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China's Earthquake

I got this from a forwarded email from Keng Hoo. The things people do during the disaster. If we all can be self-sacrificing like them then I'm sure this world will be a more peaceful place. I don't know who the original artist is so I don't know who to give credit for. But if you do know where they came from, please drop me a line and I will give credit where credit is due.

Now what would you do in situations like those? For more stories on the earthquake, visit the memorial section of Sichuan Memorial.

Busy Week

Been busy with exam and work and social life so haven't got time to update yet. Busy getting ready to go back Kuching and maybe to Sabah as well for Merdeka. Will see how things go.

One of the bridges of Putrajaya.

I was at Putrajaya last Sunday with virtual mystic, Tan and Dr Razi (from Mercy Malaysia) to try out photographing fireworks. It was drizzling that night and it seemed that we would not be able to get our cameras to shoot. But as the time of the performance drew nearer, the rain started to subside. But winds were very strong which was not a good sign because that means the fireworks would get blown away.

When shooting fireworks, the rule of the thumb is to shoot using long exposures to get those colourful streaks. But after trying a few shots with long exposure, I realised that the photos weren't as nice because the trail of the fireworks cause by the blowing wind made it look like camera shake. So I took out the 50mm and shot at wide open and 1/30 second exposure. Now I know why people shoot at longer exposures. Here are some photos that turned out OK.

Reminds me of the construction of a virus.

Coconut tree.

Note the smaller explosion on the bottom. It seems as if the explosion happened on the launch site.

Interesting colors.

Sperms swimming towards 2 eggs.

All the above photos were taken using high shutter speed so you just see the instantaneous image of the firework. I wasn't really expecting photos like that. I prefer smoother lines and longer streaks. I think one of the best photos taken that night was by virtual mystic:

Taken by virtual mystic using 10 second exposure. Love the top explosion.

Anyways, this was my first time and I've learned that fireworks must always be shot with a longer exposure. At least I prefer it that way because of the smoother and more graceful results. So I've decided to postpone my trip back to Kuching to attend the fireworks finale at Putrajaya this Friday night for another shot at fireworks photography. I'll be sure to set my camera to make long exposures this time.

Weekend Photos

I woke up at 6am on a Saturday morning just to go catch the sunrise with a friend. But the sun decided to hide behind the clouds and give us nothing. Might need to sacrifice another morning soon.

Long exposure at 6:57am.

Afiq the photographer.

Playing with the 50mm. Bokeh of the street lights on the right.

Attempted close-up using the 50mm. Macro performance not as good as the kit lens. Click here to see a sample of a macro taken using the kit lens.

The 50mm's depth of field is so shallow that I can't even get the whole stalk in focus, only parts of it. Bokeh of street lamp behind, not the sun.

Nail.

Shrooms.

Lalang.

Paper-thin depth of field.

Grass. It was swaying under the wind so it was quite hard to get a focused shot on it.

Anyone?

At night we went for a round of pool since it's so cheap to play here. RM3.60 per hour. All photos taken using the 50mm at f/1.8.

Marks the pro pool player bringing his balls together.

Reflection of the 4 overhead lights can be seen on the blue ball.

After a shot.

Alvin pondering his next move.

Taking a shot.

Using the bridge.

Overexposed balls.

Cue ball looks like it has gone through some abuse.

Today I managed to finish the battery because I forgot to charge it since the Port Dickson trip. And I also notice that under some situation, the depth of field of the 50mm at wide open makes it unsuitable for some situations. But the low light performance of this lens still amazes me. Back to studying.

Friday Once More

Once more it's Friday again. Time to do a recap of the week.

Nothing much this week. Having classes, preparing for exams next Monday. Something very interesting about old plane technology. The 747 and older planes were designed well over 30 years ago. During those times, computers weren't invented yet and some planes were still using valves.

The autopilot system is one of the most advanced system in a plane. It controls the attitude of the plane as well as providing automatic navigation through waypoints on the ground and a whole lot more. So these systems require a lot of inputs from gyros, static ports and pitot probes. These inputs need to be processed mathematically to produce a correct response. But without advanced electronics (processors) they have to find other ways to make those calculations.

One very interesting example is the conversion of a value to it's logarithm. They actually use an eccentric cam to make the conversion! The value to be converted is fed as a rotary signal to the cam. When the cam rotates, it moves a cam roller and the cam roller's movement will represent the log of the input! The diagram below will make the explanation clearer.

Ps is calibrated altitude, which is converted to log Ps using the log cam.

Looking at the diagram above, the symbol on the right of the cam shows a differential synchro. There are 2 inputs and 1 output in this synchro system. Depending on the connection between the synchros, they will either add or subtract the input and the result will be fed to the output in the form of rotary motion! Addition and subtraction are done using mechanical means!

