (150 degrees up).

Two things that are missing from the F43AM, compared to the F58AM, are the external battery power socket (for the FA-EB1AM 6 AA battery pack) and the Minolta/Sony flash sync port. I don’t use either of these so it’s not a big deal.


The flash foot appears to be the same as the F58’s, so spare parts should come quickly, should you accidentally break the flash foot. It happens!


Let’s zoom in on the bottom-right picture! The F43AM adds a 9th custom function – the ability to set manual power in either 0.3 or 0.5 EV steps.


The F43AM also has a built-in bounce card and wide-angle panel diffuser. The serial number of the flash is stuck on the other way on the F43AM.


Top-left – the HVL-F56AM next to the HVL-F43AM. I don’t have a HVL-F42AM to compare it to, though.
Top-right: Despite the F43AM being able to throttle down to a lower 1/128 manual power, it doesn’t count any higher than 100 times at 100 Hertz when in multi-flash mode.

In the bottom pictures, the F43AM is set to 1/128 +0.3 manual power. This is the same as the F43AM set to 1/64 -0.7 manual power – it’s just whether you pressed up from 1/128 or down from 1/64 that shows a positive or negative number.

Oh, and the F43AM is 340 grams without batteries, 100 grams lighter than the F58AM at 440 grams without batteries. It is a lot more balanced on the Sony Alpha 55! Heck, should anything happen to my F58AM, I would buy a F43AM to replace it. It is priced exactly the same as the F42AM that it replaces!

Edited 28th May 2011, 3:41PM +800 GMT to add:

Definition of:

Trigger off-camera: To send an encoded pulse of light via a mounted flash or pop-up flash, to an off-camera flash that understands this signal. This does not include radio triggers in the equation.

CTRL+, also known as CTRL1: The wireless signal sent by the F43 and F58, which supports the ability to set the power for 3 groups – CTRL (the flash on camera itself), RMT (the first off-camera group) and RMT2 (the second off-camera group). The F42 can be set to be in the RMT group but not the RMT2 group. The F43 and F58 can be set to be in either the RMT or RMT2 group.

Note that the F36 and F56 do not support this protocol and will not flash.

Off-camera flashes that support CTRL+/CTRL1: F42, F43, F58
On-camera flashes that can send CTRL+/CTRL1: F43, F58

CTRL, also known as CTRL2: The older wireless signal sent by all Sony Alpha pop-up flashes. The F20, F43 and F58 can be mounted on the A850 and A900 to send the CTRL/CTRL2 signal, as well. The A700 can use the F43 and F58 on camera to send a CTRL1 signal, but not the CTRL2 signal.

Off-camera flashes that support CTRL/CTRL2: F36, F42, F43, F56, F58
On-camera flashes that can send CTRL/CTRL2 on the A850 and A900: F20, F43, F58

Sorted by body:

NEX-3, NEX5

– Does not support the Sony wireless protocol at all at the moment.

A100, A200, A230, A290, A300, A330, A350, A380, A390, A450, A500, A550, A560, A580, A33, A55

– Can only use the pop-up flash to trigger off-camera: F36, F42, F43, F56, F58.

– Cannot use the F20, F36, F42, F43, F56, F58 when mounted on camera, to trigger off-camera Sony flashes.

A700

– Can use the pop-up flash to trigger off-camera: F36, F42, F43, F56, F58.

– Can use the F43 and F58 when set to CTRL+/CTRL1 (3-group wireless – CTRL, RMT, RMT2) to trigger the F42, F43 and F58.

– Cannot use the F20 to trigger off-camera flashes namely the F36, F42, F43, F56 and F58.

– Cannot use the F43 or F58 to trigger off-camera flashes in the CTRL/CTRL2 mode.

A850, A900

– Has no pop-up flash.

– Can use the F43 and F58 to trigger off-camera flashes that understand CTRL+/CTRL1 to trigger the F42, F43 and F58.

– Can use the F20 to trigger off-camera flashes that understand CTRL/CTRL2 namely the F36, F42, F43, F56 and F58.

– Can use the F43 or F58 to trigger off-camera flashes that understand CTRL/CTRL2 namely the F36, F42, F43, F56 and F58.

Edited 29th May 2011, 11:22PM +800 GMT:

Ken asked if the F43 has the same bug with the A55 and F58 where, when in Manual Power and the A55 is in Manual Exposure, you turn the A55 off and on, and the F58 resets to TTL power. Same goes when the A55 goes into standby and you half-press to turn it back on.

I am glad to announce that the F43 stays in Manual Power whether from standby or off/on!

