COMEX 2004, day one

Went down to COMEX (Suntec 3rd/4th floor) at 12pm to try and secure a SanDisk Extreme 512MB CF card for $145, but to my chagrin, the 'limited' stocks were already gone by then. And the show had only just opened at 12pm.. doh!

Saw this eye-catching setup at the Albatron booth:


Need speed?

KT picked up a cool LG DVD +12x/-8x writer from the Chamoxa booth for $139.

No 20D at the Canon booth.

Microsoft ate up most of Suntec's 3rd floor landing with several inviting rows of X-box terminals.

Strangely enough, Cold Storage also made an appearance with a double booth in the corner on the 3rd floor.

My purchase total for the day: nada.

Baby K - the bear adventure!

#01 - Uhh, good morning?


#02 - Look, it's a bear!


#03 - Got you now, rubber duckie..


#04 - ...but what do I do now?


#05 - RRAAARRRRRR!! Pro bear wrestling!


#06 - Eh? What happened? Time out?


#07 - Bear: I'll be back... (ouch)!

Hope you enjoyed this series with Baby K.

Chan Brothers travel fair

This one travel agency booked Suntec Exhibition Hall #402 and turned it into a huge sales office today.


We're here, just in case you didn't notice

Multiple destination-zone queues, whole decks of waiting area seats, large flip-chart queue number signs, and a strategically-placed red 3-door Hyundai Getz to remind potential customers of their potential rewards. Not that the crowd seemed to need any encouragement - most of the early visitors already knew what they wanted and wasted no time in putting their money down.

To entertain the children, colourful costumed characters capered around, scaring the beejeebers out of a few. The free ice-cream handouts pacified the rest of the kids, though, especially the older ones.


Led by the paw


Inviting the crowd


Look ma, all hands!

J and I signed up for a package tour in October. Hokkaido e ikimasu!

A long night's work

NeeCe and J were working on this 1000-piecer while Athens played on the telly in the background. Did I mention that J's a Disney jigsaw fan?


Patience

Indoors with the 35mm f/2

Batteries
Shot wide open at f/2, 0.3s, ISO 400 with the camera jammed against a corner. No colour correction; yellowish due to ambient lighting. Decently sharp.


Night light prayers
Taken handheld at f/8, 1/40s at ISO 400. Again, no colour correction done.

Here's a 100% crop of the sharpest (I think) area:


Very decently sharp. I like it.

Slightly miffed

As I walked to the office this morning from the carpark, I saw something that looked like it could be a photo opportunity.

Pulled out the camera with the 35mm lens attached.
Flicked it on hastily.
Ripped the cap away.
Sighted...
... "No CF Card".

*smack forehead*

The CF was still in the card reader back at home.

Canon 20D previews!

Some specs here and a more detailed preview (part one) here.

More snaps

Had a rare opportunity for a daytime walk earlier this week, and here's what I saw.


Colours of construction
Cropped a little, resized, and used unsharp mask slightly (15%, 3px radius, 2 level threshold), but otherwise left this shot untouched. I'm amazed by the naturally saturated colours; was lucky that the sun was on my side.


Cat's stare
This orange tabby stared up at me from across the stairs. Tensed for flight, it kept a cautious lookout until I moved away, never allowing me to get closer. Auto-contrast, resized, USM.


Protected
This cat lay on top of the wall, purr-fectly relaxed, unconcerned and unamused by my pseudo-stalking antics with the other cat on the stairs. Resized, USM.


All-weather cock
Weather vane, wind vane, weather cock, whatever. Deprived of wind to point against, this gangly rooster stared rigidly towards the sun instead. Resized, USM, saturation +30.


Growing out of the box
Was amused to find this metal frame nicely framing, as it were, a fairly leafy plant. Photoshop processes: resized, added Hue/Saturation adjustment layer with blending mode "Overlay" at 50%, and shifted the Hue setting (+30) on the layer until I liked the effect. Original resized version here. Really didn't expect to get results from this one, but hey.

Picked up my new 35mm f/2 lens from kenghor this evening. Going to put it through some street testing in the next few weeks to see if I like it.

Canon prepares to announce the 20D Digital SLR?

Check it out. EF-S compatible. Friday announcement, rumours have it, along with the announcement of two new EF-S lenses,
EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM DC and EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM DC.

More temptation, again!

Today's peeks

Behind the fence


Just for starters

Checking in on Athens

Just tuned in to Channel 5's "Today in Athens" coverage, here's what I picked up.

Du Li of China picked up the very first gold medal of the Olympics, in the Women's 10m Air Rifle.

The Netherlands thrashed South Africa 6-2 while China beat Japan 3-0 in Women's Hockey matches.

Japanese swimmer Kitajima Kosuke topped his flight in the 100m breaststroke heats, setting a new Olympic Record in the process.

And Paul Sng, the Today in Athens presenter, should stop wriggling his head while delivering his lines.