There is another type of synchro called the resolver synchro. This synchro can convert polar (angle and magnitude) to Cartesian coordinates (x and y) and vice versa depending on the construction of the synchro! It's like a mechanical calculator with moving parts.

All these resolvers and synchros and cams are used in older aircraft mainly for autopilot purposes because it involves calculation to navigate the desired route. It's very interesting how engineers solve mathematical problems before the invention of the computer. Now if I want to convert a number to log, I may just need to write 1 line of code.

Visual Studio is a breeze to use when developing applications for Windows Mobile devices.

I've gone back to developing applications for Windows Mobile. This time round I've been playing around with serial ports and bluetooth. The possibilities are endless on a WM device because it's not as locked down as the iPhone. It lets you do whatever you want with it. That's why somehow rather I still prefer the WM platform. If only they make phones as desirable as the iPhone.

Taking raw GPS data from the GPS receiver through bluetooth and converting the gibberish to useful figures. Look at the first 3 lines after "$GPGGA" and you will find the values that you seek. By the way, you should be able to find my house using the coordinates above.

For more information on the NMEA (National Marine Electronics Association) formatting, click here.

I look forward to a weekend of studying.

Nikon 50mm f/1.8D Review

I just got my Nikon 50mm f/1.8 yesterday and I've been playing around with it on my D40. Overall, I find it fun to play with, probably because it's a very simple lens. With no way to change the focal length, you're left with playing with the aperture and focus.

The Nikon 50mm f/1.8. Got this 2nd hand for RM308 plus shipping.

It's a considerably thinner lens and it weighs next to nothing (Official weight is 155g).

It looks right at home when fitted to a D40.

It's shorter than the kit lens and it makes the D40 feels lighter and more compact to bring around.

Focused at infinity. When the focus is turned to near focus, the front filter ring protrudes out by about 1cm. The ring does not rotate during focusing. Perfect for those who want to using polarizing filters.

The 50mm f/1.8 lens with its large aperture is perfect for precise depth of field control. At f/1.8 with the subject 0.5 meter away, the depth of field is paper thin at just 1cm. I can see that it will be great for portrait shots also because it will be able to blur out the subject's background while keeping the subject in sharp focus, therefore bringing the viewer's attention to the subject.

Batteries place about 2.5 inches apart. No blurring done during post processing. Shot at wide open (f/1.8).

It's a pain to focus and shoot and hold the flower at the same time. Again, the large aperture keeps the subject in sharp focus. Shot at wide open (f/1.8).

One word describes the low light performance of this lens: incredible. Shooting at wide open, you can easily take blur free photos (1/80) at ISO 200 indoors. In dimmer conditions, ISO 1600 will be more than sufficient. This will no doubt be a good lens for indoors and for night time photography.

Comparison of shutter speeds at different apertures. All shot at ISO 200. At f/1.8, you can easily shoot at 1/30 whereas if you are using the kit lens, at 50mm you would have to use a f/5.6 which will probably give you a shutter speed of less than 1/10. If you ramp up the ISO to 800 where noise levels are still good, you can easily shoot using 1/100 and above, giving you virtually blur free photos.

Barrel distortion is almost non existent on this lens. Shooting at my test chart shows very straight lines even on the edges of the frame. The photo on the left is shot with the 18-55mm kit lens, and the one on the right is shot using the 50mm at wide open.

The sharpness of this lens is also exceptional. Its sharp even at the far corners. The 3 photos following the photo below are cropped 100% from the areas in the red boxes. Original photo was shot at f/9 on a tripod with focus approximately on the forward latch of the dry box.

Original photo resized to fit here.

The crops are still relatively sharp. But you'll never have to blow them up this big unless you're printing a large photo (roughly 45x70cm).

The only shortcoming of this lens when mounted on a D40 is the lack of autofocus. Although the green focus light comes on when the subject is in focus, you are very likely to miss shots while fiddling with the focus. When mounted on bodies that supports autofocus on this lens, focusing was fast and accurate. No hunting was evident.

Conclusion: If you love playing with depth of field and frequently shoot in low light or do portrait shots, then this is a lens that you should get. It's so cheap that there's no reason not to get one. For D40/D40x/D60 users, you might want to think twice about the lack of autofocus. Like I've said, it's not a real problem but you may miss some shots while focusing. But for me, this lens will probably be a permanent resident on my D40 from now on.

Port Dickson Trip 2

Strange but true, we decided to go Port Dickson again after Lina and Asyraf's wedding even though we were there last weekend. This time, it was impromptu so we didn't bring any extra clothes, towel or anything for a swim. So we went and bought swimming pants, towels and spare underwear. Everything cost about RM15. Good fun since the sun was hot and the ocean was refreshing.

