So some of you might have spotted my picture on Lowyat.NET. This is a picture of the leaflet I picked up from Lowyat Plaza!

Note the mention on the minimum usage for lowest rates.

This is a picture of the page showing the various devices. So the cat is out of the bag – it’s a Samsung phone with your contacts stored on the Cloud.

Now if you’re wondering what the heck is a Cloud – it means that your data is stored online, in a server somewhere. So you can use your phone, or your friend’s phone, and once you’ve logged in, you’ll see your own contacts.

However I strongly urge YES4G to bring in the HTC Evo 4G. It runs on Android OS 2.2 Froyo (which means it can become a WiFi hotspot) and it is also a phone.

It makes all the devices (the go, the huddle, the zoom, and the buzz) redundant!

Oh, and Android phones already store their contacts on the cloud – Google’s cloud. I get all my GMail contacts on my HTC Desire, running on Android OS 2.2. It also pulls phone numbers from my Facebook friends!

If you ask me, the huddle looks a bit too similiar to a 4G Mobile Hotspot sold by another 4G-toting company. 😉

So YES please, bring in the HTC Evo 4G, with all its 4.3″ 480×800 TFT LCD capacitive touch screen, 1Ghz processor, 512MB eDRAM, microSD support, 8 megapixel 720p/30FPS camera support please! There is no glory in launching 4G, if your target market are techies, if the only mobile phone you have is a less-desirable Samsung.

Of course, there are desirable 4G phones from Samsung – the Samsung Epic 4G, for example.

Here’s the second and final half of the shots from the National Zoo in Wangsa Maju, over two visits. Pictures were either from the A100 or A700 with Tamron 200-400mm F5.6 or Minolta 70-210mm F4 beercan, perhaps with a 1.4x teleconverter or 2x teleconverter, or both.

“No tiger show today!”

Hmmmph.

How did the tapir get an uneven tan?

Guess what this is.

The big bird cage.

Gymnastic spy.

Alligator L-E-A-ther.

Shot with the A100 with Tamron 200-400mm F5.6 at 400mm and 1.4x and 2x teleconverters, making 1100mm F16 ISO800 1/50s. Super Steady Shot saved the day!

If I ever had to submit one shot to National Geographic this would be it.

And so, I submitted this shot during my first visit, a competition, and won a Sony DPP-DF60 digital photo printer!

Coincidentally, the printer is still for sale.

Part One is here:
Welcome To The Zoo

Perhaps, it was indeed too soon to declare that I would only buy one A-mount lens in 2010. Here’s the second (the first being the rare Minolta 24-50mm F4.)

This is the Sigma 12-24mm F4.5-5.6 EX DG, which sets the world record for widest, brightest rectilinear lens for 35mm full-frame format. 122 degrees diagonal coverage!

Of course, my Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye does 180 degrees from edge to edge, but de-fishing the image to make a rectilinear projection loses a lot of resolution!

You can fit pretty much all you can see, in the frame!

Perspective distortion makes closer objects much bigger.

A common misuse of ultra-wide angle lenses is when they are not pointing straight at the subject – you get parallel lines converging. In this case it is recommended to stand further away, aim forward, and crop the excess floor.

However, it is great when you are in a tight space! I could not stand any further back.

It also gives plenty of leeway for group shots.

Also, you may find you’d be cropping feet a lot less often in tight spaces!

I used DxO Optics Pro Elite to process these pictures from the A900 – it applies a fair bit of barrel distortion correction, causing the corners to look more stretched out. Arguably, the barrel distortion of the original picture looks a bit more natural. Also, I shot this at a slower shutter speed, so don’t be confused between motion blur and stretched edges!

I was standing just in front of them.

So what about that other rectilinear lens for 35mm full-frame format? The Voigtlander 12mm F5.6 in Leica M mount? Here it is, with a Sony NEX-5 and Kipon M-mount to E-mount adapter.

It is, however, only for rangefinders with a shorter flange distance, or Sony NEX/Micro-Four-Thirds/Samsung NX cameras with an adapter. Though it won’t be so appealing on Micro-Four-Thirds due to the 2x crop factor, and the Samsung NX’s weaker ISO performance, especially since the lens is F5.6. It also does not zoom!

However, its main plus point is its tiny size!

I also stumbled upon the Sigma 8-16mm F4.5-5.6 EX DC HSM for APS-C cameras, which is slimmer, but has the same front-heavy balance. The Sigma 8-16mm focuses to 24cm close and has a front cap adapter (not to be confused with the lens hood) which takes 72mm filters. The Sigma 12-24mm meanwhile focuses to 28cm close and has a front cap adapter which takes 82mm filters.

While the 8-16mm does offer practical benefits in terms of size, there isn’t an APS-C camera that does 24 megapixels yet.