Dream Camera? - Sony A7R

First of all, apologies for not writing anything for the passed few months as I am getting lazier and lazier everyday in the Land of Smile :P I did had some drafts but later just dumped them as it's just my usual ramblings on our dear Singapore gahment.  Think I just get tired on my own complains and just let it be for the moment.  Maybe during election time I will be more active again on that department.  Haha

Enough about meself.  This post is about another camera (Yes, camera again... booorrrinng) that I recently accquired while I was back in Singapore.  The new Full -frame (35mm) Sony Alpha 7 R.   I got it at a special price from James of Lobangking.com.

The camera was released in late 2013 and I knew I would replacing it with my Nex-7.  I want Full Frame.  Period.  I am so used to taking film and getting the FOV of a true 35mm lens while I am shooting so it was a no brainer.  My initial choice was the normal 7 version.  Not the R version as I think 24Mp should be more than enough for me.  But when I learnt about the price of A7R that I would be paying for.  I jumped for it.  36MP is nothing much but NO AA filter.  That I am interested.

I have worked with digital medium format files before and all of them do not have an AA filter on their sensors.  The files are sharp and crisp and very very malleable for post processing.  My conclusion comes to the same after shooting with my A7R  for a month.  It's image quality is good,  very very close and to me personally, surpassed MF film in resolutions and details.  Some may argue that MF film can resolve better if I use drum scan.  Maybe?  But I have no luxuries of drum scanning in Thailand so I guess for me, this little camera is an ultimate landscape camera for me.  For shooting portraits of my family, it's a bit sharp and I need to reduce the sharpness in LR before printing them.  All the pores and scars can come out especially if I used the 135mm Sonnar.

There are some nitpicks of course.  Battery life sucks,  Loud thunderous shutter.  These I can live with as I am not that trigger happy and I have enough spare batteries around.  Shutter is not a major concern, I am used to loud mirror slaps of my Hassy last time and I don't really shoot in quiet places.  The major dislike is there is no in built image stabalizer (AS) like the Olympus and the old Alpha DSLR used to have.  I am so used to AS on my a900 so I found a lot of shaky shots on my A7R.  Still usable but it just could be better.

Dream camera?  Not really but quite close ... almost there.. :)

There goes my long weekend.

I was suppose to have a long 4 day break on the day of National day. (9th Aug) and was looking forward to go out and shoot some pictures or meet up with some friends.  But during the last night shift I started to develop a flu like symptom followed by an unrelenting cough.  It got worst when I cycled home from work and I couldn’t sleep well as I spent most of my energy wheezing and coughing my lungs out.  Horrible horrible experience.  Even when my colleague called me up for an OT I rejected outright (not myself usually) as I have not been able to sleep for the past 24hrs.  I’ve drank some cough syrups and managed to get some sleep finally on Friday, spending the whole day in bed.  Lucky me, I got better today after managing to sleep non-stop for more than 6 hours.

Anyway, I was suppose to write up a short bike trip and a short review on my Nex 7 that I took with me.  The photos are over here in my fb page.   The last 2 photos were taken another day during a night cycling trip with a friend from Bedok to Marina Bay.  I would say the 7 is a great upgrade from my 3.  I was more at home with the viewfinder and the controls as they resemble more of a SLR rather than a PnS like the 3.  There is however, some flaws to the camera.  The first being the size of the camera.  It’s just too small for my fat fingers.  I have trouble gripping it and without an inbuilt Anti Shake system means I have trouble shooting it handheld at anything lower than 1/30.  I think I need to get a grip or a case soon to solve this issue.  The other major F**k up thing is the bloody video button.  I think most who have read the reviews knows what I’m talking about.  It’s just stupid to have the button so easily triggered.   I think this are the 2 major problems I have with the camera.  Other then that, the camera serves my purpose well and I am seriously considering dumping all my SLR gear if and only if they come out a Nex with FF sensor… : P 

I will try to pound out my bike trip later.  Need to rest more.

