National Zoo and more

Malacca’s zoo is even better. Okay, I could finally get myself to do an update, so here it is.

The amount and variety of wildlife there was pretty disappointing in my opinion. It’s not worth it going through the trouble looking for a parking spot just to look at some lethargic animals. They even display goats! How nice is that! Some animals were even sick, possibly due to the very dirty exhibits. Oh yes, something worth mentioning, they have the skin of a Japanese Giant Salamander in the Reptile House. It’s probably from a relatively small specimen, considering these things grow to about 150cm in length.

Okay, photos. Editing was kept at a minimum.

Beware, long post ahead.

I’m not sure of its name, but it probably belongs to the Bison family.

Sun Bear, native to tropical rainforests in Asia, including here.

One huge African Hippopotamus. It secretes a sunscreen called “blood sweat”, but it’s neither blood nor sweat.

Bengal Tiger. There was only one in the exhibit.

White Rhino.

Another one, looking very lethargic.

Indian Elephants reaching for snacks from visitors. Yes, I know, the piles of poop are huge.

Estuarine (or saltwater) crocs, the largest species known.

Some pretty large tortoises.

A Galápagos Giant Tortoise, the same species to that of Harriet, which was allegedly collected by Charles Darwin.

Albino python.

A Green Iguana that’s brown in colour

Another python, with nice body markings. This one’s for petting.

Two Green Tree Snakes.

Dwarf Crocodile, the smallest extant crocodile species.

The same Dwarf Crocodile. Might look more like a monitor lizard, but it’s a crocodile.

The only penguin there. Dirty glass and dark exhibit = rubbish photo. But I had to post it here.

Seal performing tricks. No Orca, dammit.

Same seal doing some pretty simple tricks. Why? Because the trainer throws the hoop towards it, not anywhere and the seal goes for it.

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For those who don’t know what I got for PMR, it’s straight As. iPod touch for that.

It’s pretty good, since it’s many steps up from my nano, although a flood of applications means rather frequent crashing. Fyi, Labyrinth (the app in the iPod) is updating, that’s why there’s a bar on the icon.

Another disturbing thing is that the iTunes store is not compatible in Malaysia, due to mass piracy here. Otherwise I would have got a couple of movies and songs

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Right, something else. I’ve been playing a lot of Flight Simulator, now that I go for ‘training’ at the integrated Learning Center and can land a commercial aircraft with both ILS and visual approaches without any problems whatsoever.

I love the realism of this simulator. You can download real-world weather with updates from Jeppesen for an added challenge. The dynamics of the aircraft is so real you’d be fighting crosswinds if there’s any on approach. You work almost like a real pilot in it. You check the fuel, monitor its usage, crosscheck it with your flightplan, etc.

Emirates Boeing 777-200LR departs Los Angeles International for Dubai International.

Here’s an update

I haven’t been taking photos lately or doing anything that needs an update. So here’s one since I had a try at taking photos of lightning last night, so here you go Malfrinko I used a black card to allow for longer exposures without getting it overexposed. Still, it’s not very easy to get a well-exposed image with bulb mode because there’s no metering available. It’s really quite like a trial-and-error situation. Gauge your exposure wrongly and your photo could turn out like this:

Underexposed. There’s a vaguely noticeable lightning streak on the right.

Overexposed. Way overexposed. I don’t know why those spots showed up. Maybe rain droplets because this was a very long exposure, but highly unlikely.

A few things to keep in mind when doing this:

• Try it indoors. You probably won’t enjoy it outdoors and there’s a chance the camera will get wet. Yes, I’ve tried it in both situations.
• Use bulb mode, because this normally requires more than 30 seconds.
• A black card works well to cover your camera’s lens to extend the exposure time without overexposing it. Covering your lens with it effectively means not exposing your sensor.
• Tripod, for goodness sake.
• Avoid a very, very long exposure. It’ll only yield a lot of motion blur.
• Because it’s a trial-and-error thing, just keep shooting. You’ll definitely get a few good ones out of rotten apples.
• Keep in mind variables when a lightning strikes. Expose according to the scene when there’s no lightning and it’ll be ruined once it comes. Try an exposure that’s biased towards the lightning strike, because it’s your main subject.
• Custom white balance. Tungsten won’t do good.

One you’ve got it, you’ll get photos similar to these.

The first ‘usable’ photo.

A 140 sec exposure will have motion blur.

My favourite of the bunch.