Got the idea for this photo from smashpop. He took a similar photo a while ago. 1/15 @ f/22.

Freaking hot day. The ocean never looked more inviting.

Near sunset view. We didn't stay till the sun went down.

Another shot of the sunset.

Focus is on the reflection of the bike's handle.

Cyclist shot from a moving car.

Initially we decided to have bak kut teh at Sunway, but then since we were passing by Kajang we decided to pay Haji Samuri a visit and eat his satay.

Haji Samuri Satay House at Kajang. It's always packed. TV was showing Lee Chong Wei's match against Lin Dan.

Succulent cucumbers with ketupat.

And the irresistible satay sauce. Eating ketupat with the sauce while waiting for our 100 sticks of satay to come.

One of the 3 plates of satay. We ordered 50 chicken and 50 beef. Should have ordered less beef because it wasn't as good as chicken.

Almost managed to finish all the satay. Next time 10 sticks per person and more ketupat.

Sunway Pyramid Lion. Shot this from a moving car. 1/50 @ ISO3200. Love the low light performance of DSLRs.

Plenty of DOF fun.

Quantum Double Slit Experiment

I got this from Tzy Shih's blog and I just had to post it here. It's way too mind boggling!

Lina and Asyraf's Wedding

Just came back from field football and I realized that my stamina is not as good as before when I used to play everyday after school. That's what happens when you get old.

Signs to the bride's house. GPS helped as well.

Last Sunday was Lina and Asyraf's wedding. This is as far as I can recall, my first time attending a Malay wedding and my first time shooting a wedding. It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Mainly because I didn't understand the flow of the ceremony, and I didn't get into the correct places to get the good shots, and I think the lack of flash was pretty evident in some indoor shots. I would have loved to use a telephoto to get a close up of the bride and the groom with nice DOFs but that wasn't an option with the kit lens. Anyways, there were 2 or 3 official wedding photographers there so all is good.

Early birds get the curry rendang.

Some of my friends from work.

The beating of the drums signaled the arrival of the groom. The groom was followed by a procession carrying the various wedding gifts for the bride.

Aysraf trying to be serious when I was snapping away.

The groom goes through the "kenduri" tents and into the bride's house to greet her father.

The ceremony is still a mystery to me. But I think they were performing a prayer here. You can see 2 photographers on the far side of the room. Another photographer is on the left.

Exchanging wedding rings.

After the ceremony, the groom and the bride will have lunch at a specially prepared table with the groom and bride's family.

Priceless expression. Forgot what he was pointing at.

I asked for a photo and he gave me this pose. Why so serious?

This turned out better.

But really, I can tell that he's pretty nervous on that day. I've never seen him like that before (maybe when he was flying a RM80k RC jet) but I guess it's normal since your wedding is probably one of the biggest event of your life. Mine should still be years away so plenty of time to think about how I'll feel on that day.

After the wedding, we had an impromptu decision to head somewhere. But where? Jeng jeng jeng jeng... come back tomorrow to find out!

Hint hint.

Free Weekend

Exams just over so this will be a very free weekend. My mum and brothers are in KL so I'll be away at 1U for the weekend. Will update this post with more photos when I get them.

Update: The free weekend turned out to be more free than expected so I'll split the post into Saturday and Sunday.

View of 1Utama. I was at 8th floor of the Royale Bintang family suite for the weekend.

On going construction. Long shutter with small aperture.

Going to the lobby for breakfast.

No time for IKEA this time round.

Karting at Shah Alam Stadium.

Watched the Dark Knight again at Cineleisure Damansara. 12am-3am movie.

A RM700k Nissan Skyline GTR. I witnessed it roll out smoothly without a sound. What a sight.

Coconut at "lorry" for RM2. Great thirst quencher on a hot day.

Don't try to race with this car. It has turbo.

Under the pyramid of Sunway Pyramid. Skating was part of the agenda for the day. But on Saturday, they were having some performance at the skating rink.

Love how their purple lights reflect off the cutlery.

Went to Kim Gary to try out their special cheese on rice pork chop. Can anyone tell me what cheese they use?

Forgot what this was.

Reached home on Sunday morning at 3am after the Dark Knight. We left the next day at 10:30am for Lina and Asyraf's wedding.

Wedding photos and more to come. Stay tuned!

The Mojave Experiment

When people mention Windows Vista, what comes first into your mind? Buggy? Slow? Worst release ever? Have you even used Vista before? An interesting experiment was conducted and it shows that we usually believe and get brain washed by what people are generally saying about a product. To find out more, take a look at the Mojave Experiment.