Legend's Hideout

I gave, or did I ?

2012-01-11T21:25:00.002+08:00

It's my final semester in NTU.

Truth be told, it's not that bad as I might think it'll be.

Perhaps it could be the fact that it's just the first week of school and I've a 2 days schedule(minus FYP).

As with all soon to be alumni, we're expected to donate back to the University.

iGave 2012

PS : It's not Apple new product

Ok, I admit I've yet to donate because I thought it'll be troublesome with all the snail mail involved in it.

But turns out all I need to do is ask some friends who worked at iGave to help me donate.

Good things also always happens to people who donate,

Like Choon Siong.

Within a few months, he won an Ipad2 and a new GF

I don't know how much I must donate to accumulate such good karma to obtain both....

Anyway, I would like to say that these pictures belong to NTU and not me.

But please just let me use some of the photos here and not sue me as I took it and it's not for any monetary purposes.

Back to donating.

Here's why you should donate.

It's only SGD 10 to get u off their constant call list.

It's a small price to pay from all the bugging you get for not donating.

---

I've a few more things to blog. But I'll leave that for another time. If at all.

Brace yourselves, 2012 is here !

2012-01-01T16:47:00.001+08:00

2012 is here.
As per tradition, I went to shot some fireworks again at desa park city(somewhere near my home).

To be honest, I was kinda lazy to go as I do not really like to put up with the traffic jams.

However, it was really worth it.
I'm not talking about capturing the fireworks on camera, but rather viewing them in real life.
Watching them burst into vibrant colours, filling up the sky have a really magical feeling.

So much so that deep down, I know this year will be different.

I didn't really bothered to edit the pics much, hence the distortion from using a ultra wide angle lens.

This kinda makes me think the best lens to use for fireworks are wide angle tilt shift lens.
This year fireworks however seemed a lot better than the previous years.

So much so that I wasn't even looking at my camera. I was just clicking the shutter whenever I felt like it.

I managed to capture shots of nearby fireworks too

Fireworks from the curve.

They always set their fireworks 10 minutes early. I wonder why...

This time around, I tried to make use of reflections on the pond.
This is one of the main reasons why most fireworks looks the best when they're near a large body of water.

17mm and it's still not wide enough !!!

More reflections photo !

I actually inverted the photo. So the top part is actually the water.

Since this is my 3rd time photographing fireworks at the same place
It's quite a good opportunity to see how much I've improved over the years.
Here's the 2011 shot.

I spent a lot of effort than to clear all the smokes.

But that made the landscape pitched black and the fireworks looked photoshopped.

And here's the shot taken at 2010. Just 1-2 months after I bought my first DSLR

Only edit was "I'm feeling lucky" on Picasa

And here are the rest of the fireworks pictures taken last night.

2011 - We will not meet again

2011-12-30T23:48:00.000+08:00

2011 was a pretty quick year.
Nothing really substantial/life changing have occurred.
It's mostly work work work, lab lab lab, study study study.
I've a good feeling that 2012 will be a lot more drastic.

Like they say, live life to it's fullest this year.

In case the Mayans were right.

Contrary to my 2011 experience, the Penang trip was pretty eventful.
What originally was a work & travel(photography) trip to capture shots of Evelyn Sis's Wedding, became quite an awesome holiday trip.
The three of us; Me, ChongXian and Tysern went on for a 3 days trip in Penang
Ben couldn't make it due to exams. Ever since the Malaysian Gov Universities changed their semester period, Xmas and new year will never be as fun as it used to be.
However, recently my Uni(NTU) pissed me off mildly too when they wanted to charge for their washing machines.

Back to the holiday...
We first started our vacation with trip at Taiping.
Unker Lim, being a Kampung hero brought us around the town and it's fisheries.
Although it can be quite risky for me (as I ate a devil fruit and hence cannot swim), I still really enjoyed the boat ride across the fishing village.
Take not this isn't some tour boat pussies would use, but a real deal fishing boat as seen on the deadliest catch program.
...
Ok maybe more "Malaysian grade"

Deadliest Catch, Msian Flavour.

The wooden feeling on those boats have their own unique attraction.

All those wood and ropes around me makes me feel like Luffy

The rocking of the boat while I seat on the front deck makes it even more awesome too

Life on the sea can be pretty rough and boring.
Imagine urself living among 10 neighbours in the middle of no where, with very little amenities and the only way out is by boat.
Kinda feel like Venice.

Excuse the vignetting. I'm lazy to edit that out

Who needs cars when you've boats !!

Wonder if there are some petrol kiosk for boats lolz

But one of the most amazing things I saw was aquaculture.
And they do it right out in the middle of the river mouth.

There are tonnes of fishes in those nets.

And hungry cranes looking for an easy opportunity

I managed to capture several nice shots of those cranes.
Lot's of photo spam ahead.

Somehow they don't like to fly towards us... DUH lolz

This ain't no bird park ~

Those are wild cranes !!!

To guard fishes from those cranes, these aquaculture-ist employ special security guards.

These dogs are the kind of dogs which I would avoid on the street.

Luckily I was having the 70-200mm on my camera at that time.

Back to the trip,
Well...
Penang was a really chilling trip. We stayed at my uncle's place.
We did some loltastic stuff such as sneaking up to Lim Guan Eng's office and chilling at Mansion 69.
Pics to come later.
I might or might not blog on that...
For now, here are the rest of the pics I've taken at Taiping/Sepetang

Final week of 2011

2011-12-24T04:10:00.001+08:00

The last time I checked, it was just the end of 2010.
One whole year just zipped though like it was nothing.
Everything seems to pass so much quicker relatively compared to when I was in School.

But this is also one of the best time of the year.
Back when I was in School, Xmas and new year usually means school is just around the corner.
This time however, it signals the start of my holiday.
As it's pretty short, I intend to make the best out of it.

Which includes a visit to DCIM Malaysia 2011

I've no idea what DCIM stands for, but it's just some photography event + booth kinda thing at Midvalley.

It's pretty small, but nevertheless a worthwhile visit if you're into photography and you so happen to be around KL.
I met up with Zhong Yan there (Most of my friends are either not that interested in photography or they're no where near KL at that moment).

Shot with Beauty dish overhead. Generally unedited.

However most of the people aren't youngsters of my age(or around there).
I noticed a large amount of 30-50+ year old uncles. Quite surprising knowing that it's a Friday and a School holiday, yet there are not many people my age there. In fact there are more models my age there than there are photographers.

Oh, that santarina photo above as well as this photo,

Do you know what they have in common?

They were shot during a "runway" like fashion show with more than 30 photographers, most of them are 40+ year old uncles.
Of course they blocked my view but I'm more dumbstruck to how they're really into it.
Some even recorded the slideshow beforehand which shows the model's name.
They snap photos continuously and without a care in the world.
It was quite obvious that they're the "Forever alone perverted unker who will most probably fap to those photos once they get back"

And how am I different ?
For one, I did not rush and push. I stand far behind(bout 5 meters) to observe the event most of the time.
But how did I capture those shots ?
Well, those kinda unkers are very predictable.
- Model appears
- Unker photograhers snap burst mode non stop for like 5 seconds
- Feel insecure and check photos on LCD screen.

That's my window of opportunity. Since most of them would lower their camera and stare at their LCD for another 5 seconds, that's when I shoot.
Even so, capturing a good photograph is incredibly difficult with the ever changing lighting + stray flash from other photographers.

Getting the right white balance was also difficult to nail on the spot.

I had to rely on Lightroom and it's getting really slow on my laptop

Overexposure was also pretty normal with the "random"lighting lolz

In which I just turn them into Hi-key shots lolz

After taking quite a few events, I realize that I don't really like taking them.
And... I'm suppose to cover a wedding dinner soon.

Ah well, I can't be taking things that I only like lolz.

I bought some colour gel for my flash. Hopefully it'll help me with getting better colour balance on my indoor shots.

Here are the rest of the photos taken that day

Holidays are coming

2011-12-13T21:44:00.000+08:00

Exams passed, semester break is here.
For the past few days, I've been doing my final year project.
My real holidays starts in about 8 days.

Last Sunday was quite an eventful day,
First was snapping a few photos for Chongxian's worms.
He have been selling worms as his part time job and I once promised to take some product photography.
As disgusting as worms may be for some people, it is beneficial and there are people who're willing to pay top dollars for these

Used the 100mm Macro for this.

I kinda feel 1:1 macro isn't good enough sometimes though.

The shoot was pretty quick and the great weather makes flash usage unnecessary.

Later that day,
Ben visited me for a video assignment.
He needed an ad and I need to shoot it within 2 hours and edited before the day ended.
Initially, I thought this would be impossible. But I tried my best anyway.

I did make a few mistakes. But due to time constrain, I couldn't re-shoot it.
My past experiences on videos definitely helped with the shoot and editing.

It's shot on a 5D2 mostly and 600D for the slow-mo.
I used most of my lens, from 70-200 f/2.8 L, Canon 100mm macro, Sigma 50mm f/1.4 and the new 28mm f/1.8 lens.

Test shot with the 28mm f/1.8

I like how it's wide and yet have a thin depth of field.

On photography, there're a few issues I would like to talk about.
1) Watermark
- I understand why pros would watermark their images. This is to avoid copyright infringement.
- I also do understand why upcoming enthusiast would like to put theirs.
... coz it's cool and for self advertisement.
I used to do this too. Until I feel it's redundant. In fact, ugly watermarks makes your photo worst. And self advertising on a shitty pic wouldn't do much.

2) Fan pages
- Unless one is going after a career or serious part-time job, is this really necessary?
- Of course, unless you're so famous that random people are adding you on FB... I think it's pointless.
- Than again, IMO it's all good unless the creator is some wannabe who takes awful pictures.

- 1 more week to holidays~

December 2011

2011-12-04T15:59:00.001+08:00

Exams have ended and my final semester will soon start.
Time sure have passed really quickly.
The previous semester was hectic and I couldn't really say I "enjoyed" it, nevertheless I felt it was just like any other semester.
1 more left before things change again.

December is supposed to be a holiday break for most uni students, but not for final year students.
Yes there's FYP.
It's not that bad actually, sure the time spend might not be proportional to what you gain.
But hey, no point complaining. Might as well just make the best out of it!
Besides, it's pretty cool to brag bout all the chim stuff you learn from it haha.

But this also means that I will not be shooting any photographs for sometime.
And I do feel that my skills are getting rustier.

Shot with my old 500D with Canon 28mm f/1.8 USM

This picture is certainly a lot lackluster.
So to re-polish my skills, I'll be carrying my 500D + Canon 28mm very often.
It's at this point that I realize I can do a similar job using my iphone lolz.

Perhaps I should start going out a lil more rather than just camping in my room to read journals.
I was supposed to go out to marina bay sands/sentosa today, but I woke up late.
It was a nice dream.

100% crop from 500D + 28mm f/1.8 @ f/2.8

As for the 28mm, I just bought at SGD 730 a few days ago.
It's a nice lens to use.
Probably the softest/cheapest lens I have, but it's small size makes it nice to use.
The focal length also makes it nice to use on both cropped and full frame sensor.
Here's a quick review of it.
Pros :
+ Nice focal length. Standard on Cropped and Wide angle on full frame
+ Good build quality. It's better than the Canon 50mm f/1.4. Metal mount, non-moving front element.
+ Small size. Good for street photography or whenever you want to be more discrete.
+ Large aperture. Aperture of f/1.8. There are no canon lens this wide that have a larger aperture, with exception to the epic expensive 24L and 35L which cost about RM5-8k
+ Fast and accurate focus. Ring USM. Unlike Sigma HSM which often misfocus or any other low-end lens which sounds like a transformer when focusing, the 28mm focus fast, accurate and silently.
+ Works on Fullframe too. Unlike Sigma 30mm f/1.4, this lens works on both my cameras. To me it's like buying 2 lens for the price of 1.
+ Nice minimal focus distance. Not epic close, but good enough for food photography.
Cons :
- Soft wide open. Not usable at f/1.8. You'll have to stop it down to f/2.2 for a reasonable level of sharpness
- Flare. I need a lens hood asap
- Chromatic Abbreviation. Must take effort to reduce this post process or just dun shoot with the sun in front of me.
- It's actually pretty expensive for it's class. It's more expensive than the Canon 50mm f/1.4 and Canon 85mm f/1.8 which are both considered high value lens.

---
Oh some of you might notice that I've a black iphone4s with a white cover.
Why that combo?
Was it because white was sold out?
In case you didn't remember, I camped outside the shop and was one of the few people in singapore who got it first. Which means, I could have taken the white model if I wanted too.
I choose not get the white model because black makes it look more professional and the screen will look better. This is because a white rim may seem distracting.
However, I still really like the white on my phone. So I got a white cover which does not cover the rims hence not distracting me.

Stationary taken randomly in the room

I really wanna take something different. Not random shots of stuff in my room.
Gotta start warming up before my next photo assignment !

Passion

2011-11-15T03:15:00.001+08:00

To live life to its fullest and to enjoy every single thing.
This is what everyone wants literally.
So what's my passion?
To be awesome. Which I'm failing spectacularly.

As some of you might know, I was involved in a video production sometime ago. To be honest, it was mediocre. It wasn't competition material. We made mistakes. I made mistakes. But hey, it was pretty ok for students like us.
But with all of us being so busy, will be able to create a new video?
Recently a Malaysian production intrigued me. The story was short, simple and clear. Actors was good and cinematography was excellent. You really felt u were there. It was about LDR. Not like I watched it for the sentimental value, but I did get the message it was trying to convey.
From that video, I felt like I need to up the game by making a better one. Well... That depends on the rest of the crew. It's no one man show.

Points for a good short story
1) short
2) simple
3) meaningful
Plus good videography, actors n location.

That motion pro video stabilizer seems so tempting now. From the crew previous exp, I know we can make a better video.

---
Exams are coming soon, but holidays are still far. So to treat myself, I'll be getting any one of this
1) an investment account for trading stocks.
2) canon 35mm/f2 lens
3) canon 28mm/f1.8 lens
4) save for a 50mm f/1.2 lens
5) motion pro video stabilizer
6) flucard wireless sd card
7) 200w phottix portable strobe
8) xbox360 with kinect

I'll choose the one which will give me the max amount of happiness and the one I need/want the most(long n short term).

Oh this is my first time blogging from a phone.
Damn, do I want to make use of my cam now.

November 2011 update

2011-11-08T02:56:00.000+08:00

Point 1 : Exams next week and I'm not prepared. yadda yadda yadda, usual stuff
Point 2 : Not looking forward to after exams, thx to FYP. Going back only during Xmas

Forgive my lazy post processing~

Gonna have to study like a bot.

Anyways, I really feel that there's something missing in life.
That excitement is just missing. It's like I live life day to day with a monotonous boring tone.
I guess that's mainly coz I dun have anything to look forward to.

It's like I'm transforming into a hardcore introvert that hates everything and view everything as lame.
Shit, tats like the definition of an extreme nerd.

*Duh, since I'll be in Lab after finals and then sem starts all over again*
Looks like I'll just have to stop being lame and start being awesome !

Past 1 month, I bought a new phone which was pretty awesome.
You see, I don't care what reviews or friends have to say. It's still lightyears ahead compared to my iPhone3G. Price seems decent too.
SGD 33 per month(That's RM 75) for 12GB of data at up to 14.4mbps and the regular 100 min call and 500sms which I dun really need it thx to whatsapp and so on.
In Malaysia paying Rm100 per month will get me epic low speed with 1GB limit.
....However M1 is failing for not activating my data yet.

The best thing bout having the new phone is that I always have a good camera with me always.... which auto-syncs n edit.

Next possible purchase : Flucard/Eyefi for on the go syncing with my DSLR
I'm also considering to not sell off the XBOX360kinect. Feel like bringing it back and modding it. I've already spoken with Bernard (game shop owner), and he said it'll cost RM150-350 to mod it.

Why would I mod the XBOX360 when I can play online with ori games?
I already have a PS3 for that and XBOXlive ain't free.

Nevertheless, I see myself playing lame flashgame for the next few months. I wun b playing those consoles much.

Ignorance is Bliss

2011-10-16T03:52:00.000+08:00

The past 1 month have been "Eventful"
In a nutshell, there have quite a few terrible things which have occurred and I was quite disturbed by that. Yeah, I'm vagueblogging now because I cannot afford to dig an even deeper grave for myself.
Before I go on.
It has nothing to do with relationships or assignments I'm taking this semester.

However, life is like that and there're always bound to be events like this in the future. Best way to overcome this? Ignorance is bliss, there's just so much one can do. If that's not enough, we should not let this affect us too much.

So much so that I decided to go back. And so happen it was Wei Hoong's Convo.

Trolling hard

2011-10-01T22:52:00.001+08:00

Captain Obvious : It's October
In September, there was this competition I was so sure off I could win.
And I bragged about it just for the lulz.

Well, I did take a few photos for that competition together with Chongyen and Soon Ngen... but I don't think it's gonna win us an iPad 2.

Chongyen and Soon Ngen making rainbows together

Not to forget our model/ballet dancer too

Yes, the theme was leaning is everywhere again

How as of now, do take note that we couldn't execute all our plans due to bad weather...
so if we din win... it's coz of the weather.
*Insert Trollface*

Anyway, although I was exhausted from the discussion earlier that day...
shooting with friends is really fun.
Unlike simply event photography, I really like strobing photography.
Coz the possibilities are just endless even when the location is fixed.

Flares can be nice, but according to the pros... it's best to minimize them for competition purpose

The one weakness about strobing photography is that.... it's really difficult to set everything up, so having friends around is a great help.

All of the photos are taken with the Canon 70-200 f/2.8 USM L lens.

The Manfrotto 190XPROB tripod with 496 RC2 tripod head held the 5D2 with Canon 70-200 really really stable too. I doubt I'll need a better tripod unless I get those super telephoto lens(which I won't since each one can easily buy a car).

The only downside about the tripod is it's weight. The whole thing weighs 2kg... lugging it around is a pain in the ass.

Now for how I got the shots.

ISO 100

Shutter Speed : 1/160 - Doesn't matter.

Manual focus, on tripod - 5D2 cannot track a jumping subject under poor light conditions

Aperture : f/5

Focal length : 100 to 200mm - It's best to use telephoto range here to avoid distortion of body.(unless u want the distortion). You do not need to use a 70-200 L though, a 55-250 or any cheap telephoto would produce the same thing.

Flash Set-up :

a) 1 Flash (Nissin di622 II) diffused with shoot through umbrella on camera left. Placed directly on subjects right

b) 1 Flash (Nissin di622 II) diffused with shoot through umbrella on camera right. Placed directly on subjects top left

c) 1 Flash (580EX II) diffused with shoot through umbrella on camera right. Placed directly on subjects top right

d) 2 Flash (YN460II and Falcon eyes 386) placed on the floor for flares

Joanne was really awesome.

I don't think I know anyone who can replace her. As expected from a ballet teacher.

But even with all those photos...

I don't think we can win, there are plenty of better photos and I really dunno how those judges choose.

Now... obligatory photo of myself.

I don't get to camwhore often, so I'll have to make it count.

To wrap things up... my fav song of the month

No it's not wake me up when september ends

Time which will never come

2011-09-20T01:39:00.001+08:00

I started out really ambitious this academic year with tonnes of "need to accomplish list"
Ranging from
1) Trying to get to that CGPA I always wanted
2) Getting the job I really desire
3) Do something really awesome in FYP by achieving some breakthrough or somekind
4) Win really awesome photography/videography contest
5) Having fun in my final year

All of which have yet to happen.

But I guess I was over ambitious.
Right now, all I want is just time to really rest up and recover. Time for me to go home and just rest.
I'm not homesick or what, but I just want time to rest and not bother about CAs, FYP, Assignments, Work, and what not.

When I said I'm busy this semester. I seriously mean it. Not a single day pass where I can sleep before 3am. I might be able to handle this mentally, but I think my body is starting to break down.
Stress is good, but burnout can be an issue
Hopefully recess week would give me a good few days to recharge.

But will that time come ???
It probably never will

Ok, that's it. no more further whining coz there will lead no where.
Gotta keep in mind...
1) People are very adaptable. Me included. No matter what kinda shit that happen, we can always handle it.... or rather get used to it.

