Breaking Silence

Well, I've been keeping silent for a longer period of time than I should have. I dont know what got into me, but I've had the last few weeks of some serious soul searching and just decided to keep low (or more like total disconnection) from this blog. It was more or less a pretty much needed time off from any form of connection. And ahh... it certainly feels refreshing to this mind of mine.

Anyway, plenty of things happened over the span of time since I keyed in my last blog entry. Just to name a few :

1. I got promoted. :) More money = more job responsibility. But hey I ain't complaining.
2. I went to Shanghai for a weekend visit. Did some crazy shopping and burned a few grands in a day. So-so dinner at The Hooters. Sobered night at a German Pub along the Shanghai Bund. Followed by missing the train back the following day. Sure certainly felt good too.
3. Found a new hobby in racing radio controlled-nitro powered buggy; of which I crashed it during the first day I play with it :P
4. Started playing paintball and got my arms all in blue black spots.


So yeah... plenty much has gone thru the last few weeks... even went thru a phase where certain occurance are so much so affecting my life's course. I'm pretty much looking forward to every single day of the future rather than looking back. So its cool.

Some Street Shoot

I went out today around 11am with Gu (who just arrived) to the old city side of Jinhua. Apparently there was a fort like setup for the ancient Jinhua city. So, we went to the wall remnants which used to be a perimeter to keep the city secured from foreign intruders. To be honest I was kinda appalled by how long the history actually spanned back. The age of the building which I was in is about 1600 years old. Yerp... it spanned in the thousands of years old. Sure did joggle my mindset a while for comparing Malaysia's 50 year old history against this, not-so-famous city of China.

Anyway the perimeter wall surrounding the ancient city was long gone now. What is left is a structure which was once the main entrance to the city, and also a guard tower which has been turned into some kinda city owned museum. It cost 10Yuan to enter this small museum. There are some really old relics in there, but all descriptive notes and writings are all in Chinese, so its kinda like groping in the dark to know what's what. However, I must admit that the feeling of standing on a 1600 year old stone building is really something. You just have to stand in there and think of the amount of history the place has gone thru.

Apparently from the latest maps, a few blocks of newer shops (new in China means 50-100 years old) is now surrounding standing in place of what was once the perimeter walls. Some local traders swarm this place and turn it into some kinda flea market. However, most of the stuff they sell dont really attract me. Antiques, stones, paintings... that kinda stuff. It is worthy to note that one has to be careful with such items, as there are many many counterfeits floating around.

Street photography is something of real abundance here. The place is old. Its eccentric. And its got a character of its own. I'm looking forward to try to have a full day's outing around this local vicinity again soon. For today, I shall lay my camera to rest since its a hot and sunny day - and I do mean it!

Touchdown : Shanghai

I left KLIA last night, well, it was more like this morning; on a 1.40am flight bound for Shanghai Pudong Int. Airport (SPIA). The flight was an uneventful one and I get to take short naps throughout the whole 5 hour flight. The only occasion wake ups I get were from the cabin crew who would annoyingly give a light nudge asking if I would wanna get a juice to drink or not. Anyway, I touched down on SPIA and managed to get through immigration and secure the baggages by about 7.30am.

The driver, Mr. Zhang would be picking me up by 8.30am, thus giving me ample of time to grab something to bite. This is the first time I come to China. Its so foreign, and yet resembles something similar to me. The culture, the people and the system. It all seems to blend well to me, and yet there are things which turned out to be a shocker. Talk about the duress of culture shock :P

Anyway I had some breakfast at an Italian restaurant at SPIA. The WIFI sucks and I couldnt connect to it at all, and while it did allow a connection, there was no data transfer. Didnt wanna waste much time, I just gobbled up whatever was laid on the table and rush to meet Mr. Zhang. From there he drove me in a 12 seater van/mini bus from SPIA to Jinhua. The trip took about 4 hours on a long and straight highway. China's a left hand drive country. However, I was so wrong to assume that the fast lane would, well, safely can be assumed to be on the left hand side... but it appears that its a norm to actually speed past any vehicle in any lanes... and that includes the emergency lane as well. And I am not talking about slow-mo here... Driving here would put the local Malaysian Mat Rempits to shame. I had to endure such adrenalin rush for 4 hours plus... and this comes with a real big shock when we had a 10 wheeler trailer going on head to head with us! Bugger was coming out from the R&R and going against the traffic. Beats the hell out of me what the driver wanted to do.

