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