Monthly Archives: March 2007

Plojekusu Baasuku!

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J-rock night! Project Bazooka catered to the otakus on the 15th of March 2007.


Haze. Hot. Looked majorly tall but was shorter than me when she walked past.

The rest of the band were called Miniature Garden. How… un-apt.


Strawberry Jam.


I’m usually not a fan of Japanese culture, but I appreciate how J-rock is very technical and progressive, and hooray to them for setting up some thrash metal rhythms.


50mm F2.2 1/13s ISO400 with flash. The key is to set the exposure so enough colored motion blends in with the flash.


Played around with Hue/Saturation/Lightness for this.


Mage, the famous band from UCSI. Most solid with loadsa crunchy solos (but then again, UCSI does offer music courses…)


Moon (yes, names of members stolen from kittenly muka-chop-camwhorer ChingChing.)


Ichiro wins the award for best goth look.


Fisheye on my Canon Powershot A520 was about right; just turn on macro mode and all is good. On the Sony A100 the fisheye part of the Pro Tama 0.45x wide angle adapter is badly close-focused; I’d usually have to shoot at F22 to get any sharpness.

Mooning And Flashing

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I borrowed smashpOp‘s Sony HVL-F56AM strobe flash unit for a test run in Laundry Bar, for Moonshine!


Reta! Flash bounced.


Jerome Kugan, bouncing about like a happy monkey to the programmed sounds from his laptop. It was then I realized that he sounded like Depeche Mode meets Morrisey (vocally).


Auburn! (Wireless flash, just activate Wireless flash mode on camera and flash, detach flash (by pressing button, no tedious unscrewing needed), raise flash head on camera to command flash, and fire away!)

I can attest that every wireless flash shot I took was spot on in exposure. No manual settings or compensation required. Also, dialling exposure compensation on the camera would also be transmitted to the flash, so it would power up or down accordingly.


Strobe mode, 3 strobes, 3 Hertz, 1 second exposure.

Oh and Auburn rocks. They play progressive rock with frail vocals courtesy of Izuan Shah.


Wireless from behind. I couldn’t figure out just yet how to eclipse him.


Lightcraft, indie rock darlings. How many times have I used these three words?


Muck around with white balance to intentionally cause the flash to appear blue. Wireless again.


Tempered Mental! One of the most solid, hardworking progressive/alternative rock bands. (Yes, no flash.)


Jack the shredder.


My favorite bounce flash camwhore picture featuring an interesting specimen. A pink-colored receipt was tied with rubberband to bring some light forward. Ignore the fact that we look like weird cartoons here.

Fireflies See The Light

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Retaaa!


Xian Jin (the photographer formerly known as The Pink Frog) does something crazy – he uses his Nikon SB-800 wirelessly during a gig, to produce dramatic light, with the intent of killing off gig lighting, leaving only the performer appearing to perform in the dark to a torchlight.


Alaling, featuring Chaiiineeese people! (Right-side picture has me using the SU-4 optical slave mode of the SB-800… which is smart enough to ignore preflashes. Awesome!)

I first met Ching-Ching of Alaling outside Rock The World 7. Chak, rockstar vocalist of Superbar, was going around, on the lookout for Chinese people (since RTW7’s crowd was mostly Malay.) He spotted Kingsley and I and exclaimed, “Hey look! It’s… Chinese people!”

We then went around, pointing at Chinese people whenever we spotted one. Our numbers grew!

(He also found Yi Jian, who I was supposed to meet.)


Ching-Ching gets Adlin the band slut to advertise the band’s URL.

Check out Ching-Ching‘s site, and her blog. (With a URL like intergalacticgalacticgalactic you can’t help but go white-rapper-boy hyper, yo.) It’s hilarious and cute and funny and brings a smile to my face.

Wai Fon was gushing over Alaling’s songs earlier; little did I know I’d met them before.


Long Story Short, with my Sony A100 with my DIY sync-flash connector to Nikon SB-28, then triggering the SB-800 in SU-4 optical slave mode. I think.


No flash.


Well, to cut a long story short…


…we think we look good in gig lighting anyway.


Me and Xian Jin’s Nikon D80 with vertical grip and the famous Nikkor 50mm F1.8D. Silver 52-58mm step up ring adds a touch of class to the front. Since the SB-800 was placed on a speaker, turning the camera sideways or upside-down would hide its commander flash from getting to the SB-800.