Anyway, I reached Jinhua safely in 1 piece and tucked into the World Trade Hotel aka NARADA. Its pretty cosy in here except the occasionally malfunction air conditioning system. The above is one of the quickie shot I took which shows the view out of my room's window. Nothing fancy to be honest. One of the cool thing is the room comes with a 100mbps internet cable and its super fast (when its working!). I will be exploring he local areas soon and keep on posting in here. For now, I gotta log off to try go search some food. :)

Cheers!

Zhai Jian! *ok my mandarin sucks*

Off To Shanghai

Okay, I received a last minute directive to fly to Shanghai this Monday night. Orders came late Friday evening so... I'm amid packing and all that usual stuff. I've put all photoshoots on hold, and thankfully all bookings and enquiries for the month of July/August/September has been re-directed to my partners. I guess I would consider these following 3 months as a break for me away from wedding scenes. However, I am bringing my basic photography gear along to China. So, expect some traveling photos instead. I am also intrigue to how local china people's lifestyle is, and I might do a small project with a theme following local portraitures. :)

Of lately, I received somewhat comments and critiques which arent very professional, in fact, they sound very full of hate. I am aware that there are some business competitors out there who would go to every extend to cause harm rather than bucking themselves up for a healthy competition. Such, is the sad state of local amateur photographers. They just cant take the heat of competition - healthily that is. What seize to amaze me is how one could stoop so low to actually using mockery on my name, just to try cause harm to me via my blog chatbox.

As webmaster, I have the option of deleting the posting done. However, I decided against it and also have spent some time replying the comments. I wish to inform those who have ill intention and being a mad hater to what I do, to just buck up. Such childish attacks wont weaken me a single bit - but will seize to make me stronger. Maybe for that alone, I should thank them! :)

So, for those out there who have the same issue with me - be strong and believe in what you do. Continue on what you do best. Healthy critiques are good. Harmful remarks can be taken with a stride as they seize to soon fizzles away. And with time, you shall emerge stronger than you think you can.

Well off to Shanghai in a couple of hours time!! C

Cheers!

NIKON Announced First Mid Range Full Frame DSLR : D700

Last couple of days has been an exciting period of time especially for photography enthusiasts who use NIKON DSLR system. Ever since the launch of DSLR camera, it has been in my opinion that NIKON DSLR are somewhat a slight lag behind that of CANON's. And to add salt to the wound, CANON has got the first mid range full frame DSLR in its lineup - the CANON EOS 5D (To those who dont know what full frame means; its actually refering to the sensor size used in the camera. Full frame sensors are physically as large as the size of the conventional 35mm film).

July 1st was the day NIKON came out with their first mid range full frame DSLR - the D700. This would add many smiles on NIKON DSLR users. Personally, I've seen this coming along and thought it would be just a matter of time NIKON make this move. This is especially true when they launched the very successful D3 which sports a very very effective full frame sensor, which is capable of producing very low noise image at high ISO - and all these juice packed into a professional body. The D700 comes with the same sensor as the one found in its elder brother D3.


D700 is built around the similar chasis of D300 (the one which I am using). Its rigid magnesium alloy body would be solid and robust and would be able to withstand the work photoshooters put them thru. Anyway, the D700 specs which really impressed me is its speed. At stock, it can shoot up to 5fps, which to be honest isnt really a very high speed rating (the D300 could do 6fps at stock). However, NIKON came up with a very neat idea. Plug its battery grip, MB D-10 with some specific higher rating batts, and the D700 can be cranked up to 8fps! Thats right... 8 photographs taken in 1 second!