I used the 400D and 24-105mm f/4 IS. I find that turning the IS off on this lens is necessary if it’s on a tripod. Otherwise, it just keeps working and makes your photo look shaky.

I think I’ll try stargazing and taking photos of galaxies next. It’s really possible, just use a long exposure on a fast lens (something like f/2.8) and high ISO sensitivity.

Canon Photomarathon Asia 2008

That was last Saturday. It started at Berjaya Times Square at 7am, which was before any shops there was even open. The queue to get your t-shirt, cap and towel went from the front of the boulevard all the way back. There were over 900 participants, mind you. Everyone’s required to wear the t-shirts so, well, KL was painted red. Everything lasted 7 hours, plus uploading time, a photography talk, prize giving and all that. I wasn’t there the whole time. I was something like a street photography walkabout. You just have to go to pitstops and follow themes.

The first theme is Indulge Metropolitan. It’s either their English sucks or they just enjoy twisting the words around.

The first pitstop, or starting point, Berjaya Times Square. It’s facade is HUGE it echoes when they announce the rules and themes.

Graffiti work on a building.

Bustling KL in silhouette.

The not-so-high-rise part of KL.

Noodle stall.

Roti canai man at a shack. Alright, enough of that, let’s head over to Pavilion.

Where most participants ended up early it wasn’t even open yet. So we started shooting around the area. The guards attempted to chase us off but failed. All they can do it blow their whistles and point at us and we’ll strike back with a cheeky grin or stare.

Bukit Bintang’s filled with these posh expensive stuff.

Just keep shooting and ignore the guards. Some put on their telephoto zooms so they wouldn’t know what are we shooting.

First pitstop. The general public was wondering what’s going on. Some asked if it was some kind of demonstration and we just laughed it off.

This was my submission for the first theme. The colour wasn’t edited in Photoshop. I only messed with the skies.

Planetside’s Terragen

Terragen is a software for Windows and Mac that renders photorealistic landscapes based purely on the user’s imagination. I find it very easy to use, so don’t worry (: Here’s a quick guide to shoot through. I’m still a relatively new user, so there’s much to explore so this guide is made by someone who doesn’t know how to use it to its limits yet.

Run Terragen first, then choose the colour for your landscape. I’ll take grey as my base colour here.

Before you start sculpting the landscape, choose your camera angle. A focal length-like function can be tweaked later.

Okay, start sculpting the landscape now. Just brush over with your own imagination. THe more strokes you make over the same area, the higher it will be. Right-click and it works opposite.

Canon Goes Green, Padang Kota Damansara

Yep, I went to their tree planting event the other day, 19th October. There were a lot of people, I have to say. Everyone was in green, almost a requirement for the event. There were food, beverages, some stuff for kids, information on trees and Malaysian rainforests. No, there wasn’t anything on Canon cameras on display. This is much of an outdoor event, but I couldn’t go for their tree planting part. I’ll let the photos do the talking.

Get a goodie bag at the counter before you join anything there. In it, you’ll find a t-shirt, a pen, stickers and an event info card in it.

Really, they were all in green. Canon even had stalls for you to trade your top for those provided.

Kids were given Wall-E colouring books. Some got their faces painted.

Main tent. VIPs made their speeches there. Press machine-guns away.

The professional’s definitive camera – an EOS-1D/Ds of some sort. This is an EOS-1D Mark II coupled with an EF 28-70mm f/2.8L USM and Speedlite 580EX with a Stofen Omni-Bounce EY. Notice the Gaffer Tape on the lens hood. I need some of that stuff, but I don’t know where to find them

The VIPs posed for the press with the environMENTALS, BotaniGirl, Green Grin (who left a comment here on my blog on this post) and General Green. Press machine-guns on as usual.

That’s it from me. Looking forward to the next event from Canon I’m attending, the Photomarathon, which is this coming Saturday, 1st November, at 7am and lasting 13 hours non-stop from there at Boulevard, Berjaya Times Square.

Lowepro Stealth Reporter D200AW review is up, but before that, a little one on Terragen. Then, a review on the Kata 3N1-30 backpack. This thing morphs into a backpack from a sling bag like the Lowepro Slingshot and into one with an X harness. Cool, but not as comfortable as my R-101 GDC as well as not as rugged as in the material. So, stay tuned!