Bridal trial make-up

Went down to Margaret Brides this afternoon to snap candids for NeeCe. Bad focusing technique spoilt a couple of otherwise-nice shots, but I did manage to get a decent handful. Here's one from the lot:


Dolling up

Short problem-solving week

Fell sick on Tuesday and stayed home, and spent the last three working days of the week trying to make up for it. There's so much stuff to be done that it's scary to contemplate. So I try to put it out of my mind, and get on with things one step at a time. Managed to crank out a working version of a deceptively complicated tool while learning PHP in the process. Whee.

With guidance from some ClubSnap people, I finally realized that a "smudging" problem I was having with my 50mm lens was in fact caused by the screw-on UV filter, and not due to the dust particles within the lens itself.

50mm f/1.8 with cheap filter		G's 50mm f/1.8 with multicoated filter

Notice the green smudge in the photo on the left, at the girl's shoulder. On closer inspection, it's more like an 180-degree after-image of the bright highlights on the left side of the shot. G's lens, which I swapped with to take the second test photo on the right, didn't exhibit this behaviour. And now, after more testing with the filter on and without, I know that it's due to the cheapo filter on my lens.

I was going to pick up a new multicoated filter to replace the old one, but Stanley brought up a good point - why spend on an expensive filter that basically serves to protect a cheap lens? Instead, said he, I should just remove the filter before shooting, and replace it when I'm done. Excellent suggestion; I kicked myself for not thinking about it.

Relaxing is hard work

Went swimming Saturday afternoon, then to a housewarming party. On Sunday, brought J out for dim sum lunch at Lei Garden, then scooted off for the rest of the afternoon to Pulau Ubin for a photoshoot. Today, we rushed down to Kinokuniya at Ngee Ann City to enjoy the National Day 20% storewide discount offer, (finally) grabbing GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire and a complete Hitchhiker's Guide, then went to Skip's to enjoy the NDP fireworks. And managed to break a knob on my cheapo tripod head, rendering it fairly useless.

After a long weekend of unwinding, I am dead beat.

I am so not going back to Spagheddies at Paragon, their chicken Caesar's salad was just terrible. (J reminded me that I'd said the same thing about the Tanglin Mall outlet a couple of years back. Bleh. Me and my awful memory.)

A self-critique of Sunday's photoshoot yielded 85 good frames, 69 rejected frames and 22 frames of random miscellany (photos of trees and camping tents). Objectively, that's a dismal percentage of usable shots. :(

Here's one shot that I liked from the series, resized and auto-contrast'd (click here for the non-corrected version). No sharpening done, EXIF info should be intact:


Sunset silhouette

Will try to find time to get the rest of the photos uploaded. I'm thinking maybe I should set up a pbase.com account, we'll see.

This week in no particular order

Bought a BG-E1 battery grip for my 300D.

Got my 50mm f/1.8 lens back.

Received tentative news that my 35mm f/2 lens will be arriving on the following week instead of next week.


Low rise, high rise

Signed up for an outdoor shoot on Sunday.

Purchased Altec Lansing speakers for J's iPod.

Was stood up twice for work meetings; relieving, yet annoying.


Racing snakes

Learned that Sam's transfer to the US team will take effect end of September.

Registered for season parking at Raffles Hospital.

Parents off to Melbourne to visit my brother.


Happiness is a playful parent

Feeling worn out.

Feeling worn out.

Feeling worn out.

Trails

I'm feeling a little whacked today. Been awake longer than I'd like, so I don't feel like typing much. Let the pictures talk in my stead.

Day trail, play trail


Stand tall, fly proud


We get along like a house on...


Weights of ages


Star guidance


Ups and downs

Night trails, light trails


Heading home

G'nite.

Curing Lens Envy

I came across this article while browsing for lens-related stuff. According to the information quoted, 78% of contest winning photo entries were shot with 50mm "normal" lenses. That's taken from The Amateur Photographer's Handbook circa 1973; I wonder if the figures have changed since then?

I should seriously consider bringing my tripod out more often. And possibly getting a more reliable one, aince my cheap tripod head frequently tends to edge out of position under the weight of the camera.

Duck for dinner

Cheok Kee Duck Rice at the East Coast Lagoon food centre is my favourite braised duck stall. Articles and plaques from various food-variety programmes, like "Yummy King", line its display window, proclaiming the popularity of this hawker stall.

Getting into the packed lagoon carpark is a regular nightmare on typical weekend evenings, but Monday nights are nice and quiet. Just the way we like it.


Cheok Kee Duck Rice

In fact, since it was so quiet, they bade us sit and brought the food directly to our table. Normally, it's a story of self-service and long queues, but there was no queue tonight. The hawker recognized J with a smile, and doled out our usual extra bowl of thick, smooth sauce... mmm. Cheok Kee's duck meat seldom fails to satisfy; we cleaned out the whole plate in short order.


Extra sauce for dipping

I prefer this stall over the "famous" one at South Buona Vista Road. It's so much closer to home, too. One of these days we should try the main stall, which I think is somewhere in Whampoa.