2) Things are only going to get worse. So I better brace myself.

Maybe I should join some jogging club or something.
Which reminds me of some photos I took last week.

NTU X Campus competiton

Technically it's just a race around campus.

I was tasked to take their photo around campus. Keep in mind I do not own a car or a bicycle.

And I had to take their photo while carrying my gears.

But I did it, I took photos of them in 4 different locations. I kept up with them via bus and cab.

From old to new hall in 10 minutes

It was not easy task keeping up with them. It takes only 30 minutes + to complete the entire track.

But screw logic, I did it !!!

Here are the rest of the photos

Oh, I oso trolled my previous roomate.

He obviously didn't like it LOLz.
But hey, it's all for the lulz.

Anyway to anyone who called me out for dinner/lunch, etc etc... when I said I'm busy... I seriously mean it. I'm actually doing something really important and not slacking in room reading 9GAG

Screw that shit

2011-09-13T04:04:00.002+08:00

As usual, the past week have been incredibly busy.
The weekends didn't last either.
Friday was the only time I could recuperate and repay my sleep debt by taking an afternoon nap.
The only time where I could just screw everything else and just sleep.

And not a single fuck was given on Friday afternoon

The rest of the days however were pretty packed.
I spend the majority of Friday night learning how film / photo gets developed in a dark room.

The dark is a pretty darkplace /captain obvious

Thanks to Patrick for showing me the printing process.
I must say that printing black and white film the traditional way has a lot more feel in it.
The process is pretty long, expensive and 100% manual. No control + P. No control + Z. I finally learn the true meaning of burning and dodging when using an enlarger.

So what are the advantages of printing the old way? For one... the resolution of the print is pretty high. You'll gonna need a pretty good printer to print something of equal resolution if that's even possible.
But the bulk of it is still the feel you get. The same reason why Leica M9 cameras are so freakishly expensive.

I've also seen some photos taken by ADM students and their grades. Needless to say, it's incredibly hard to score. Even Photos that are stock worthy would often get a C-.

The next day was Singapore Canon Photomarathon.
I went there unprepared.
Although I did come up with some great ideas, I estimated the time to complete it wrongly in addition to the fact I did not bring the proper gears (tripod).

So what's this photomarathon ?
It's not really a marathon, but more of a speed photography contest.
Contestant are given 3 hours to shoot a photograph relating to a theme. There are 3 themes in total and 2 categories in each theme.
So at 9am they announced theme which you'll need to capture a photograph and pass it to the management team by 12pm.

The 3 themes are
1) Eat
2) Circle
3) Imagine

For the first theme.... eat
I wanted to take a photo of someone grabbing food with his mouth while being gracefully in the air.
That and some really pleasing background in addition to powerful lighting.
However, I encountered a few problems
1) Lack of suitable models... we really need someone who's graceful.
2) It's difficult to get the food and the subject to be in the position you want.
3) Lighting isn't those dynamic one... didn't bring my stuff
4) Location. Before I can even settle nunber 1 & 2... time ran out so there's no time to try a better location

The result ?

This was my shot.

It's an incomplete shot. The food is too far. The food is too small... I wanted some KFC chicken wings or a really large hamburger. But... shops aren't open yet. Weng Fei was kinda.... not really graceful.
Biggest problem lies with getting their position right when I snap my shutter. I didn't have enough time to perfect this !!!

Obviously a shot like this could not win crap.
Oh well...

Next.
Theme is Circle.
At this point, I just wanna go home and rest.... I only had 3 hours of sleep.
But I tot.. why not just give it another try.
So the idea was the infamous picture within a droplet type.
Where I'll use my macro lens and try to capture some miniature circles(lens and lens cap) within the droplets.

BUT there was a huge problem.
I did not bring my tripod.
This is a shitty problem as one can tell you about macro 1:1 photography with a lens that has no tripod. Moving 1mm can cause the entire photo to be out of focus.
And I didn't buy a plastic pipette... so the droplets aren't round at all.

No tripod.

So it was difficult as hell to get this shot as both lens and leaf are moving pretty fast relatively.

Next up I tried dripping water ontop of a UV filter and see how it goes.

I don't like it... it's... ugly

The non-symmetrical subject that's out of focus = sure lose.

IF ONLY I had my tripod + a proper water droplet....

When the 3rd theme was released... I was already packing my bag to go home.

Lesson learned.

Plan ahead in Canon Photomarathon.

Themes may be random, but they are often open ended and you can plan ahead what kinda photos u can take.

---

Then comes Sunday.

Mid Autumn Festival Celebration with Whei Yeap as he wanted to share his mooncakes with us. Thanks.

Ice cream mooncakes. The best kinda mooncakes, after jelly mooncakes.

Dinner was at Thai Express and it was my first time eating there.

Yeah I n00b and I tend to instinctively avoid Thai restaurants as they're known to be pricy.

Food was ok. Something different and not too pricy if you do not over-order.

I had some BBQ chicken meal which was oookkk

But you know what.... screw the descriptions. I just wanna post photos of food I've taken that day.

---

Feel Me

2011-09-05T04:01:00.003+08:00

As usual, it's been ages since my last update.

There is just so many things I would like to blog about but I just couldn't find the opportunity to do so.

From my trip back to Malaysia, to my new purchases to my 23rd Birthday experience !

But today, I'm going to talk about my experience being the videographer of Kakilang Production.

Kakilang production was formed by people who met this criteria

1) A Final year Student in NTU

2) A Malaysian

3) Owns a Canon DSLR

It might seem hard to find people who fit this. So I indirectly poisoned my friends to get a Canon DSLR. Why Canon? Coz Screw Nikon !!! (Fanboy here)

Hence, the Kakilang production was formed.

Originally, it was supposed to be a photography outing club but it evolves into a production group responsible for a short film to be shown in a very important event.

What event was it ?

It's the NTU Malaysian Student Association Merdeka Night.

I've to admit that we're not a very patriotic bunch of people. But neither are those back in Malaysia...

Choosing to postpone Merdeka in favor of Hari Raya !!!

Can you believe it?

I see more Singapore flags in Singapore today(1 month after their independence day) than KL during the 31st of August.

Truly Race > Nationality.

Nevertheless, the Merdeka Night serves as a reason to bind all Malaysians in NTU together. Regardless if they're Freshmen, Seniors or Alumni.

It's generally just another 4 hour event packed dinner with Bands, Skits, Talentshow and of course... the short movie shot by the Kakilang production crew.

... and I get to test out my new lens then too.

Shot at 200mm f/2.8 1/200 seconds

Just look at that detail !!!

There's a main reason why that lens is often used for concerts and such XD.

How bout close ups ?

I bet you must have thought this was from my macro lens. No it's not

Beats the shit out from my Tamron 70-300 f/4-6.3 so badly that I feel like give tat shitty lens away.

I'm really loving the Canon 70-200 f/2.8 USM L a lot !!

Despite what they say about this lens not being as sharp as the 70-200 f/2.8 IS II, the 70-200 f/2.8 NON IS is plenty sharp already at half the price of the IS II version.

If only it wasn't so heavy...

So what's this lens for again?

It's mainly for portraits on a FF

The focal length of 70-200 with a max aperture of f/2.8 makes it perfect for portraits on a full framed body. On a cropped body, it's suitable for sports.

Onto Kakilang Production.

The entire film is directed by

Mr Leong Chong Yen. Director of "Feel Me"

Chong Yen often mention how bad he feels by asking people to correct their mistake and improve their acting skills. But it has all paid off. I've really noticed the huge improvement in the main cast acting skills.

And the producer/Casting Director

Mr Goh Choon Siong

He's the one who makes sure everything and everyone goes according to plan.

Now, some of you might be wondering of the responsibilities of a producer. The producer is basically the boss of the production. This sometimes coincide with the casting director which is in charge of finding for suitable actors and actresses.

Next up is the heart of the story

Mr. Nicholas Lee

The scriptwriter makes the story. If a movie were to be a book, he be the author.

No matter how good the cast and crew are, if the story isn't good ... it's going to be ugly.

How good is his story? Watch to find out !

Then of course there's me. The Videographer and editor along with 2 of my friends.

I realized in a shoot that it's incredibly hard for a single person to be all 4 without screwing things up.

Why? Because there are 4 very distinct yet important aspect to a movie which cannot be compromised.

Someone needs to direct and ensure everyone achieves a reasonable level of performance. Emotions, dialogues, delivery, body language of actors and actresses must be considered by the Director at all times.

Then there's the Producer. In our production, the producer is the one who ensures everything goes as plan. Making sure everyone can come on time and making amendments if necessary. He's the one who takes care of the location and welfare of the entire crew.

Next is the scriptwriter. You might think it'll be easy to just write a good story. But it's not.

Not only must the story be good, the script writer must take into consideration of the limitations posed. And trust me, there are plenty of limitations.

Lastly are the Videographer. Making a movie isn't as simple as slapping a camera in front of people mindlessly. It involves intricate planning. Which camera goes where and what will each camera be capturing. The movement of cameras itself, panning, change in focus and focal lengths must all be considered. It's also necessary to not get any of the crews into the camera line of sight. All this plus basics of camera settings makes this job a very important one. Controlling one camera is already hard. Try planning it out for 3 cameras shooting simultaneously.

As the videographer and editor, I endured countless sleepless nights.... shooting and editing videos.

What started out as a hobby became extremely time consuming and the pressure to finish the video by Merdeka Night was very real.

But the determination of the other crew members and casts did inspire me to finish it up. And was I glad it was done !!!

Over the months, I've bought a Directional Rode Mic and a 1TB HDD just for this movie.

We used over RM 30K worth of equipment

- Canon EOS 5D Mk2

- Canon EOS 60D

- Canon EOS 600D

- Canon EOS 550D

- Canon EOS 500D

- Canon EOS 1100D

- Canon 17-40mm f/4 USM L

- Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 USM L

- Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro

- Sigma 50mm f/1.4 HSM

- Tokina 11-16 f/2.8

- Tamron 17-50 f/2.8

- Canon 50mm f/1.8

- Canon 18-55mm f/3.5 - 5.6 IS II

- Canon 18-55mm f/3.5 - 5.6 IS

- Rode Directional Mic

- Countless ballhead tripods and monopods

So what's the story about ?

Watch for yourself.

(This is the shitty SD version) Hopefully the HD version will be out soon !

Youtube will probably remove the entire video thx to copyright infringement.

So watch it before it's too late !!!

There goes the 2 weeks

2011-08-21T02:31:00.000+08:00

It's only the end of the second week of school and I'm exhausted with the amount of tasks I need to do.
Last Friday, I had a choice of doings several different things that I would need to create 6 clones to attend them all.

They were
1) Do my FYP in the optics lab from 2pm till 10pm.
2) Go for a paid photoshoot for Jipaban.
3) Go for a BBQ with the orientation group I'm attached too
4) Have supper with ChongXian and the rest
5) Meet up with my Kepong friends
6) Go for my friend (Yann Er) B'day.
7) Go for SCBE D&D

No.1 was postponed due to early notice.
No.2 was also put off until further notice
As for No.3, I feel kinda bad for not attending many of their gatherings. Nevertheless, going for a BBQ 2 days in a row isn't a good idea so I have to pass on this.
No.4 was a last minute notice. Besides, there will be a lot more opportunities in the future.
I was also notified for No.6 a day before friday, hence I can't make it. I'm not paid to shoot for number 7 and I don't really know that many people there, so number 7 is out of the question.
Since I've already given my word to my friends from Kepong and it's a rare opportunity that all of us get to meet in Singapore, that was pretty much my obvious choice.

I would like to include staying in my room in mug all night too.
But that would be the most unlikely choice then.

Something to remind me that I'm a Malaysian

Dinner was pricy but it was expected as we dined at Clarke Quay.
Hmmm, despite coming from the same class several years ago, all of us now have completely different paths in life. The future for all of us is still uncertain where anything is possible.

The only certainty of the future is that all of us will face even greater challenges and make more life changing decisions.

Oh, and that all of us are doing something related to biology.... for now.

Note : He's not the only Medical Student I know.

But he's certainly the most unique one LOL.

Regardless, I didn't manage to do anything much that night and the fact that I got back by 12am says a lot. Unlike my other outings, this one doesn't require me to spend extra on taxi.

No flash as I was really lazy.

Right now I just can't wait to get back to KL and have a real proper rest.

Getting Organized

2011-08-16T13:23:00.003+08:00

I'm going to postpone FOC part 2 post until further notice.
I've been really tied up recently.

Right now, I'm just looking forward for the weekend where I'll still be busy but at least there's an awesome BBQ.

I've been leveling my BBQ Skill level

This blog is going to function as my organizer because there are far too many things to remember with memory alone.

For the next few weeks I will have (from highest priority to least)
1) FYP
2) Classes and projects
3) Kakilang Production
4) Assignments at CCO
5) Freelance Assignments.

However due to the constrain of 24 hours per day, I often have to sacrifice options 4 and 5.
Due to my inflexible timetable, I probably have lost a couple of hundred bucks of opportunity cost.

FYP is going at full force for the next few weeks. I'll be spending hours in lab in order to obtain some results. Soon, I'll be doing some multiple coating where each coating takes about 5 minutes. When I said multiple, I meant 25 times. One mistake and it's back to the starting point. There're no save points in life. Then there's the 10 hours baking time.

But even before I start my experiment, there's this mountain of journals I need to read.

Even priority 1 is enough to keep me occupied.

So let's move on to priority 2.
Classes and projects.
I must go for classes. If I miss them, I must revise them by myself on the same day or risk getting lost. This year, I have about 3-4 projects excluding FYP.
One of them is biomedical design and my group is supposed to come up with a device to help people post heart attack. Luckily I know a great bunch of friends who're in their 4th year of medical studies.

Now, on to priority 3.
Kakilang production. Dateline is coming closer and I have a lot.
I meant A LOT of things to edit.
Since I'm one of the original 6, I have to give it my all. I'm not going to let this die because of my procrastinating way of life.

Next, priority 4 and 5.
With all the stuff happening with No.1 to 3. I don't have much time left for 4 and 5. Seriously.
Just this week alone, I probably have lost about SGD 200 in opportunity cost thanks to me being busy on weekdays.

Who says final year isn't busy ?
But nevertheless, I'm not that worried anymore.
As I proved that you can be really busy, and still do what you want and get what you want... during special semester.
Will this work during normal semester?
Only time will tell.

Freshman Orientation Camps in the eyes of a senior - Part 1

2011-08-11T01:10:00.002+08:00

This is it.

I'm officially a final year student with final year responsibilities.

Yesterday was my last time of being involved in a freshman orientation camp.

Today's post would touch about orientation camps in NTU.

Each and every orientation has its own unique culture, cheers, games and programs.

There are 4 kinds of camps in general.

School camps, Society Camps, Hall Camps and Nationality camp.

Every year, camps can have different themes or they could just recycle the theme from last year.

The first camp I joined, SCBE NUEVE for an example for the latter.

SCBE Camp was quite interesting.

It was my first time joining a school camp.

Despite the fact that I'm only joining for a few days.

SCBE FOC was also my first time at siloso beach this year

SCBE camp was also the only camp they gave me certain complications.

Mainly because of a communication breakdown where they thought I was there taking photos of eligible freshies for my school D&D event.

The fact that I'm taking photos for Corporate Communication Office made them worried.

This is when I learned of the regular FOC protocol.

Regardless of School, Halls, Societies, everyone has to obey the law set by the SAO (Student Admin Office). Unless you're a big shot like the previous Mensa NTU President, you pretty much have to obey the law set by them.

Unfortunately, most of the regulations set by SAO would mean that most orientation camp will be no different from regular lectures.

So all camps will have sneak behind their back and just do it.

Some of you might be thinking, the rules set can't be that bad right?

Let's just put it this way,

If the activity is too difficult for a 90 year old grandma, it's probably illegal.

If the activity is outlawed in radical muslim countries (like a guy touching a girl), it's also illegal.

I knew SAO were strict, but I didn't know they were that strict about the rules.

So I just shot pictures which are considered interesting to me without taking account of the rules set by SAO.

To make matters worse, one of the freshman complained to SAO about some injury. SAO then threaten to halt the entire camp. After being screwed over, the FOC committee was afraid that my photos can cause another issue which wouldn't look pretty.

I can't blame them when they request me to take down my photos and my previous blog entry, but I wasn't too happy about it either. In my eyes they were pretty normal photos, but I guess that I underestimate their fear for SAO.

Sad stuff aside, I realized that the SP pairing in NUEVE 7 (SCBE FOC), is a whole lot more interesting than the regular Malaysian FOC I used to join.

It was a pretty big thing with a huge budget

Nevertheless, I kinda had fun snapping a few memorable photos.

The next FOC camp which I took a few shots was the School of Biological Sciences Camp.

This is the school where the number of girls outnumber the guys.

One of the "safest" activity for me to take = Station games around NTU

It was a bit of a hassle for me to take photos of this camp as I had to rush for my accountancy class.

Although I did inform the person in charge I would be taking a few shots, the president of the club did hint to me of my "responsibility" to take reasonable photos.

Luckily for them, I have dealt with this issue when I shot the SCBE photos so I'm more aware of the implications now.

They also had some unique game like Pass the tofu.

This game involve passing a small piece of tofu from one freshman to the other. The last one gets a bit of extra protein boost.

I was also called to take some pictures at night.

However, I was kinda disappointed when I saw freshman dining in the dark with blindfolds on.

I have no idea what that was suppose to be, but these are not the kind of photos I need to take.

After a quick chat with the SBS President, I left the place feeling a little unsatisfied.

Next up was the most anticipated camp for a lot of students.

Hint : Only 1 out of every 2 participant will get selected and the committee chooses their freshman via Facebook.

Yes, it's the NBS camp and I was told that I could take a few pictures during their pool day.

It's good to note that all Hall and School camps do screen their freshman via Facebook because they need to shortlist freshman. Fixing the number of participant earlier on makes logistic a lot easier as well as program planning. However NBS is notorious for this as the amount of people who failed in joining FOC is quite substantial.

So here it is, NBS Pool day

The Pool games they played was pretty fun

Oh, and everyone is in proper swimwear.

I really don't get certain people jumping into pools/sea with Tshirt and Shorts on.

Although this is only their second day, everyone was pretty hyped up about the events

I also did a quick glance at their event schedule for the entire FOC. Unless I'm reading it wrongly, there are days when they're expected to sleep at 4am and wake up by 6am. For all 5 days of the camp, I don't think they amount of sleep they have is more than 15 hours.

Nevertheless, they people there are really hyped up.

So hyped up that I think they can take on whatever that comes their way.

I guess they deserve the title of most coveted FOC of NTU.

---

I have taken a whole lot more photos but I wouldn't upload them for public because I would like to avoid certain issues.

The next update would cover a few more camps.

A hobby is not an investment

2011-08-02T01:09:00.001+08:00

A hobby is not an investment unless the hobby is about investing itself - Goldfries.
I have to remind myself this, as I often bullshit myself of how value of certain equipment tend to remain constant. Although this is true, all equipment undergo depreciation and have a limited lifespan.
In short, they're more of a liability than an investment.

Despite it's possible to sell them at a higher price and earn a little, that's not investing.
Company that sells their own equipment to generate their main profit are usually pretty near to chapter 11.

The same applies to me, my hobby will remain a hobby.
I'm not even good at those anyway.

After a quick chat with my seniors, I realized that I'm in some pretty deep shit. None of them are able to secure a job.
The Singapore economy is supposed to be better now than a few years ago, yet my seniors are jobless.
To add insult, this year my university has the highest employment rate before graduation.
Yet my seniors are jobless.
It's kinda late to realized that I took up the wrong course.

To be honest, I don't really bother much about CGPA or grades now.
Coz fuck those, I rather have a reasonably good job than a first class degree.
A job earns you money. Money can make more money.
A first class degree with no job will get you no where.

Of course there's the A*STAR and further studies pathway but that's my last resort.

Oh well, there's another year for me to prepare for what's coming up.
Life's not going to be easy and at this point I really really don't see a point to a graduation if I don't secure a job soon.

