Archive for March, 2009

DCIM Show at Midvalley

March 31, 2009

Munz managed to convince me to go for the DCIM event at Midvalley over the weekend on Saturday evening by bribing me that she will pay for dinner. To be honest, I didn’t really have much expectations for it because whilst I was at a workshop with Munz on Saturday afternoon, I left some comments on Facebook and most of them were quite negative with friends mentioning that it was quite dissapointing. Hence the reason why I didn’t want to raise any hopes and just head over there and check it out.

Upon arrival, I managed to catch Zung finishing up his talk on Wedding Photography and also saw Jon, Joseph and Peter at the event. I guess all the Kwannon users were there previously giving their talk on their experience using the 5D Mk2. After having a quick chat in the seminar room as well as wishing Zung a very happy birthday, Munz and I headed in to the main exhibition hall and was greeted by this.

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There was a huge Nikon booth in the middle of the area, next to the stage where there was a fashion show or something.

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Canon also had a huge site with an area where you can test out some big guns.

The first place I actually stopped by was neither of those booths but more towards that of DG Color and Direct Photo as Jon had very smartly poisoned Munz into getting a monopod. It was very cheap hence I know that it was a great bargain.

The next booth I stopped at was of course the Nikon booth because they had the D3x for display and we could actually test it out. Check out the prices below!

n632269902 2391459 1109755 DCIM Show at Midvalley

Now that is definitely the amount you can put for a downpayment to get your latest BMW 3 Series. I tried shooting some test shots with the D3x using the new 50mm f/1.4 AF-S lens but I wasn’t that impressed with the sharpness. I guess perhaps with the sheer number of people trying it out, it could have been damaged or perhaps shooting at wide open @ f/1.4 will always give you soft images. But then I see the Canon’s 50mm f/1.2 shots at f/1.2 to be crisp and sharp, that really makes me wonder a lot!

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Don’t ask me what that crack is, I think it was a piece of stuff that was on the lens of my iPhone camera.

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Of course I also couldn’t resist checking out some huge ass lenses which were also on display. It is definitely not everyday that I can molest a 400mm f/2.8 lens as well.

By the time we headed out of DCIM and towards Gardens for dinner, I realised that it was almost time for Earth Hour. Fortunately we managed to finish our dinner in time but a little way past the 8.30pm mark and behold, Gardens was totally lit up and the lights were bright! Then of course I spied this poster here which was supposed to bring awareness and here you go, decorative lights were brightly shining as well.

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On a more positive note, most of the food shops around me had their lights turned off and that most of their customers were eating with candlelights which sort of made it romantic in a way.

Soft and Hard Snakes

March 26, 2009

Last night I had the pleasure of enjoying one of my first few drinks in the UK whilst I was a student there and that drink is called a SnakeBite Black. I was over at Sid’s together with a bunch of friends who where chugging away on their drinks when I headed over to the bartender and ordered a snakebite black. He made one within minutes and I paid for my drink and joined my friends.

The drink tasted good and I continued enjoying it until my friends saw this.

snake1 Soft and Hard Snakes

(image taken with my iPhone in the dark)

D: What the heck, you ordered a soft snake?

Me: What? What is a soft snake la?

B: OMG Mark’s got a soft snake

The joke went on and on and on. So apparently I ended up with a drink that I have to order as hard snakebite next time. Either that I can always tell the bartender to make me a soft snakebite but make it hard on the bill ^^

Wednesday Clicks

March 25, 2009

I really think that time is really an essence that we cannot waste. Then again there are a lot of things that we do waste that might affect us in a subtle but yet realistic way.

  • This is what you should do if you have about 22-25 million pound sterling sitting in your bank account, buy a village!
  • If you are a new iPhone user or you are considering getting an iPhone sometime in the near future, do note that iPhone’s can’t be tethered at the moment, but this may be of some good news. What is tethering? Well tethering is basically hooking up your phone with your laptop/PC and using the phone’s 3G connection, surf the web.
  • Another bit of Apple related news, as crazy as it seems, I thought stupid things like this only happen in Malaysia.
  • Ok, your friend in the US gives you a DVD for your birthday and you realised you can’t play it on your DVD player because of the DVD region. I bet you must be cursing your lucky stars. Well apparently Gordon Brown must have done something similar when Obama gave him a set of DVDs as a gift.
  • Here is a great post on 20 tips for better conference speaking.
  • Check out this site about 5 minutes before lunch, it will definitely help you build an appetite!