2008 Kuala Lumpur Photography Festival

Went there last Saturday. Tons of exhibitors, they occupied the whole lower ground floor of Times Square. Largest booths being Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Sony, Fujifilm and Futuromic AV. Futuromic AV is Malaysia’s sole distributor of Tamron and Ricoh. KLPF is like Malaysia’s version of Photokina. The newest cameras are on display, and so are some of the rarest ones. The one getting the most attention that day must have been this.

The Canon EOS 5D Mark II. I tested it out with the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM. Noise control is superior to the D3 and D700. It’s H2 ISO mode, or ISO 25600 is actually better than my 400D’s ISO 800. It may be hard to believe, but I’m really being honest with ya. Probably about a dozen people tried it out within a 15 minute timeframe, most being 5D users, including my dad. Pricing wasn’t available yet, but my best guess is under RM 10K but above RM 9K. The Canon person at MidValley also quoted less than RM 10K. It can’t be priced at the original 5D’s launch price tag of RM 15K, because Nikon’s D700 is less than RM 10K. Because so many asked about the price, they put a sign saying “No pricing, yet” or something like that. This is a beta camera, which means no testing with your CF card like I wanted. They don’t want corruption of the firmware.

Even the EOS-1Ds Mark III didn’t get as much attention. Yes, Malfrinko, this is the camera you called crazy.

I gotta say, I think whoever prepped this camera before the show isn’t at all smart. The CF card inside it can only hold one of its 21.1 megapixel photo. Which means I formatted the card about 10 times when I tested it. There’s someone watching you when you use it anyway, so there’s no chance of stealing the card. Oh yes, that’s a 135mm f/2L USM. Amazing portrait lens.

Canon booth, they had the 50D too.

Canon’s photo gallery displaying some of the finest images taken with Canon cameras. Armand Ali’s shot of a MotoGP race bike spitting fire out of its pipes is just stunning. Okay, let’s move on to the Nikon booth, just next to Canon.

D3 and AF-S VR Nikkor 200-400mm f/4 G ED. For a zoom lens, it performed far better than expected. And that D3, I just gently pressed its shutter for a moment and it clicked 15 frames or so, blistering speed…

I don’t think Sony’s booth even had any cameras… so let’s move on to Futuromic.

Doing the Orton Effect

Here’s the tutorial I promised. If you’re looking into doing the soft focus effect for portraiture, this isn’t it. The Orton Effect is mainly used by photographers for landscape and nature shots. Here’s how it’s done in Adobe Photoshop (CS3 in this case). Actually, the Orton Effect isn’t a modern day digital post-processing technique. It’s been around since the film heydays. The Orton Effect is named after Michael Orton, who first used the technique of merging two negatives, one in focus and the other out of focus to create the effect.

The Orton image has traditionally been done using slide film with the first, sharp, image overexposed by two stops and the second, out of focus image, over exposed by one stop. A tripod is required to ensure that images are similar in composition, but that’s only for film. In Photoshop, this can be done very easily. Of course, it’s not just selecting a filter and gauging the strength.

In under 10 steps (excluding my rotating of the image), here’s how it’s done.

Firstly, open Photoshop (Elements does it well too) along with the desired file. This is IMG_6425, shot in July during the hike. Please ignore the rotation and move along to the next step.

Next, duplicate your background layer. Name that duplicated layer “Sharp”.

Duplicate the layer that was named “Shrap”. This will result in it named “Sharp copy”. That’s two duplicates of the Background layer.

Now, change the blending mode of Sharp copy to Screen.

This will result in an image that’s visually overexposed. Don’t worry, you’re on the right track if it turns out this way. Remember that it’s done that way in film. One in focus, overexposed by 2 stops and the other out of focus and overexposed by a stop.

And we go woot!

PMR ended just an hour ago. And now that it’s over, I can get about doing things I need and want to do. I’m getting around reading about setting up a self-hosted WordPress blog and which hosting would I need for that.