My New (Used)Ride

Fully UnfoldedMy first foldie was the Strida 5.1 I bought in 2008.  I sold it away in 2010 when I decided to quit my job and return back to Maesai.  Fast forward to the beginning of March when I decided to come back to work.  I started to miss riding a a bike in Singapore.  After 3 weeks of bus rides to office.  The excruciating pain of the bus system here compels me even more to get one.  At first I plan to get a normal bike but my new flat (currently staying at my sis's new HDB flat) is just too small to house a full size bike.

As the idea of getting foldie comes back to me, I started to think about the Brompton folding bike and other brands such as Dahon and Birdy. I have a friend who is also using a Dahon and I asked for his opinion on his bike and he's quite pleased with it.  I started to do more research about the bikes.  I would prefer something that would folds neatly and perform better than my Strida.

Yesterday was my day off and I started a round island trip looking at the bikes from 3 different shops.  I narrowed down to the Brompton and Dahon.  I was leaning towards the Brompton as it really really folds up into a very small package (which is my 1st major citeria).  Then I learnt about a Brompton clone called Flamingo Nex 7 which looks mightly similar of the Brompton fold and at least half the price point of the Brompton.  Money was still a major issue, I'm willing to spend but I have a limit as I still have not earn enough OT to get such big ticket items yet.  I was planning to go down to another bike shop in the West that has the Flamingo Nex 7 to take a peep but that silly old me went to the local bike forum togoparts.com.  Itchy hand I went in and searched for a WTS (Want to Sell) thread for a Brompton.  Bing!  Returns 1 under utilised black Brompton M6R at a pretty good price.  Still above my budget but out of curiosity and (trying my luck).  I messaged the guy and asked for the best price (which is my budget).  Took a minute and he replied he is willing to let it go at my price!! Whee... took a cab down and checked out the bike.  Paid and left :P

Folded My first encounter with the Brompton was actually in 2008, when I visited Diginexx to get my Strida.  The owner of the shop showed the Brompton to me but the price tag was just too high for me to justify one at that time as I was only planning to use the bike mainly for commuting between my house and office.  After riding on the Strida for a year plus,  I found that the size of the folded Strida is not as elegant and also it's a bit big and cumbersome to carry around (I could only wheel it).  Not the case for Brompton.  It's slightly heavier but because of it's compact size, I could carry it easily when folded and even wheel it by just extending the seat post.  The other thing is the 6 speed gear which means climbing a hill (around Bedok Reservoir Road) is no longer a pain the ass for me old fat arse.  I always have a hard time along that stretch on my single speed Strida.

I bought the bike at Senkang near Hougang and there was a bike connector.  I took out my handphone and was pleased to find out that the connector would lead me to Hougang Ave 10 which I could hitch a bus back to my office in Kaki Bukit.  I unfolded the bike (many thanks to Gary who sold me the bike and provided some good tips in folding and using the bike) and took a short ride to the bus stop via the park connector.  Its good!  The initial acceleration is less then the Strida but much smoother ride.  Even though its on 16" wheels.  It was a 10 min ride to the bus stop.  I was taking it easy as I was trying to get used to the gearing system.  

I folded the bike and board the bus and dropped off at Ubi.  I decided to take a test ride home on the bike.  The whole journey was about 40mins.  I was not speeding, just crusing along the pavement as I was really testing out the bike and looking out for a better path to get back home.  

I think the current construction around the area meant I have to take a big detour to get back to Bedok Reservoir Road.  There were a lot of rude speeding cyclists I met along the way and I don't really dare to cycle on the road as I did not have my helmet on with me.  Moreover, I have not been cycling on SG's road for more than a year.  All in all, I enjoyed the ride and the bike as well.  Some people disliked the mustache handle bars but I kind of like it a lot.  It allows me to have a much upstraight riding position.  There are some minor peeves on the bike I wish it could be better.  First are the cheap plasticky shifters for the gears, seriously, for this price I hope it could be better, it looks like it would snap easily.  I think it would be difficult to swap them as I have read that most of their parts are proprietary.  Another peeve is the umarked seatpost.   Think I need to use a marker to mark my height.  I stopped twice just to adjust the height of the seat.   Other than that, its a good buy.  Ride is really smooth and the frame is well formed and sexy.  All in all, I love it.  I planned to get a few upgrades.  First, I need some lights!! Then a Brooks seat for my butt.  The seat is good but those Brooks leather seats just look awesome!!  Then a bag or luggage carrier!  I guess I still need to spend a lot more than I expected :P