Edited 2nd June 2011, 2:13AM +800 GMT:


The F58 at 1/2 power on the left; the F43 at 1/1 power on the right. 24mm F8 1/4000s ISO100 with HSS on, on the A55. As you can see, the F58 is indeed 1 stop more powerful than the F43, and also that they have not fixed the A55 underexposing when in HSS (by perhaps putting a patch on the F43?)


About dust and splashes.


The only obvious difference is in the battery door, where there is rubber sealing. You can’t tell if the rest is sealed better, or not.

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Fifty Eight Is Great

Al Do Be Reviewer

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In the interest of full disclosure, I am part of an Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Reviewer Programme.


(A secret gathering of people in the creative industry. Whoa!)

And so, the contents of my blog may be featuring content that is related to Adobe products. However this does not mean I am selling out – I still have to use what I have to use when I need to use it. Yes, you can re-tweet that. 😀

Due to the nature of my primary employment as an Android Developer and occasional employment as a freelance photographer (see, photographers are so common you can’t capitalize them) I asked for the Adobe CS 5.5 Web Premium Suite.

This should allow me to compare the Eclipse way to the Adobe Flash Builder via AIR way, to make Android apps. While a quick Googling will show that every Android coder talks Eclipse, a widely used Java IDE, there are some big apps built with Adobe AIR – Tweetdeck being one of them!

A quick headcount shows that Tweetdeck is the most popular client amongst my Android-using Twitter friends. Of course, I could write a Twitter client to count this. Hmmm. Adobe AIR experiment perhaps? (Personally, I love Plume as an Android Twitter client, although I post tweets via my own Twitter client.)

I should also be able to compare DxO Optics Pro Elite 6.5.6 to Adobe Camera Raw – if it is a fair comparison since ACR gets to open RAW files before anyone else.


Straight up, you gotta love graduated filters. DxO doesn’t have this. I end up doing the gradient fills in Photoshop before adding my watermark.


Representatives from Adobe, like Vicky Skipp (and the very knowledgeable product specialist – sorry dude I can’t remember if your name was Raj – who ran through the cool new features of CS 5.5).

One of the directions that CS 5.5 was going, was towards making 3D content easy (Photoshop CS 5.5 has a dedicated 3D menu!)

Note the extreme fill light used on this. This was one exposure pulled from the RAW file on the Sony NEX-5 with 16mm F2.8 pancake.


The other much bigger direction was towards the post-PC scene. Dreamweaver and Flash Builder all had various, easy ways to export to Android and iOS (with the preset screen sizes built in.)

The other interesting thing is how I corrected the perspective distortion so it looks like I was sitting right in front of the screen! This picture is actually shot from the same position as the picture above it. I just pulled the distortion bars in Adobe Camera Raw. It seemed a lot easier than when I had to skew corners in Photoshop. Much, much easier.

DxO lets you click on all 4 corners and it straightens it automatically. However it didn’t always look natural. I’d say it would be a tie here.


Automatic per-lens correction, once the unique selling point of DxO.

Straight lines for the breakout session – though I didn’t get to get a hold of the Adobe representatives to ask them if they would ever make a PDF library for Android that was as fast as their reader. I suspect JNI is at work as the Java-based implementations are a lot slower in decoding PDFs.

Oh and yes, I haven’t updated in almost a month – apologies! I have been stuck in the office even on weekends for a big project and for me to learn to leap the big hurdle that is Java’s OutOfMemoryError. In layman’s terms:

How do you put a giraffe in a fridge?

You open the door and put the giraffe inside.

How do you put an elephant in a fridge?

You open the door and put the elephant inside? No sir.

You open the door, take the giraffe out, and put the elephant inside.

How do you put a giraffe in a fridge?

You open the door, take the elephant out, and put the giraffe inside? Yeah but the giraffe won’t go in. Why?

The elephant took a poop in the fridge.

And that is the basic premise of Java and learning how to handle your first OutOfMemoryError. Figure out if the elephant gave birth or took a dump and clean it up before putting the giraffe in.

Let’s see how Adobe Flash Builder does with a similiar project – albeit in my free(er) time.

Az Samad, One Lick Less

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20th December 2010: Moonshine presents Az Samad and One Lick Less (Julien Bansilhon) live at No Black Tie.


This is Az.


He normally slaps, scratches and knocks his guitar, but he can’t do so on one of these. One of Malaysia’s few accomplished fingerstyle guitarists!


Once in a while though he will have a haram note (shown above) followed by a legit in-scale save note (shown below). 😀


There was also One Lick Less, who did some serious folk…


…and then he brought out his lap steel guitar! That was the first time I had seen one. And then he proceeded to play the sweetest slide guitar ever. Sweet but in a bitter emotional way.


