A reminder to exercise more

Was hanging around Marina Bay Sands mall while waiting for a late evening appointment last weekend, and decided to sit outside the mall at the promenade facing the bay, where it’s quiet and breezy.

I’d just found my spot and started reading a book I’d just bought from Kinokuniya when a woman cycled through and shouted to people walking about, “Please move to the side! Please move to the side!” I was wondering what the fuss was about, until a couple of people wearing number tags ran past me. I thought, nah, just a few runners, and continued sitting there and reading my book.

About five minutes later, more and more runners ran past me. I started getting a little comfortable. It was impossible to read with sweating people running past you every few seconds. Then the runners started turning up in packs. I knew it was time to move.

Trying to make the best of the situation, I decided to take out my camera and take some shots of the runners. Admittedly, the route they were running on was very poorly lit – I’m not sure how the organisers got away with that – which made it impossible to shoot on anything lower than ISO 6400. But the X-Pro 1 has great ISO performance, and coupled with the bright lights from the mall and hotel blocks, I managed to snap a few shots.

EVENING JOG: The buggers who disturbed my peace. Well at least they made me get up and take some photos. I later found out that it was called Run Happy Singapore 2012, a rather peculiar turn of phrase. Never understood why anyone would pay to run on public property though.

Which reminds me, it has been 5 years since I went for a long run. I took part in the Army Half-marathon in 2007, which I’d taken months to prepare for. It was quite a unique (and may I add, healthy) experience. My friends and I didn’t sign up though – we just joined in as unregistered participants. As I mentioned above, I always thought it was silly to pay to take part in a run. Unless of course, the money goes to a charitable cause.

These days, I find it hard to even go for a short jog. I really should start doing so…

First try at Photo-stitching

I have read about how it is possible to create ultra-high resolution images by stitching many images together previously, but I didn’t try it out because I didn’t have Photoshop or other similar imaging software. (My main imaging tool has been Nikon’s Capture NX 2.

Recently, I installed a demo version of Adobe Photoshop Elements 11, which comes with Adobe’s Photomerge tool, an automated photo-stitching function. You may watch a tutorial video by Adobe here, but all you really need is a bit of common sense.

PANORAMAS WITH A 90MM LENS? No problem! With Adobe’s excellent Photomerge, you can create 60-megapixel panoramic images like this quite easily!

So I found myself at Kumamoto Castle in Japan’s Kyushu island today, and found the perfect vantage point to take a wide-angle shot of the main castle building. The problem is, with my current Fujifilm X-Pro1 camera, I didn’t have a lens that was of the right focal length to get the perfect framing – the 18mm f2 (28mm equivalent on 35mm film) is too wide, and 60mm f2.4 (90mm equivalent) is too long.

Fujifilm X-Pro1 – My best camera yet!

I had been uninspired for the longest time, which to some extent explains the lack of updates here in recent months.

Sometimes, it really does take a new toy to reignite your passion for a hobby.

For me, it’s the Fujifilm X-Pro1 – a camera I had long considered out of my budget (despite my spendthrift tendencies), and with a sluggish AF, didn’t seem to worth the money. But it came into my radar again after I read that the latest firmware version has raised the AF speed to more acceptable levels.

Given that film was getting way too expensive to use, and that I felt the Ricoh GXR system has offered little to look forward to with no new lenses in the horizon, I decided to sell off all my existing camera gear on the local online photography forum Clubsnap to fund my transition to Fujifilm.

And I am so glad I did.

READY FOR PRIMETIME: My fully accessorised Fujifilm X-Pro1.

I chose the 18mm f2 and 60mm f2.4 to replicate my favourite lenses in my Nikon/Ricoh setup. The image quality of the 60mm is just stellar, and I daresay it rivals my Zeiss ZF 100mm f2 Makro-Planar. I intend to use it mainly for portraits, street photography and flowers, just as I did with my first “pro” lens, the Nikon AFS Micro-Nikkor 60mm f2.8. The 18mm, being wider, is great for general photography, and it's quite compact too. It's not as sharp as the 60mm, but sharpness isn't everything.

Well, I couldn't just stop there – the X-Pro1 is such a gorgeous camera and it deserves the right accessories to bring out its best. After endless hours of research online and a trip to the usual camera shops in Singapore, I finally managed to put together my ideal set of accessories for the camera.

