Category Archives: Pictures

Abandoned Grounds

Guess what’s wrong with this taxi stand. Yes, that’s Pertama Complex, where I got my Vivitar 2x teleconverter for Olympus Zuiko mount.

The first subject I managed to snap at 1/500th of a second and 420mm at F11, was Grace, using the Olympus OM-2000 with the 2x teleconverter and Olympus Zuiko 70-210mm F4.5-5.6 (effectively a 140-420mm F9-F11.) Interesting what the teleconverter does to bokeh. Even more interesting is how little chromatic aberration there is (I left her shoulder untouched.)

Oh, and the Olympus OM-2000 was loaded with standard Kodak ISO 400 film.

With the Vivitar 24mm F2.0, I could fill up my full frame with 16 floors!

This abandoned place is the Pekeliling flats near the Titiwangsa Monorail (and Titiwangsa STAR LRT.) Reeks of all sorts of smells, but the wind takes it out. Once in a while.

With the same wide lens, my hand kept making a guest appearance. Asyraf disapproves. When manual focus is tack on at F2.0, images just pop!

And now, for digital photography.

Where’s Raymond?

Asyraf, proponent of Nikon’s Creative Lighting System, shooting Kingsley. Spot the slave flasher Xian Jin!

…I don’t think I’d want to take more than 10 minutes to compose the lighting for a shot, though.

Jenifur wonders how to work my infrared-modded Fujifilm Digital Q1 with 2x teleconverter and 70-210mm F4.5-5.6 lens (which gives a 840-2520mm equivalent crop.)

“Ma our apartment has been broken into!”

Xian Jin, shot with the Q1 in infrared. I’m not sure who shot this because I don’t remember shooting it. I reckon it was using the Vivitar 24mm F2.0 lens (144mm equivalent crop).

At this point, you might be wondering – hey, wasn’t the Vivitar 24mm F2.0 on the Olympus OM-2000 film SLR?

Well, the Q1 has a homemade adapter to support Olympus Zuiko lenses. 😀

Grace on the Q1, in infrared.

The ghost of Rames!

“Aiya, don’t flash me anymore lah.” – smashpOp

Kingsley is more than happy to bask in available light.

Rooftop jam.

Grace eyes on, looking rather… pigeonly.

There’s something about Grace.

I now end this second part with film pictures.

What happens when you underexpose, at 1/500th of a second although the meter tells you you should shoot at 1/30th of a second? You can salvage this much detail (after noise reduction!)

smashpOp tells stories. Check out everybody‘s expressions! (Colors retained because there’s something magical about the exposure.)

Hey, that looks like Asyraf’s style! Not exactly rule of thirds. Oh waitaminute, Asyraf did take this shot.

Those of you who were there will probably figure out what is next in this series. Part three, yo. Part one was intentionally devoid of people.

Zoom To 2007

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So smashpOp and I swapped lenses; I borrowed his Sony 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 lens and he borrowed my Minolta 50mm F1.4 and Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 kit lens. 18-200mm lenses are amazing travel companions, despite having dark apertures. It’s a good friend to have on a trip where the sun shines brightly.

I managed to consistently get crisp shots at 1/30th of a second at 200mm (300mm crop equivalent). This translated to over 3.5 stops! As long as the Super Steady Shot indicator went down to 1 (meaning I was steady as well) I was guaranteed a crisp shot. People who do not understand the function of the indicator would probably end up with blur shots and dismiss in-body stabilization on the telephoto end. However, I’m damn sure it works. In fact, I think it’s better at the telephoto end than at the wide end (since getting a 1/2 second shot is more prone to huge body movement than minor tremble.) I’ll write more in detail on my findings later, with shots.

I found a Tamron 70-300mm F4-5.6 lens for Sony Alpha mount at Bintang Maju, Maju Junction for an amazing price of RM657! It also had the brightest aperture at every focal length compared to every other cheap telephoto lens available for the Sony Alpha mount.

Tamron 70-300mm F4-5.6 apertures:
70mm onwards F4.0
135mm onwards F4.5
210mm onwards F5.0
300mm onwards F5.6

It also allowed 1:2 macro, and a switch allowed you to enable macro from 180-300mm. The Sigma’s switch enables macro at 200-300mm only.

Unfortunately, it was plasticky, slow and worse, when I slowly zoomed the lens to see if the aperture would change, it would sometimes disconnect and report an aperture of “—” and a shutter speed of 1/4000! That means the loose lens could cause quite a few blank black shots!

So yeah, Sigma will be my choice for cheap telephoto lens.

And now, guess my latest addition to my Olympus family! (No, it’s not a 50mm F1.4 lens. I wish.)