A metal slide, much too big for one finger!

Realize, The Launching

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Reza Salleh launched his debut album, Realize, on the 26th of November 2010, at one of the early Moonshine: A Homemade Acoustic Show venues – The Apartment Downtown, KLCC.


Narmi starts the show.


First time I’d ever seen an electric guitar at The Apartment Downtown!


Pedal set! Okay so not the first time I’d seen this here.


The stage was decorated with Reza’s colorful photos.


This time around, I did a fair bit more documentary work – shooting who was there that night, when the other photographers were pointed at the stage. Hello orang Astro!


Jia Wei.


Cheng Vei, orang Astro jugak.


A wide shot. I brought only my NEX-5 with 16mm F2.8 pancake and the Opteka 85mm F1.4, and that was enough.


Where’s Wally?

I had never seen The Apartment Downtown so crowded! This was an amazing sight indeed.


Admittedly, a still audience is much easier to take than a moving musician, especially in low light.


Cool shirt bro!


KLue people.


Standing people.


Reza starting a joke.


Tablas meant the earthy world music of…


Asmidar!

Realized anything about the background?


What, ah? Xtal asks. Why Xtal? You aren’t even black.


Liy to the Fiz. Liyana Fizi!


More F1.4 ISO3200 goodness.


David Knight and his magic guitar and pedals bring you into another dimension, in a far more comfortable way than Radiohead would.


Yes, hypnotizing indeed.

Unfortunately, I had to run, as I had to wake up at 4:30am the next day to shoot a wedding…


Of course, I did not forget to buy his album. 😀 Spot my mention!

Moonshine Turns 5

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Moonshine: A Homemade Music Show had its 5th Anniversary on the 25th of November 2010. Here’s Narmi, punk rock drummer turned sensitive guitar crooner, flanked by Jeremy and Izaad.


Asmidar, who is out of this world! She goes all worldly and fusion on us. And yet despite the eccentricity there is a danceable poppiness and a earthly vibe from her music.


Figure Of Speech, rapper who goes straight to the source and hits you with a deep line. One in the political commentary lane, just like his hero, Gil Scott Heron.


All you other rappers out there better know who Gil is – a black guy who just read poetry over music, and that became rap as we know it. He was the Godfather of Rap.


I’d met him earlier, where he was in talks in a collaboration with a certain sweetheart of the local music scene. I can’t wait!


Mia Palencia the shortly returning songbird! There is something about her voice that makes her distinct, and soothing while still having a certain edge.


I seem to be in the habit of taking pictures of performers’ feet.


In case you’ve ever wondered what Laundry Bar looks like, here it is. I brought my Sigma 12-24mm F4.5-5.6 EX DG for the first time to a gig!


Reza Salleh, Moonshine organizer, takes the stage.


Hanafi rocking again with a Fender Jaguar, this time in black.


Reza was to launch his album the next day. As I tend to blog in chronological order where it comes to gigs, you’ll know what to expect next.


Melina on bass.


From the back. Hello Steph on drums!


Then came a shiny cocoon.


It wasn’t Jay Kay, it was Sharon… O.


She, Melina and Steph make the Yeah Yeah Yeahs tribute band, Hamsterdamnaged.


Now this is what we call a rock show!


Man she was bobbing all over stage that I had to use the flash.


Yeah, there’s a lot of Karen O in her!


Thundercats!


I didn’t get her name, but she was singing on stage with Auburn.


Aidil rips up a very heavy, driven bass. I have to say, I like this new sound!


Steph on drums again. Tak pancit ker? (Won’t you be exhausted flat?)


And of course, Izuan, main man.


Awanband.


Indie rock, in case you can’t tell from their dressing.

Pastblaster

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Shots from the past, past enough that I know that they shouldn’t be there anymore. Which is the beauty of them old photos – something might be gone.

I remember as a kid going for Grade 1 organ lessons at Yamaha Music Section 19 and it ended there. Primary school compulsory music education and that was it – I’ve been self-taught as far as musical theory goes. Go on, ask me to form a chord not exceeding 7 letters in length!


City Square/Plaza Yow Chuan (now demolished), home to a cool basement Toys R Us and a cool top floor model shop. Here they had a clearance sale on organs.


The old colors of Midvalley Megamall. It is now painted white.


Okay, a far more recent one, but I regret not noting the pun immediately and framing my camera just a bit lower!