Lipel. Or Lipet. Or whatever.


Asyraf Lee and rabid fan.


Paolo Delfino!


Paolo and 2 strobes from the Nikon SB-28.


Paolo and a few more strobes. Not so pretty. But he sings songs about 16-year old girls. Isn’t that pretty?


Silent Scenery. Kit kicks ass; he plays post-rock intros and sings wistfully.


Joined by Paolo and Lipet/Lipel/Lipei.


The old flash setup, Generation 2.

Wide-Eyed Wanderer

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Wide-angle goodness with the Pro Tama 0.45x wide angle converter on my Sony A100 with 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 lens.


I walked around downtown KL with the wide-angle converter.


I like how the arch roof coincides with the vignetting caused by the converter having an exit of only 67mm.


Guess that trashcan! Not.


Somewhere near Choon How‘s place.


A satellite dish uncurves itself.


Bukit Jalil LRT.


Masjid Jamek.


The view from the Maharajalela monorail station.


…down there.


The reduced size of these landscape-oriented pictures represents how significantly I think of them. Or maybe I just felt a pang of guilt for everyone’s bandwidth.


From the Pasar Seni LRT station.


From inside an LRT, a few meters away from previous picture.


One of the Star LRT stations. (From this picture onwards I was using the Olympus OM-2000 with Vivitar 24mm F2.0 lens.)


Sungei Wang!


Artsy Nine Inch Nails-style album cover.


Shophouses near where I live. The exposures are all screwed because the lens aperture lever was misaligned, causing the meter to suggest overexposure.


Optimus Prime, on my Canon Powershot A520 (35mm equivalent) using only the fisheye element of the wide angle converter.

Random Insanity

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I remember back in school, at the back of the class, when Mojam whipped out a guitar and played the intro riff to Sugar Ray – Every Morning. He then doubled it with bassline.

I thought he was God.

There isn’t going to be any consistency in this blog post.

There are only two things that really depress me to the point that I am incapacitated. The first, I have already settled with some major wrist-aching capacity; the second, I have always been in a quandary.

Just when you find you can achieve something, you find that it cannot be used in the current situation.

Like a nightmare, you run from one corner to another, in search of an elusive item. The thing that matters to you most. Weird things happen. The second floor disappears. You do a MacGyver, or Lara Croft, depending on your gender and how well you are blessed.

There really is no need to reply this, because I understand how hard it is to reply something like this which has no definite hooks to weave strings of text around. However, if you can do so profoundly, I salute you, and will probably copy take inspiration from how you do it.

Maybe I should pay more attention to girl friends who write emo posts like these. It takes me quite a lot to get me to this point… so I can’t imagine how you guys girls take it.

But here’s something that you can reply to:

I watched 300 and Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer in cinemas recently. Of course, having watched 300 way after everybody else’s cajoling (I didn’t want to watch it because I don’t go out of my way to watch gory movies like Saw 3.) Yeah, you know they’re gonna kill some, and they’re gonna die too. Yeah, you know what’s to become of them in the end. I didn’t feel a strong sense of empathy for them especially when things were going too well. It was good, but I did not feel the same compulsion to tell everybody to watch it.

I have a feeling that at least 300 angry people will come after me.


Random Photoshopped-to-censor-MSN-addresses screenshot!

With Perfume, however, you root for the murderer! The show is full of real, non-CGI-ed French slum grit. It felt like Edward Scissorhands (ironically, Tim Burton turned down the job) meeting Powder (at the ending).

I love predictable endings. I love wack endings. As long as they’re good endings.

St. Jones Infirmary Dues

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I was cruising down the road
and this racecar driver zoomed by
Into the horizon they rode
So I said, “Imma gonna get myself some racing stripes!”

I watched some DVDs from last year
And it got me thinking loudly
Was there something wrong, dear?
With the person who lent them to me

Heble Aspenol

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I heva discovarad how to sound Spenish.

It’s aesiar then you think!

Just swep ell your A’s end E’s end viole! You era spaeking Spenish.

Nicola, you’ra right; it is e baeutiful lenguega!

(Okey, I must cradit this chick who kapt mixing up “than” end “then”, who otharwisa hed parfact Anglish! It wes har raterdad spalling thet inspirad ma to writa this blog antry.)