From left: Olympus Zuiko 70-210mm F4.5-5.6 lens; Vivitar 24mm F2.0 MC lens; Vivitar 2x teleconverter for Olympus Zuiko mount; Olympus Zuiko 35-70mm F3.5-4.8 lens. I bought it from Foto Selangor in Pertama Complex; quite an old-timer shop with a Vivitar 2x teleconverter for Canon FD mount as well!

I could also attach it to my infrared-modded Fujifilm Digital Q1 with my homemade Olympus adapter. When the 70-210mm F4.5-5.6 lens is attached to a 2x teleconverter, it becomes a 140-420mm F9-F11 lens! Of course, with the Q1’s 6x crop factor it would work a 840-2520mm lens.

The 420mm is truly 420mm in perspective. Even when I get a 70-300mm for my Sony A100 (which translates to 105-450mm equivalent crop) I would not get the same perspective as a true 420mm lens would.

The moon, resized (but not cropped)! This was difficult to focus as my homemade Olympus adapter didn’t have the correct distance from the lens to sensor; hence, I had difficulty setting the lens to infinity. I later found out that the shot was at 1/15th of a second (the Q1 has no manual controls other than being able to set the EV compensation to -2.)

My Olympus OM-2000 with Vivitar 2x Olympus Zuiko teleconverter and Olympus Zuiko 70-210mm F4.5-5.6 lens and my Sony A100 with Sony 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 lens.

Shot with the Olympus OM-2000 on the only 24mm lens I have.

The Sony A100 with the Sony 18-200mm at 18mm finally shows some distortion. I found it hard to coax obvious distortion out of this lens too.

Accidental geometry.

Sideways is about right.

Light at the end of the tunnel.

This is the other end of it. An elevator shaft with a pool to catch your fall.

My ball. My awesome ball. (Remember Monster House?)

My painting. My awesome painting.

Look ma no distortion! 24mm using hyperfocal focusing for landscapes. It gives a surreal evenness to focus, with just a bit of uncrispness.

I picked F16, the darkest aperture, then turned the focus from infinity to touch the depth-of-field mark for F16. This means that everything from infinity to somewhere after 2 meters will be in focus, at F16.

Unfortunately, lens makers stopped putting depth-of-field scales on zoom lenses ever since auto-focus was invented, for some reason.

The Eye On Malaysia, shot with the Fujifilm Digital Q1 with 2x teleconverter and Olympus 70-210mm zoomed at 210mm, for 2520mm equivalent crop. Yep, at F11 all the dust on the sensor shows.

Titiwangsa LRT station, shot with the Sony A100 with Minolta 50mm F1.4 lens and Hoya R72 filter. Amazingly, at F2.8, it was quite in focus.

Eye (are) in IR (infrared film is supposed to be noisy as heck, and I kept the noise for this look.) Does this picture look shorter than the previous one? What a strange optical illusion.

KLCC, washed out.

Classic solid rear-wheel-drive Datsun 120Y. Durifto!

Fireworks, And Then Fireworks

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What did I do on December 31st, 2006?

I went to two parties.

One had a view which spanned three fireworks launches, like this one in front of the National Museum.

(Okay, so the same spot was the best; KLCC was too smoky and the other one was quite beyond and not as frequent.)

Tilted sideways. Nothing fancy here because I only brought my little Canon Powershot A520, and it’s not as steady as shooting fireworks with the camera pointed upwards. 🙁

At the second party, already January 1st, 2007, the party had died down, and I sat down on a couch. This chick next to me asked me to sign the guestbook.

She didn’t quite recognize it. “Is it a robot?”

I don’t have to be cool (or uncool) to know it’s definitely not organic.

This Iranian dude came up to her, sat next to her, and continued a previous conversation.

“So you’re a lawyer? I saw you and thought you were a writer! Somebody in the creative line. You know, you have really nice hands. Hands of a writer.”

He then examines her hands gently.

“You know, creative people have longer, slender fingers.”

I looked over, and her fingers were much shorter than her palm! Not only that, she was sitting somewhat rigidly, fitting her lawyer occupation. Pickup line fail brader.

He left to get a drink, and she turned to me and asked if I was alright. “You were so still, I thought your friend was drawing your sketch!” (My friend was facing me, scribbling in the guestbook.)

“No, I was just staring into space.”

“…okay, actually, I was eavesdropping. Heh. It’s always amusing to hear a guy pick up a girl. Did it work?”

“No… but he was interesting.”

He returned with more lines. “You know, I like that look of yours. It’s like slightly annoyed. I think you’d look very sexy when you’re angry. If I saw you in a bar, you know, I’d just go up to you, kiss you, and then talk.”