Masjid Jamek RapidKL LRT interchange station. Old-timers know it as the Masjid Jamek STAR LRT station, not the Masjid Jamek RapidKL Ampang line station.


Somewhere in Pavilion, I think. Then again, this might still be there.


The ever-changing graffiti of the Klang river, below the Pasar Seni PUTRA LRT station. There I go again.


Simon Yam does not know how to use the vertical grip. 😀


Bukit Jalil. The drapery falls.


Malaysian Thousand Brands – what an epic fail. It had prime position next to the KLCC PUTRA LRT station, and yet it closed down. Same went for the one at Masjid Jamek and Sungei Wang. All at high traffic places. All selling only Malaysian brands with very limited kosher Halal Coca Cola-type drinks. Like Coca Cola isn’t halal already.

Sometimes I wonder how true these allegations are, that we receive in emails. Or are these allegations made up by competitors so we buy the Halal Coca Cola (whatever it is called) instead?


This mural might be modified already. I haven’t been to Bukit Kiara since.


Fullhouse in NZX, a little open-air complex with food and boutiques. The location was bad and it was hard to find. So everything quite failed, with this being the only reason to go there.


Pity though, it was pretty!


Fortunately they have moved but I have not been to their other outlets.


The corner of Solaris Dutamas, from Menara Kenchana Petroleum’s lift lobby. Something big is coming.


Hartamas Square! Oh one place I spent many wasted nights of youth at. I will remember the wood-crusted pizza (which lived on across the street, at Pizza Bravia.) I will remember the huge Chinese Tea for RM2.00 (when every other drink costed more and was tiny!) I remember the shisha, the white chicks, bumping into shitloads of random people, hanging out there after gigs at Jamasia and Groove Junction, hanging out there after getting a lift from somebody to here (so I could take a cab home.)


The lesser half. Yeah.

I always gave it love, though – I’d always walk through this section to go to the toilet at the back.


And now, all of it, wiped out, including Brewball, another place for misspent youth, to build a big police station. Desa Sri Hartamas was never the same after that.

Creatures

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Now, from an old series of shots featuring animals. Here’s a not-so-dead crow.


A bee. Extreme crop and minor resizing.


A cow. How did she get here? And why do cows have breasts near their back/bottom instead of at their chest?


An industrial view of the city.


‘sup dog.


105mm F22 on the A700, uncropped. I think I was using a +4 closeup filter for this.


Homeless.


Unfortunate bee.


Zeiss 135mm F1.8 through a Cokin split-field closeup filter, if I remember correctly.


50mm F1.4, at F1.4, cropped.


Hello there let me in!


Bug loves his stalk.


A tight crop from the A700 and Minolta 35mm F1.4 at F4.5.


Please pardon me if my pictures make you feel like stamping your feet. That was my intention. 😀


Zeiss 135mm and a minor crop.


From the same series.


Crazy bird, at Fullhouse NZX!


“Oh c’mon Maurice c’mon back here.”

Shapes And Colors

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Once in a while, I pull out a folder full of pictures I see fit a theme. Today’s theme – shapes and colors!


Orientation screws with you.


Of course, this isn’t so much in the category as much as it is a snarky street photo. 😀


What’s the opposite of overleaf?


Dependencies, chains, linked references. With the fixed railing at the very front, being the dominator object. Will the gods of memory profiling enlighten me?


The poor man’s fisheye.

Interestingly, my Peleng 8mm F3.5 M42 circular fisheye was made in Belarus – that was the hardest hit by the Chernobyl nuclear accident.


Rain, slow-mo.


Rainbow umbrella, to shield oneself from rainbows.


Tall door.


Failed fireball. The bokeh is dirty on this because of the dirty rear element on my Minolta 50mm F1.4 Original.


Friday, Friday!


Moonday.


The Sphere. Yes the evening light was that beautiful!


Dull icky overcast light. The road goes on and on.


That way.


This particular spot in Low Yat Plaza had a high occupant turnover.


So maybe this punchy color has all been brought on by my day job – I was exposed to some brilliant photographs that definitely were not Kodaks, but were shot on film nevertheless. The greens, they were so vibrant, yet so distinct. Here I admire the distinction between the yellow paint and the yellow rope.


I have a fetish for photographing umbras and penumbras. Bokeh shadows!


Like, lots of memory.


Vignetting all natural.

Randowm

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And now, for some desktop clearance – pictures that have been on my desktop for a while! Here’s KJ at ISO6400.


Pole position.


Rusty.


Proof that the Sony A55 does gain up when the pop-up flash is used (or an external flash, for that matter, provided it is natively speaking the Sony TTL code.)