Life is mundane isn't it?
Study -> Get a good job -> Have a good life - > Die.

Living a life of someone significant is pretty much reserved for the exclusive few.
I've just witness an event that's considered momentous to many individuals.

Graduation = the point in life where shit starts to get real

It's the symbol in life that your training wheels will have to go off. No one wants to be the failure which continues to live on their parents.

But as I taking pictures of them,
I didn't feel that rush of adrenaline that tells me my study life is over.

Even those who did not expect much of this event became incredibly happy.

- Like a Second Birthday.

What will happen after graduation ?
Will I be incredibly happy then ?
Or will it be another ordinary day for me just like how the graduation ceremony in high school is when I'm already in university?

Will it be a colorful day, or will it be a day where nothing happens ?

Whatever it may be, the feeling of overcoming study life won't be complete if I'm stuck in limbo with no real job.

That's why I'm determined to get a job.
What am I looking for ?
I have very few criteria to be honest.
1) Job fit
2) Career advancement opportunities
3) Job relativity to course

I'll hope for the best and start my course of action to make myself more eligible.

Here are the rest of the pictures.

Oh, for those NBS students.
I felt a little charitable that day so I took most of your photos on stage.

---
On another note, it seems like some of the halls are actually rejecting my request to take photos for their orientation camp.
I understand their fears of having an outsider, especially one who may be associated with SAO to come and take pictures. This is especially true when all the Freshman Orientation Camps do not follow the guidelines SAO provides. However, even though I'm not affiliated with SAO, they're still afraid that I might take some pictures which will screw them up.
Besides, an email from a student claiming he's a photographer sounds pretty fishy. Hence, I'll just ask my supervisor to email them next time.

For the camps who denied access to me;
As much as I can reply them with a picture of the finger and tell them that my email wasn't a request but a notification, I will not do that.
Why ?
1) I'm not going to be the asshole who wants to screw all of the FOC or cause them inconveniences.
2) No point making more enemies. Being that bastard just isn't worth it.
3) I shoot one camp, I get paid for 6 hours. I shoot 5 camps, I still get paid of 6 hours of work.

I'm 1/3 free

2011-07-29T04:35:00.000+08:00

Out of the 3 important tasks I have,
1) Accounting Special Semester
2) CCO Photograher
3) Kakilang Production Videographer,

I'm now done with Accounting.
This means that I can finally concentrate on making full use of my camera.

But things aren't getting any easier for me.
With tonnes of stuff to do and more coming (Final year is starting in less than 2 weeks time),
I have no choice but to give everything I have to making things work. Although I must admit that sometimes things doesn't always go the way I want.

This week was the convocation period in my university as previously mentioned and I'm tasked to take some photos by my university and by my friends.

And so I did

Pictures of people staring at banners.

Well, people do look at them, but I don't like camping till someone actually looks at them. So I asked my friends for help.

I was a little bit more active today. Probably because I'm in a good mood since I don't have to deal with an exam in the next few weeks.

Of course, as I'm tasked to take photos of graduates being happy, I shot indiscriminately. Yes, I photograph people even if I don't know them. It's all part of my job

All I care if it makes an awesome shot.

Note : I'm not a pervert, I'm an official photographer !

Though at times I can be pretty unreliable.
I must say that my photos are very inconsistent and they're not that good compared to real professionals.
I'm just an enthusiast contributing to my university.

Of course, I do take photos of friends too.

Chongjyn hired me as his convocation photog

I have yet to finish editting today's picture... and yesterday's FOCs picture.
Clearing 10GB of RAW files kinda sucks.

I'll have to pay more attention to ChongJyn pics too since they're important.

I am busy

2011-07-25T20:09:00.003+08:00

A quick mental note to myself every time I blog.

There are people who read my blog.
Usually, I thought it will be the usual friends around me who would reads it for the crude and sarcastic humor I put forward.

But somehow even with my decreasing new entry rates, people still read my blog.

So, I'm going to revert to a more serious tone.
To those who're wondering, most of what I've said are for the lulz and are not to be taken seriously.

---
For the past few weeks, everyday have been a battle I must emerge victorious.
There's something to finish and accomplish everyday with one major hurdle this coming Wednesday.
To be honest, I have a very bad feeling about this Wednesday.

It's the special semester exam and things are about to go very wrong.

Today was supposed to be a revision day for me but I got so much in my hands that I get distracted 90% of the time.

It's 2011 Convocation

I can't believe a year has passed since I was an Usher for the 2010 Convocation.
This year around, I'm a temporary photographer for friends and NTU.

Knowing the flow of things does comes in handy as I can expect what will happen and what I can do.
Seeing this people graduating only reminds me of one things.

To get back to room and study.

Being Clean 2.0

2011-07-11T00:04:00.002+08:00

BERSIH 2.0
2011 July 9th 2011
I'm going to voice out my opinions on this rally as a vicenarian who has been keeping tabs on local politics for the past 6 years.
What's a vicenarian ? Someone aged 20-29.
I bet you didn't know that.

BERSIH 2.0 which means clean in Malay was a rally held last Saturday to promote a fair and equal election. This time around, thanks to social media like Facebook... news spreads really quickly.

Part of the reason why it spread so quickly was because now people can share really powerful pictures quickly with their friends.

Credits to BBC.

As much as I want to go there myself to take pictures, I'm stuck in Singapore and I don't like chemical water + tear gas.

In contrast to 4 years ago during the 2007 BERSIH rally, a lot of youngsters and teenagers have not even heard of BERSIH. I remember reading tonnes of articles, watching clips on youtube and did some extra readings in 2007 only to find out that almost none of my friends have even heard of it.
Right now, it's THE "Hoo-Hah" among my friends.

As much as I would like to call them slowpokes, but at least they're aware of it now.

Enough bragging bout myself being updated LOL, but here's my opinion of Bersih 2.0
---
Too long didn't read version
If I could sum up one sentence to describe this rally, it'll be "Just As Planned"
Other than a few key differences, it's basically the same thing as the first one.
It's like watching Final Destination 1 and Final Destination 2. Same plot, same motive, same theme.

Now, for the long version.
We know that our government isn't exactly the best one out there in terms of freedom of speech, democratic rights, yadda yadda.... In fact it's pretty near the bottom. I'm not pulling this fact out of my ass either, go check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_indices_of_freedom

1) Here are some more "obvious" facts
The government is corrupt, from top to bottom. The police force is the government watchdog. Barisan National, the current ruling party will be facing difficulties in the next election. The voting system is incredibly lopsided towards BN. Our country is in a horrible economical position, recessions and the increase in necessities are pissing the people(Rakyat) off.

But are those facts surprising ?
No. Most of us knew this ever since our 4th Prime Minister stepped down and tonnes of crap started leaking out during the inception master's era.

Credit's to Obefiend@lowyat.net

2) We know the shit they've been doing, what now?
So now a group of brave Rakyat decides to band together and to possibly bring down Barisan National. How can they do that ?
Well, they can do it the hard way... aka Egypt, Thailand, Libya or
the easy way ... beating them through elections.
Malaysia is currently a flawed democratic country, but it's still democratic.

If the elections are a 100% fair, our current Prime Minister, Najib might as well just send his resignation letter. In 2008, BN had about 50.2% of the votes. Which means it just about half of all the registered voters voted for the opposition. That is if we did not factor in stuff like postal votes, phantom votes, "bribing" voters etc etc. Again I did not pull this out from my ass. Just Google it and the fact becomes obvious.

So why did BN epicly phailed in the 2008 elections ?
There are several factors but the BERSIH 2007 rally was one of them.

Then it became obvious. BERSIH 2.0 shall be the trump card in removing BN as the ruling party.
If they agreed to the terms and fixed the broken electorian system, we'll be having a new government.
If they declined it, well... all types of publicity is good publicity.

3) Why do we need the Bersih Rally anyway ?
Not everyone knows the atrocities the government have been doing. Not many even bother to know about the Malaysian politics. This is especially true to the Generation-Y youngsters. Just ask how many of them are registered voters ?
To them voting is useless because they feel it's pointless to vote between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. But what they don't understand is that is has always been between a giant douche and a turd sandwich since the beginning of time. Because only those kind of people can remain and be successful in the dirty world of politics.
However, politicians are like underwear. They need to be changed regularly or else they'l get dirty.

Just watch this epic Southpark episode.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s08e08-douche-and-turd
*Warning - Those with shitty screamyx connection might not be able to load the video*

So think of Bersih 2.0 as an extension to spread awareness to the upcoming young voters.
And what better way to spread awareness than to see people getting brutally bashed up by police for organizing a peaceful rally.
Those who're bashed up, they're martyrs in my eyes. A necessary sacrifice to open up the eyes of the upcoming young voters.

Just look at facebook and count how many post has to do with "BERSIH"
Everyone is either a political analyst or being shocked by the brutality done by the police.

4) But is BERSIH 2.0 really beneficial or is it a hate inciting propaganda by the opposition ?
It's obvious the only one doing the damage is the police and the government.
Those who says Bersih is at fault because they incite the police to take actions are kinda like rapist who blame girls for exposing too much skin. However, their reasons for their actions isn't as simple as you think.

Take note that what the police is doing isn't technically wrong. It's might be morally wrong, but morals don't really work in the real world. One of the definition of a state is that the state has a monopoly over violence. In this case, the police. Yes, the government can ask the police to shit on you and there's nothing you can do about it. You might complain that it's against the human rights as mentioned in the Geneva convention, but in the real world... those kinda treaties are more like breakable guidelines and not absolute rules.

It's also problematic that most youngsters are deluded and idealistic. Proof of that is when they blame the government for everything they do. Of course the government is at fault, but most of them don't understand the logic to the actions taken by the opposition party and the current ruling party.
You see, BN is prepared to take any measures necessary to maintain power of the country. It's wrong, but once you're in their shoes... you'll see the logic behind their actions. You don't blame a vulture for their vile act... it's a part of nature.

Why is that so hard to believe ? It's not about wrong or right. It's about survival.
Don't look shocked in disgust when you see police clamping down the Bersih Rally. That action is to be expected by everyone.

You might ask why does the government have to act so brutally on BERSIH 2.0 ?
Can't they just allow the peaceful rally ?

First off, remember I said that if the demands are met... Najib might as well resign.
Secondly, allowing one peaceful rally would act as a catalyst for another rally and so on.
Allowing too many rallies could even possibly persuade those adamant government supporter to change sides.

So the best move, however damaging to the government; is to clamp down the rally... brutally. At least their bad image will only be localized at youths and those internet savvy who are probably going to vote for the opposition anyway. Those who're not so internet savvy can still be brain washed with gov controlled local medias.

Ok, so we know people will get hurt during the rally... why do the people in-charge of BERSIH still go on with it ?
Like I said, any kind of publicity is good publicity. Seeing the police whacking elderly and children, bashing people up, firing tear gasses to hospital is sure to splash some senses into many.
This sure beats sitting at home and having skype conferences on how BN sucks.

Hence, the immediate outcome and reasoning of the rally is very very predictable. People will get hurt, the government will be adamant about opposing the rally, the local press hides and twists everything and the internet becomes the "true source" for information. It's Bersih 2007 again but this time with Facebook.
Will any of the demands made by Bersih be realized ? I seriously doubt so.
Will BN lose in the upcoming election ? The chances are higher due to BERSIH 2.0, but they're still slim.

5) So what now ?
Bersih remains a tool used or supported by the opposition to bring BN down.
Those who're injured becomes martyrs to their country, and BN will be further condemned.
Spread the word.
It doesn't matter if you're a slowpoke or you're a wannabe political analyst, spread the word of what really happened during Bersih 2.0

And then...
Have you registered ?
If you've not, please do it now.
Registration of voters will definitely be delayed because new voters = problem for BN. So register early.

---
Goodluck Malaysia.

NTU got no STARS

2011-07-03T04:05:00.000+08:00

I don't mean the crappy STAR PLANNER which requires Jedi like skills to beat it.
I'm talking about real stars.

LIGHT POLLUTION !!!

There are literally no stars in the sky, other than one or two odd one.
It was cloudy today as usual, and the only star is a dim one located on the top left hand corner of the photo.

This photo was taken with a 40 minute exposure, and I was hoping to get some cool star-trails, but the only star I got was some starred shaped flare.

So Light pollution + always cloudy nights = forget about taking star trail photos in Singapore.

So we ended up talking cock almost the whole time.
At about 11pm, I tried out some flash techniques.

Kevin's shadow clone technique. No Photoshop-ping involved other than making it B&W.

The 580 ability to quickly recycle and fire high-powered flashes was extremely useful in this case.

I seriously have no idea what this is suppose to mean

But it was pretty cool playing with the flash.
I wanted to do the DragonBall Fusion dance, but oh well... next time than.

Another weekend down the drain~

Thank you NTU, for your starless skies.

Oh, another complain about Hall 7.
Hall 7 sucks to the max.
Why?
They have tonnes of cats around here. I'm not against cats in anyway except when they shit in a shower cubicle in my toilet.
Fine, I'll just use the one next to it.
But seriously WTF when my toiletries fell from the top of cubicle wall onto the piles of cat manure.
FML, that's SGD 40 gone. Now I gotta get new toiletries.

Iridescent

2011-06-30T01:04:00.000+08:00

I don't care what the others say, Transformers 3 is a must watch.
So what if some people don't like a 3 hour CGI porn, cheesy jokes and moderate plot.
It's going to be the movie of the year. It's going to be the highest grossing movie of this year.

I've to admit, it's not a perfect super awesome movie which has a 10/10 rating.
But it's close. It's far better than the second one and first one combined.
If you didn't think so, you probably have expectation so high that no movie ever made could satisfy you.

I'm lucky to be able to watch it almost as soon as it's released. People are booking in advance to watch this movie. Most Cinemas everywhere are fully booked one week in advance. Name me a movie which had this much hype?

I watched the dark of the moon at JP. Not the best of cinemas, but it's good enough. I'll probably watch it again soon. Cinemas will be showing this movie for quite a while.

Ramen @ Jurong Point with YongZhen, Chan Fai and Jin Chuen

Did I mention that I was anticipating this movie so much that I dreamt about it the night before?

Ok, now for the review.
I'll be completely honest with the review. Before watching it, I had a realistic expectation to transformers 3. I was expecting something better than the second one, but not absolutely mind blowing.

Plot/Storytelling elements :
I really liked the beginning where they interpolate real life footage of the moon landing with current CGI porn scenes. The plot as a whole was well developed but a little slow. There isn't any "questions" left unanswered and there was no deux ex machina.
Granted, the plot didn't really make you think as it's Michael explosion Bay directing and not Christopher mindfcuk Nolan. The general setting of the movie is a lot more grim and people/robots die a lot here. Quite a few autobots died and they killed *spoilers* off starscream and megatron.

Characters/Acting :
The cast for this movie is topnotch. There are quite a few emotional scenes where it really made you hate the decepticons. In the second film, they're like some cartoon villains who're the good guys punching bag.
Here, they pose a much bigger threat and the US army isn't as godlike like they were in the second and first film.

Action :
Best CGI Robot on Robot action movie ever made. nuff said.

I'll give this movie a 9.5/10.
For comparison, I rate X-men first class an 8/10, Kung-Fu panda 2 a 7.5/10, Super 8 a 6/10.

For those who said this movie isn't good...
Either they have very high expectation, they don't like CGI based movie or both.
This is the best movie of it's genre this year.

Here's iridescence from LP for this movie

BTW iridescence = Change of colour on a surface due to angle of light reflecting off it. Like on soap bubbles... they appear "rainbowy" and not completely transparent.

Oh and here're more pictures of our dinner taken in 2 minutes.

Spicy Ramen @ SGD 7.90

From my bento set

Also from my bento set.

Sorry, no pictures allowed in the cinema... so no leaked photos of Optimus prime ownage.

A new light

2011-06-28T03:24:00.000+08:00

Finally, after waiting for so long... I got my hands on the Canon 580EX II flash.

It's a lot better compared to my old Nissin Di622 mark 2.

Here's some bounce TTL flash in action

Sambal Petai with some prawns

This flash is the Canon's flagship flash and it has quite bit of tricks up it's sleeves.

First trick the 580 has is the E-TTL or E-TTL II which is a lot more accurate than any 3rd party flashes(Metz flash is a close second though).

What's TTL, E-TTL or whatever you call it?

It's basically the flash "Auto" mode. It will help you meter the amount of light available and calculate the amount of flash needed.

@Umami, kepong. Nice ambiance but awful food.

The second trick is high speed sync.

For most DSLRs, the shutter works by having a slit open to expose the sensor to light.

Sometimes, the slit will not cover the whole sensor at any one time. So the spontaneous bright light given out by the flash would only brighten a section of the sensor/photo.

What high speed sync does is that the flash continuously flashes so that the whole sensor is lit.

So now I can shoot at a shutter speed higher than 1/200

I increased the power a lil bit too much hence the slight overexposure.

But why do we need to shoot at above 1/200s?

It's for fill flash. Imagine at mid-day. Even with an aperture of f/8 and an ISO of 100, you photos will still be overblown at 1/200s.

But you need to use that flash for fill flash or else your subject would look like a silhouette.

There are a few ways to overcome this.

1) Shift to a shaded area

2) Use an ND filter and bump up the power of your flash

3) High Speed sync

Hence, another reason to get the 580EX II.

I'll go through the other 3 reasons really quickly

3) Stomboscopic mode. It means the flash can fire like a machine gun. I will utilize this feature one day. Not now, but soon.

4) The flash power is a lot higher and it doesn't tend to overheat like most 3rd party flash do. Heck, even the SB-900 overheats more than the 580EX II.

5) The build quality is awesome. Weather sealed, metal hotshoe and build with posh plastic.

But the price is a little steep.

So steep that I will have to minimize my expenditure for the month of July.

Oh, here are the photos taken today at Umami.

NTU : How to beg from them

2011-06-27T13:45:00.003+08:00

It's been a while since I last complained about the hall allocation system.
2 years back it's because I had to squat for 6 months and last year it was because of their ridiculously high cut off points.
NTU Hall allocation system is back this year with a vengeance.

Taken from Hall 10. Now it's probably going to be empty since most people are allocated to old hall area

The situation :
Almost everyone who met the cut off points but wasn't recommended into hall did not get the room of their choice. Most of them are allocated to the "Old Hall Area"
The rules of definitely getting your first and second choice with a priority if you were the previous room tenant don't work anymore.
There are no rules now, and the Hall Allocation system decides to give all of us a final "FARK YOU" before we graduate.

Why do we complain? "We have a hall, we should be thankful that we have one." - Most people who did not get a hall will tell that to us.
No. We cannot.
All of us put in a lot of effort to ensure we get the room, or at least the hall that we want.
Most of us despise old hall area.
May it be shittier amenities, lack of air conditioning, or washing your own toilet.
Don't give me the crap about you don't know till you try or try adapting.
I've stayed in Hall 7 for an entire year and I wasn't happy with it.

The reason :
So why? Why do they decide to screw everyone up?
There are a few hypothesis, from most likely to the least likely.
1) NTU Hall Allocation system is screwed up.
This happened before and it will happen again. NTU HAS is known to give you the rooms you don't want, points you don't get, and enough bugs to open a bug farm... or whatever you call a large collection of bugs.

2) Freshman prefers new and mid hall area by ticking (I prefer air-con) selection.
Now that there are more freshman (Not juniors, because junior year refers to third year students in a four year course) in those halls, old hall areas are kinda empty and we seniors will need to fill up the place.
I guess they're forgetting that it is us who would be donating back to NTU.

3) There are too many people applying for new and mid hall area that they can't accommodate everyone.
The usual.. lol too many people apply for new/mid hall area so go fark yourself in old hall area. TQVM.

Now, despite what NTU SAO might say... don't trust their every word.
So far, every decision they made is pointing towards reason 1.
Why ?
Because people are not getting the room they want, even if they've been staying there for the past few years. Oh, even people from old hall area.

How do you explain this ?

Now for the fun part.

How to appeal :

Note that this might not always work and I've yet to send an email myself.
1) Send this email to sao-fa@ntu.edu.sg and if you're feeling ambitious CTSLOK@ntu.edu.sg .