They then talked about politics, and travelling in the Middle East. I dozed off.

I’m not sure if he leaned over to kiss her, as turning would blow my cover.

She then left, as her transport was leaving.

Chapter Two

The Iranian dude then chats up my friend. At this point I wasn’t in earshot and didn’t bother, but the friend I came with and I gossipped about it. I quickly gave her the 411 on his attempt on the lawyer, to see if he’d repeat the same things.

Soon, his hand reached over her back.

We went across the hall to sit elsewhere, out of earshot but still able to see them.

“Are they kissing, Albert?”
“No, you can see his head is at that angle… and she’s nodding.”
“Are they kissing now, Albert?”
“No, not yet… I can still hear him talking somewhat.”

“OOO! Now they’re kissing! See her head’s like tilted. Oh now they’re talking. Okay now they’re kissing.”

He then examined her hands. Aha! He did use that trick after all.

We then left the hall to leave them to have fun.

I found this rather disturbing view from a room window.

Morning came, and they were cuddled up on the couch, all lovey-dovey and holding hands. “Let’s go for breakfast!”

As we sat in a mamak in daylight, it was then that we saw the Iranian dude in his full uh… glory. Unibrow, bushy chest, big nose, and ugly, cavity-full yellowed teeth! He looked alright in the dark, cool and suave even, but in daylight we got quite a shock.

Me and my two female friends all looked at each other, sharing the same expression. This was something we could make fun of her for years!

I never quite believed in beer goggles until this experience.

She was, however, still putting her hand on his lap.

In the middle of a conversation, he pulled out a green wine bottle from under the table and drank it. That was a most comical moment indeed.

“So I’ll send you back to your apartment?” my friend asked.

“Nah it’s cool, I’ll take a cab back.” he said.

We got in the car.

“AIYEE! OH MY GOD! I can’t believe I made out with that guy!”
“Yeah, but you were all so lovey-dovey right?”
“Yeah, he so thinks I’m gonna call. He gave me his number but I didn’t give him mine.”
“Wow, that’s smart.”
“Yeah, lucky I did that. You know, in the morning lying beside him, I realized that hey, I didn’t even know his name!”

I’m glad for her and that little plot twist. 😀

As I walked home after it all, my road was sprinkled beautifully. Welcome 2007! (I’m not that lagged; I bumped into a lot of people at Laundry Bar on the 11th of January but everybody wished me Happy New Year anyway.)

Eve Eve Reprieve

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30th December 2006 was the New Year’s Eve’s Eve show at No Black Tie, featuring many acts that played there the whole year.

Rhapsody in a post-chorus pose.

Melina to Stephanie: So, you’ve finally crawled out from behind the drums to a more visible spot.

Ywenna-cute-ears!

Jangan tak rock.

The Sofa Sessions. Yeah, I’m bootlegging them performing Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here!

No bassist this time, but featuring Aznan Aziz of Blues Gang! (Last seen over two years ago at what was then Titus Blues Avenue and is now The Wall.)

Next up: Engineer turned lounge-singer Shanon Shah. He now writes beautiful songs about love and Star Wars. One of the most fun, and funny, performers that night. And hello there thanks for reading my blog! 😀

Zalila Lee (not in picture) featuring Jerral Khor and Zack Kim (that once-long-haired shredder for Cosmic Funk Express!)

I had to rush out for some errands. On the way out I snapped a crane.

Hishamuddin Rais was next. Who? He sounded like some minister or someone important. His stand-up skit was initially funny, but turned ugly when he starting saying, “You know what I hate about Nigerians?” He then turned into a shouting political crowd-riser.

Yeah, he got a rise from the crowd indeed, sounding like, “Get off the stage!”

Jasiminne prays: Finish your speech already!

No creative lighting system was used in this picture. Place model, frame shot, and shoot.

What was all that about?

A quick Google search on my phone revealed that he was the director of “Dari Jemapoh Ke Manchestee“, who was detained under ISA (strangely not associated with any party, calling himself a NGI (Non-Governmental Individual)). Apparently, quite the exile, too.

Back to the music with organizer Reza Salleh, the dude with the sexy voice and soulful rock ballads.

Stephanie relegates back to the drumset.

Isaac Entry, blues meister.

His fellow blues harpist.

(I don’t know why they call a blues harp a harmonica. Or why they call a harmonica a blues harp.)

Silent Scream, ending the show with some rock that night.

Apparently there’s Moonshine this Thursday at Laundry Bar, but I can’t find the lineup anywhere just yet. Hurry up Reza!

Smells Wood!

