Posts Tagged ‘Photography’

After it’s inaugural launch a couple of months back, I decided that I needed to send in one of my DSLR bodies to get it’s sensor cleaned. One of the big annoyances I had was that previously, sensor cleaning was a free service which Nikon Malaysia provided but recently since the 1st of February, Nikon has decided to charge for it. Anyway before I head into that bit, I was fairly impressed with the new Nikon Discovery Centre located at Berjaya Times square. A huge difference from the service office located at Menara PKNS at PJ State.

The showcase area wasn’t exactly ginormous or anything but it displayed quite a fair bit of Nikon’s equipment as well as had some 300mm, 400mm and 500mm lens mounted on tripods available to be tested out. I could spy on several taxi drivers sitting by their cars having a smoke and they never suspected a thing. It’s a pity the lenses didn’t reach any of the adjacent buildings but hey, I guess this is one of the few times I ever get to touch one of those huge lenses.

Anyway, back to my purpose of heading to the new centre was to inquire on how long is the current queue it would take to service my cameras which I intend to send them in as well as send in my D700 to have it’s sensor cleaned. Now you must be asking me why would I need to have it cleaned since it had a sensor cleaner in it as well. Well I kept seeing spots in my viewfinder and hence that sort of annoyed the hell out of me.

Upon arrival at the service desk, I was asked to pick a queue number. Now that was a surprise as I was the only person in line. But processes are there for a reason, I know, I implement processes in IT organizations so I do know how effective it might be. The moment I picked the number, it was already my turn so I brought my cameras to the desk and informed the agent that I wanted to have my sensor cleaned and inquired how long it would take to have my cameras serviced.

At that time, she informed me that it could take 7-10 working days so I needed to plan in my time so that I don’t have any shoots at that time and send in my cameras for a thorough servicing. Back to cleaning my sensor, I saw a notice there in regards to the charges and at first I saw a price of RM20 charged. Upon further inspection, I noticed that RM20 was to be charged for cameras which are still under warranty. All I know that, in order to clean the sensor for my D700, it would cost me RM80. That was the price I paid.

Oh well, I guess ever since Nikon has outsourced their services to Futuromic, there has been definitely a lot of good praises about their quality of service. Good things don’t come cheap. Not too annoyed by it, frankly I was glad it took them only 20 minutes to clean it. Now I can really consider getting a sensor cleaner myself and clean my own sensor the next time!

p.s. Even after getting my sensor cleaned, I kept seeing dust in my viewfinder only to find out that the dust is located in the viewfinder and not on my sensor. Just a point to note, the Nikon Center at Berjaya Times square can’t clean the viewfinder and they asked me to go to the Nikon Service Center at PJ State.

Warning, more images to come :)

As a continuation from my previous blog post, after a heavy buffet lunch at Shangri-La (believe me, the food there was so good that it was so difficult not to want to try everything!), we all proceeded with our own individual assignments. Individual means that we split up into various groups and each group consisted of 4 team members. Each team would have a model assigned to them and we had to split our time to photograph the model.

Both Shen and Hafiz were in my group and I was the 3rd person to have a go. Part of our assignment was that we were able to borrow any of the equipment available there. From the image below, you would know that we took an Ezybox softbox with an SB-900 and an external battery pack together with another SB-900. We also made used of our own equipment as well. Since we only had an hour, we had to decide on our location as soon as we could. We had the beautiful Melissa first.

JoeMcNallyWorkshop blog 16 JoeMcnally’s Hot Shoe Diaries Workshop – Part 2Here was Shen attempting his shot with us helping out by carrying the C-Stand

JoeMcNallyWorkshop blog 17 JoeMcnally’s Hot Shoe Diaries Workshop – Part 2This was my attempt within 10 minutes. Wished I had more time to get the lighting set up a little bit more elaborately ;)

After the hour was up, we moved back into the workshop room where we were assigned another model to work with and we again had the usual 15 minutes. Our next model was Shirlyn who was a professional dancer (you can guess that Joe really likes dancers especially if you have read through both “The Moment it Clicks” and “The Hot Shoe Diaries”).

JoeMcNallyWorkshop blog 18 JoeMcnally’s Hot Shoe Diaries Workshop – Part 2
My first attempt to begin with one light first before adding in additional lights. The first idea that came into my mind was to try out a multiple exposure shot but with movement but after consulting Joe, that setup would have taken me more than 15 minutes of my allotted time. I then decided that I would stick with the simple double exposure and the results are shown below.

JoeMcNallyWorkshop blog 19 JoeMcnally’s Hot Shoe Diaries Workshop – Part 2Double exposure, courtesy of a Nikon technology ;)

JoeMcNallyWorkshop blog 20 JoeMcnally’s Hot Shoe Diaries Workshop – Part 2Since I managed to set things up pretty quickly, we then experimented with a few other shots with a simple two lighting system. Again still sticking to small flashes.

JoeMcNallyWorkshop blog 21 JoeMcnally’s Hot Shoe Diaries Workshop – Part 2After the assignments were over, we gathered downstairs for Joe to show us a little bit more of his concept and his ideas and how he actually came up with the shot.

JoeMcNallyWorkshop blog 22 JoeMcnally’s Hot Shoe Diaries Workshop – Part 2Joe took out the big gun for this, the 200mm f/2 lens which is a huge lens and cost a bomb!

JoeMcNallyWorkshop blog 23 JoeMcnally’s Hot Shoe Diaries Workshop – Part 2

After the workshop ended and Joe had to rush over to Business.FM for a radio interview, we quickly had our books signed as well as took photos with Joe.

JoeMcNallyWorkshop blog 24 JoeMcnally’s Hot Shoe Diaries Workshop – Part 2Not forgetting Drew as well :)

JoeMcNallyWorkshop blog 25 JoeMcnally’s Hot Shoe Diaries Workshop – Part 2Ok, I definitely need to lose lots of weight. Totally put on too much recently.

After the workshop, I had to stay back a while for a secret performance practice which was due to be showcased the day after at Joe’s Seminar. This portion was for Louis’ talk on guerrilla lighting. Whilst waiting for Joe to get back from his interview, Ian was toying around playing with his Alien Bees and while he was still setting up his lights, I took this shot of Melissa using available light.

JoeMcNallyWorkshop blog 26 JoeMcnally’s Hot Shoe Diaries Workshop – Part 2After a brief and expensive juice at the cafe, practice started and I somehow managed to spy this guy in the ballroom taking shots of the practice using an unmarked camera. Some say that it could be a Sony Alpha but others might say that its actually a new Canon. I don’t think it was a Nikon because of shape of it but before I start to speculate, we can’t really really tell what camera is that.

JoeMcNallyWorkshop blog 27 JoeMcnally’s Hot Shoe Diaries Workshop – Part 2An unknown person with a Sony Alpha 5D Mk2

JoeMcNallyWorkshop blog 28 JoeMcnally’s Hot Shoe Diaries Workshop – Part 2And of course Johan was assisting out the whole day that after almost 16 hours of carrying light stands and small flashes, it seems that he has really gone bonkers ;)

This was how I spent my birthday this year with those crazy photographers as well as the honour and pleasure of meeting Joe and Drew as well as learning from him. I must practice what I learned so do drop me an email if you are interested in having your personal portraiture done.

I finally gotten around to compile some of the portrait photos I have taken recently, and by recently I mean quite a while back. Anyway it was one of the requirements which Grace gave me and asked me to do which was due in January last month. Well, all I can say that it is always better to be late than never! :D

The slideshow contains some of the portraiture sessions which I shot whether it may be a couple portraiture, to a personal profile image as well as behind the scenes shoot.

p.s. Make sure that the video has fully loaded before playing it to enjoy the full experience

Portrait Collection

Do let me know what you think of the slideshow in the comments section, thanks!

I am sure many of you would have heard about this fantastic landmark situated in New York, off Manhattan Island. What a lot of people might not know about is Ellis Island. When I was traveling around in that region, there were many options to choose from and I always planned that I will head back to New York again in the future.

There are a couple of ways to actually see the Statue of Liberty, you can take a helicopter tour where the Statue would be extremely small. Of course that would cost you quite a fair bit but you get to enjoy the view of New York. If money is of a concern of you, then you can also take the Staten Island Ferry which is free! Only thing is that you need a 300mm lens to get a good view of the Statue of Liberty.

The last option, which was the option I took, was that I bought a City Pass (USD$79) that allows me to go to various tourist attractions around New York at a cheaper rate. The pass provided a tour which visits the Statue of Liberty as well as Ellis Island.

NewYorkPart2 007 Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

Statue of Liberty

NewYorkPart2 008 Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

Above were some of the shots that were taken from the ferry before docking on the island. I was amongst everyone else trying to get a view of the Statue and trust me, there were plenty of people pulling out their cameras and video cameras capturing the spectacular sight of a huge statue before us.

The first thing we did after we landed on the island was to get some lunch and walk around the park enjoying the cool New York breeze. It was a tad bit cold that day (I was wearing shorts at the time!) but it was still bearable thanks to my natural insulation ;)

NewYorkPart2 011 Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

There is also a museum located at the back of the Statue of Liberty but note that the City Pass does not cover the cost of going into the museum nor does it allow you to enter the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately at that time we were there, they hadn’t open the entrance or the section which allowed visitors to climb all the way to the torch of the statue.

NewYorkPart2 010 Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

All we could do was to admire the statue from the base. Of course besides just the statue, there is a gift shop and a restaurant which serves fish and chips.

NewYorkPart2 013 Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

The park was also filled with mini statues of various guys, I think they were the architects who build the statue. I think.

After debarking from Liberty Island, the ferry wouldn’t head back to Manhattan Island but it brings everyone to Ellis Island. Now you might have heard about Ellis Island from one of the popular movies, Hitch, starring Will Smith. In the show, his first date with Sara Melas (played by Eva Mendes) was at Ellis Island. So it was pretty cool to actually walk around the huge museum.

NewYorkPart2 016 Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

There were many tours about including live shows where actors would act out the reenactment of the people who traveled from around the world to head to New York to find a better life.

NewYorkPart2 015 Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

Talking about the number of immigrants, it sort of also reminded me of the old show, Gangs of New York where there were plenty of Irish immigrants in New York at that time.

So if you are in the New York area, these are one of the must go to places.

I was rather lucky to be able to go on two trips to Langkawi in 2009 and both of them were complementary. This time round, I stayed at the Sheraton and I was quite surprised by how nice it looked. Instead of flying using AirAsia, this time we decided on flying by Firefly which was a bit more convenient for me because it flys off from Subang Airport.

Langkawi Day1 001 Staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Langkawi

Langkawi Day1 002 Staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Langkawi

Because they were propeller planes and do not have jet engines, the flight takes longer as compared to Air Asia or MAS flights and the one thing that was quite unbearable for me was that our flight was the very first flight of the day and the airplane was extremely hot and stuffy inside. I was literally sweating bullets throughout the flight and it was the most uncomfortable flight.

Thank God the moment I arrived at Sheraton in Langkawi, the atmosphere was totally different. I was literally blown away by the service we received and the size of the chalet rooms we had.

Langkawi Day1 008 Staying at the Sheraton Hotel in LangkawiThe chalet’s were a little different than usual, it was located a bit of a distant away from the lobby so everytime you needed to go back to the lobby, you can either walk or call a buggy to pick you up. But of course, being a little bit further away from the lobby meant that you get a little bit more privacy and you also get larger rooms.

Langkawi Day1 004 Staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Langkawi

Langkawi Day1 003 Staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Langkawi

Langkawi Day1 005 Staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Langkawi

Langkawi Day1 006 Staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Langkawi

The view outside the chalet was quite nice as well.

Langkawi Day1 007 Staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Langkawi

Langkawi Day1 009 Staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Langkawi

Definitely one of the nicer hotels to be at in Langkawi. If you get the chance, I would definitely recommend staying in Sheraton hotel.

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