Parking Mode

PS: Apologies for the lousy photos of the bike in my room, I was actually hiding it from my mum.  Well, let's just say she still sees it in the end and immediately after that was followed by a barrage of nagging of how dangerous it is to commute with a bike on SG road.... :P     

 

This really really looks interesting. (Galaxy Note)

Picture taken from Samsung Galaxy Note mini-website.I bought my phone Nexus 1 about 2 years ago. Well actually 3 more months is will be its 2nd year anniversary and I was scouting around for a new phone.  You will be surprised that iphone 5 was actually in my list until Apple didn't release it.  They just updated another iPhone 4S which I think is not much of a difference from my wife's white iPhone 4.  So that's out.

Scouting around I saw this.  The galaxy note!  The real real thing that really get me hooked was the stylus.  Probing furthur its a dream come true!!  The stylus is finally back!  I think I have mentioned before I like to use a pen to jot things down and I missed using my Windows Mobile or Pocket PCs in the 90s.  It was my best working organiser. 

Morever, the size is also about the same as my old Compac IPAQ 3600!!  Yes, it's a bit big for a phone but the screen size will be great for writing (I find using a stylus on my Touch Cruise a big challenging sometimes nowadays as I was so used to my N1.  

The name was well chosen too.  Note!  Just like a note book.  Alas, it was not running the latest ICS like Galaxy Nexus but the stylus and with Android, this will be a good combo.  Price wise I heard it will be about 1k SGD... pretty expensive.  Arrgghh......

More Plastic Cameras

Ever since I got baby no 2 on the way.  I have been refraining myself of buying more cameras.  There was the EP-1 and Fuji 200 EXR.  So to quench my thirst for new toys.  I turned myself to cheapo plastic cameras.  There was the Black Brid Fly. And recently, I just got the Diana F+ and Diana Mini and all sorts of accessories.

There are cheap compared to those latest digital camera.  For the same price I could get 4 or 5 such cameras off the net.   Problem is there are a lot of nice accessories to go with these cameras.  So in the end I’m still spending too much money on these babies :P.   Not to count I need to buy more films and spend money developing them.

As usual, my “genius” plan has backfired on me… back to the drawing board….hahaha..

Plastic Camera

I used to have a Holga (think 4 ,5 years back)and I broke it easily after a roll or 2.. Thus I refrained myself from using plastic cameras for quite some time until I saw this The Black Bird Fly!... Hehe. It got delivered last month and I only get to play with it today (yes I'm back in SG) So far the build is pretty good for a plastic camera.. The only think I dun like is the film rewind crank. Feels a bit too easy to snap. Other then that, it sure look cool and retro..

Only 2 apertures f/7 and f/11 and one shutter speed (1/125). There is a bulb mode though so low light is still possible. Now if only the weather improves a bit so I can go out and shoot! :(

My Transport

... in Thailand. Since I'm free for the day while waiting for news at home. Cleaned and washed my car and bikes and took a photo of them.

The Toyota VIOS is the new addition. The black Honda Blade is mine and the Pink Yamaha Fino is my wife's..

Total damage is less than 40k SGD. Funny thing is I dun even have one bike in SG.

