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.

.

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

.

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.

Singapore Airlines Boeing 777-300ER approaching Changi.

Singapore Airlines banking south for Singapore after departure from Tan Son Nhat (Ho Chi Minh).

Singapore Airlines Airbus A340-500 landing at John F. Kennedy International.

First Class passenger’s view of a mountainous landscape as the Singapore Airlines Boeing 777-300ER descends to Zurich-Kloten with the spoilers partially extended.

The same Singapore Airlines aircraft on a low visibility (4 miles or less) descent to Zurich.

But that’s not a problem if you use ILS.

Landing at Changi in terrible weather conditions.

Close-up of the HUGE General Electric GE90-115B engines on the 777-300ER. They’re the largest and most powerful single turbofan jet engines (3,404 mm in diameter and 115,300 lbf of thrust, which is about 100,000 horsepower, 100 times more than the Veyron )

The Superjumbo in Airbus colours.

An example of real-world weather, overcast skies over the South China Sea.

Qantas Boeing 747-400ER over Australia’s barren land.

Qantas Airbus A380-800 on final for Melbourne’s runway 16 after executing a go-around due to a Beechcraft Baron 58 not clearing the runway in time.

Okay, that’s it. I apologise if the flight simulator part bored you to death.

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.

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.

Pitstop B. Second theme was given there. “Mess In Rules”. Again, either bad English or it’s just me who finds it difficult to understand it.

Before any other shop was even open. Right after getting the theme and looking at some lenses, I headed to find someone jaywalking or a car breaking the law knowingly.

Pavilion Residences. It’s under construction as of now. I kinda like the flare and sunstar.

And we find one along Jalan Pinang. I think almost every participant submitted this. Th driver later came out of the building and smiled at us. Little does he know, his car’s been spied on. LOL

I’m on the left taking the previous photo. Credits to dad. Second theme down, we head to the last pitstop, Suria KLCC.

Etiqa Twins, 11 Jalan Pinang.

Petronas Twin Towers from the park.

Mandarin Oriental – Petronas Twin Towers – Maxis Tower. No, Mandarin Oriental isn’t taller than the twin towers. It’s just parallax.

The ever-popular photographic point of view. You see something similar all the time in Deviantart.

From inside the mall. Third theme’s “Goes Green”. Ah, well, Canon Goes Green. I met 3 ShutterAsia members there at the Canon store.

We went through KLCC, as in Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, home of Aquaria KLCC to get back out on Jalan Pinang when I nabbed this shot at 10mm wide.

There you go, the shot for the third theme. Found some recycling bins in the Convention Centre so I did this. Put dad’s 5D on one of them and got this shot. The 580EX II’s ETTL II metering was a little erratic but it nailed it spot-on the third time.

Got this shot from the bridge to Pavilion.

After that, just straight back to Times Square to upload the photos. I wasn’t there the whole time so I don’t know the winners and if I won. I doubt I even stand a chance to win though. Went to Borders to look at some books. Imagine a group of sweaty poeple walking into a bookstore. We get stares.

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.

Add water if you want to. Just increase the water level to a positive numeral.

Choose the colour of the water. More effects like foam and reflection can also be customized to your taste.

Now there’s water.

Okay, the atmosphere. Choose the hue for your atmosphere, or rather the shade of blue. Light decay and Simple Haze you see here is good for creating moods.

Now, clouds. Just click on Generate Clouds and play with the sliders.

Nicer now.

Lighting… It’s all up to you. What mood do you want to create, what do you want to express here, what time of a day, it’s all simulated here. Remember you can also create morning fogs and other effects here.

Finally, touch ups, especially at the camera settings. Remember to choose the correct altitude and pitch angle for an optimum view of your landscape. Also, choose the highest quality settings, also under render settings, for your final image.

And there it is! Done in under 15 minutes. Notice how nicely it’s rendered the reflections and shore foam. I kinda messily cloned out the black parts of the horizon that was in the original rendering. This was enhanced in Photoshop CS3, just like the following two other renderings.

Mountain range, a river at sunrise, some fresh morning fog was inspiration.