Full frames has always been favorite format to use for shooting bridal photos. The reason why they are being opted over cropped sensor is because of the amount of details it can retain, and also the creamier bokeh (background blur) generation which makes the photos to appear to have a softer touch to it; thus casting a very nice romantic feel to the whole scene. The details preserved are good to Since I am gonna venture into shooting bridal (on a more serious full time basis) pretty soon, D700 is surely within my radar scope.

At the moment, the D700 is being priced at a pre-order booking or RM10,300.00. I guess I'll just have to wait a little while and see the real thing before I can decide on further investment into this sweet baby :)

Back With An Oriental Shoot

Well well well... little did I realize it has been a month since I last updated in here. Okay, its in fact about 5 weeks - so thats more than a month. Lets see... what had went past. I was balancing a very tight schedule, juggling between my engineering job and also the photography part of my life.

I was scheduled to leave for China by July 1st. The date came and went, and I am still here. Talk about flip flop company policies and also weird, out-of-this-world method of managing an engineering consultancy. That's LOTUS to the unfamiliar ones out there. Our company motto is : "Change The Rules", and they have done that in many glorious ways back then in the past, when the LOTUS founder, Collin Chapman was still around. Nowdays, they do change and bend the rules... but in a very weird way which normally end up putting local engineers at very unpredicted state. Okay, enough ranting on my company.

I've done numerous photoshoot in the last couple of weeks. Some were wedding, a bridal, and also a few model shoots. I did one Melacca photoshoot for Soo Mei and Desmond, and its definitely a worth mentioning outing. Both Soo Mei and Desmond are very chirpy people and they will be tying the knot soon. So the outing was to shoot them in a very lovey-dovey way; but I imposed some rather stylistic touch to it :) The outcome was great, and since I did some strobist style shoot to it too... its gonna take a little while of time to post process the photos which she has selected.

Then I shot Stephenie Gregory in a sudden, out of the blue moon invite by Mike aka Zique. And the most recent photoshoot would be of Sofea at Then Hou Temple. I shall be posting Sofea's photos for this update.

I guess with the uncertain prospect of me going to China for a project, I will be updating here a lot more frequent.

Morning Shootout @ Putrajaya

It was kinda last minute, and I've long left out from model shootouts ever since picking up wedding photography. As much as it's a different genre (sort of) of photography, nevertheless, it was refreshing. Thanks to N.Keong and Norraine for organizing this photoshoot, and also kinda made me drag my lazy bums out of bed on a Sunday morning - and mind you, it was in the 6am-ish. :P


This shoot out also made it possible for me to finally get a chance to meet up with a fellow photographer H.A.Lee, whom I've always regarded as a fellow virtual mentor/source of portrait inspiration. It was his portraits which have drawn me very much into digital photography when I started off. So, it was definitely a cool thing to get the chance to meet him and also his very hospitable wife, Sharon.

Anyway, there were 4 girls for us all to shoot that morning - Norraine, Isabelle, Christy and Rachel. We (photographers) were split up into groups to shoot different sitters. I was very much into shooting strobist style thus I got away with Christy to a corner to setup my rigs and get some shots done. Tried my hands on natural lighting... and still didnt really like it very much :P

Halfway down the shoot and we came across a bunch of fellas who drove their exotic cars (namely Ferrari and Porsche) and parked them in front of Putra Perdana's big roundabout. So, off we went to shoot some cars with gurls :P Awesome! As I get drifted away with my D300 and the new 70-200mm f2.8 VR, I ended up shooting photographers in action more than shooting the cars and/or the girls combined! LOL!


Anyway, I left the group around 11am to go back home and get prepped up for a wedding dinner shoot (Daniel & Sharon's) which is gonna be held at Damansara. NKeong and the rest of the gang moved to some office buildings to get more architectural backgrounds and we parted.

This is definitely a very refreshing outing and also one which I've enjoyed a lot. Muchos gracias!

