Final post

I have decided to move my blog to my Tumblr, as I find it much easier to use. I will still keep this blog online, until Google decides to shut down Blogger. Thanks to everyone who has visited this blog in the last five years! I hope you have found something interesting here. Cheers! Zhaowei

Rock Bar at Ayana Resort, Bali

THE NIGHT IS STILL YOUNG: Partying till the sun goes down at Ayana Resort’s Rock Bar, which as the name suggests, rests on rocks jutting out into the sea. A wonderful place to enjoy an apertif and see the sunset before retreating to one of the resort restaurants for a sumptuous dinner.

Love this place, I really have to go back again soon.

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.