12 Frames Project - A Year's Story

After completing the 36 frame project.  I decided to cook with my photog buddy on another.  This time a much longer term project.  How long?  How abut one whole year? :P

Since both of us has Medium Format cameras.  It will be challenging to shoot only 12 frames for the year.  Each month, we are just limited to one shot!

So we can only see the final result in year 2011.  The title was thought by me actually.  A year's story.  How this 12 frames translates to 2010. 

I hope I can get all 12 frames and I have already thought of the film I am going to use.  It will be slide film again... Provia 400X.  Since I won't be sure whether low light will be involved... I think choosing a higher ISO film will benefit.

Its going to be a tough one to complete.  But it will be fun way to start the year!

So to all readers.  Happy holidays and may your wishes come true!

Fun with Expired Film - Expired Reala 220 on Diana

My master studio closed down 2 months ago and while we were clearing the fridge,  we found some expired rolls of film.  3 of them are actually 220 format!  220 basically is a longer version of 120 roll film.  Double the length actually, so you can get up to 24 exposures if you are shooting 66.  Bored on Wed as it was my off day so I loaded the film into my Diana and went shooting spree.  As there is no backing paper.  I need to cover up the back of my Diana with black tape to prevent light leaks..

Thinking the film was expired and its ISO is 100 (although I like to rate Reala at 50 to bring out the potential of the film).  And also it was an overcast day.  I opened the aperture on the fisheye to max and start shooting in bulb mode.  Some exposures actually last for 1 sec.. So most of the shots actually came out overexposed :(  The funny part is when I send it to develop.  Photohub was a bit shocked to see there is still 220 format film... hahaha.. luckily they accepted the roll but at double price of 120 (since equal to 2 rolls).  I scanned the neg myself as I dun expected much from this roll.

Still, managed to get some interesting shots from the expired film... Especially the panning shots.   You can see more at my facebook album :)

Completed! 36 Frames Project - "It ends with ~y"

If you remember this post.  Its a photography project initiated by me and my photog buddy. 

You can view the results here at my photogallery.  Its actually quite daunting to shoot 36 themes in a month and having to stick to the particular frame.  This is especially true when most of the time I was working and I took my camerea everywhere with me.  Hunting for the next frame.  In the end I nealry wanted to give up as those titles are a bit tough to hit....

And I actually got messed up early.  Crazy frame was an accidental shot by my master Stanley as he was playing with my cam and lens.  Frame 34 and 35 was also mixed up.  I thought "Floppy" came first in 34 but actually it was "Sticky".

Althought I did not really like the final result.  The process was still a fun and challenging exercise..  Plan to do another one... but this time maybe pick an easier theme... kekekeke

 

车小小！ (Small Car)

Was video conferencing that day so asked my daughter what she wants this time when I'm back from SG.  So she said in Chinese.  I want a car!!! errr.... my face a bit want to cry like dat... she seems to know not possible so change tactic... “小小！ 我要车小小！”.  And at the same time putting her hands together just in front of her face as a gesture how small the car she want to have. (super cute hehe)

Ooo toy car lah!  Not a problem.  then she followed in a mixture of Thai and Chinese.  "I want See Shampoo!" Which means pink colour...

Err... Small toy car and needs to be pink... challenging to find one liao.

Lucky that day saw one in Parkway.  hehe.. Hope can pass :P  

Ah Boy can turn easily now and enjoy his sister's companion.  Although wife did mentioned that they are a bit rough in their little games.. Boy also a bit greedy like me... hehehehe.. wify says when he sees my wife is eating.  He would watch intensively and mimic my wife's mouth movements.. like want to join in also...  That day while his sis is drinking milk, he grabbed his sister's finger to suck on... haha.. soon got bottle fight liao.

One more week and I will be back in Thailand again.   Need to find a gift for ah boy too or else wife say I bias towards Jie Jie.....

Sony Cybershot TX1

First of all, just want to mention that Sony didn't pay me for writing this(I do hope if they see this maybe they will :P).  Wife's friend wants a good PnS (Point and Shoot) camera and of course she immediately recalls I am a photographer and asked me to recommend and buy one for her. 

She is a good friend (best pal actually) of my wife so I cannot dissapoint her.  Her budget is 400SGD so I had a hard time to hunt around until I stumble upon an ad from Sony on a trade-in promotion for the WX-1 or TX-1.  I have an old Canon A90 that has a faulty LCD screen so I decidede to trade it in for the deal.

Went down to MS Colour and got one (with some top up from myself as she has bought tons of stuff for my kids and my wife an I have not really gave her anything). 

So decided to test shoot with the new toy as its a gift and I don't want any issue with it as it will be in Thailand.  So after testing it, I got hooked immediately by how good this little camera is.  I would say its more of a gadget camera rather than the usual PnS cam.  You can read the specs here, I'm not going to go through them but I just want to write how I enjoy using this camera as a photographer.

First feature to mention is the Panorama capture.  Here's a shot of my office below.

Basically, you focus and then starts to swipe in the direction of arrow indicated.  The camera will automatically stich the photo up for you.  Pretty neat and nice!  I had tons of fun shooting in this mode and most of the time the stiches are very well done.

The 2nd feature is the smile detection.  This is old news to some but I tested it and found it surprisingly accurate.  Though you need to smile and hold it there for at least a sec before it triggers the shutter.