Quick Note: Lotus Traveler works with Blackberry's Playbook!!

It seems everyone is using either a iOS or Android device these days. So much so that my company will be dropping support for its Blackberry Enterprise Server by February next year. As we use Lotus Notes as our email platform, this means we will have to rely on email forwarding. 

Not an issue for me, since I've been using forwarding instead of BES since I got my first Blackberry in 2010. 

However, as part of a new system for filing Breaking News stories, our writers will need to use Lotus Traveler to send in their write-ups for our website. This creates a problem for those who simply do not want to use iOS or Android devices, especially since the company does not pay for them (well, at least not yet). 

I was quite disappointed by this, and a subsequent email to the IT support department drew no response. So short of complaining to the higher-ups, I decided to go seek my own solution. 

It turns out that while IBM does not officially support the Blackberry Playbook for its Lotus Traveler platform, there is a work-around. 

Blackberry Playbook to my rescue. Photo: Research in Motion

Here are the steps required: 

1. Set up Lotus Traveler access for your email account; you will need to check with your IT department for this. 

2. Once that is done, go to the Accounts tab under your Playbook's settings, and choose Add New Account. 

3. Choose Email, Calendar and Contacts, and then tap on the Advanced Setup tab. 

4. Choose Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync (I'm not sure why this works). 

5. Give your account a description, leave Domain blank and fill in the Username, Email Address and Password slots. 

6. The last item, Server Address, is the tricky one. In general, it should be (server URL)/servlet/traveler. The server URL is the same as what's used by iOS and Android in your IT department's setup instructions for those users. So in my case, to give an example, I typed in something similar to pushmail.xxxx.com.xx/servlet/traveler. 

And that's basically it. 

I'm relieved that I found a solution, and that the Playbook has proven useful once again even though it's hardly the most popular tablet device around. 

Hope this mini-guide helps you too.

Thanks to Gray on the Crackberry forums for his guide. 

Singapore’s new concrete jungle

Like many other Singaporeans, I lament the lack of interesting places to go on my days off work. But with the opening of the Bay South Gardens last month, there is a new place to check out.

As with any new national attraction, the park was flooded with visitors in the first days after its opening. Naturally, I avoided the place the first couple of weeks. But earlier this week, a couple of university friends wanted to meet there for dinner. As I finished work early, I went down two hours ahead of time for a little walk (in spite of the heat and humidity).

A BREATH OF FRESH AIR: A jogger at the Gardens, with the Supertree Grove in the background. Seen in the distant background are the Marina Bay Sands and Singapore Flyer.

 

L’Arc-en-Ciel in Singapore

Japanese rock band L’Arc-en-Ciel, or Laruku in short, is probably the only band I’ve followed over the years.

I first got hooked on their music when I heard their theme song for the popular anime series Rurouni Kenshin back in the late 1990s, when it was shown on TV. I was still in secondary school then, and I must have heard it through an online download, because from what I understand, it was used as a theme song only for a short run due to a drugs problem with the former drummer.

At the time, Japanese popular culture (dramas, anime and music) was all the rage in Singapore, and Laruku’s songs were regularly played on the Japanese music segments on the Chinese radio stations. It was also the time when HMV was the multi-storey anchor tenant at the Heeren Shops in Orchard Road, and Japanese artistes had a major section on the third storey devoted to their music, with many listening stations featuring the latest albums. (Today, there is only one shelf of Japanese music in HMV’s single-storey premises at Somerset 313.)

It was also the time when people still burnt CDs to listen on their discmans. For me, L’Arc-en-Ciel became an important part of my memories of my time in junior college, as a CD with 13 of their songs provided my study music for the all-important A-level examinations. (With mp3s having taken over space-constrained CDs now, such a small set of songs probably seems unimaginable)

The atmosphere was electrifying throughout the concert! A great setlist (though like all fans, I wished they played more songs), a smooth, near-perfect delivery by frontman hyde and a very obliging audience made it a night to remember.

Labrador Park

I visit parks less often than I would like to, but some time last month, I decided to brave the heat and humidity for the first time in a while to get away from the usual mall crawling.

This time, I chose to go to Labrador Park, which is now easily accessible via its very own MRT station on the Circle Line. I had gone for a little gathering at a colleague’s place just a stone’s throw away a couple of weeks before, so somehow it was the natural choice for this outing.