2) Start up by telling them a bit of yourself. Name, year, halls you applied for, cut off points, special conditions such as being the previous tenant of the hall.

3) Keep your tone down because the staffs there treat us a lot like kids. The moment you start being demanding, they will look into your issue with a different perspective. I'm talking about taking you as an adult, but rather they will be more willing to openly screw you now.

4) State your reason. Make it sound probable. Don't just tell them you deserve the room of your choice simply because you meet the cut off points. Give them some excuse they cannot deny.
So what kinda excuse to give ?

A) Health problems. The ultimate excuse. May it be asthma(can't take the dust in old halls), to hyper-ventilating(need air-con in new/mid halls) or simply I've broken my ankle and I prefer this room since it's nearer to school.

B) Being involved with JCRC. If you're a hall player or a main comm in JCRC and you did not get the hall you want, you can use this as an excuse. This does not happen frequently since most of them will be rec in.

Excuses stated below can only be used once you have shifted in.
C) Inconsiderate roommate / toilet-mate. It could be blasting music loudly, smelling like crap, or simply pissing you off by doing tonnes of crazy stuff. Ask to change room until you are allocated to the room of your choice. What if your roomate is the considerate one? Then you'll just have to work something out.

D) It's haunted. Yes, tell them this indirectly and please try to look serious when you're complaining. If you're a girl, you can tell them you feel unsafe in hall. Like something is always following you whenever you enter that particular hall. They will not laugh it off if you manage to pull this off perfectly. Use this only as a last resort.... and try not to enter a asylum for schizophrenia.

Excuses not to use !!!
1) It's nearer to my school
2) I simply want a better hall
3) I'm sick of old hall
4) My friends are in that hall !

Whatever you do, make it sound like you're begging for your life.
Also predict their reply and preemptively reply them.

Their reply would most probably be the usual :
I'm sorry, the hall you pick doesn't have any space left. So fark off and be happy that we even give you a room.

So you can counter that preemptively that by saying : How is the sorting done? Is it by random allocation ? If I'm not wrong, the previous tenants should be given the highest priority, right? Or are "insert race/nationality" not wanted in that hall ? aka accuse them of something drastic like racism. If you want to be more extreme, how come my friend is in this hall (Insert name) ? What did he/she do that I did not?

Next would be injecting some sarcasm into your email. Tell them you really appreciate the awesome decisions they've been making. Like how they care so much for student welfare like not wanting canteen owners to increase their price. A few cents increase is unjustifiable !!! Tell them you appreciate the pricing to stay in hall which they have kept constantly low. It's not like they increase it this year again... right?
You can even mention things like how you understand NTU decision to give you old hall area because the seniors can wash toilet better.

In the end, remember to say thank you.

Now, the purpose of this email isn't to get SAO to give you your room.
It's to pressure them to change their system.
Will this work? I don't know, but you've nothing to lose.

In the meantime, those affected can fill this FB survey.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=question&id=212518122116655&qa_ref=ns&notif_t=question_suggest

Good luck.

You won first place in a beauty contest, collect 3000 dollars

2011-06-26T05:46:00.001+08:00

How many of you here are familiar with that ?
I"m guessing nearly zero since the monopoly version is second place and the prize money is less than 200 dollars.
But I'm sure everyone would feel awkward receiving that community chest card... especially so if you're a guy.

Several weeks ago, a friend of mine told me he was entering some Watson 2011 awards. Which is somewhat like a "looks" contest. The top prize is RM 3000, and a few weeks worth of commitment is needed. The loser gets nothing.

So Ben asked me if I could help promote his FB page. Hmmm, although I did suggest tonnes of ideas but I did not really spam my friends to vote for him. Coz... it just felt awkward promoting the looks of another guy.

Nevertheless he won and since I was in KL, I took the photos of the final leg of the competition.

As usual, I'll be the photographer again

Now, I didn't exactly put any effort into taking photos that day and I didn't even bother using any flash because right now I will not settle for any flash other than the 580EXII *coughs* which is one of the main reason I came back.

Nevertheless, it was a landslide victory for Ben. Everyone in his group won.
More bout the competition :
1) There are 8 categories, which I can't exactly remember.
2) There are girls as well... obviously.
3) There are 3 finalist in every category.
4) There are 3 performing groups which consist of 8 people from different categories
5) There was this Malaysian National Cheerleading Captain and he tried to incorporate some cheerleading moves into the group performance. Good effort, but it didn't really work out. It's no surprise that NTU Aces team can completely pwn any Malaysian Cheerleading team.
6) The team dance was ok. I mean, it's not professional level show stopping good... but it was ok for the amount of practice they put in.
7) NTU didn't give me the room I wanted. Oh wait... this is out of topic..

The performance which is inspired by Glee.

I don't watch Glee though. I just download most of their music illegally.
The dance was short but awesome. Good use of colour and variety here.

Hmm, the photos didn't turn out as well as I expected.
There's even a bit of ghosting because I shot directly towards a spotlight.
Overall, the girls there are pretty gorgeous and better than expected.
Probably due to the fact that their studio photos are taken by a complete amateur.

Stupid speaker... blocking my view.

As Ben actually did ask for my opinion and suggestions about this kinda stuff....
I did wat I could by utilizing my youtube knowledge.
I passed some of Michelle Phan's video to him. Especially the one where she collaborated with RayWilliamJohnson to do guy's makeup.
How do I know Michelle Phan? Well, she's a gamer and has a gamer youtube channel as well !
To be honest, I'm kinda interested in the upcoming make up tutorial featuring Freddie Wong for the K-pop fat nerdy guy look lolz.

As for the competition, I realized that there was a distinct winner in some of the categories.
Some of them are part-time models and dancers .. which frankly speaking, isn't that uncommon among hot university students.
One thing that kinda irks me is that quite a few of them proudly claim that they went for NS.
Malaysian NS.
LOL.
I'm sorry, but after knowing many Singaporean friends and their NS... Malaysian NS is nothing more than a summer boot camp.

Someone who plays Call of Duty series will probably have more knowledge to handle firearms than someone who attended Malaysian NS.

Oh, most of the contestant are really young too.
Damn, I'm really getting old.

Maybe I shouldn't de-saturate the photo?

Nah, I'm not going to retinker this... too lazy

The contestants went through quite a bit of stress throughout the competition.
After spending days for days and knowing that the loser walks back with nothing, who wouldn't ?

Winners : In this picture

Congratz to all the winners. 3k is quite a bit of money and for once I know that these kinda competitions isn't rigged.
Yes, it might sound suspicious that everyone in team 1 won... but I doubt anyone did anything to ensure they win.

Here are the rest of the photos.

Next post : How to appeal from NTU SAO

Bye Bye DSI

2011-06-25T03:01:00.001+08:00

Week 22 of internship.
The final week.
Just when you get used to waking up early, buying breakfast, rushing for the MRT, getting coffee from the coffee maker, .... it comes to an end.

Ok, I admit. It has been a really stress-free internship with flexi-hour.

Yeah sure, I don't get to play with super awesome equipment some other interns elsewhere get to, neither do they pay me well. However, what I get in return is time and the flexibility to do anything.

One of the biggest bonus of my internship is being under an awesome supervisor.

It's obvious that we know has the killing smile

Dr Reuben was less like a supervisor and more like a teacher. We couldn't get to know him at a personal level because of his busy schedule.
Lunch hours are mostly spend eating, watching news and a quick nap.

So what did I gain during this 22 weeks?
1) I increased my youtube knowledge by quite a bit.
I can probably name you most of the youtube stars right now.

2) I finished several mangaka.

3) My googling skill improved tremendously

4) (website).ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu works for most journal archive website

5) I played but not finish quite a few PS3 games

6) Upgraded my camera

7) I learned how that google translate is getting more and more awesome

8) NUS Engineering canteen food is cheap but bland

9) Bus 96 goes from Clementi MRT to NUS and Bus 188 goes from NUS to Vivocity

10) If your friend had just circumcised, don't bring him around Singapore

11) Coughing for 6 months doesn't mean you have AIDS, but it still sucks

12) Working life isn't always as bad as studying

Ok I admit. I might have just wasted 6 months compared to those who have literally "seen the world" or "help change the world".
But you know what? I'm happy for things they are now.

Out of the many things I get worried about, very few of them have anything to do with work.
Yes, minor problem like "Malfunction dryer in hall" gets a lot more attention than "what should I present tomorrow?"
But it's not like I'm lazy and there's really nothing to do throughout the 22 weeks.
Even on my final day, I had to scribe glass.

Scribing glass with finger condoms to protect the glass from fingerstain marks!

After saying goodbye to this

Half Table, Half Lab, Half Bed. Doesn't add up to 1? Take away the lab part then.

I now have to start logging into edventure (NTU's Lecture notes download site) and start mugging.
Ahhh, the shitty feeling that a 7 months holiday is coming to an end. The last "long" holiday till I retire.

With a lot of things to worry about coming up soon. I'm just going to shut everything down and enjoy my final carefree weekend.

I can get used to this care-free life.

Last week

2011-06-19T23:21:00.000+08:00

It's the final week for internship.
Guess what?
It's far from being easy.
I've tonnes of work to go through.

I might just have to skip sleep tonight for that.
---
I've been ignoring too much work
Siddiq's BBQ party last Friday was another excuse I made to procrastinate.
The party was held at the other end of the island.

This is probably the last time the BIE bears are going to meet up before the end of our year 3 life.

Ironically, the only portrait worthwhile that night was that of Bala

I really had no mood to take any photos that night, so I didn't.
The place was pretty cool. It had BBQ, Pool, Karaoke and wii.
Cept that the Wii was missing, damn.

I also noticed that most of the people there wouldn't mingle with other groups. As there were Sid childhood friends(sec school), Poly/JC friends and Uni friends.

WTH is Rahul doing in this photo?

Erm, another observation I made was... our BIE gang was the only group without cars.
This prove to be a big problem when most of us don't stay at that side of the island.

None of them in this photo had to walk more than 100m to get to this place

Nevertheless, the BBQ was great.
Grad trip is now re-planed to New-Zealand.

And everyone is happy with the fact that there's not much of work left in their internship life.

Bala should be in this picture. Just saying...

And so that's it.
3/4 of Bio-engineering undergrad life is soon going to be over.

Not the best photo, but yeah... at least there's something.

And that's it.
All the photos I've taken that night.
---

Appreciate lifts day

2011-06-15T14:06:00.000+08:00

Last Sunday (12th June) was National Vertical Marathon 2011.

For those who're new to this term;
NVM 2011 is a race, not really a marathon in climbing 63 floors up.
Why 63 floors ?
Singapore has a limit to how high buildings can go to avoid planes crashing through.
That limit is 180m and 3 buildings in Singapore share the title "tallest building".
One of them is OUB Centre with 63 floors.

Climbing 63 floors might not seem tough compared to running 42km or even 21km in a normal marathon.
But it does comes with a few unique challenges.
1) It's going up. Have you even tried running up 10 floors worth of stairs ?
2) You're going to be running in an enclosed space with CO2 and temperature building up
3) You'll gonna have to run up 63 floors under 12 minutes to win anything other than the participatory medal.

63 floors, no lifts only stairs.

I was there under NTU CCO to take a few pictures.
Time taken : 9.30am to 7pm.
Break time : 5 minutes to munch on Mr Bean.
I had my equipment on my shoulders at all time. About 3 kg worth of it.

So I shot and shot and shot. When I got back, I quickly edited the 200+ photos I took before sleeping.
Result : Being uber sick.

Just Imagine how I took this photo?

That's right...
By camping inside the staircase at some odd floor.

Of course, I'm not the only one making sacrifices.
Everyone else from the main comm to the sub-comm to the red cross committee in charge did their part too.

The main committee are mostly from the NTU sports club

While a lot of the sub-committee are JC students

It's a pretty huge event with quite a few booths filled with games or sponsors giving goodie bags.
I bet it pwned the energizer night race a few hundred times despite being organized by Uni students only.

Here's all 260+ photos I've taken.
I didn't edit them nor shortlist them, so don't expect uber awesome photos.

No, I will not upload this on FB due to my contract with CCO.

Shoot till my arms feel like dropping

2011-06-14T20:33:00.000+08:00

I have a lot to update this time round actually.
But I won't be updating much today.
Partly because my left arm feels like it has been tenderized and it hurts like shit now.

The past few days have been a horrible experience for me.
On Monday I had diarrhea.
I don't mean the occasional stomach churning but the peeing from my ass every 15 minutes type.
Oh I was halfway at work when I realized that.
I had to cab back and rush to the medical centre.
Oh, to make matters worse... I have no appetite whatsoever and I was down with fever and nausea.

But it's ok, after the horrible night... I woke up to the intense pain in my arm.
Both arms, and some part of my upper body.
It's the kind of pain you get when you over-worked yourself in a gym, except it's 10x worse.
My left arm especially gave me a huge headache.
The pain would not go away no matter wat I do.
May it be sitting down, lying down, standing up, etc etc.
I was literally squirming in pain for the entire day.
It was only thanks to my friends, Wencin and Chew that I felt a lot better thanks to those muscle ache reliever they help buy for me.

The only good thing was that I didn't had diarrhea today(other than some stomach pain) and my fever seems under control.

---
So why did this happen?
I guess I overworked myself for the past weekend till my body immunesystem just drop.
On Saturday, I went for a leisure photoshoot which took nearly 12 hours.
From Tanjung Pagar to Vivocity to Sentosa and finally Chinatown.

Finally reaching my room at 10pm, I receive news that I need to be at SRC at 4am the next morning.

Why?
For the Vertical Marathon Singapore 2011 of course.
More on this in my next entry.
It's just that carrying 3kg worth of gears while climbing 63 floors for 12 hours straight is really really tiring.

Subsequently, I guess my body immune system just went to KO mode and I got food poisoning.
The next day, side effects from over-working start appearing and my hellish June begins.

Here are the rest of the photos

My head is going to be glued to the desk

2011-06-09T03:48:00.002+08:00

It's 3am and I'm having insomnia.
I stayed back till 8pm today in office to finish my "revised" final IA report.
Going back late with the skies dark is not something I wish to go through for the next 10 years.

But today's post isn't about that.
It's about something a lot more awesome.
I wanna talk about trends today.

Look around you.
Is there anything that has a cult following ?
Something so simple and sometimes stupid, yet has the ability to attract thousands if not millions.
I'm just going to state the first 5 that pops up in my mind.

This is probably one of them.

Seriously, KOI Bubble tea it's not worth the queue.

In Singapore, everyone knows KOI bubble milk tea.
Not like Singaporeans aren't crazy enough about bubble tea, KOI has to come and create uber long queues.
Is it nice? Probably better than your average bubble tea. But meh, it's not my "cup of tea". Pun intended.

---

How about something else.
Erm...
Planking ?
yes, the act of lying still on something.
How is that an art?
If there would be proof that 2012 is coming, the trend of people randomly lying down and pretending to be dead has got to be one of the signs.

---

Next...
Social networking, mainly Facebook.
I'm guilty of that too.
Facebook has become apart of our lives. The greatest time waster ever since TV was invented.
Everyone has a FB account now. Even your out of touch PC/internet illiterate parents/grandparents might have them. Once you have it, it's difficult to "delete" it.
Unlike other fads, this won't be going away anytime soon.
But it's not utterly useless either. You get to meet new friends, keep in touch with old ones, poke random strangers, play pathetic but highly addictive flash games, wish happy birthdays to people you've never spoken to in real life and stalk people who might interest you.

---

Number 4. Camera.
Everyone must own a camera. Screw the camera on your phone even though they're probably good enough to take whatever photos you want.
Especially in Malaysia and Singapore, people nowadays must own a DSLR.
They're like OMG everyone has a DSLR. I must get one now. Besides, it's as expensive as a good regular compact camera anyway.

Was I like that ?
To be honest, I started out with a Sony Digital camera for about a year and clocked in about 40-50k shutter with that thing. So it makes sense for me to upgrade in to a DSLR. I wasn't following any trend at all. I just want a better camera. Besides, DSLR were still rare when I got one.

Now, everyone thinks DSLR is better than Digital compact camera. Therefore buy DSLR.
Although it is true in more than one way, but I wonder how many actually know how to use one.
Coz in full auto mode, a DSLR won't be that much different from a digital compact.

Will this go away? Probably. Not anytime soon, but in about 5 years. Why 5 years ?
Because by then digital compact camera technology will probably catch up to current entry level DSLR and newcomers might just be attracted to the small slim compact digital cam again.
Also in 5 years, most of us would probably just ditch the DSLR and get a new hobby.

---

Lastly, University education.
These days, university education is a must.
We're taught that without it, we're trash.
We spend up to 12-13 years of formal education in order to get to university.
If we fail to get there, we're trash.

Also, bonus if you get a master or a PhD. In fact with a graduate or a doctorate degree, you'll probably be rich enough to own a part of the world.

The real world isn't exactly like that. Especially for those doing a degree which might not be so beneficial or skill based.

I'm not saying that tertiary education is bad, but one should also consider the cost of going through one.
Many people will pay top dollar to get into the best universities in the world to do an undergrad course which prospect might not be so bright once they graduate.
The tuition fees of universities all around the world is increasing, but that's ok... I'm pretty sure it's ok as our parents probably saved for us.
Heck public universities isn't expensive anyway.

How about those who wants a degree from a private university but can't really afford it ?
Well, there's always tuition loan.
When you're deciding on which university to enter, I bet tuition fee isn't one of your main concern.
Why ? Because you can always take a loan for it.
Screw the person who's going to pay it, coz that's isn't you.... until you graduate which is like an eternity away.
Well, the time will come and you will have to pay.
Guess what, for private university or worst... university aboard, you're gonna have to pay up a lot.
Probably as much as your rent.

But hey!!! having a degree would pay you a lot better than being without !
That's true.
But for an example, in Malaysia you've public universities like UM, USM, UKM, UPM or universities that doesn't charge an arm and a leg like UTAR and TARC. Yet people choose to enter better private universities like Taylors, Monash, etc etc.
Now if you belong to the "born with platinum spoon in your mouth" than yeah.... might as well spend some extra cash. But if you belong to the "oh shit no more electricity coz we don't have money to pay the bill", then you obviously don't have a choice.
However, some people just prefer expensive universities better. They're more expensive right? So they'll provide a better education which will probably make me millions when I graduate.
That's not true. Trust me. If going to a better university means your entire family will have to eat grass for weeks, it's better not to go.

It's ok. I'll just study really hard and ask the Gov to sponsor me to Harvard/MIT/Oxford/Cambridge.
This applies if you're from Malaysia. The gov has promised to give scholarship to everyone scoring 10A+ and above if I remember correctly.
However, in Malaysia... there is no such thing as true meritocracy. Heck not even close to it.
No matter what they say, it's obvious that your skin color is going to affect the difficulty of you getting it.
Live with it.
Life isn't fair and fixed. People can always manipulate the rules and there will always be ulterior motives.
So complain all you want, but the relying solely on the gov for a free scholarship is extremely risky.
Unless you've 255 luck.
---
Oh sorry for any typo error. I'm sleepy
Ok, now I just want to sleep and spam photos of KOI.

Emergency Money

2011-06-05T03:56:00.005+08:00

Whenever we plan financially, we must always set aside a bit of cash for those rainy days.
You never know when shit is going to happen.
It could be as small as taking cab coz you're late, to stuff not being corporative and to medical bills.
I've been facing this for the past 3 months and it sucks.

Especially just a few hours ago when my umbrella just committed kamikaze again and my triggers just KOed.
Argh, SGD 100 to replace them. I need more batteries too!

It's been quite a while since I last took any photos.
So I took quite a few for the past few days.
BTW Quite a few = A few pics ++
However I'm not very satisfied with the photos, I just can't stop myself from vignetting, cross processing and light leaking the photos.

To start here're some photos for a really challenging situation.

30 second exposure. Fark Singapore for not having stars visible at night.

So how challenging was it ?
8pm, no flash(you can't cover the whole structure with flash), wide angle needed.
My wide-angle has a maximum aperture of f/4.
I don't have the 16-35 f/2.8 nor do I have the 24mm f/1.4.