So just posting this to Hao Lian(show off) a bit :P

Andriod Rocks

I have a few friends who are really into getting a PDA phone and some of them are really into the Iphone.  Until I show them what Android can do too. :P

Iphone is great actually.  Especially the OS which basically is a scaled down version of it OS X.  But I really hate the idea of Apple monopolizing the hardware and using bloody iTunes to sync the device.   I don’t really like the form factor of the Iphone too.  (Just a matter of personal preference)  I am currently using Windows Mobile HTC Touch Cruise (surprise!) but I am already starting to plan my next purchase.  So Iphone used to be on my to buy list (I’m a bit sick of Windows Mobile) until I heard about the Open Handset Alliance and their announcement of the Android operating system for mobile phones looks really promising.  Its still pretty under development and they have cute names for their builds (current version is Cupcake… the next one is Donut)

It is really promising as since the OS is open sourced.  A lot of mobile phone manufacturers will implement it onto their PDA phones.  So far, HTC, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG are going to produce devices under Android.  Acer and Asus is also looking into using Android as a alternative for their netbooks.  Which means I get to have a lot more hardware to choose from rather than Apple alone.  If Apple is willing to open up and allow the other hardware manufacturers to offer hardware based on their OS.. then it might be a different story altogether.  But you should know the answer.  Its next to impossible for Apple to do that so Android based phones will be on my shopping list.

My new bike.

Ok. I think some of you guys following my blog knows that I cycled to work. But my mountain bike is heavy and big and I constantly worried that it will get stolen (lots of factory workers and foreign workers at Kaki Bukit). Thus it crossed my mind one day to get a bike that is fold able, so I could carry it into my office.

Surprised to find that actually foldies are actually a hit in SG already. Anyway, went to a local foldie forum and saw this little gem. Its called Strida bike. I actually want to get the version 3.3 (cheaper) but I am sold on the disc brakes and aluminium frame and paid 300 more for the version 5.0.

The shop is at Lavendar. The husband and wife who owns the shop showed me various ways of folding and unfolding the bike. It actually is the easiest to fold among the few foldies they are selling in their shop. They are also very friendly and actually asked me for my riding style and preference before recommending me the Strida. So I bought it on the spot and immediately took a ride on it to Lavendar MRT. It may look flimsy in the pictures you see but it actually is very sturdy. You need to get a bit used to it though as just a small arm movement will cause it to swerve. The idea is to relax your arms a bit...

I got onto the train and a lot of people just looked at my new bike... hehehe... Got off at Kembangan and rode home. Very pleasant ride and although its only 1-speed, it is takes little effort to climb slopes as the front gear is huge!

Highly recommended for those who wants to stop using feeder services or even buses.

IR at Temasek Polytechnic

I get to go to Temasek Polytechnic to help out my Master's photography event. Since it was a bright and sunny day. Took out my mod-IR cam and took some pictures of the campus.

Here's 3 of them. The effect is really interesting but it seems that the sensor is damn dirty.... most probably will send it back in to do some cleaning.

Going IR

My IR is not Integrated Resort Lah... but rather on photography. Digital Infra Red. I used to borrow my friend's Hoya R72 (a type of IR filter for lenses) and was a bit peeved by the needs to screw on the filter on and off to compose a shot. This is because once you have an IR filter on the lens, the whole viewfinder becomes literally dark. The exposure time is long also as the camera's sensor has a layer of IR filter just in front of it. Blocking all the IR lights.

As 2nd hand DSLR cameras are getting cheaper by the day (more new models come out, the cheaper the older ones hehe). I got myself another Sony A100 and mod it to become a dedicated IR camera. Got it today from my trusty camera technician and tried it just now. Too bad its at night, not really capturing the potential but the effects are quite interesting.

Here's a sample of night IR... check out the sky with some clouds. Normally you won't get them with normal cameras.



And to answer some questions on whether this camera can "see" thru clothes.... well, in theory its possible but I dun dare to try leh.... :P

I want a Plasma Speaker!!

Back from Thailand and sad to say did not spend much quality time with wife and girl. Got sicked on the second day till the last. Still girl girl seems very happy that I was with her :)

Anyway, stumbled across these vidz on youtube recently. Pretty cool if I get to build one myself.. hehehe The first 2 are plasma speakers.





and the OVERKILL.... Tesla coils playing Mario Bros Theme song :P

Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000

The thing about coming back to Singapore is that you get to see more gadgets. Anyway, I was fustrated of getting my lousy genius webcam to focus correctly so I went shopping for a more powderful webcam. Had been doing my research and most people still say Logitech is the best. Saw this little baby at Sim Lim which has a built in mic, auto focus and bloody Carl Zeiss glass lens leh!!! wat lau, macham BMW or Mercedes of webcam. Bit the bullet and bought one. Cost me bloody $170.

