What: Moonshine KL
Who: Zach Tay Trio, Ash Nair (Malaysian Idol), Neomedicus, Reza Salleh
When: 9:30pm, Thursday, 8th February 2007
Where: Laundry Bar, The Curve
How Much: Free entry

More details here.

What: Indie-Licious
Who: Sky Juice Coffee, IG Collective, Telephony Delivery, Project Ei8ht, Crosstown Traffic, PG 165, Edward Gomez
When: 8pm, Saturday, 10th February 2007
Where: KL Jamasia, Desa Sri Hartamas
How Much: RM15 entry

For more information call: 012-7697749 or visit http://www.kljamasia.com.

What: Hearts N Lightbulbs Valentine Event
Who: Jerral Khor & Zalila Lee, Nick Davis, Diplomats Of Drums, Saer Ze, Wong Yu-Ri, Soft Touch, Estrella, Reza Salleh
When: 8pm, Sunday, 11th February 2007
Where: (venue changed) Laundry Bar, The Curve
How Much: Free admission (but this is a charity show, so please donate!)

The event is organized by Feathered Friends Network. Proceeds will go to St. Jerome Home, a home to 18 children aged 2-16 years, taken care by Brother Peter. They urgently need a washing machine and funds for the children’s school fees.

Yes yes I’m going for all three.

And now, for camera geeking time. Fun reads:

Edwin’s CameraHobby.com

This guy writes lushly in his reviews; you’ll never feel like skimming through because he goes into a historic review of things before getting to the product at hand. Truly an experience for the camera geeks. God knows how many did-you-knows I picked up, like:

“USM was pooh-poohed until Nikon came out with their own version called AF-S and suddenly it became the best thing since sliced bread to be able to override the lens focusing without switching levers or buttons.” – Nikon AF-S VR 70-200mm f2.8 G IF-ED review

Yes, it all sounds too familiar.

“As far as I know (but am likely wrong) the predecessor A1 was the first digicam to offer IS built into a digicam chassis. While the traditional IS/VR developed by Canon and Nikon is built into the lens, the A1/A2 went about it a different way and incorporated it into the body, a seemingly good idea for this class of camera and one that is going to be taken to the next step when KonicaMinolta produces their first D-SLR. Pop Photo magazine indicated that KonicaMinolta went this in-camera IS route to avoid the patents that Canon and Nikon have for in-lens IS/VR mechanisms.” – KonicaMinolta A2 review

Oh. I guess Panasonic found a loophole when implementing lens-based Mega Optical Image Stabilizer.

Still, CCD-shift works for me, and as they say YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary), and I’m getting a heck lot of mileage.

Petteri’s Pontifications also provides a historical ride down camera history.

“The Minolta 7000 changed all that. Here was a camera that could undeniably focus and track faster and more consistently and precisely than even the most practiced manual-focus SLR shooter. It took the camera market by storm, and for a space Minolta looked set to take the top spot in the professional market as well. It was clear that Nikon, Canon, and Pentax had to do something — or go the way of Olympus and give up on the SLR market.” – Ugly Ducklings: The Early EF Primes

It’s also great fun reading his lens reviews; he nicknames all his lenses.

I think I’ll nickname my lenses too – the Nocturnal, the Beercan, the Kit Kid, the Loupe, the Orphan, the White Bride, the Sharpie, the Zoom Zoom and the Onanist.

…or maybe not.

More old-timer goodness can be found at The Online Photographer, (formerly known as 37th Frame) with a few contributors, all of different uh… allegiances.

Photography In Malaysia is always a fun read. The Minolta Maxxum/Dynax 7000 article is quite interesting. Initially, there were only twelve auto-focus lenses available, (of which I have the Beercan and 50mm F1.4) but none of them were lousy or dark, at most ending at F4.5!

Yeah so why am I quoting all these sites? It might be my inclination to think of my Sony A100 as being the descendant of what was then groundbreaking Minolta.

Random Thoughts:

If there is CCD-shift anti-dust, and CCD-shift image stabilizer, why not have CCD-shift autofocus ala the Contax auto-focus SLR, which moved the film plane? (Obvious weaknesses would be that shake could make an out-of-focus picture, and that the CCD cannot move enough to be sufficiently macro. However, if the lens was at closest focusing distance, moving the CCD back would provide significantly closer focusing distances!)

Another question would be of digital SLRs in film SLR bodies, e.g. the Fujifilm S3 Pro, based on the Nikon F80 full-frame film SLR body. Do they have full-sized mirrors? Does that mean you view a full frame, but with the digital crop? (Quite like a rangefinder, letting you spot action outside the frame. Coolness.)

Why didn’t Konica Minolta (and then Sony) reuse the Konica 58-400mm F4 Hexanon AR or 35-100mm f2.8 Hexanon Varifocal AR?