The only solution is long exposure time.

But I'm also expected to take a photo of a group shot .... with the building.... while I'm on a ladder.

This throws long exposure time out of the window and leave me with only high ISO.

ISO 6400

High ISO followed by Noiseware pro noise reduction.
Even after all that I'll still need to cross process it.
1 photo is about 30-40MB thx to high ISO at 21Megapixels.

Of course if I have time(and they have time) and I'm not lazy, I could do a few extra things.
Like long exposure + strobing the people + stitching the photos. Or a time lapse.
But I was too lazy and I didn't bring my remote trigger.

Oh composing the photo was one heck of a task as I can't see shit through the viewfinder.

IMO without creative use of flash or large aperture lens, I doubt there's anything more I can do.
But nevertheless it was a good experience and I get to push my camera body to the maximum.
Also, the building was pretty good.
---

That was yesterday, today I wanted to try dropping fruits on water so I organized a small photography event.
I know the fundamentals of it, but I never really try it coz I'm too lazy.

First time I'm buying un-cut fruits in a long time

So what you need :
1) Fruits.
I bought quite a lot of fruits. Apple, Cherries, Grapes, Kiwis, Peaches.
I wasn't surprised when the shopkeeper told me that there's still quite a lot of fruits in his shop that I didn't buy. But fruits aren't that expensive.

2) Flash and triggers.
You need flash and a way to trigger them.
I have my poverty wizard (phottix tetra), but they're unreliable and it failed once on me.
I used two flash and set them to optical trigger and one flash through radio trigger.
The two flashes are in cross lighting position. (Imagine a line with the subject in the middle and a flash at the ends of the line). The third flash is used as a background flash.
As usual, I notice it's hard to sync with Nissin optical triggered flash so that was the flash I trigger via radio triggers.

3) Someone to drop the fruits for you.
Even if you have a remote trigger, having someone to drop it for u is a lot easier.

4) Somewhere dark
You must know the basics of this genre of photography.
It's not the shutter speed that freezes the subject but the flash duration.
The flash here must overpower ambient lighting but a lot.
A photo is taken by exposing the sensor/film to light.
When the light of the flash >>>> ambient lighting, only the duration of the flash is important.
So even if your shutter speed is 1/5 seconds but the flash duration is 1/4000, you can still stop motion.

5) Knowing the settings.
You will want to set your aperture to cover as much depth of field as possible and be as sharp as possible.
f/5.6 to f/8 is a good choice. I would advise against going above f/8 since you will lose sharpness.
Shutter speed should be 1/100. Don't use above 1/160 or else you'll see your shutter covering part of the photo. ISO should be 100.

And So 5 of us took photos of the fruits.
I didn't take much as I was handling my equipments and answering any questions they might have.
I'm no Patrick/Terry/Eugene/Goldfries, but I tried make this event as fun and as "educational" to all of us as much as possible.
Unfortunately my cheapo radio triggers failed after 2 hours of continuous usage. I guess it overheated or something.
Damn, I guess that's why pocket wizards are so damn expensive.

Nevertheless, it's pretty interesting.

Here are the rest of the photos.

How to handle a F'up situation !

2011-06-03T11:21:00.001+08:00

It has been a damn long time since I last updated. It's coz I've not been taking much pictures lately, in fact most of the photos in this blog entry will be old photos(which means it might not look awesome). The 20GB of movies in my memory cards is very inhibitive.
But do I have some awesome stuff for you all !
- List of Content -
1) Sad Weekend back in KL
2) Most expensive movie ever
3) Reports and FYP
4) Another year in Hall

That's 4 updates for the erm... link of one?

It's been a damn long time since I last met any of the BieBears too(Other than Boo) !

But first I would like to say thanks to everyone who was concerned with my cough.
Yeah sometimes it might seem that sometimes I was about to cough my lungs out(like in those dramatic HK movies). But the specialist said it's just an allergy cough.
So good news is that I am not dying of AIDS
Bad news is that this cough isn't going to go away anytime soon.
Gotta take those anti-histamines.

Ok, so back to the first topic.
My SAD weekend in KL last week

I had dimsum for Supper. But it was a SAD one.

After going for Check-up on a Saturday morning, I wanted to meet my friends for yamcha at night.
Coz you know, when a friend comes back from another country... you'll wanna drink tea together at a Mamak right?
*at least that's a Malaysian past-time *
However that thought doesn't seem to apply to someone who comes back every 2-3 weeks.

So I called up my friends from secondary school.
I noticed
1) Those with GF and BF are with their GF and BF.
As expected. I dun blame them, in fact it'll be creepy if they wanna hang out with me rather than their BF/GF.

2) Secondary school friends who've abandoned me.
Those are the bastards who always have gatherings and never calls you.
When you politely appear just to say hi, they say "why are you here ?"
Seriously that makes me wanna crash you even more. Coz I Can, I will and I did(just not this time).

3) People who have their own group of gathering
These are the people who're extremely close. It's different from number 2 as they usually discuss private and secret stuff aka gossip. Which I can understand.
Because not everyone like to share everything to everyone.

4) BZ people
They're either studying, away from KL or both.

5) Pilots
People who FFK
Sometimes the excuse doesn't even makes sense.
But most of the times it's "I'm tired"
It's holidays and you said ok.
So what did you do? Stayed up late last nite? Grab some coffee and red bull then.
Oh well, there will always b this type of people

6) Ben
and so it was another sad gathering with Ben.

We originally wanted to crash those gatherings.
But we decided not too and went for Kung Fu Panda 2 instead.

Coz we've to leave KL the next morning, we went for the shittiest cinema in Kepong.
Yet it was packed and only the first row was available.
Something caught my attention though

*Kung Fu Panda 2(CAN) 10.30pm*

WTF is (CAN) ? Is that a typo ? CAN do? Ok?
Or is it WTF Cantonese.
Turns out it was. FML.
We didn't watch it coz I doubt Jack Black and Angelina Jolie can speak Cantonese.... and I'm a Banana.
Even the ticket attendee LOLed at our WTF faces when we heard it was in Cantonese.

So we just had dimsum and discuss on how and why our friends ditched us and our plans.
I think Kepong people are like chicken shit.
Warm at first but after a while it cools down.

And so that was it.
---

For the second update.
I just watched the most expensive movie of my life.
SGD 52 for a movie.
No, it was not gold class with a hawt girl.

Buying movie tics in Singapore is like a nightmare.
You have to understand that queuing up is a Singaporean Past-time.

How else can you explain the blardy long queue at bubble tea shops ?

But I was there early.
About 6pm. Don't ask how I get from NUS to JP when my work ends at 6pm.
So I queued, only to find out they don't except NETS and OCBC Debit card has a SGD 2 discount from the SGD 9 tics.
I don't have a debit card. Coz I'm lazy to apply for one.
So fark it, I went to withdraw and queued again !
Bought seats for 5 at the 6th row and rushed back for dinner.

Movie was at 9.40pm so I rushed there from my hall.
On the bus I realized that the tic is missing.
Seriously.
It's not those half assed pranks your friends pull on you by asking where's the ticket(When obviously it has always been with him/her)
I seriously lost it. I'm not dumb enough to leave it behind, I believe it actually dropped from my pocket.

And so you've 5 guys standing in front of the cinema at 9.40pm with no tics to the movie.
What do you do? I can't just fark it and go back.

And so it hit me.
There two types of people in this world.
1) People who whine about their problems
2) People who whine about their problems and do something about it.

I am sure hell the latter.

So I queued again for the 3rd time to get tics for the 9.40 movie.
Only the first row is left.
Shit, neck-pain seems imminent especially when Singapore Cinema is tiny compared to Malaysia.

However, I manage to salvage the situation.
We won't be sitting on the 1st row because I'm pretty sure there'll be 5 empty seats on the 6th row.

But X-Men was awesome. Not Rm120 awesome of course, but I can say it's the best X-men movie.

Marvel movies always have some quality in them

---
Update 3.
Reports and FYP
I am done with those.

Pictured : Legend

IA Report is seriously a pain in the butt.
5k words, 60 pages +
But I'm done with it, So I'm going to enjoy my weekend.

As for FYP.
I've choosen mine.
I won't tell you which project coz it's not 100% confirmed yet.
They released the list of FYP for Bioengineering students on 1st June 12am.
I roughly decided by 1st June 12.10am and was damn sure which was to choose by 12.30am.
Yes, 10 minutes for a really important decision.
Now you understand why I don't screw around when I shop ?

---
As for the final update.
I'll be fourth year soon.
And I'm damn pleased that I'm not on the waiting list.
I've been on the waiting list twice and it sucked.
Your items will be like dragonballs, splitting up and spread all over NTU and you gotta live like a nomad.
Not only that, which hall and room you get will be like a Russian Roulette.
First time round I get Mount. Hall 9 and second time I got screwed with Hall 7.

I don't care what you people say about Hall 7 being awesome and shit.
It sucks.
Some amenities in the toilet will just spoil every few days, the toilet and bin gets extremely dirty during the weekends, my window is like a magnet to rain, the washing machine and dryer breaks down, no canteen during the weekends and there's no aircon.

Next year, I'm staying in Hall 9. I might not get the room I want, but it sure hell won't be as shitty as Hall 7.

Why am I so sure?
I've 16 points this year.
But isn't the cut off points 17 last year?
Yeah, but this year it aint gonna b 17 coz I got sos.

5000

2011-05-28T02:19:00.001+08:00

Last week has been a really fun-packed weekend with uber boring weekdays.
Kakilang Production shot it's virgin video last weekend.
It's meant to be a learning experience for our casts, and for us as well.
The quality of the video is mediocre at best due to my crappy storytelling , horrid videography and editting skills. But it's not the final product but what we've learned that matters.

The video will not be out anytime soon. I'm uber busy with my IA report.
Plus it's still 20GB of files to edit. I bet my desktop is going to die a few time over by just opening those files.

As for experience, I must say it's a really awesome one. Although shooting from 9am till 9pm is extremely tiring especially for myself (cough = + fatigue)
Here are the lessons learned(IMO).
1) NEVER DO A 12 HOUR SHOOT
2) I suck at making stories up. Literally.
3) Standing on a skateboard as a steadycam doesn't work(at least for me)
4) Sound is a major issue. Directional mic won't work when there's roaring traffic next to you.
5) Need more prep time for the cast. Don't shoot more than 30 minutes in a single location.
6) Producer(Casting-location director), Script-writer, Director, Videographer, Editor, lead casts all have important and big roles. One person can't do more than 1 for optimum results.

This is an awesome start. There're more to come!
Upcoming awesome events :
1) Fruit Drop Photography (4th June)
2) Epik (Local) Meal Time (Somewhere in June)
3) Shoot for ads
4) Shoot for our "Main Story"

Another thing I want to share is an really awesome software.
Noisewarepro + Patch

It's not a freeware, but the patch should "take care"of that.
In case you can't figure out what it means, Noiseware pro is a software made to solve all your noisy images.
Images taken at poor lighting would usually mean the need of a higher ISO.
Pass ISO 1600, most cameras would have noise visible. Noise here are those tiny white dots that appears in your photos.

Most noise reduction software(even photoshop default one) has a crappy algorithm that deteriorates your photo sharpness when used. Noiseware pro minimize that reduction of quality

Here's ISO 5000 with Noiseware pro

ISO 5000

Here's the same photo without noiseware pro

Yeah, its uncropped but that's not the issue.

If you look at the wall, you can see the noise is much more pronounced without noiseware pro.
But the details are conserved, look at the hair and the crinkles of the shirt. They're both similarly detailed.

Note that this does not mean you can now shoot at uber high ISO without suffering drawbacks.
Shooting at high ISO not only creates noise but you also lose details in your photo.
Noisewarepro can only fix one of the problems.

Now you can complete your set of nightvision DSLR with your 1Dmk4 + 50mm f/1.0
(LOL at Nikon not having an autofocus lens wider than f/1.4)

I just feel so sad....

2011-05-18T19:49:00.000+08:00

If you ever bump to me recently, you'll notice something.
There's a lack of happiness in my eyes. It's like I lost my soul or the ability to genuinely feel happy.
Why ?
Why do I feel so depressed ?

Pictured : Devoid of happiness

Did something crappy happened ?
Nope

Did I lose something important ?
Other than my ability to feel happy, nope.

Maybe that's exaggeration , but I honestly do feel shittier
So why ?

Montelukast.
It's used in a medication "Singulair"
Singulair is usually prescribed to deal with allergy induced cough such as asthma and hay fever.
What it does is that it reduces/blocks the inflammatory reaction due to allergy.

I have to admit that taking this reduces my tendency to cough. It could be my room in Hall 7 is simply too dusty or the fact that this medication simply prevents excess mucous secretion which makes me cough lesser.

So how? How did I get so sad from not coughing ?

You see there are some side effects to this medication.

This includes headaches, sleeping disorders, heart burns and neuropsychiatric effects.
Wait. WTF ?

Let's look at sleeping disorders.
First, there's the problem of a screwed up circadian clock.
Then, there's the problem of having bad vivid dreams EVERY TIME you fall asleep.
Yes. I have very real and vivid dreams everytime I sleep. They're not exactly nightmare on elm's street level, but I tend to wake up at night because of nightmares.
But hey, it's not that bad. It's like being in a movie every time you sleep which can be pretty interesting.

Now let's look at heart burns.
I literally feel my chest burning from time to time ever since I take this medication.
What really happens is that the gastrointestinal fluid is regurgitated into my esophagus.
To all those who don't know/forgotten what the crap is that,
It means my chest sometimes burns due to the stomach acid.
Painful? not very. Irritating ? Yes.

Ok, for the WTF part.
I'm just going to copy paste the description from the pharmaceutical company.

Behavior and mood-related changes have been reported. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you or your child have any of these symptoms while taking SINGULAIR:

agitation including aggressive behavior or hostility
bad or vivid dreams
depression
disorientation (confusion)
feeling anxious
hallucination (seeing or hearing things that are not really there)

irritability
restlessness
sleepwalking
suicidal thoughts and actions (including suicide)
tremor
trouble sleeping

Ok, Singulair is one of the most common medication taken in the world. Practically anyone with asthma will be taking this. So how come I don't see them killing themselves?

Well, just so you know. It could be that I'm the unlucky one who suffer the inability to feel happy due to this. Or it could just be some placebo effect.

Anyway, I'm stopping this medication now. I don't wanna have schizophrenia aka I see dead people.

Bland

2011-05-17T01:23:00.000+08:00

Was my weekend bland ?

Bland unlike this Chocolate drink

Nope, it's not my life, events, activities that's bland this time. It's my creativity.

In a few days time, I'm going to have to come up with several scripts. I'll have the help of a few of my friends, but for now I will have to get the ball rolling.
So if you have any ideas for a script which is to be made into short 5 minute video, please do come look for me.

To make life more interesting, I will have to complete my report, and my logbook by this week as well. No time to slack.
So I will have to be creative(script/Short Stories) and technical(Logbook, Reports) this week. I probably deserve some fake erdos-baker number for this week.

I've a few ideas for the short stories at the back of my mind but I seriously doubt that I would make a good writer since I'm an avid fiction reader.

I might as well state the few ideas I have
1) 2 brothers discussing about pre-marital/safe sex. No, it's not a gay incest story. It's about a guy who has a very "active GF" hence he seeks his bro for advice. Ends with awkward funny scene of him trying to buy a condom from 7-11.

2) A photographer trying to capture the smiles of a random strangers he sees. He finds a beauty who just refuse to smile to him. Put a little bit of drama spice on it(Girl have a limited lifespan, guy just broke up) and there you have it.

3) A couple with different nationalities arguing about their future. Theme for this would be : Sacrifice and tolerance. Have a little bit of Flashbacks and what you would rather happen, ends with a breakup. Hey, it's a gritty real life take. Shit happens.

4) A group of Malaysians discussing the shiet they have to put up with life back in Malaysia and in Singapore. A serious themed video, with individual response to the question ;
"Why are you here in Singapore ?"

5) A story of a person with the fetish/habit of stealing handphones. However the message he received right after would change his perspective in life forever.
Hint : Message is by a girl who is going to commit suicide due to abuse by her BF.

Cheesy?
Lame ?
Yeah.
Hey, what you expect from me?
---

This weekend is a long weekend for me(4 days), most Malaysia Local Uni Students are done with their finals and some have already relinquish their status as students.
We planned for paintball but we were just too lazy to suit up in long sleeves, cap, cargo pants beneath the sun. It's nearly 37C out there. I wouldn't had returned if it wasn't for the air-con.
Of course, cold chocolate drinks would be awesome in this weather.

Hot White Chocolate for me thx to my cough.

I don't know why, but I really seem to enjoy patronizing the chocolate lounge every time I wanna chillax in OneUtama

Everyone seems to be really interested to camwhore with the mini-hawt chox

Kap Sum was here too.
Taking a break from the continuous mugging he has been doing.

Happy that his nightmare is finally over

With us was Lin Fang.
Everyone else just seem really busy

2 guys, 1 girl, 1 cup?

Honestly, I prefer this to bubble tea.

Here are the rest of the pics

---
But there's something about this weekend.
It reminded me of how time has passed.
Those who're doing 3 years courses have graduated, I'll be choosing my FYP in a few weeks time.
STPM just seems like yesterday.
Remember the time when you first registered into your university hostel ?
The time you said goodbye to your family and friends ?
Wow, soon you'll be saying good bye to your university.

The Weather

2011-05-10T15:14:00.006+08:00

It's that time of the year again.
The time where the mother earth decides to screw with you because you've been messing with her.
Although over here we're lucky to not get gang-banged by Earthquakes, Tsunamis or Tornados, we still feel the wrath of Apollo.

It's 2 pm and the weather is hot!

The weather for the past few days are above 34C.
The moment you leave the comfort of your air conditioned room, you can feel the warm and humid air draining all the sweat from your body.
Unfortunately for me, my room does not come equipped with an aircon which means I get to sleep in my own sweat.
Oh the last time I checked, the skies are clear and cloudless.
Rains will not pour down in torrents. The rain today was only about 3mm and lasted for less than an hour. It did lower the temperature while it was rained. However the weather now is worse with the increased humidity.

Dear weather, would you at least be a little less extreme ? Because I'm sure all of us here don't fancy being screwed over.

Now, to make matters worse... there have been cases of forest fires in Sumatra.
I'm not sure if those bastards are burning forest for fertile land again or it's simple because of drought.
However I do know that it's going to be a very hazy month ahead regardless if you're in Malaysia or Singapore.

So what will I do to overcome this?
1) Spend more of my time indoors in places with aircon.
2) Return home more often.
3) Plan a schedule to crash in different friends air-conditioned room every other weekday.
4) Fly to Australia/NZ, they're having winter now.

Oh wait, option 4 isn't exactly available.

So if you're in one of those countries where the ambient temperature is somewhere between 0 to 25, be thankful. Yes, I rather stay somewhere with 0C than 38C because I can always wear more stuff to stay warm. Wearing lesser doesn't help when you're already sweating in singlets.

Moar pics coz it was just too warm to get any sleep

What? You don't use ur alarm clock as a specs holder ???

Another week, another story

2011-05-07T04:52:00.002+08:00

I deleted my previous post not because the identity is at stake.
Did you all really think I was that dumb to give such an obvious clue. It was just another sarcastic way to add salt to the wound.
However I feel that what really happened shouldn't be recorded on the internet. Most likely because it will be there even in the distant future where the joke won't be funny any more.
It'll just be insulting without the LOL. Hence, it's not worth posting.

This weekend marks the end of another week.
Which means more stories to share at the bi-weekly BIE BEARS meetings.

Hippopotamus Restaurant Grill near Marina Square

This time around it wasn't about relationships or grad trips.
It's about conspiracy.
Religion based Apocalypse , prophecy of Armageddon , Government Conspiracy, leaked videos and what not fueled the discussion tonight.
But we do not need to look very far for all these interesting bits.
How well do you know your fellow University mates ?
Could it be that a psychopath rapist/killer/mentally sick be among us ?