At first a bit heart pain but after the installation, money is well worth spent. The quality is much better and I do not even need to turn on my table lamp to get a bright image.

The software bundled is also a joy to use. It has this fun filter that you could apply live from the camera. Thinks like accessories (see pic of ballon hat) and other stuffs. The face tracking also works very well, It actually tracks your face and zoom in or out if you move.

So happy I was with this little cam that I bought another one so I could install it in Thailand (like dat can see girl girl clearer). And by the way, job is secured and I am signing the contract this friday. I would also be away from 23 to 27 March. Since got ample time, decided to go back 5 days to wife and baby. hehehe...

PUMA TIME Heart Rate Monitor

I've talked about interval training and have not been following the routine as its tough for me to gauge my limits. Meaning that normally after 2 intervals, I get too tired to push to the 3rd one. So I read up about how to gauge your workout load through a heart rate monitor. Its quite a simple way of monitoring your heart rate while you workout to maximise the type of routine (cardio or fat burning) you want to achieve.

So went down to hunted around for a heart rate monitor watch that I could wear. Spotted this from PUMA at Bencoolen plaza going for $170. Bargain till $150 and managed to try it today. I have to say it really works but the ECG band is a bit uncomfy leh... like wearing a bra (not that I wore one before).. Overall, I actually completed a 4km run much faster and less tiring then I used to be. Mainly because if my heart rate does not hit my desired upper or lower threshold, it will give off beeps to tell me to slow down( or speed up). Those who are into running or seriously want to loose weight should get one. It really does help!

For more information, try these sites for more information on desired target training heart rate.

This site gives the different zones for different types of workout you want to achieve (fat burning, endurance, cardio, strength etc)

For the more hardcore and particular one, read up on this one to see how to determine your real max heart rate (important to know your max to set up your training zone)

Every letter makes a sound...

Took a long break from computers as I was working on our old house at Khor Shai. The person renting the place moved out so we took back the house and repainted the whole house by ourselves. Wify was not really involved in the project as she is looking after girl girl. But luckily her cousins were available to help and took us 3 bloody days to go through the job.

This post not really about the house project but the new toy i bought for girl girl... hehe. Its a leapfrog phonic fridge magnet that I got from Singapore last time but only recently brought here by mum and sis. I opened it and it has magnetic letters of the alphabets which you could swapped onto the main console. Press the letter and it will speak out the letter and how to pronounce it phonically. It even has a music button which you press and its sings the ABC song. Since its magnetic (even the console), I stuck all the letters and the console on the safe I had in our room. (girl likes to open the fridge door for no apparent reason, so better not stick it there)

Girl likes it very much leh... especially the letter 'O'. No idea why but everytime I take 'O' out and put some other letters, she would snatched the letter 'O' from me and put it back on... Interesting....

Some photos from my new lens

I got myself a 85mm 1.4 G lens from ebay when I was in Singapore. Huge piece of glass and I intended to use it intensively on Hui hui. Its a fast lens thus I could shoot without flash. All shots in this series are taken with the lens except the one standing looking at the toy. Very happy with it. More to come later....

Burn more money!

Last year Loy Krathong allows me to have some fun with all these toys. Since November this year I will be stuck in Singapore. I thought I will miss the chance to set something off. Luckily mid-autumn festival also allow to play leh... ghahaha mai tu liao!

Bought some new stuff to play, including 2 fireworks you see in the picture. The number you see on the fireworks (round clay objects) are actually the listed price. The smaller one is red in colour which is cheaper. Green translucent paper actually means the firework is white in colour. White is actually more expensive. For the same size, the red one only cost 80baht. There actually has an even bigger sizes for the fireworks. Largest are 280 baht, as tall as the green tea bottle shown in the picture. Those crackers in front of the fireworks are fun too. Especially the tank. It will actually move on the ground and lights will spew from the front barrel.