The 3rd feature to mention is the handheld twilight mode.  Its a pretty interesting feature where the camera will take six consecutive shots and combine them to get you a more high dynamic range picture. Here's a sample below. Flash is not used at all.  The picture taken with this method is not as sharp but at least you can shoot handheld photos at night.

The next feature worth mentioning is the interface.  The camera literally has only 3 physcal buttons and a zoom lever.  All the rest is on the touch screen.  Yes! Touch screen like the iPhone or those monile phones.  The best is the selecting focusing point.  No longer I need to teach people how to half press the shutter to get a focus.  By touching on the screen, the camera automatically focus on that spot.  Making it a breeze to get a sharp photo.

Image quality is considered very good to me for such a  small compact camera.  High ISO photos are definitely acceptable for print up to 8Rs.  Which is more than enought for casual shooters.

Lastly, I just have to mention it again is the build quality and stylo looks.  Its cool looking and very thin.  Easily pocketable in your shirt pocket.  Making it very portable.  Sony also have some cool leather pouches for these cameras but I'm not sure how much they are charging them.  

Now for the bad things.

Battery life is ok.  Expected due to such small size but definitely can last a day of shooting.  You may need to consider getting a spare batt.

The touchscreen is a bit sensitive.  Sometimes you might accidentally hit on the screen and go into another mode or turning off a feature.

The battery compartment door is a bit filmy and plasticky (the rest of the body is all metal) so I think this is the part that will get spoilt first if you are not careful.

All in all, I find it to be the best PnS digital cam I have used so far.  And I will be getting one for myself soon :P

The Working Lady Issue - Part 2

Part 1 covers the first part of the Working Lady Myth...  Part 2 actually applies to not only working ladies but those people who had used a fake passport to come into the country.

I know it may sound wierd to most Singaporean's that there are people using fake passport to come into our country.  This is not rare especially in other countries, where its so easy to create a fake identity.

Some reasons that these ladies chose to use a fake identiy.

1) There are from countries that their gahment(eg are Myanmar, Laos, Camboida) do not allow their ladies to come to SG or other countries officially to work as working ladies.  These girls normally go to Thailand or other countries to make fake passport to come here to work.

2) They are scared of the so called 2 year ban which our dear gahment tried to impose.

3) It's not a glorious job and they wish to hide their true identity.

4) They are stateless (like my wife)

and etc.

So if your partner DID use a fake passport to come to SG to work before then its bad luck.  The only official channel is to go clean and declare that she did used a fake passport to come into SG to work before.  This would actually impose an immediate ban on her current passport.  (She would be caught at the immigration point if she comes during this period.)  To declare, you need to inform the officer at the ICA building on the old passport she first used in SG and the new (true) identity.  After that, according to Mr K is to keep appealing this ban.

If you have got married or has a kid, it might be easier to get the appeal, if not it will take a much longer time.  

Mr K, who had this predicament finally managed to appeal after a 2 years wait.  His friend who did the same was luckier, only 1 year.  SO the important thing here is NEVER give in.   Keep trying and you will get what you want in the end.  

I hope this series of info do help some brothers who need help in this as I have really received a lot of emails about this over the time.  Some of them I actually met in Maesai had this issue too.  And my sincere thanks to Mr K for sharing this info.  (You know who you are!)

 

Yashica EZF521

My first film camera was a Yashica SLR.  Can't exactly really remember the model as it was passed to me by my father when I was in Primary 6.  

Nevertheless, its a brand that was stuck in my head for quite some time.  Yashica (the brand) was bought over by some Hong Kong company and they started to come out with some digital cams. 

Recently, they came out this "Digital Holga" version which has some really cool features.  And the lens seems to be modable (its held only by 2 screws).  And the best part is it runs on 3 AAA battS!!  No need to hunt for hard to find CR123 or CR2 batts..

I saw some sample shots and of course the price was attractive too (less than SGD 200 with shipping) .  I got one immediately from japan exposure.  The first one came faulty (it was stuck in PC cam mode), so I need to returned it.  (talk about the poor QC in China).  The new just came a week before my trip to Melaka.  (Many thanks to Dirk of japan exposure on the quick shipping) And so I carried it with me for the trip.  It was the only digital camera I brought along but it was quite fun to use it. 

The LCD sucks and the preview on the images looks horrible.  But the camera actually produces surprisingly quite sharp and contrasty images.  Here's some samples :)

 

 

You can view more of the shots taken by this camera at my facebook album

Swarmed....

I have not been posting as I was recently swarmed with work in office.  Our company recently launched a new service managment system and we are still in the transition and training period of this new software.

Sad to say although the instructions (there are documentations) are clear but we are kind of being bombarded with information and things to learn.  The good thing is every 12 hours shifts ends quickly in a breeze but every night at the end of the shift, I was so shacked out that I just head to bed. They say when you hit 30s you start to feel this drag and I am literally living in it now.  How I wish I am 10 years younger in my prime :P

Anyway, I have lots of things to update for this site and I plan to do soon after I come back from Melaka.  Yup, I'm going for a weekend trip with my photog buddies in Melaka to relief some stress.

Will be back on Sunday night.  Hope I will have some energy to complete some posts when I'm back....