Winter at a frozen lake with mountains.

There you go! If you’re going “Oh crap, now I have to shell out more on software”, don’t. Terragen is free for personal home use. Give it a try, it’s really simple to use, I mean it. To download directly from Planetside, click here and select your Operating System to download the file.

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!

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.

Tamron display at Futuromic’s booth. The 18-270mm superzoom is now available for Canon, Nikon, Sony, Pentax and Olympus mounts (I think). Oh and here’s another highly anticipated lens, especially for Nikon DX users, and even more so for mini Nikon DX users (D40, D40X, D60) who are in need of a good UWA lens instead of the 12-24mm f/4, which performs lousily, and want something wider than 11mm as on the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 DX.

Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5. It’s got a 2mm advantage over my Canon 10-22mm UWA on the tele end. Although I don’t think it’ll perform as well as my Canon, Tamron’s optics are excellent. Just look at the 17-50mm f/2.8. It’s sharper than both Canon’s and Nikon’s 17-55mm f/2.8, which are regarded as pro-level standard zooms for 1.6X crop bodies. I guess it’s fair to say that their AF motors and technology aren’t as advanced as Canon and Nikon. Head over to Olympus for a fantastic display of camera tech.

The Olympus Zuiko EF 7-14mm’s internals. Just look at those ground glass lens elements, that’s why you pay so much for lenses.

Olympus does it ala-I Didn’t Know That. Yes, it’s a half-cut. Notice the glass isn’t cracked.

They also did it on their E-3 and a lens. Amazing to see the internals, eh?

Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS USM and Canon EOS 30D from YL Camera. The lens was at their shop for quite a while now, and wouldn’t sell so they used it here to promote tripods. It’s about 16 kilos, the lens.

Probably Canon’s fastest ever lens, the 50mm f/0.95 from 1960. Its aperture diameter is larger than its focal length. Canon EOS users, don’t get off your seats, it’s for rangefinders, like the Canon 7 it’s on. Manual focusing will kill you because its depth of fiels is soooo thin. Shown by Keat Camera. Next to this is a Leica Noctilux 50mm f/1, also for Rangefinders, under the Leica M42 mount. The price for the Noctilux? RM 19K. It’s a very sought-after lens, mind you. Even a cult object among Leica users.

The new Leica M8.2 digital rangefinders at Eng Tong Photo Systems. Looks crappy but it’s every street photographer’s dream.

Eng Tong also had a full range of Kata bags. DR-467 (brown one to the right and black one next to it) looks great but apparently the straps can snap.

Finally, they had photography talks for the public there.

That’s it from me. Thumbs up to the organizers of KLPF. Canon Goes Green is coming up!

]]> http://jyi1693.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/2008-kuala-lumpur-photography-festival/feed/ 0 jyi1693 IMG IMG IMG IMG IMG IMG IMG IMG IMG IMG IMG IMG IMG IMG IMG IMG http://jyi1693.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/doing-the-orton-effect/ http://jyi1693.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/doing-the-orton-effect/#comments Sun, 19 Oct 2008 05:55:47 +0000 jyi1693 http://jyi1693.wordpress.com/?p=285 ]]> 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.

With Sharp copy selected in the Layer Pallete, right click on it and select Merge Down. This will combine it with the Sharp layer.

Duplicate the Sharp layer and name that layer “Out of Focus”.

With the Out of Focus layer selected in the Layer Pallete, click on Filter and select Blur, then Gaussian Blur.

Right, don’t panic now. Blurring it is part of the process. We’re closing in. Now, the trick to choosing how much blur (radius in pixels) to apply is to just use as much as possible, without smudging the basic shape of the photograph but also hiding the details and textures. I used a value of 24 for a 10.1 megapixel photo.

With that sorted out, have the Out of Focus layer selected and click on the Blending Mode dropdown menu and select Multiply.

And you’re done! There’s your dreamy Orton Effect. I advise processing the base photo if needed before doing the Orton Effect as you’re messing with layers here.

The final result.

Well, that’s it. I hope you enjoyed my tutorial. Happy shooting and editing!

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!

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?

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.