So later in the evening we gathered the children around the neighbourhood and set the fireworks off. I brought along my camera and tripod to take some pictures. Not very good though as I was too near to the firework and it was really quite bright, making my photos a bit overexposed.

The red one.

The bigger white one, which is actually more pretty and very very bright.

More Zen!!

I want to write more about my new Zen Vision W. Hehe. Wanted to give a review about this little gadget. First, its really has a great screen. 16:9 aspect ratio really helps in viewing movies. And it also have the ability to stretch the video to fill up the screen if necessary. Pretty cool feature. Battery last quite long, about 5 hours (a bit more as the box gave 4.5 hours)

Sound quality with my Shure E2G headphones are excellent. I watched part of Snakes on a Plane on a bus heading to my school and enjoyed every minute of it.

Plugging this baby into a computer is easy with Vista. As it is using MTP (M$ Transfer Protocol), I could easily transfer file by dragging and dropping in Explorer (only in Windows system). For my MACbook Pro, I used XNJB. A free software and I could make it mount easily on my MAC too!!! Yeah!!

The software provided by Creative is simple and easy to use. Files that needs conversion will actually be prompted and you could choose to re-code it to a playable format.

Most files actually play. There are some that don't, especially those that are AC3(5.1) encoded. Copying from VCD is also not a hassle as the player supports VCD's dat format. I copied my friend's Ultraman Mebius and Ultraman brothers and watched it without any issues.

So far so good, but here's the ugly part. First, the screen is a dust or finger print magnet. One touch and you get smudge so a screen protector is absolutely necessary. The silicon skin is also magnet to dust and so is the bloody pouch. Pouch is too small and its made of velvet. :( No no to dusty environment. Another major thing is VOB files from DVD does not work and it requires ripping and conversion. Which means all my current DVD library needs to be encoded.

I tried encoding with some third party software and most of them took ages to convert. And its not easy to encode in DivX or Xvid. So you would end up encoding it in mpeg or VCD. Which means quality suffers and file sizes bigger.

The player also has a CF card slot which allows you to back up the CF card. Buy now and creative is giving a free SD/MS/XD card converter for those using other media. VERY useful for me as a photographer. For those interested, beware! You can't play videos or pictures from the card directly, you need to import it into the Zen's hard drive before you can play.

All in all, a good player that met my expectations and actually performed even better than I expected. Not recommended if you are not sure of where to get videos. (IF you plan to rip DVD, forget about this device). If you have a good collection of VCDs or divx/Xvid. Yes, its definitely a good buy. My only complain now is why in the world I go buy the 30Gig version??!!! Should have add 100 more for the 60Gig.... 4/5 stars

*Updates. Forgot to mention you could hooked this up to your TV with the supplied AV cables. I re-watched Hot Fuzz with my Family that night and quality is as good as DVD. Too bad no AC3 audio but good enough for me already :)

Movie on the Move

 I just bought a Zen Vision W and I am in awe with it.  I could play most of my downloaded videos in divx and Xvids and the screen is damn clear.  Just loaded some movies like Snakes on the Plane and Hot Fuzz on the player and its playing very well.  I also bought this for the memory card backup feature.  As you do know I shoot with CF cards and this little bugger has a CF compartment to import all my photos into the 30GB drive.

Very happy with it and still trying out the new toy.  :)

Very tempted...

I went to watch 2 movies in Tampines last weekend. The first one is Hot Fuzz. A funny action comedy of 2 policeman. Its a British film and its fantastically good!! Highly recommend it. The other film I watched was Fantastic 4: Rise of the silver surfer. Not that good but quite entertaining.

Anyway, spotted this 2 toys at Toy's R Us in Tampines Mall. A bit "gian" to buy one and send back to Thailand. But think of it, nobody will be able to play with me so decided not to. The one with legs are more expensive... hehehe