If the pop-up flash was not raised, the flash adapter you see will not tell the A55 that there is a flash mounted, so the EVF/LCD screen will be dark at F22 ISO100 1/200s indoors.


The elusive A560!


Auto HDR for the win.


More Auto HDR for the win. This time I combined the HDR version with the original (Auto HDR on the NEX-3/5 onwards gives you 2 images.) Auto HDR usually results in moving objects having ghosts – so I used the original and overlaid where possible i.e. the walking men and car.


A concept – an easy way to carry two cameras, via a gadget with 2 tripod heads on each end! The flash would be on a bicycle helmet and intercept the flash signal from the camera.


This is the Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 DT, stripped down, to the gear-stripped part. This gear track is made of plastic and prone to stripping. Note the focus distance brush on the left – that touches the focus distance strips and helps the lens figure out how close we’re focusing.


I’ll probably post more pictures of it getting stripped down, when I have the time to reassemble it back… in the meantime, it makes a nifty pen holder.

Also, thanks to linkinstreet for his contribution to science!


I also offered to transfer the mount over to his Sigma 28-80mm F3.5-5.6 (on the right) – however, the aperture prong was at a different place and was at a different diameter. The hole at the top of both mounts is for the screw-drive.


The Olympus OM to Sony E-mount adapter! My colleague’s Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm F1.4 features in this picture.


One more, from the close-focusing Sony Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 24mm F2.0 ZA SSM.


ZTE 7″ Android tablet, like a baws!


The wonders of the HTC Internet Browser on Android – it word-wraps anything you pinch-zoom into! This feature also exists on Motorola’s implementation of the browser on Android phones.

The default behavior is that you can double-tap to zoom onto text, but it doesn’t word-wrap – it just tries to fill the screen. This means you get little magnification if the website is designed to have a wide column of text. If you pinch-zoom that, it doesn’t word-wrap, and you end up scrolling left and right, like a baws… NOT!


At the Sony Alpha Convention 2011, there were more Android users than usual. Seems like we don’t mind buying stuff for features alone instead of “I want to buy an iPhone because all my friends have one” or “I want to buy a Canon/Nikon because all my friends have one”.

Funny how I would walk around and discover so many more people than I thought were on Android phones! I was talking to Iqbal about my theme (above) and how I couldn’t figure out how to align them in a way that was pretty. Then the guy I was talking to earlier, pulled out his Samsung Galaxy S and introduced me to his custom launcher, then the guy to his left pulled out his HTC Desire HD, and Din went “alaaa I just have a Nokia N95…”. Syazwan then went “isshh all you Android fenbuis!” but we laughed because we knew he had a HTC Desire HD. 😀


I eventually met smashpOp and asked for his expert designer advice. So he resized the SiMi Clock widget to overlap on the Smooth Calendar widget. The Widgetsoid widget is on top. In order to have resizable widgets I’d have to pay for Launcher Pro Plus, which I did. Launcher Pro (free) already lets you define the number of rows and columns on the home screens (as well as how many home screens you have) as well as customize the bottom row of icons.


A picture I shot for an article I wrote about shutter speeds. Looks like a studio shot from a dSLR eh? But this was shot with a Canon Powershot A520!


Birds of a feather.


Finally, we end with KJ again, this time getting gaytrolled! 😀

Comida – I Like It!

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29th October 2010 – the launch of Comida (The Way We Like It), a new restaurant at D2-G3-1 Solaris Dutamas, 1 Jalan Dutamas 1, 50480, Kuala Lumpur. Which is really, down from my office!


All shots with the Sigma 12-24mm F4.5-5.6 EX DG on the A900, hence the ultra-wide rectilinear goodness.


Smack in front of a Ferrari.


Starters!


Sufiz, Master Chef/Director.


Mooky (left), emcee, and Basil Joseph (middle), Owner/Director. Met a load of familiar faces that night!


Long time no see DJ Nas-T!


Luna Skye and her half-winged friend!


Giant pizza eating competition!


Three teams with two people each.


Almost done!


Joe Flizzow, yo.


Allison and me!


I don’t remember his name but I know he be playing guitar for…


Russell Curtis!


Allison again I must thank you, and apologies for the late post!


Anda masih hip hop?


Prema Yin the rockstar has rockstar-colored hair!


Didn’t have to back up much for this shot!


Liyana carries her hat in style.


So how was the food?

Well, I do come by for lunch sometimes, and their burgers are HUGE! For the affordable price you pay you get stuffed and fall into a food coma an hour later. I’d only go if I was needing an insane amount of beef patty. Which reminds me – I should take a picture of that burger next time.