Refreshing Photoshoot In Downtown KL

Okay, now I know this is gonna sound reeeeeaaaally weird. I went down to KL to shoot a couple without knowing their names! Interesting eh...? Well actually, my presence was made possible by an invite from Edwin Tan, who is a fellow photographer as well. Basically, I was there as an observer, or in a more direct to the point term : a busybody hehe.

Actually this couple engaged Edwin as their photographer, and since Edwin asked me to tag along, so I tagged along. I went into the picture with an idea to shoot more towards a behind the the scene photographs. However I end up having more of normal portraitures instead of candid behind the scene shots. Oh well, talking about doing something which one is so used to.


Anyway, the shoot went well; although the skies weren't one which I have hoped for. But overall it was a cool and nice experience. It has been a while since I last had a shoot which is practically pressureless. This definitely made me feel photography is kinda refreshing again. Thanks to Edwin for not making me comply to feed him with any form of deliverables of course!


Also, since this was my maiden shoot with my D300, this new DSLR prooved to be a real mean machine. Handling it seems effortless, and in no time, little did I realized I've shot over 200 frames in that evening. This definitely helps in building a more solid confidence with Nikon gears as I bring them forth to do more wedding coverage.

Jess & Kiat

System Migration

Well well well... time sure flies, and its been a while I didnt update this blog. Sorry 'bout that fellow readers but I sure had some pretty roller coaster ride for the past couple of weeks. Anyway, I'll start off again with one of the biggest decision I made over the week. It's about my switch from utilizing Canon EOS DSLR to Nikon.

I started off into DSLR photography a couple of years ago with the then world's best selling DSLR - Canon EOS 350D. It was in a class of its own. For the money paid for 350D, I got the famed low -noise images of Canon. It was great then. And that was the main reason why I chose Canon over Nikon, which then was offering entry level DSLR hunter, the Nikon D70s as well as the Nikon D50.

The Canon EOS 350D served me well. I toyed with it, travel to a couple of places in Europe with it, and it brought me home loads of beautiful images. From Paris to Monaco, London to Boston, Rome to Amsterdam. Apart from these, the 350D opened the door to digital photography to me... and this I will forever be grateful.

Fast forward to end of 2007. I bought my second DSLR - the Canon EOS 40D, which is one series above the 350D. I fell in love with this piece of machine and for the first time I was confidence enough with the image quality. The technical spreadsheet oozes with great stuffs : 3 inch LCD, 14-bit images, DIG!C III processing powers, and other stuffs.

Then it hit me.


Nikon came out with 2 new DSLR which practically "wowed" the photography community. Nikon introduced to the world the 2 brothers : Nikon D3 and Nikon D300. It has set a new benchmark to working digital photographers. While most hardcore Canon EOS users will swear and scream out that nothing beats EOS, I for one would have to defy such conventional brand loyalty. For me, things are pretty simple. Credits need to be given to where it is due. I choose Canon EOS back then because Nikon DSLR was suffering from crap load of noise when high ISO is being used. But now, the noise issue is solved. Not only that, the image quality produced by both D300 and also D3 surpassed that of Canon's, and could easily put on paper a much better technical spreadsheet.

And since I am shooting a lot of weddings, I realize that the color reproductions of Nikon D300 is simply amazing. Fascinating is more like the appropriate word to use actually. Yes, read my lips : F-A-S-C-I-N-A-T-I-N-G . The tonal range is great, the colorful stuffs are vivid, and more importantly - the skin tone redention is natural. This camera spells one thing which I have been missing out with the Canon EOS DSLR bodies - proper and accurate white balance and image processing.


With the said factors and coupled it up with numerous other facts, I decided to make the leap. It's gonna cost me a bundle, but what the heck, great images means more smiles for brides and grooms :) and thats something good to wedding photographers.

So, I went on a selling spree to get rid of ALL my Canon EOS DSLR system, including lenses and camera bodies. Then dived right on into Nikon D300 with some award winning lenses. And after toying with it for a couple of days now - I can only smile from ear to ear with loads of content. :) All I can say to some critiques on my decision to shift to Nikon, is merely 2 words.

NO REGRET