Last but not least, there has been so much hype about Earth Hour and all the Earth Hour parties this coming Saturday. Yes I do support the notion of everyone turning off the lights for an hour but I feel that the only way this will make an impact is that if people could take one thing away from this event is that they learn to conserve energy. A simple gesture like turning off lights when there is no one in the room or talking a short walk to your grocery store instead of driving 2 minutes down the road, every little small thing adds up.

Now the funny part about Earth Hour is a question I would definitely like to post up, how much extra energy has already been consumed/used to promote Earth Hour? I see a huge ass billboard with LIGHTS on it running along the highways. So you turn off your lights for an hour, versus the 1 month of electricity usage to power those billboards? The irony of it all right?

My take is, yes, celebrate Earth Hour and turn off your lights. Then go to what ever party that you may be attending consuming your normal amount of electricity powering those huge ass amplifiers and disco lights. But take home a small fact about energy consumption. Remember, turning off the lights for a room overnight is also equivalent to heating up 10,000 cups of tea.

Ok, I totally forgot to blog about this especially since it was held way back in January but hey, I am just a couple of months late. Anyway, back in January, I took a trip over to Kota Kinabalu (which was my very first time!) to attend a photography workshop held by Louis Pang. It was a great opportunity to brush up on my photography skills as well as learn again from a wonderful and talented photographer (he is Malaysia’s most awarded wedding photographer after all). Speaking of awards, I definitely need to start shooting more and sending photos in for competitions, or else how will I ever overtake the number of awards that Louis has! *wink*

Anyway here are some of the photos that I took whilst I was at the workshop. If you definitely want to know more about his workshops, I really encourage you all to participate in them.

shootlikeapro blog 001 Shoot Like A Pro Workshop in KK
The class was split into 3 teams where each team will be guided by coaches as well as have a model to shoot. I think to me, the one thing that stood out differently this time round is that I got a male model!

shootlikeapro blog 004 Shoot Like A Pro Workshop in KK

There was a time where each person would have a quick 1 to 1 shoot with the model for an exact duration of 3 minutes and it was during those times that I took these shots.

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After a classroom style teaching, we moved on to outdoor shooting. Here is Louis teaching us how to shoot with what we have outdoors.

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I have to admit that KK has one of the most beautiful sunsets in Malaysia, just look at how awesome it is!

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Anyway its about time I get back to work and finish post processing photos! I have two shoots tomorrow so I am looking forward to that!

Mark's meaning of Joy

March 19, 2009

The story behind this quick slideshow I made begins a couple weeks ago during the Charge Up Conference. I was one of the coaches during the workshop time for the photography stream and the delegates had to complete a project based on themes. The coaches decided to give the delegates themes based on human expression and the team I was overseeing chose the theme, Joy. What the delegates had to do was to shoot as a team, come out with a story and create a slideshow with the photos they took which depict joy.

How they want to depict “Joy” can be anyway they want. It could have been a story of a person who found joy or even things that bring us joy. The group then proceeded to head to New World in Penang (I am from KL by the way so I was being led around by the Penangites) where they thought might be a good place to take photos and get some interesting shots. So while the group was running about shooting, I decided to take some shots as well of the surroundings.

By the time the delegates had finished shooting, they were busy hustling and bustling through their photos as well as trying to pick the ones to be able to form a proper storyboard. Trust me, it is during these times you wouldn’t want to get into their way. Tension was really building up, it was getting late and everyone was trying to complete it before the showcase tomorrow (the showcase is where each team from the photography stream and video streams show their project work which they completed in just one day).

Anyway, noticing that they were getting tense and nervous as well as trying to overdo the other teams, I quickly put together the photos I shot and produced the slideshow below.

Well I managed to get some of their attention and hopefully, made them feel a little bit more relaxed after that. Thought I would like to share this with everyone as well :)

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