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Ah, smells wood doesn’t it? (Credits to smashpOp for this shot.)

Shaz prides himself for this shot of me.

However, his two-handed technique is illegal.

And for a greater challenge, stack them 5 pieces per level.

It takes longer to grow the tower, and having one piece in a level is more challenging.

Orange (not her real name) topples it rather cutely.

Thanks Jack the aspiring architect for this Christmas present, Pavilion’s Tumbling Tower!

Crossing Bothers

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This post is brought to you by the wonderful local-scene-supporting Xfresh. Crossborders at Laundry Bar!

Featuring Sina aka Mailer Daemon, emcee and guest rapper for funk-reggae-metal band Prana!

Then in a gust of wind… Love Me Butch took over with emo/nu-metal ferocity.

Heavy chugging riffs (and yet interestingly progressive). These guys, and Dragon Red, probably were the loudest you’d hear in Laundry Bar.

Watch out for the ill-meaning mike stand!

Syarul has a most powerful scream. I thought the sunnies killed some of his stage persona though.

Rear-sync/second-curtain slow-shutter flash.

Standard flash.

*cuts outside, to a waiter preparing what appears to be The Chinese Acrobat*

Oh, right. A Flaming Lamborghini.

Back inside, emo-core band from The Philippines, Chicosci. So intense, they had two drummers.

There’s a laptop somewhere back there and a keyboard for this guitarist to play more indie-pop-themed solos. But nothing beats the guitar.

This is for the many girls who asked if he was cute (as they sat outside watching the screen.)

It looks like we have time for a few more pictures, so here goes:

Circular fisheye! Eat that!

KL Tower, by chance, in scale to the moon.

I caught this with a tripod on a 3.2 second exposure. (Usually, shooting a bright moon uses a very fast shutter speed, making a tripod pointless.) The moving clouds provided a cool effect.

A full, unresized crop.

Take a break from clubbing and go for this instead

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Remember when I pimped The Breakfast Club? (Yes, it’s showing until Sunday 7th January 2007… which is amazing for my blog-updating speed.)

Anyway, The Breakfast Club was one of the more famous 80’s teen movies, made into a play. Five kids are in detention, all of them very different.

You got the goth (The Basketcase), played by Krystle Wong (who once again says about nothing at the start, like in Showers Of Flowers, one of the plays in fiftynineminutes.)

Then there’s the hot chick (okay, technically she’s The Princess), played by Christine Ellis (who, this time, gets loads of conversation unlike in fiftynineminutes.)

Reuben W.J. Kang (in front) plays The Athlete, with Kelvin Wong as John Bender (The Criminal).

The Brain is played by comedic genius Branavan Aruljothi, a nerd who got himself a fake ID so he could vote! (Don’t get the caption? Check out my Rojak! review.)

Yep, all of them were in fiftynineminutes. Yay to more youth-oriented plays without brain-stressing abstract themes!

Oh and there’s also the principal, which Matt Groening admits to basing Principal Seymour Skinner on. Yep. The movie influenced the creator of The Simpsons!

John Bender the foul-mouthed miscreant brings them into trouble. Yep, Bender’s the cursing robot from Futurama, also created by Matt Groening.

There’s also a scene where John Bender tells the principal to “Eat my shorts.” 😀

Would they be friends after spending a few hours in detention?

…or maybe more?

(To that thought.)

The Goth: I’ll do anything sexual. I don’t need a million dollars to do it either.
The Princess: You’re lying.
The Goth: I already have. I’ve done just about everything there is except a few things that are illegal. I’m a nymphomaniac.
The Princess: Lie.
The Brain: Are your parents aware of this?
The Goth: The only person I told was my shrink.
The Athlete: And what did he do when you told him?
The Goth: He nailed me.
The Princess: Very nice.
The Goth: I don’t think that from a legal standpoint what he did can be construed as rape, since I paid him.

(Stolen from IMDB’s Quotes. The Matt Groening references were also spotted in Wikipedia.)

Thanks to Click Chick! for letting me take pictures. That preview night had four distinct clicks; Kok Keong’s Olympus E-500 in the background with focus confirmation beep; Asyraf Lee‘s Nikon D70s which could still be heard from across the hall (and had a mirror slapping sound similiar to my Olympus OM-2000 and Sony A100); my Sony A100, on manual focus; and Grace on her Canon EOS 350D (with distinct whizzing shutter sound). Oh, and my completely silent infrared-modded Fujifilm Digital Q1 with Olympus 35-70 F3.5-4.8 lens (to cover the 210-420mm equivalent). 😀

Bazeekers!