MMM Donuts

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Guess what lens this was shot with. (1/50s)


Homer J. Simpson would love this. (1/15s)


There is something mysteriously alluring about the Sony 500mm F8 auto-focus catasdioptric mirror lens. (Yes, it’s the only mirror SLR lens that can auto-focus.) It’s very, very light, with a rubber grip to focus, and looks deceivingly shaped like a wide-angle lens. However, when you look down the front you are greeted with a hollow chamber of reflecting light. (1/8s)


Note the out-of-focus double-lines, especially around “FFEE”. (1/20s)

It is also constantly at F8. No, you can’t stop down. You can, however, unlock a little tray at its back and pull out a transparent filter, to replace it with a 2-stop Neutral Density filter (which does not give you more depth of field… just 4x slower shutter speeds.)

With Super SteadyShot on, I’d theoretically be able to get 1/50th of a second sharp. The second shot at 1/15s was probably a fluke in crispness, while the out-of-focus-ness of the third picture at 1/8s hides possible handshake.


Are the donuts really, really, honestly ugly? I don’t know. I found it more pleasant than expected. It would make for great effects, if properly used. I can imagine lights lining a road leading to the horizon… and you’d see donuts growing larger and larger. (1/80s)

Maybe, the thirst haunts me because I did not buy that 500mm F8 for M39 mount (for RM50!) back in Buy Sell Trade, Old Town, and returned to find it gone.

Also, I have been eating donuts more often, after not eating donuts for 5 years since college. What’s happening to me?

Anyway, while on the subject of photo geek:

Question on 1.4XII converter and D60 (forum post)
Read through the replies, and you’d find little golden nuggets, like how a camera’s auto-focus works, and how to tape over the contacts on your lens.

Canon EF-S 18-55mm to EF mount
This guy changed his Canon EF-S 18-55mm to a Canon EF mount! I someday inspire to do Dr. Frankenstein with other lenses!

Third Party Lenses with Cult Followings
Old-timer stories of third-party lens makers including Tokina, formed by former Nikon engineers!

Oh, in case you’re wondering; I didn’t buy the 500mm F8. I just asked to try it. I love the Sony KLCC staff! (And yes, you don’t even have to waltz in with a Sony A100 to get to try it.)

Estranged And A Party

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Estranged – In Hating Memory Album (re)Launch, at Laundry Bar, 28th February 2007.

Yes, once upon a time, it was called Estranged – In Hating Memory the EP. Back when it was launched in The New Paul’s Place. Now it includes a new hit single, Itu Kamu, and remastered sound!

Once upon a time, it was also one of the bands I saw at my first ever No Black Tie gig. I even went up to the then bassist and started lushing praises.


Bel C the emcee! Where’s my free tee?


Guest bands included Triple6Poser, with Khai on guitar.


Eddy on blues harp and vocals. How’d I do that effect? Whenever I flash I shoot in Shutter Priority, and adjust the shutter speed to let in enough light. The camera will balance the flash accordingly, and it helps to hide the effect of harsh direct flash. This was 1/10th of a second, F5.6, ISO400.


Breakin’ string blues.


King of the low end.


Stonebay, grunge outfit.


They Will Kill Us All, kickass indie rock with vocalist dancing about. Excellent showmanship!


Slap that mike.


This is one of the rare times I use Photoshop’s Hue/Saturation/Lightness to boost magenta saturation.


And then there was Estranged!


1/13s on Hanafi.


Andy weeps that he never gets the limelight. Well at least he appeared on giant billboards before.


It’s the Abang Rom of ROTTW Magazine!


Richael croons.


I thought Itu Kamu was a suspiciously Indonesian-rock-sounding song. I say Jual Keluar!


We still rock, you know.


CK slaps.


One of those rare zoom and flash slow-synced pictures that work. 1/13s for subtlety.


Bel: Okay guys show’s over now go check out my travel show on 8TV 9:30pm Wednesday nights!


“Kami bukan black metal. AFUNDI RICH!”

My first ever picture on the Sony A100 with internal flash causing red eyes! A rarity indeed.


Fast forward to 17th March 2007, Khai-Lee’s housewarming/secret singer-songwriter/open-mike gig/party.


This picture cracks me up every time! Doesn’t she look like a certain Towke Cina of a live music venue?


It was a fun night. We all played rock covers, sang along, especially to the solos! Dave Grohl and Jack Black would’ve been proud.


Sing yourself to sleep. I finally got to see Yu-Ri‘s amazing human jukebox capabilities. He can figure out the chords to about any pop song!