Chances are, you probably bump into one every few days or so.
Let's look at my university, NTU.
http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/chronicle/archives/vol17no10.pdf
Scroll down to page 7.
Someone bled mysteriously at night in Hall 3.
FYI, Hall 3 has one of the tightest security among all the halls.
It's simply impossible for someone to sneak up and cut you while you're sleeping.

However, there has been convincing sources saying that it was his roommate who did it to him.
Why? For use in black magic.

The convincing source.

What ? He's not drunk yet

This is only one reported case.
There are probably a lot more WTF cases in NTU. Never to be reported.

The alcohol helped make the conversation a lot more interesting

But there is one thing I can admit for all these interesting events in NTU and around the world.

"I don't know."
And most probably a lot of these kind of cases would go unnoticed too.

You might say with the rise of websites like stomp.com, weird things like this might be easily exposed.
Yes, it's true to a certain extend.
However when faced with a crisis which affects you directly, the last thing in your mind would be snapping a photo. Even for a photography enthusiast like me, the thought of snapping a photo in WTF events(Eg: Last weekend) never crossed my mind.

So perhaps it's time for me to train myself to be an NTU vigilante, snapping interesting photos !
... Nah, that sounds like same phailed stomper.

Singapore GE is tomorrow.
It'll be an interesting day.

Here are the rest of the photos.
I didn't take many today.
Also bounce flash > Demb diffuser > Stofen diffuser > bare flash

1st May

2011-05-01T03:25:00.003+08:00

Another boring weekend.

Another visitor to NTU this long weekend.

Another person camping in my room to complete God of War 3.

All the way from KL to finish playing God of War 3

Kap Sum, as you may recall is the same person whom I traveled with to Hong Kong.

He's in Singapore because of some internship elective program in NUS.

However since he had an operation last week, he's not able to walk a lot.

Actually, he can't walk anymore than 100m at a single time.

Solution : Rot in room.

Let's see how someone with his condition live in Hall 7.

---

Updates for April

1) Kakilang production is formed and we're gonna go full force soon.

- So far only discussions were held. But ideas are taking shape and my remote time lapse is coming next week. I'm getting the Pixel instead of the Yong Nuo despite being 2x the price because the Pixel has a remote function.

2) Learned a new word : Schadenfreude
- That means being really happy while everyone else is dieing with exams.
Yeah I know, I am going to hell.

3) 3 long weekends
- Having a 3 days weekend is really awesome when you don't have exams to worry about. Although the previous 2 weekends have been used to entertain friends(which can demanding on my wallet), but sure heck beats 2 days weekends.

4) Election, elections, elections...
I got no comments regarding these. May it be the Malaysian elections or the Singaporean elections, I don't have much to comment. Why?
For Malaysia, I'll vote but I honestly feel that my own country is a goner. The last election was full of broken promises and lies.
For Singapore, it's none of my business. I can't vote. End of story. But I do note that the opposition manifesto aren't exactly friendly towards foreigners.

5) Knife in Head fatality
Another suicide case in NTU.
Pretty gruesome "Suicide"
Details are vague, only thing confirmed so far are
i) Lots of blood
ii) Year 2 BIE Student

I'm not saying anything but, from some sources : she tried to kill herself by impaling herself with a knife in the head.
The human skull is the hardest bone and it takes a lot of power and technique to embed a knife into it.
Also, it's likely that a knife in the frontal lobe would not cause death.
I'm not saying much, but either the girl has serious problems or we have a murderer in our Campus.

Lights

2011-04-24T02:09:00.001+08:00

Before I get into the oh-so-boring lighting elements in photography, let me bore you with some personal facts.

1) I rant a lot. Sometimes just for the sake of complaining. Live with it, I hate to please everyone all the time unless I get something out from it.

2) This weekend is a boring weekend. I did nothing but rot at home. But hey, I guess it's better than some of you buried beneath tonnes of textbooks. (Evil laughter)

In this pic : overpriced Salmon Pizza I had this weekend

3) As with everyone else, I'm pissed with NTU internet reaching a new crappy level. The hot weather and dirty toilets in hall 7 isn't making things any better.

4) I took an oath to not randomly take girls pictures*. Either it's for modelling or for fun. Yes, this means no more randomly snapping PC Fair girls.
Why ? Nothing really, other than to avoid being grouped as those creepers who snap girls photo and then do.... yeah, you get my point.
However I also have nothing against photographers who do take photos of pretty girls.
(* terms and conditions apply)

5) I'm quite pumped up for several photography and videography projects. I guess the previous Carlsberg environment contest got me hooked. Next on the list : Aerial photography

---
Now on to lights.

No, not the Canadian Artist(Not the drummer in the video)

What's interesting about the video are the recording equipment used.
It's by far not "amateurish"
You might notice a dolly in the background too for a smooth movement during video

The video was shot using a Red One, and a few 5DIIs and 7Ds

Another interesting video would be the latest video by Wongfu production.
I won't share it here as it's all over the internets and FB by now.
Beneath the awesome acting and good storyline lies amazing videography and editing techniques.

You can't simply pick up a SD video camera and shoot like them. You'll need equipment and skills. Damn, I wish I'm able to come out with a video like theirs!

---
Now back to lights.
Rather it's about diffusion of flash using diffusers.
We all know pointing a flash directly towards the subject would create very very hard lighting.
This applies a lot to those pop-up flashes or those on-digicamera flashes.

What's hard lighting ?
The easiest way to know is by looking at the shadows. It'll be very clearly defined and sharp.
It's also pretty easy to overexposed certain parts of the photo and leave the rest dark.
When used to take portraits, you'll often get the digicam effect.
Where the subject is bright, slightly overexposed, shadows are clear and background is pitch black. Just like what you'll get when you shoot with a digital camera.

However, hard lighting doesn't instantly means horrible lighting. There are times where hard lighting would compliment a photo. Eg : to make it look more dramatic.

So most of us will avoid this by diffusing our flash. Either by bouncing it, or using a diffuser.
Bouncing the flash(done by pointing the flash towards a ceiling or a wall) would create a relatively larger light source(the wall or ceiling) towards the target, and the light will be softer.

What if there isn't any ceilings or walls you can bounce too ? You could be outside at night or in a large building with terrible lighting. What do you do ?
You diffuse your flash.
The most common diffuser is the stofen diffuser. It looks like some hard plastic condom for your flash.

Image stolen from Google search

Here's a sample shot with Tysern as the subject with the stofen

Minimal editing done

Notice the shadow of his cheeks on the camera right.
It's sharp and defined, and it's quite distracting as well.
The lighting is also harsh as there're several distinct highlights on his face.

To be honest, this is only a tad better than bare-flash.

Enter the demb diffuser.

Image stolen from google image search (yes I'm lazy to take pics of my own gears)

It's a pricy diffuser. About RM 150, SGD 60 easily. I know... it's crazy; who would spend that money for 2 pieces of plastic.
I didn't, I created my own.
Before you buggers flame me by saying what you get is much better than what you made, let me ensure that mine is almost similar to the one sold at insanely high price.

Same settings, same position, minimal editing.

Notice the shadows.
They're much more gradual and natural.
The highlights, while still there... are much less prominent.

Now, that probably still isn't the best(if not who would bother with umbrellas and softbox), but it does its work better than the stofen.

Oh, I spend less than SGD 8 making that demb diffuser. I've enough materials to make another one too.

A somewhat crappy weekend

2011-04-19T04:44:00.003+08:00

I stayed back for the long weekend.
For the first time, a 3 days weekend actually felt really long.
So why did I stay back ?
Tysern.
I'm guessing he really likes Singapore as he comes down every 4 months.

We had the famous Singapore Chili Crabs

Tysern was here for the weekend. I'm guessing the real reason he's here is simply to chill around Singapore.
Extra incentives for him to come down includes :
1) Attending a B'day party
2) Meeting me and our friends in NTU
3) Casino

Don't be fooled. Ultrawide angle lens have a tendency to make someone look slimmer.

I guess this is the first time I had dinner together with Tysern, ChongYen, and Kevin.
The food and ambiance was pretty good for it's price.
However, it's inaccessible without a car and I still prefer dining in KL(as I can freeload on my parents)

The dishes were pretty good and well garnished.

The place wasn't crowded and it's located at the ground floor of HDB flats.
It somehow reminds me of the restaurant my ex-roomate brought me.
Relatively Cheap, nice ambiance and very short waiting time.

Price wise it's similar to open-air Kopitiam shops

The chili crabs are good though. There are better ones elsewhere, but you'll have to pay a lot more and wait a lot longer.

So where is this place ?
Unlike alot of other food blogs where you'll see them give ratings with pro and cons.
I can't even recall the address LOLz.
It's pretty near Jurong JC but that's pretty much all I can remember.

---
Despite the MSA-Canon outing and Tysern coming down; The past weekend have been really shitty.
No, it's not because of really shitty things like exams or assignments.
It's just the general dull mood. Those tiny little bits that adds up.

1) My screwed up circadian clock.
I sleep at really really weird hours. To make things worse, I'm actually working which means I cannot "afford" to be sleepy during working hours.
Of course, it's easier said then done or else I wouldn't be online at 4am

2) I've spend about SGD 100 over the weekend on food ?
I think it's that really a lot for someone who have a very pathetic monthly pay-cheque . Damn, that's why I rather be back in KL. At least I can freeload on my parents when I'm back home.

3) The horrible horrible NTU connection.
It sucks. Period. Makes you curse every 10 minutes when the speed plummets sporadicly

4) The weather.
I stay in a non-air conditioned room. The weather goes from pleasant 26C to an insanely warm and humid 33C at night.

5) The traffic
I can't believe I'll say this after going through KL horrific public transport.
MRT in the morning is very prone to congestion. Sure, the occasional 3 minutes hiccups may seem nothing compared to the Malaysian 1 hour waiting time. However, we start to take things for granted and complain whenever things aren't optimal enough.

Hmmm.
This isn't right.
All those are just minor problems. My life is still generally pretty awesome(Internship, no exams) but I'm complaining like my exams is in 2 weeks time.
I think I'm suffering from a withdrawal syndrome.
The "Buy Buy Buy" withdrawal syndrome.
It's been 2 weeks since I last bought any gadgets I like and I'm starting to get restless.

MSA-CANON 1st Tea-Session

2011-04-18T03:10:00.000+08:00

Jargons ~
MSA - Malaysian Student Association of Nanyang Technological Unversity, Singapore
CANON - CANON DSLR Users
Tea Session - Casual, talking-nonsense, gathering cum shooting event.

Date : 17th April 2011
Venue : - Lunch at Aston's Suntec, - Esplanade
Attendees : ChongYen, Nicholas, Choon Siong, Soon Ngen, Jin Chuen, Legend

Canon FTW

Although we stated it's a "Malaysian" + "Canon", we hope to attract more friends to join us even though they're not Canon DSLR users or Malaysians.
Yes, we know that all 6 of us aren't professionals photographers or even casual photographers.
I'm also quick to note that tea sessions like this aren't tutorial classes where you'll learn load of tricks.
It's simply a chill out outing for those who're free.

Pop-up flashes!

However we will have something "more" the next time we plan this.
Going around esplanade to shoot randomly will probably not cut it if we don't have a proper theme.
Reliance on the weather is too risky too. It was too hot and sunny today.

However harsh lighting doesn't always mean horrible photos.

Oh one tip of the day.
Exposing your lens to the power of the sun for short periods of time during a shoot greatly reduces the chance for any fungus to grow. So use it more often !

I didn't really take that many pictures today as it was more of a walk-around casual shoot. The lighting was pretty horrible too.
Oh, I missed PIKOM PC Fair 2011 models shoot too. Oh well, there's another one in a few months time.

For those who're worried on harsh lighting due to direct flash, you might want to consider getting flash diffusers. There're even one for pop-up flashes.
As for most external flashes like the SBs, EXs, or other 3rd party flashes, there are more kinds of diffuser.
There's the bounce card, stofen diffuser, lambency diffuser, demp flash diffuser and many more.
You can even construct one of yourself using paper.
Of course nothing beats softboxes in terms of really soft lights. However softbox eats up a lot of power and is generally expensive and heavy.

More on this next time.

Here are the rest of the pictures.

Graduation Trip

2011-04-16T03:00:00.001+08:00

IMO, the best graduation trip would be to Singapore.
It's a safe place to travel plus it's pretty close to Malaysia too.
Yeah, it's nothing really special plus the culture is similar to Malaysia too.
However, they've Universal World Studios and accommodation + transport will not be a problem !

There're only a few places which satisfy the most important criteria for my Grad trip.
It must be Free.
Not freedom to do whatever I like. But Free as in FOC.

...
Ok, that's not a grad trip.
But hey, every cent counts after I graduate. Especially when I need find a suitable job is not easy task for Bio-engineers.

Unfortunately, that's not very possible.
With course-mates already discussing their graduation trips, I'm expected to come.

Not this kind of "come".

So as we were discussing about our Graduation trip, the rest of them come into an agreement of renting a caravan to tour around Europe.
As you might notice, it's vastly different compared to the stay in Singapore Grad trip.

However, there are a lot of pointers which suggest that this will not work out.
1) It's too far-fetched
2) No one will do the planning in detail
3) Everyone will go missing the moment it comes to confirming or planning the itenary
4) Everyone will miss to book the air tickets at a cheap price
5) It's too expensive
6) It will not fit everyone's time

Which is the same exact reason why all our trips bar the monthly outing never happened.

However, in the case it does happen.
I would probably need to start teaching tuition.

I realize the most important thing in long overseas trip far far away is money.
You need at least 2x the amount of your planned budget to travel comfortably. At least for me.
Unless you're the very few who can budget themselves very well, you will overspend.
The thought of
1) Souvenirs
2) Unique items/food sold only in that country
3) If you don't buy it now, you probably will never have a chance to buy it again.
4) It's much cheaper than back in Malaysia/Singapore

All this is enough to motivate you to splurge. What's worse is that limiting your budget so you don't fall for the above 4 temptation will make you really depressed. "If only I bought that...FML"

So what's the most realistic Graduation trip IMO?
Somewhere cheap. Somewhere you don't have to plan much. Somewhere safe but still awesomely fun.
I'm thinking along the lines of places not more than 300km away from home. Perhaps Phuket or any of the islands in SEA ?

---
Today was the regular slacked BIE outing.
We went to Vivo/Sentosa... which wasn't anything much other than the regular crapping.
I've also used my Canon 500D for the pics here.
The 500D feels really tiny...

The outing was normal. New location, but nearly the same thing.
I was so sleepy then.

There wasn't even any alcohol involved !

Despite everyone going against watching movies coz it's better spent to talk cock...
I still prefer to watch movies.
We can always talk cock online or in FB.
It sucks to stream movies online in NTU now. The buffering is driving me insane!
Downloading lecture notes and streaming lecture recording will not take up much of the bandwidth since those are located within the NTU server. So why is the internet so slow ?
Obviously everyone is surfing Facebook or other websites which slows down the internet a lot.
The amount of time spend on FB really is proportional to the time they're in front of their desk to study.
Don't deny it.
Your exams less than 3 weeks time and you're refreshing your FB to see if anyone updates their status.
That tab on youtube is always there too. Either to watch short funny videos or to stream music.

Result:

Internet speeds enough to make you suicidal

These kind of stress will definitely accelerate the aging process.
And being old sucks.

In this picture : My ~~oldest,~~ wisest course-mate

Ok... it's time to sleep.
My sleeping habit has been really whacky.

Online Photography Stores

2011-04-13T02:11:00.002+08:00

I've a love-hate relationship with Online photography stores, Clubsnap Buy/Sell forum included.
They make it so convenient to buy stuff even when you don't have a credit card.
I even have some dealers Hp number on my Speed dial in case I need any equipment urgently.

Digital photography has the largest market today than it ever was

With photography or rather DSLR sales booming, there is a real market for it.
Will it die off anytime soon ? Probably not anytime soon. Entry level DSLR have replaced Compact cameras in most household in Singapore and Malaysia.
Why bother with a 600 dollars digital camera when you can get a Digital SLR for less than a thousand ?

Some of my friends took this opportunity to open an online shop.
So this entry is to support him.

- Tell us what does photography mean to you in your daily life -

It's another means for me to have fun.
I'm not a pro. I don't intend to be pro.
I'm amateur photographer.I'm also an amateur gamer, food taster, videographer, Cook(when I feel like it), blogger and many more.
It's comfortable, no stress, fun and a great way to make new friends.

- Tell us your most enjoyable moments with photography -

I'm going to be honest here. The best moment would probably be getting new gears and learning to use them. Just like how a 6 year old would be in 7th heaven whenever he gets a new toy, that's how I feel when I get a new equipment.
I'm also the type of person who loves to test out his new toys. Who doesn't ?
Learning to use the new lens, flash or even just a reflector would be fun. With every new equipment, a new door of opportunity to take better pics arises.

- Tell us what you wish to achieve with photography ? -

To take better pictures. Every time I pick up my camera, I want to take better pictures than the last time I used it.
However I begin to understand that photos can only be as interesting as the photographer.
Hence, I wish to take better pictures while being a more interesting person doing interesting things.
This may sound cliche, but I really hope to travel around the world doing really interesting things while awesome snapping pictures of it.

- The qualities that a photography online stall should have -

In Malaysia, there's a problem with a lot of photography shops.
They're stuck up and they tend to mark up the price to ridiculous level. The only exception is when they really know you.

The largest photography online stall in Malaysia, Shashinki ; is incredibly overpriced.

Hence, the most important factor is definitely price and reliability. It doesn't have to be the cheapest, but it shouldn't be more expensive than regular shops out there.

Of course being an online shop, reliability is incredibly important. Especially in Malaysia where fraud cases and people FFKing is so common. Online purchase of items worth more than RM 100 is still risky in Malaysia. Hence the option to "Cash on Delivery(COD)" at a few different locations would be important.

Next up is the products themselves. With an increase in newbies DSLR users, most of them would be interested in items like a cheap 3rd party flash, 3rd party batteries or certain filters. But it's always regular customers who would buy the more "expensive" stuff. So having products not readily available in Malaysia would be great too.

However the major factor would be convenience.
Most of us aren't free on weekdays, we cannot afford to get stuck in jams just to get to Lowyat plaza/Imbi Plaza/Digital Mall.
Being able to order online/sms and have the item sent to us/ ready for collection at a nearby location; that's why most of us buy online.

---
Please support my friend !

MAUInSONS Store is an online store which aims to become a one stop station for photography fans to purchase photography accessories online at an affordable and reasonable price. MAUInSONS Store has just started its operation and is currently giving out prizes. For more information please visit MAUInSONS Store

Shooting for Free

2011-04-10T21:21:00.001+08:00

I can't believe I shot an event for free again.
Was I too eager to shoot when I agreed ?
I saw this particular Ad on LYN. It was flamebait. Users were scrutinizing on the organizers decision to hire newbies for free.
Mainly on them trying to rip off newbies and making real pros losing their jobs.
Oh they forewarn that they'll get poor qualities photos from newbies too.

Liek I actually cared about those, all I wanted that time was to shoot something.
So I agreed.

Make-up by Gold Goh Make Up

It's some annual competition event between their students to pit their make-up skills. There're 3 different divisions(Eye lash, Wedding and Exotic). Although to be honest, I don't really give a damn as all I wanna do is take photos.
Me, Ben and Wei Song woke up at 7am just for this event... had breakfast and arrive at that place at 9am.
Yeah, we took our time and KL terrible traffic is to be blamed.

I was the first to use the Studio.

Unlike my previous studio equipment in NTU with the best money can buy Strobes mounted on top of the line Manfrotto Light-stands, there were only digicolour strobes.
I'm not complaining as I'm the guy with 3 3rd party flashes.

So I utilize the general camera right as key light, camera left as fill light and two back lights at the back.
Adjusted power till shadows are prominent.
However, the strobes cannot be adjusted till 1/32 power unlike the expensive strobes in ADM. So, I had to use my ND filter to accommodate the higher power.

I've to admit that their make-up can be quite creative at times.
Although it's obvious that most of the models there aren't full time professional models.

Must be pretty warm inside, no air circulation

I encountered problems when communicating with them though. As they don't really speak english and I'm a banana. WTF, they even thought I was a Thai. Coz I said thx and gave a bow of recognition after every shoot.