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Pictures! Project Bazooka at Laundry Bar, last 21st December 2006, right after I got the Minolta 50mm F1.4 lens for my Sony Alpha 100.

Haaarooon the emcee for Rock The World! (Okay, so this time he’s actually singing. But not rocking though; he’s singing soul and funk with IG Collective.)

They got some funky riffs.

…and guest stars Malaysian Idol finalist Ash, and Dragon Red‘s Adam.

Next up: Harmonica-playing blues folkster Azmyl Yunor.

His hair looked like a watered-down version of his old afro.

I love it when Keng of Furniture plays for Azmyl Yunor and the Sigarettes (or however you spell his many bands). He rips a powerful blues shred.

Lucy In The ~~Sky With Diamonds~~ Loo, indie pop darlings. Tried to zoom and flash at the same time but got a different result this time.

The next day, I headed to Alexis Bistro, Great Eastern Mall with some Ampangites out of boredom, and caught Noryn Aziz the hothothot songstress! (Last spotted at the Sunrise Mont Kiara Jazz & Rhythm Fest.)

Blow my horn.

We then… (well excluding me) rode the inner rail express.

Picture quality intentionally decreased to reduce possible identification.

Breakfast And Games

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Pimpage!

What: The Breakfast Club (a play based on the 1985 hit movie of the same name)
Who: Krystle W. (who is sooo cute but look hot in the poster), Reuben W.J. Kang, Branavan Aruljothi, Christine Ellis and Kelvin Wong. Yep, the dudes and dudettes from Rojak! and fiftynineminutes.
When: 8:30pm on 4-6th January 2007; 3pm on 7th January 2007
Where: KR Soma Auditorium, Wisma Tun Sambathan, 2 Jln Sultan Sulaiman (Off Jln Syed Putra)
How Much: RM20 (students and senior citizens), RM30, RM40. Book with Sheikh Faisal (019-2990279) or email alms.breakfast@gmail.com.

Click for the poster.

Click for the map. (It seems to be closest to the Maharajalela Monorail station.)

Click for the official site.

Oh and here’s a random picture from last year.

Mannequins feel the cold, too.

So I was at Rudy‘s Christmas party, and he had the XBOX 360 on one side, playing Fight Night Round 3…

…and the much more fun Wii Sports for Nintendo Wii on the other side. They’re playing boxing here with two connected controllers per person. Yes, it actually works! They can block by just putting their hands up.

It works as you’ve seen on ads. Imagine you’re using the real thing. For example, you have to really throw force on the controller to play bowling. I got mostly spares, not strikes. 🙁

Of course, there’s always a risk of endangering your safety with such a fun console as the Nintendo Wii, so remember to check out:

The Japanese Super Safe Wii Safety Manual

There’s also Wii Safety: The Missing Pages.

Albert And Cameras, 2004-2006

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Yeah, I’m gonna end this year with a blog entry about more camera pr0n. I tested the Sigma 70-300mm F4-5.6 APO Macro for Konica Minolta/Sony mount; the monster was thicker at the zoom ring and had magnification scales on the outermost barrel. It also had a very nice glittery uh… ribbed finish. APO means apochromatic, for lesser chromatic aberrations (but I wasn’t in a place to get that.)

Sigma 70-300mm F4-5.6 APO Macro apertures:
70mm onwards F4.0
135mm onwards F4.5
200mm onwards F5.0
230mm onwards F5.6

This is way brighter than the Sony 75-300mm F4.5-5.6 lens on all counts. At 135mm, the Sony’s brightest aperture is already at F5.6!

It also had a macro focus switch, allowing close focus until 1:2 magnification between 200-300mm. It took almost 180 degrees of turning to get from close focus to infinity… which was a joy for manual focus, but a painfully slow auto focus. At this class, about every cheaper zoom lens will be slow (except the Sony 18-200mm, because its turn is only about 30 degrees.)

I got a steady (but not crisp) shot at 1/30s at 300mm. 4 stops! I then got a crisp shot at 1/30s at 200mm. 3.5 stops! (Of course, you must cooperate with the camera and wait for the Super SteadyShot bars in the viewfinder to go down to 1.)

At RM750 in Sg. Wang, it was much more promising than the plasticky Sony lens.

I also found an all-metal monster, the Tokina 80-400mm F4.5-5.6 for the same mount.

Tokina 80-400mm F4.5-5.6 apertures:
80mm onwards F4.5
150mm onwards F5.0
280mm onwards F5.6

It had a big throw (turning from close focus to infinity). It was RM2150 in Sg. Wang. The box was aged. However, seeing both lenses gave me new faith in the Sony Alpha mount.

Anyway, Happy New Year!