Oh and there are many events for photography junkies alike. Tomorrow and Sunday, Kuala Lumpur Photography Festival. Many retailers will be there, so bargains will pop up. Shashinki is one of them and visitors get a focus test chart for free. Good if you suspect your good old lens is back/front focusing. This years KLPF will be held at the ground floor of Berjaya Times Square, from 11am to 9pm. If you’re looking on improving your skills, you’re in luck. They have free talks and workshops by a number of photographers, organised by PhotoMalaysia. Expect many exhibitors too, including Nikon and Canon Malaysia. More info here

I’m not sure if I’m going for that, but if I am, it’ll probably be this coming Sunday. But I sure am going for this: the 2008 Canon Photomarathon. Coincidentally, it’s also scheduled to be at Times Square. Starts at 7 in the morning and ends at 8pm. It’s a marathon. Participants have to look out for subjects to shoot around KL’s Golden Triangle, wherever on Earth that is, according to 3 themes, which will be informed of on the day, 1st November. It’s RM15 per entry, regardless of the Point and Shoot category or the dSLR category. The fee is waived for Canon users. The biggest prize: a Canon EOS 40D and EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM kit. It’s the grand prize for the dSLR category. I’ve already registered. Be quick if you’d like to participate and tell me here if you do . Also remember the Indemnity Form or Consent Form if you’re a minor like me, under 18 years of age. More info here. Speaking of Canon, remember Canon Goes Green? They’re planting the trees they promised this coming Sunday, at 7:30am but I can’t go. A tree for a photo. Isn’t that great? Map to Padang Kota Damansara can be found here.

Lowepro has announced the Classified series of shoulder bags for cameras recently. It looks much stealthier, not at all like a camera bag, slimmer and more mobile than the fat Stealth Reporter D200AW I have. Being discreet means not getting stares, it looks like a document case actually and seems like a competitor to the Think Tank Urban Disguise series.

Don’t they look good? From left: Classified 140AW, Classified 160AW, Classified 200AW, Classified 250AW. The 250AW is huge and it holds a 15.4″ notebook.

Classified 160AW in Sepia. I like this one but it’s smaller than my Stealth Reporter. That means smaller capacity

Classified 200AW. Bigger than my Stealth Reporter. Why can’t they just make one that’s similar in size to mine?

The Classified series will be available from early November. I like it. I’ll have to check it out and the pricing locally.

That’s a week’s worth of updates squeezed in a single post. Posts on the Orton Effect, a software I found called Terragen and a review on the Lowepro Stealth Reporter D200AW will be up in a jiffy since I’ve got plenty of time. Terragen is super-fun for genarating landscapes according to your imagination. It’s also very easy to use. I did my first landscape in 15 minutes, although it isn’t great. So, well, stay tuned!

October 12

Alright, alright, I’m not going to rant about PMR being less than a day away, although I’m freaked out already.

Your monitor’s fine. It’s called the Orton Effect. I’ll have a tutorial on doing this in Photoshop after the exam. And that’s an L for you kit lens users!

Okay, today’s a year since I started photography, as a hobby, or more precisely, I got my 400D. I’ve learned a lot since then, but I’m still learning. It’s a neverending process in everyone after all. I had a Lumix for a few months before the 400D. It took good photos, but lacked semi-auto exposure and manual exposure. There were only scene selections.

I never heard of reflex (or SLR) cameras before that. I only knew of them as “the big ones reporters use” and “make a noisy sound when taking a photo” cameras. I was more into scale models of cars. It was only when someone on a model car forum got a 400D I heard of them and saw the image quality. So, yes, I got it precisely a year ago. If I could see things that day right now, I would probably be playing with it right now, using the full-auto mode without any creativity.

Okay, off to study in a while. Have to go about memorizing about literature in Malay once more. Looking forward to the end of the exam. Is that positive, or is it the opposite?

It’s all down to this

Yet I slept like a pig for 3 hours when I came back from school. We cleaned the classes today, in preparation for the PMR examinations, which starts Monday. This is what we have been anxious about for months and months but it lasts just 5 days. Okay, but the 5 days are going to last longer, or at least seem to last longer than normal schooling days.

They had this thing where the teachers wish you all the best and all right after assembly for us. I just cannot believe people actually cried. Like what the hell. Can’t imagine the results day. Apparently, we’re stone because we didn’t. Sheesh.

We have Malay Language up for the first day, a subject which I either excel or just flunk completely. I’m concentrating more on Math, that, History and Living Skills. I don’t know much about electricals. I can’t say I’ve got no confidence for straight As but I don’t want overconfidence in myself. Tuition teachers keep telling us that it’s going to be easier than the trials because the paper’s designed for candidates based in more rural areas, if you get what I mean. Still, I’m going to work for this. I got the cameras, except for the film ones, my 400D, 10-22mm and 50mm away until Sunday because they’re with dad, who’s at PD for a company trip or convention or something. Wish me luck for this exam, weather or not I’ll be needing it.