As we're paid peanuts(or rice literally), I don't really put in much of an effort to edit the photos.
I didn't spend all my time in the studio too. It gets really crowded past 12pm, making it difficult to shoot quickly as the strobes would need to recharge after every shot.

The witch's hat was really high

The other photographer(who owned the strobes) also changed the configuration from lo-key to high key. Which I don't really fancy.
Nevertheless, I did my job and I don't think it's that bad. In fact, I can't believe I'm not paid for this !

Alice in wonderland theme, Mad hatter

Event ended at 4pm and I was completely exhausted after that.
Here are the rest of the photos

Damn these Humans

2011-04-09T02:16:00.001+08:00

The video for the Carlsberg environment contest is finally completed.

Total amount of Carlsberg product bought : 3 cans, 1 bottle

The video itself isn't technically good.
We made quite a few mistakes but we didn't have the luxury of time to re-take the scenes.
The story/plot of it is rather mixed up too.

However it has been a great experience to finally being able to make another video. I'm really exhausted after all these photo-shoots and video-shoots. I can't imagine what Chongyen must've went through. Work + Rotaract + Videography must've been extremely tiring.

The lack of time to perfect the video, shoot in better light(all shots are at night), shoot in a better location and to master the video-editing software made this video kinda -meh.

Here's the video

Credits to all who're involved in the video and to Dennis for the Sony Vegas Pro.

Also thanks to Hans Zimmer for the awesome Soundtrack.
Time - Inception OST
Didn't really utilized that software other than adjusting the sound and white balance.

I heart enviroment

2011-04-07T03:46:00.001+08:00

I love green
I love the environment
I love to recycle
I love to save energy and reduce my carbon footprint
I love Carlsberg !

All of the above are false

Yes, I understand the dire situation we're in. Icebergs are melting, weather is screwed up, we're burning up too much oil and clearing wide areas of forest for the sake of our own selfishness.
But let's be truthful here.
For the mother nature to truly thrive, mankind must die.
Co-existent is possible, but so far... we're still killing Gaia at a rate faster than you can imagine.
You've all the green eco stuff going on, but that's mostly government/companies propaganda. The world is still guzzling down fossil fuel.

However, like nearly everyone else on Earth-hour.
I'm going to pretend that I'm truly an environmental friendly person.

Here are the photos which I've promised.

Saturday(26th march) timelapse video of Marina Sands from Marina barrage.

We were there for 3 hours, took over 200 photos for our 10 second video.
It's good to be sitting down and clicking the shutter button every 30 seconds.

I really like the view here.

The only thing I dislike about Marina Barrage is the transportation system. It's hard to get there.

Then Sunday came and we decided to take a couple of portrait photos.

Location : ADM

Time : 6pm

Credits for Suyun for being able to spare sometime for the photoshoot

The weather was kind to us that day. Although it was windy, but there wasn't any rain. We tried a few set-ups and I get to test my ND8 filter.

Chongyen definitely did help a lot over here. He's probably a great producer too, he knows many people who're willing to take spare some time for a couple of photos

Ok, to be honest. The photos above.... doesn't really shows much of "save the environment with Carlsberg"
So we had to be a little bit more creative on that.

A direct message. Plant on the left is just to emphasize on "how to save the earth"

Thanks to Anyi for sparing some of her final year time for a couple of shots.
I took this inside ADM, with 1 main flash, 1 snoot flash(light up the board), 1 reflector on camera right and one flash as keylight.

Credits to Terry for teaching me how to insert "light spill" and Patrick for poisoning me into strobing.

Hence, there goes the Sunday.

Thanks to Yin mun too for helping out that day.

There goes Sunday. The next few photos are "Danbo" based.
We took Danbo shots only at night.
Why ? because we're free only at night.
Limited by time and energy, we tried our best to shoot the Danbo.
A Danboard or Danbo is actually an anime character from Japan that's made out from cardboards.
Credits to Wai Hoe for borrowing his Danbo to us.

At first, we had problems with getting the Danbo to "stand" straight

Props are also getting in our way. In some of the shots, you can see a chopstick sticking out the back of the switch. Often, I had to get down real low to shoot. A 600D/60D/D5000 swivel screen would've been useful here.
Laying on my back got me really bad itches the next day.

Then me and Chong Yen had a great idea.
Credits to Chongyen for the next picture. he crafted the entire thing plus his suggestion for the background light.

This was taken in the morning.

We used all 3 flashes for this.
Next up, we decided to tackle the open burning problem.
Open burning is like a thing of a past in KL and Singapore. However, a lot of 3rd world countries or rural areas in Malaysia are still practicing this. Honestly, this is the one method of disposal I really hate.
Especially when the our neighboring country starts burning their forest which cause haze to Malaysia and Singapore.

Why don't we just burn it ???

Yeah...

Screw alcohol, drink water?

Nah, that's not what this photo meant. It's "stop open fires !!!"

Here are the rest of the pictures.

Being Fresh

2011-04-03T18:26:00.000+08:00

Weekends are nearing the end, how I'd wish it was Friday again.
Nearly SGD 300 left my wallet on Friday and Saturday.
SGD 200 went to the Rode Videomic. I've yet to test it's performance as I'm still lacking the 9V battery. However it's awesomeness is almost guaranteed as shown in many youtube video reviews.

Friday was the regular BieBears hangout. Place choosen was MadJacks and a little bit of L4D2/CS after that.
After irritating my friends by being that bastard camper, we caught the last train to Jurong East.
Slept at 3am

---
3 hours
---
It's 6am+ on a Saturday morning and it was raining.
Choice : To go for FOC outing or stay in bed and sleep
Decision : Screw it, just go.

From 8am onwards, it was bright again. The hot sun would continue to shine brightly till 6am.
The outing was in Sentosa

It was hot and sunny all day long

At first I was enthusiastic.
Took a few pics.
Then... I was just tired, sleepy and hatin' the sunlight.
I don't like Sunburns.
Hence I'd spent most of my time inside the pavilion.

Yes. I was regretting the whole time. Being with my bed seems to be a much better choice.
As for the camp itself. It's just like every other year. Nothing really special.

However I've a wish/hope...

Being in the beach with T-shirts and Shorts - OIM

Only in Malaysia do you see this, or rather only Malaysians(and other countries similar to it) do this.
Come on, wear a proper swim wear or at least get rid of the shirt.

But it's useless complaining, nothing's going to change because that's a die hard Malaysian Culture.

Also another thing I've noticed.
This is more of a proven true Asian Stereotype.
The peace sign.
When I first heard of it, it sounds really stupid/racist.
But they're not wrong for stereotyping Asians with their peace signs.

Peace sign is to denote "peace". But over here, it's a a pose you strike when taking a photo

Nevertheless, it's not wrong to do so. But hmmm... I guess that's what makes us Asian. At least we're not doing the slit eyed pose.

Here are the rest of the pictures

---
6pm
Choice : To go for Choon Siong B'day or not
Decision : Just go

Well, it was pretty fun.
Especially suggesting the Birthday boy for the reverse bungee

Before the launch

Unfortunately I didn't bring any umbrella, so I'd hope he won't throw up lolz.
It's SGD 30 for 30 second of joy

After the launch and being a man now

Reached back about 12.30am and I never been this tired for a very long time.
Here are the rest of the pictures

I hardly use any flash for the photos here. All pics taken without flash.
All of my flashes aren't powerful enough to be used as fill bounce flash in bright daylight with the ND filter on.
The dinner was held at some open place too, so no bounce flash or diffuser to help me with that.
Sign for a 580EX2?
Maybe sometime, but not now.

DanBoard

2011-03-31T00:32:00.002+08:00

The competition continues.
So is the need to churn out more photos and hope one of them is the winner.
Here's a preview of what we've done

Credits to Chongyen for patiently positioning the Danbo in the Standing position

We faced quite a few problems during the shoot, mainly;
1) Limited by the theme
2) Location wise kinda suck(Empty spot in front of my room). Mosquito everywhere and there weren't any proper place to shoot.
3) It was dark(9pm duh), there was no natural sunlight
4) We only had 2 hours max to shoot

Nevertheless we came out with 3 distinct photos.
All of which I will only show after the competition is over. Pictures in this entry are the ugliest/most useless picture I can find... so yeah, look forward for the real thing.

We never had any experience shooting figurines. The ideas are original and we've really pushed ourselves to overcome our limitations.

I'm no danboard master, but I thoroughly enjoyed the shoot.

However, composition still remains the key issue.
As for saturation, contrast, exposure. It's perfect on my Laptop + a touch of Cross Processing. If it's ugly on your monitor, sorry... my monitor is uncalibrated.

Alright, maybe I'll just leak one of the many photo's we've taken

Click to enlarge.

ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/160 sec
Aperture: 7.1
Focal Length: 100mm

Next up is a couple more objects(without danbo) and a short video.
Argh... I suck at video.

Shooting for the world

2011-03-29T09:53:00.000+08:00

I know that sometimes I can be a jackass towards nature.
Saving electricity and reducing the use of plastic bags just isn't my cup of tea.
However, I believe that it's not too late to change.
So here's a little bit on how I give back to the environment.

By Using energy efficient Lightbulbs, we can save up to 80% power

So what other ways to save the environment?
How about being anti-fossil fuel?
Which leaves us with Hydroelectric and Nuclear.

Yeah... I know. Some of you here might be giving me the

But looking forward, there're now researching on ways to quick charge your batteries.
You thought 1 hour is quick charge?
Now... your AA batteries can be fully charged in 10 minutes.
Or at least, in theory.
I'll be looking up on that. Perhaps it'll be useful in implementing the portable lab-on-chip device thing I'm working on.

For the past weekend, I've been pretty busy with a photoshoot and a few other things.

It involves a lot of strobing.... because natural light is unavailable to me, thx to my waking up late habit

Regardless, I'm not done yet and I'll only be posting the pictures up in 2 weeks time.

Don't judge a material by its looks

2011-03-24T17:21:00.000+08:00

Just because something looks strong, doesn't mean it's made of the material you think itset of would be.
A few weeks ago, I accidentally threw my fork away. A common accident when instant cup noodles are on the supper menu.
Needing a spare cutleries, I spotted a set of Spoon+Fork+Knife for SGD 3.90.
It's a little bit on the expensive side, but it looked solid and it's really shiny.
The other metal fork and spoon didn't come in a nice box like this, so screw those.

Bite my shiny metal ass

However, it's not stainless steel. It's pure plastic.
Yes, it's kind of soft too. Couldn't use this to cut through a thick slice of chicken chop if I wanted too.

The shiny part seems like a thin layer of silver paint. Hopefully it's not toxic

So did I get conned? It's highway robbery, SGD 3.90 for a set of plastic cutlery.
Well.. it's my fault for not reading the label.
Plastic Look alike Stainless Steel Cutlery.
24 Spoon + Knife + Fork.
WTF 8 sets ?
Yeah.

Why would they sell this in a university mart anyway?

I seriously don't understand why would University students want to get this.
Obviously for parties, using plain cheapo plastic cutleries would be cheaper. For own use, a stainless steel set of cutlery would last for a very long time. Who would buy this crap ?

Damn, it's not even April yet and reality is already playing a prank on me.

So yes, this brings me back to the topic;
When in doubt, ~~just steal cutleries from the nearest canteen~~ read the labels.

Recently there has been a change in the hostel application system. Where in order to get the bonus 2 points, Singaporeans and Foreigners must agree to stay with each other than their extra-curriculum marks must be within 2 points.
It doesn't affect me at all, but there has been a huge influx from the juniors. Well truth be told, if you don't have enough points(Not finding a Singaporean) and your marks is below 16 ; be prepared to lead a nomadic life.
I'm not saying the cutoff points is 16, but don't expect NTU to be kind to you.

Then of course I was out trolling some messages on Facebook until someone requested that I should create a group for these people.
Truth be told, it's not a 100% surefire way method to find a local/foreigner.
Heck, it's probably along the lines of 5% simply . However, I still created the group anyway. For the lulz.

For those reading this blog and thinking WTF did I liked that page for? Well, what do you expect me to do? Spam all my friends with message, paste posters everywhere and beg the NTU to help them ?
Sorry, but I'm not Mother Teresa.

I can however offer you a sure fire way to get a roommate.
It has a 100% success rate unless you've a goddamn awful face aka Yong Sui

The procedure is as follow ;
1) Listen to emotional music 2 hours before hand while thinking of the saddest event in your life.
2) Walk along the corridor of your hostel and spot for Singaporean/foreigner looking names on the doors.
3) Check if they're in by looking at the amount of shoes/lights/aircon.
4) Knock the door five times if they're in. Repeat three times if nothing happens
5) If they're in, tell them your situation. Again, try to look sad but not desperate.
6) Avoid laughing or looking like a madman, you may scare your potential roommate.
7) If you're sensitive to smell, try to smell their room a little. If it's horrible, excuse yourself by telling them you were looking for someone else.
8) Once the deal is sealed, make sure to get their handphone number, email, NTU username and Password. You know.... just in case they try to fly kite at the very last moment.
9) If it fails, try to bribe them gestures like offering to pay for their application fee or even bring a gift before hand.

Caution :
Make sure you're asking someone who has the same gender as you.
If you're a guy, do not go knocking a girls door unless you want to be the next NTU sensational news.
If you're a girl, your safety will be at risk.

Time to mug !!!

2011-03-18T19:17:00.001+08:00

Time to MUG(Study in Singaporean Slang)

Recess week is over, CAs are coming !!!

Who am I kidding?
I'm having internship, exams are not in my dictionary this semester.
However, I'll still need to put in considerable amount of effort in my logbook.
Most of my notes are in an unorganized clutter of word documents.
I'll need to spend quite a few hours on my logbook especially when my tutor is coming soon.
No news yet, but it would be a nightmare if he pops up next Monday.

Yeah yeah, it's not as bad as those who're facing stacks of assignments and continuous combo of tests.
Maybe I'll drop by library tomorrow.

To be honest, I feel really guilty.
Guilty for not doing my best for the internship.
So far I had already taken 6 days of leave. All MC, blame my 7 weeks old cough and paranoid attitude.
Plus I miscounted the number of times I dozed off on the tables.
Yeah, I complete all of my tasks given... but I don't think they're satisfactory enough.
Maybe it has to do with my "holiday" attitude.

Hope things will change and that I don't screw up my IA. It's worth 10AUs = 3 core subjects. Screwing it up would be suicidal.

---

On another note, I've to admit that I'm a Pro-Nuclear activist.
It's probably due to some presentation I had in 2004 where me and my friend presented the international problem of Fossil Fuel shortage.
An ancient long dead website
It's a really interesting article(at least to me when I was 16), although exaggerated, it does makes sense.
The article might be out of date and doesn't really have much scientific weight on it, but it planted the idea that Nuclear is the only way to go.

However people aren't that desperate to find an alternative to fossil fuel.
We're not really running out of it yet, despite predictions that we'll use all of them in a few years time.
The green house effect isn't affecting our lives that much too(other than a slight increase in temperature)
Plus with the new Nuclear crisis in fukushima, people are going to be really afraid of that.

Going nuclear might not be the best choice for most countries because they still lack the technology/funds/responsibility to run it. However, if the world does turn up side down thanks to global warming or fossil fuel suddenly drying up... it might be a little too late to construct new nuclear plants.
With the increase of horrible disasters recently, I'm starting to think that a huge one destroying half the world in 2012 might not be so far-fetched after all.
I hope the world would take Japan as an example in overcoming unthinkable tragedies.

Photography level

2011-03-16T16:46:00.002+08:00

We all love levels and charts and what not.
So here's my 10 level list of Photography mastery.
It's based on my own opinion which may or may not agree with yours.
It's just for the lulz, so no flaming or lecturing on what this art really is.

I always knew my profile photo always sucked, but I couldn't be bothered to change.

Before that, I would like to split the creation of a photo into 3 section.
1) The skills
2) The equipments
3) The post processing.
All 3 can equally impact a picture.

Level 0
Someone who has never picked up a camera before.
Usually people in this level would be your technology illiterate great-great-grandparents(if they're still alive).
These are the people who thinks taking a photo would suck your soul up.

Level 1
Someone who knows pressing the shutter button on a camera would take a picture.
Most of society lies in this level. To them, clicking a shutter button takes a picture regardless of situation.
They usually own handphone cameras which they might use to take down notes or carparks location info.

Level 2
These are your casual digital camera Point and Shoot users.
They know how to take a good picture(no messy, missing limbs, half faced, too dark/bright, blurry) photos most of the time. They're your cousins, Aunty, friend with that compact camera. Your friend who always uses their compact to camwhore in dressing rooms falls into this category too.

Level 3
These are newbies DSLR/Prosumer owners. They just got it fresh from the box !
Most of the time the settings are in full Auto and they still have no idea what in the world is ISO, Aperture, Shutter speed. If they're interested in photography, they would "level" up shortly. Sometimes people in this level might not be able to take pictures as good as people in Level 2, especially if they try to delve into Manual mode and end up using the wrong settings. However it's through trial and error that we learn best.

Level 4
DSLR/Prosumer owners who has learned to control the exposure properly. They have the knowledge to use full manual mode if necessary. However they're still new to photography and might not know the deeper more interesting stuff. Your friend who has just bought a DSLR a month ago will probably fall into this category. Their pictures are well exposed, but there's just something missing from it. Their pictures are also mostly plain and most of the time we couldn't differentiate if it was taken with a good compact or a DSLR/Prosumer.

Level 5
Amateur DSLR owners who are comfortable with their DSLR and the settings. Most of them here have already own a second lens or an external flash. They know the basic rules for composition, some more advance techniques such as panning, long exposure, utilization of flash/fill flash and getting the correct colour balance. One look and you'll know the picture couldn't have come from a Compact(especially if there's no post processing involved). A large portion of DSLR users in Malaysia/Singapore are in this level.
They probably own a DSLR for a comfortable 6 months or more.

Level 6
Photography enthusiast lies in this level. Remember I said about Post process, Skill and Camera gear ?
They've a good understanding of those and are able to use it to enhance their photos. The main difference between a level 5 and a level 6 is the distinct use of post process and other advance techniques such as HDR, Strobing, cross processing or proper use of better equipments. Their personal style and preference has developed over the different genres that they've tried.They usually own a DSLR for over a year or more and has been using it constantly.

Level 7
Pro-amateur photographers lie in this level. They're the hobbyist who delve deep into photography. They have a good mastery of the necessary photography skill, artistic sense, post processing knowledge and a trusty gauntlet of gears they know they can depend on. Their photos are superb and would make an average person drool. They can win minor competitions and contests without much effort.
Some of my more experienced friends are in this category. They probably owned a DSLR for a couple of years.

Level 8
We're into the professional realm now. Professional photographers who get paid taking photos are in this level if not higher. Most Official(paid) Photographers you see in weddings are in this level. Some of my hobbyist friends who're getting paid handsomely to take pre-wedding photographs are also in this level.
They're good enough that people would like to hire them regularly. Although most of the people here are better than pro-amateur photographers, it's possible that the opposite might happen in very rare cases.

Level 9
They're the highly sought after photographers locally.
They charge premium price and they can actually earn a good living doing photography.
People like Louis Pang are in this category.
Needless to say, their photographs they take can tell more than a thousand words.

Level 10
Famous international photographers.
Pulitzers winner. Author of Photography books. The Chuck Norris of photography.
Chase Jarvis, Kent Rockwell are a few of those.

And here with have it, the 10 levels of Photography.
There's this joke which goes...
How many photojournalist does it take to screw in a lightbulb ?

Answer :
One, and one hundred more to look and say "I could've done that myself"

How many times have you looked into a photo and say "I could've taken that myself"?
One interesting fact is that, if you can't say that... that's one clear sign they're in a level above yours.
Also, like an RPG... the higher your current level is, the harder it takes to level up.

---
Remember, this is just a for the lulz post.
Real life isn't really like this, it's not as linear as you think it will be. More often than not, people don't follow the level list above. Another thing to note is that we should never segregate them in real life. Just because you're holding a Leica M9 doesn't mean the guy with the camera phone should step down and give you his place.