The weather was quite hot that evening, but at least there was a slight breeze to moderate the heat. Not many people were at the park even though it was the weekend, thankfully, which made the walk quite a pleasant one.

I’M GONNA GET YOU: An angler casting his line into the sea as the sun sets. (Admittedly, the sunset colours don’t quite come out in black and white photography.)

Photos taken with the Nikon F6 and Kodak T-max 400 film, using the Nikkor AIS 24mm f2 and Carl Zeiss 100mm f2 ZF lenses.

A little bit of Mosaic

Was wondering what to do last Sunday, so I checked out the Esplanade website for some ideas. So it happens, the annual Mosaic Music Festival is on, and there are many free performances at the venue.

Incidentally, I’d found a very decent offer for a second-hand Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar T* 2/100 lens on a local photography forum, and bought it just before heading down to the Esplanade.

Armed with my latest acquisition (I’d added the Nikkor AIS 24mm f2 just the week before too), I took some photos of the performances at the cosy HTC Living Room, a free venue, while enjoying the music at the same time.

I hadn’t been shooting gigs for quite a while (not since the Brown Eyed Girls in 2010 and a mini J-rock concert in 2009), but I think I might get started on doing more of this…

Nicholas Tan of jazz sextet V-v-v-voyager in his element at the HTC Living Room. The group is one of the few groups under the "Bright Young Things” programme to mentor young jazz musicians in Singapore.

The Kyoto shrine I almost missed (again)

My first trip to Japan’s cultural capital was in the autumn of 2007. After a friend encouraged me to do more with my time in Japan, I packed my bags, took a week of absence from university exchange classes and headed off to Kyoto on a cheap night bus for my first major trip of my one-year stay.

My guide book then was a book about viewing cherry blossoms and autumn foliage in Kyoto, and it included several classic walking trails, including one to Kinkakuji (金閣寺) and Ryoanji (龍安寺), another to Kiyomizudera (清水寺), and others to less well-known destinations such as Kurama (鞍馬). I thoroughly enjoyed that trip, and on my second visit there in February 2008, I revisited many of the same places.

Bathe me in luscious red and orange

So when I visited Kyoto again in February 2012 – this time with my family and my girlfriend – I’d planned to stick to my tried and tested itineraries. But my independent-minded sister insisted on going to the Fushimi-Inari Taisha (伏見稲荷大社). Who was she (someone who’d only been to Japan once) to tell me (with many trips within Japan under my belt) where to go?

Why are Japanese kids so cute?

Case in point:

Elmo and brother, spotted near the exit of Kyoto’s Kinkakuji temple

And this:

This was taken before the previous picture…

And the secret to them smiling and posing for the camera was this:

The lady on the left is their very friendly and obliging mother, who was waving a lollipop so her children would look in the right direction!

Some people suggested that it’s what they wear, but I think it’s something more than that. An eternal mystery to me… perhaps until they start climbing over my head and break the spell…

(Photos taken on Nikon F6 with the Nikkor AI-S 35mm f1.4, on Provia 400X slide film)

My 2011 in pictures

2011 was certainly an eventful year, but I still can’t say for sure if I could call it a good year.

Work-wise, it was by far the toughest year since I started work. Had to deal with the disappointment and anguish of not getting the reports when I went to Japan to cover the March 11 disasters. Tougher though, was coping with the change to local news reporting, which has made work-life a little more colourful but infinitely more stressful. (I’m still debating if it was the right move)

PICTURE OF THE YEAR: The Workers’ Party’s historic capture of a GRC at the May 7 General Election is easily one of the biggest events of the year, and I had the privilege of witnessing and capturing the electrifying atmosphere that night. The real bonus was submitting it to my paper’s photo desk and having it selected for our front-page the following day. It doesn’t get bigger than that for me.

On the other hand, I think little has changed in terms of my personal life. Still dating the same (wonderful) Joanne, still hanging out with the same friends. Went on two holidays – both of which were to places I have visited before (Hong Kong and Tohoku, Japan).

As with the previous couple of years, I guess the bright spots are the good photos I managed to take during the course of the year. The May 7 General Election was arguably the biggest event of the year in Singapore – not just because of the result but also the socio-political changes it brought on, and I was glad I used my time off work to visit the various rallies, as well as the results announcement at Serangoon Stadium.