Catastrophe

2011-03-14T22:20:00.004+08:00

Most of you here would relate the title with the recent events in Japan.
No doubt they're facing a triple crisis.
Earthquake + Tsunami + Nuclear Meltdown.
Their loss is devastating, but it could've been much much worse.
Japan is probably the most equipped country in the world to handle such disaster.
Their engineering, response team, discipline and social bonds make them a truly unshakable country.
It's probably because of this that I'm not too worried. They'll be up and running in a few months time.
I'm sure of it. I've seen their attitude, their discipline, their kindness.

However there are a few things I would like to clear up.
First is the 1 gazillion people like this to pray for Japan etc etc group on facebook.
I'm not against praying for Japan etc etc. In fact I do hope that all will be fine there and the people I know there are doing well.
However those FB groups are probably just another attention whore doing. Let's face it, liking that FB page doesn't do crap for Japan.
In the mean time people are abusing groups to spread out advertisement of their own interest.
As for donations, most of them are dodgy. I know I may sound like a selfish idiot, but this is Japan. The RM 1/SGD 1 you donate isn't going to do much to a developed nation which currency is extremely strong. If you do intend to donate, make sure it's through a trustworthy channel.
What they need is probably manpower in which I'd be happy to volunteer if given the chance. Although in manpower department, they probably got it under control too.
So don't worry that much, pray for their wellbeing. But know this, they will overcome this disaster better than any country in this planet.

The second issue is some spam email/FB/SMS about nuclear fallout.
This isn't something to be worried about.
Sure, Chernobyl killed many people, even those hundreds of miles away.
However that was decades ago, the engineering design for Nuclear powerplants ever since then has been revised so that even in an event of a Nuclear meltdown... it will not be fatal.

Let's look at a more recent nuclear meltdown, the three mile island in 1979.
It gained quite a bit of media steam that there was hardly any other Nuclear Powerplants build after that.
Nuclear fallout did happen, but it was no where near Chernobyl.
No one died. No one fall ill.

Let's look at Japan's fukushima Nuclear plant incident..
No doubt the initial explosion did kill/injured a few people, but that's due to the blast and not the radiation.
No one died due to the radiation yet.
Take note that even though the cooling system failed, the engineering design for the reactors are design as such to contain the radiation even in an event of a fallout.
Heck, the X-ray I had this afternoon is probably worse than the radioactive fallout near the plant.
I'm not even touching on South East Asia yet.

So in conclusion, it's safe to go out and play.

*15th march update*
It seems like the effort to cool the reactor isn't working to well and the primary containment unit might have been breached. Radioactive fallout has increased a thousand fold (400 milisieverts rather than a few microsirverts)
Shit is about to get serious.
For those living nearby at least.
There's still not much for us to worry as even in an event of complete meltdown, the radioactive isotopes would disintegrate themselves(short halflives) or get washed out before reaching us.

Here are some quick facts
1) Uranium/plutonium are not a threat here. Control rods has been inserted since the start of the Earthquake and has stopped any reactions involving Uranium/Plutonium.
2) The problem here are the derivative of the nuclear fission of Uranium, cesium and iodine which has a pretty short halflife of a few days compared to Uranium.
3) So far, the only radioactive substance that are leaked are activated water and very sparse amount of cesium/iodine.
4) The containment unit used here is far more advanced than the one used in Chernobyl. Even in the event of full meltdown, it will not spread a cloud of radioactive isotopes capable of travelling thousands of miles. Rather, it will seep into the ground and cause the ground near it to be radioactive. Bad news for people living near there, but we're relatively unaffected.

Link 1
Link 2

As for me, I'm pretty F' up recently too.

Till I gotta fly back to KL

Friday:
It all started when my 6 weeks long cough started being more serious on Friday Morning.
Feeling extremely lethargic and my cough being really bad, I consulted my university Medical Center Doctor.
He expressed concern and told me it was a bacterial infection on the upper respiratory tract. Told me to spit out all the phlegm and take my antibiotics or risk getting pneumonia.
What's Pneumonia?
It's a bacterial infection of the lungs which caused water to build up on it.
It's serious but hardly fatal unless there's no treatment and immunologically deli-bated.
He requested that I should return in 1 week time if I'm not getting any better.
MC was given, no question asked.

Saturday :
When I woke up, I felt really lethargic and my cough was getting worse.
Thinking it could just be some morning sickness, I continued my medication and didn't think much of it.
It got a lot worse at night. I had fever throughout the day.

Sunday :
I slept for 12 hours on Saturday, but still... no signs of improvement.
First thing I did was message Sui Jin on FB, a coming 4th year medical student asking for advice.
He told me, it could be possible that I was having a mild pneumonia but can't be for certain until a physical examination was done.
Ok, I've to admit that my room isn't exactly the tidiest room in NTU.
It's not the messiest, but it's not pretty either. Plus the fact that Hall 7 has no canteen which means no food and my worsening condition. I decided to fly back.
Called my parents and took a flight back at 6pm.
I was feeling really lethargic/sicklish for the entire day. Got a little better at night.
At night, Sui jin came over and did a thorough checkup.
His conclusion was it's most probably a really bad cough with a possibility of a mild pneumonia. The distinct sound pneumonia gives out is nearly inaudible even with the stethoscope.
Of course, he didn't prescribe anything as he's still not yet a qualified doctor.

Monday :
Went to a family doctor.
I told him the symtoms I have, and he did the same checkup.
He concluded that there was nothing really wrong but I should just get an X-ray just to be sure.
Which I did.
Final results was good. Seems like I don't have pneumonia or it's so mild, it's undetectable.
Just need to finish my antibiotics and I should be back to Singapore by Thursday/Friday.

HOCC

2011-03-12T03:17:00.001+08:00

Hall Olympiad Closing Ceremony.
It's where they give out prizes to the winners for the NTU inter-hall games.
But most of us aren't here for that.
We're here to see crews showing their skillz on stage.
5 minutes time limit
Any genre of dance
40% originality , 60% skill
16 Halls

And one converted lecture theater packed 150% it's maximum capacity with all the horrible dynamic lighting in a photographers nightmare.

Lens used : 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM
Location : 4th row from front, right of stage with videographer right in front of my face.

Solution ?
Shoot at ISO 3200 to 6400
Noise? PP it later, shoot in Raw.
Cross processed every single picture. The lighting sucks anyway, might as well CP it.

But before I post my pics.
Here's the video of Hall 1. The undisputed champ this year.

Also in Hall 1 is Daniel

The one on the right.

Daniel and the group of friends who helped me cut the queue.

Also there from Hall 10 is Chan Fai,

From Cheerleading to dance.

He was really busy with dance practice for the past few months. As usual, he's the Lead dancer.
Alright, next up are the pictures which are worthy enough to be posted here.

Burlesque theme is one of the most overused theme this time.

But I'm not complaining.

One thing really interesting is that all the songs used are different with the exception of burlesque.
You've oldies , current chart toppers and OWA used here.

Yes. OWA. as in One Winged Angel. Complete with fanfare.

However... it seems a lot more like a musical than a dance.

However, I noticed something.
Halls which did not perform well tend to use chart toppers a lot more than halls which are already good in dance choreography.

Sexy girls in even sexier outfits.

Want more?

The more skin = more points ? lolz

However some costumes are just weird.

Angry birds by Hall 7. Runner up.

To be honest... I'm not really a fan of it. I prefer the skin = points LOLz.
Nevertheless, it's creative. They were dancing to the angry birds theme too.

But don't forget the ninjas

I was surprised they didn't dance to a Naruto theme

Oh right... Naruto isn't technically a ninja.

Then there's the art exhibition theme.
Where statues come to life

Art gallery esque dance?

Of course there's some theme which utilize light sticks in their dance.
Too bad they don't have someone to create LED shirts like in Step up 3

Hmmm, not sure if they included Black & Yellow to their songlist

Ok, there're a whole lot more. Wouldn't want to consume the bandwidth that much.
But it's has been an experience seeing this.
Note that they're not professional dancers(most of them anyway), and most of them probably just started dancing a few months ago. So not everyone can do perfect dance moves.

As for myself, the prime + location really limited my photos.
I'll be back next year, with a white lens.

Here are the rest of the pictures.
I recommend you go through all 144 of them and not on FB. (click to enlarge)

Stop giving me the "loser" Face

2011-03-11T03:06:00.001+08:00

Perhaps it's my fault.
Perhaps it's my character
Maybe I'm just too "Yong Sui"?
But I often get the "Loser/n00b/creepy" face by random people.

Especially if I try to take a picture of them or something near their proximity.
I mean is it really creepy to have this guy you never seen before taking a picture of you?
OK... Maybe a little.
Today's HOCC (Hall Olympiad Closing Ceremony) which is also the interhall dance competition for my university.

Another 10GB of RAW files left to edit.

So you can expect the rest to roll in sometime this weekend.
I had fun there, their dance really makes music come to life.
Ok, I've a few confessions to make.
Due to the fact that I was so pissed I couldn't make it to the hall opening cheerleading competition. I had to make sure I would be sitting down in a good spot for the HOCC.
By doing so .. I
- Went back from work earlier
- Cut through queues till I am exactly infront of the door by wailing my cameras about.
- Choose a seat which wasn't my hall and I'm prepared to lie/bullshit about it.

Still, I got quite a crappy seat with the videographer directly infront of me. This cause 60% of the photos un-usable. Well, at least it will ease my shortlisting process.
The lighting was horrible and I had to use a freaking prime to shoot.

But hey, at least they're not giving me the WTF LOSER face.

Gotta learn the lightleaks

Chilling with the Bearz

2011-03-06T00:21:00.001+08:00

February is over and March is here.
But 2011 is just beginning.

Ok, enough of Captain Obvious.
After an uneventful week at DSI, Friday is finally here.

Alright, let's just get to the photos.

Went for Hall 15 Play

Before that, I tried out the fame 18 chefs which employs ex-convict and the head chef seems to be personally trained by Jamie Oliver.
How Jamie manage to find time to train him... beats me.

It's at fusion-polis which is nearby ACJC/Biopolis

They offer really cheap student price meals.
But the thing about today is that I manage to test out the sigma 50mm f/1.4
All of the pictures today are in fact taken with the Sigmalux.
There is also a minimum amount of post processing done. I was really lazy.

All shots are taken at f/1.4 wide open too

The play was 2 hours at ACJC.
Although there was a lack of really pretty actresses, but the acting was good.
The story however wasn't Christopher Nolan level.
It's good, but I would prefer a comedy genre.

Also joining us is Jian Sung. 6 weeks of IA does makes you forget about tutorials and exams.

However, one unique thing is that ACJC is filled with muggers.
At 10pm, you can still see students mugging in the canteen.

Is this mugging ? I don't really know but now I can see why NTU benches are always packed even at night.

So everything ended by 9.30 and I'm supposed to head back to NTU to meet my friend from Malaysia.
However, he was at Sentosa and wouldn't be coming back anytime soon.
I guess that means I get to hang out a little longer.

And the start of Chiz's journey of getting drunk again

I didn't drink much that due to my cough and liquor being really expensive.
But I couldn't resist the temptation of shooting Chiz getting drunk.

With 1 mug of beer

He gets a bit "touchy"

When it's up to two beers

He becomes even more "touchy"

Add a little bit of cocktail and more beers

And you get him talking about hiking some mountain in South America for our Graduation trip

Well... at least he's not suggesting something like "let's go try carrying some unknown bags through the custom for several thousands" lolz

But that couldn't beat his expression of going to Thailand and getting boobed all over his face by she-males

Yeah, we can see that you're really happy

Of course, Bala ended up getting a little bit tipsy too.

And I thought Indians couldn't get drunk

We all ended up going back at 3am and most of us slept till Saturday afternoon.
Well, my mission of testing my lens under really dark conditions is definitely a success.

ISO 3200. Where's the noise ?

Although I didn't drink much, I'm glad my tolerance isn't as low as Chiz.
Probably gotta thank Chongxian and Tysern for that lolz.
Oh, as for the pictures, I didn't really edit it much so the hue might be a little out.

Here are the rest of the pictures.

You're not a photog, just a rich kid

2011-03-01T02:04:00.003+08:00

It's been shared a lot for the past few days but recently it has been pretty hot.

I felt the pinch too. But I couldn't be bothered until I read some smart ass comments

Here's the link

It was uploaded on "Only in Malaysia" page ages ago
But some of my friends reshared it.
Even one of my photog friends posted it on his blog.
Curious, I went to read the comments on FB.

So here's the photo :

This gotten about 150+ comments and 700+ likes on the FB page?

First up, I would like to say that I'm not a photographer.
I'm just a n00b with a camera compared to quite a few friends on FB.
After taking up this hobby in 2009, I'm still far below a number of my peers. It's not the equipment or the post processing either. It's the sheer difference in skill that separates us.
My photo's aren't nice but they're not "trash + waste of money/time/effort" either.
To me, photographers are those pros who shoot really awesome photos for a living.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of really professional enthusiast with skills matching or even better than full time photographer.

However the caption in the above photo isn't about that.
It's practically saying, everyone who's not earning money via photography is a damn n00b with an expensive camera.
This is wrong in so many different levels.
To add insult to injury, a lot of them posted dumb remarks.

I'm not going to filter out their names or photo.

@ Jason : Butthurt detected. Who're you to judge someone when you know nothing about taking pictures.
Quote from IanHo.
If you know you're going to drive a lambo, why in the world you wanna practice in a kancil ?
@ Chee Jin : It's not a fashion. Ever heard of street photography ? Trust me, if Leica M9 are as cheap as 1000D, no one would carry those huge cameras.
@ Shawn : I like to camwhore.

I will use this to camwhore and there's nothing you can do about it.

Why is it a waste ? I own a pretty good camera. Might as well use it to take a pretty good picture of myself.
@Ariff : yes we like to show off. We will continue to do so. I hope you enjoy being tagged in ugly photos taken by us.

LOL at KeeBoon

@Amanda : That's the misconception. Although skill is important and there're people using lomo camera to win the Pulitzer. However, have you ever wondered why real professionals spend thousands on gears ?
If any camera would do, you'll see wedding photographers using their iphones to snap the pictures.
Wait...
Have you ever tried photography? Have you even tried taking a decent photo under pitch black conditions using your camera phone?
How was it? From your definition, a DSLR wouldn't do much better.
@ KeeBoon : You just massively pwned urself.
I take this personally as I'm also a 100mm Macro user.
Macrolens = shoot close close, only to be used on small things. <- shows that you've never used a real macro lens before.
I remember my teacher used to say. Kalau sudah malu, jangan tunjuk kemaluan.

I took this with a macro lens. The subject was 2 meters away.

It's a well known fact that most fulltime macro lens, like the one in the FB picture and the one used in the photo above can focus to infinity and they make pretty good portrait lens.

She pisses me off the most compared to the rest.

First up talent and experience correlate with one another. Talent can be achieved by pouring hundreds of hours of hardwork.
By your logic, those who didn't do well in kindergarden should be a slave because they're good for nothing.
Name me any professionals that they're so good in what they do that they don't need practice at all.
The secret in being successful isn't the destination but the learning process and effort needed to go there.
Everyone has to start somewhere, no one ever won the Pulitzer the first time they touched a camera.

Keep in mind, not everyone is as stupid as you think. People don't go randomly pick some kid with a DSLR to shoot their weddings. They will go through his/her portfolio and judge them by the pictures they took. If an enthusiast can perform as well as a professional photographer, what's wrong with that?

You say it's undifferentiated.Bullcrap.
There are very very few people with the gear+experience+skill for a proper wedding photoshoot.
Most enthusiast shoot for free and they're not the official photographer.
How does that threaten their business ?

You make it sound like it's a sin for someone new to pick of a DSLR.
Photography is a hobby, and just like every other hobby ~ it's the passion and interest that counts.

By the way, to all DSLR haters. Remember this.
We have the right to take pictures in any public property. So if you're pissed that we're snapping away while in a park or a street... well, sucks to be you.
Also, even if we're photographing YOU, there's NOTHING you can do about it.
Except maybe wear a mask when you go out.

---

Argh, there's so much more to comment but it's already 2am.

If you're offended by any of this posts.

Well, sucks to be you.

It's FML Monday

2011-02-28T00:55:00.001+08:00

Week 6 is here.
To be very honest, I just wasted 6 weeks doing practically nothing for my Internship.
Something needs to be done... before the 10th week.
Waking up at 7am, leaving the room at 7.30 and to be at NUS by 8.35am every weekday can be a chore.
But sitting down and doing nothing except reading up on papers can be meaningless.
Not boring, not stressful, not difficult... but meaningless.

The people there aren't very friendly towards us too. Perhaps they sense our guilt from doing nothing nothing.
It's has been 5 weeks, let's see if the 6th week is equally screwed up too.

Today was the MSAFOC committee member photoshoot. It's charity again and I took this opportunity to test out my new camera.
I didn't perform well at all, mainly due to the time constrain, fatigue and strong wind breaking my umbrellas.

I'm not a very creative person when it comes to suggesting poses

Likewise, I felt disappointed that I couldn't shoot something better this time.

Does this appear greenish to you?

it doesn't to me.

Why? My LCD 14'' XPS monitor shows it completely fine. But my LED monitor shows it on a really ugly greenish hue with much higher contrast.
Which one to trust? Please tell me your feedback.

Here's a better group photo

Should had shot in 21MP Raw for this and not sRaw 10MP. The extra mega-pixels would help.

Oh, ever wondered how the tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 would look like on a FF?

at 17mm. The vignette isn't even aligned !

At 50mm

So yes. Although it's able to be mounted on a non APS-C camera, you will have really bad vignetting.
With vignetting worse than lomo cameras, that really limits your choice.
I would say it's pretty artsy though lolz.

Another horrible part about this shoot is that time really pass quickly.
Consequently, so does the sun.

I have to resort to Flash or else I had to bump up my ISO

Not that I'm afraid of noise LOLz but without flash the subject would be bland.
This and almost every other picture is shot with a flash on the subjects upper right. Diffused with the broken umbrella. Reflector on the left for fill purposes.
Other than that one flash, I didn't use anything.

Wished I had the backlight... but the wind just makes it so inconvenient.

Well... just happy it didn't rain.

Here are the rest of the pics

Remember... if you see over-saturated pics above, do tell me.
I need to calibrate my monitor.

Tonight, I'm going to sleep early. Before 2am.

Oh, Big Bang latest Single is pretty good. Pwned DBSK "Why"

KL Bird Park

2011-02-26T19:48:00.000+08:00

This marks the final weekend in February.
I'm back in KL this weekend for the sole purpose of collecting my new camera body.

Test shot with the 24mm f/1.4L

Poisonous !!! But the price is a good enough deterrent for me to get it lolz.

After collecting it from Kevin at 12am(thanks for CODing with me at such odd hours), I used it to shoot some pictures of chicks at the KL Bird Park.
As you might notice, chicks here refers to the avian kind.

There's so much for me to learn, and there's where the interesting part is.
I'm used to the iso 100-200-400-800-... but now there so many more iso settings in between.

Shot with 100mm(35mm equivalent : 100mm)

Ok I got to admit.
Having a FF doesn't automatically makes all your picture godlike. But it does makes it a lot more bokehlicious.

Went to Birdpark with Tysern and Ben.

Loaned my 500D +50 f/1.4 to Tysern

Poisoning in progress

but to be honest...
He was kinda lethargic that day

Borrowed my umbrella and chilled most of the time

Still thanks for coming though lolz and I hope you get poisoned.(will edit the pics u took later and send to u by tomorrow)
Oh, also there are a group(large group) of LYN Canon kaki photographers
Although I didn't get to hang out with them for a long time, they do seem like a really nice bunch of people.

Most of the birds are unchanged, with tonnes of birds like this roaming around

There was even a performance. Despite making a number of errors, it was still fun to watch.
Erm.... I couldn't get any decent pics though. Need some time to get used to the AF.

Only complain is that the entrance fee is RM 20 and everything there is expensive.

Lunch was at Coliseum.
An olden era esque western restaurant that's incredibly expensive.

Here are the rest of the pics.

All taken with 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro