Last Night in Melbourne

As I took the photos below and the one found in Melbourne at Dusk, we were actually waiting for the free City Tram. Based on the brochure it is suppose to operate until 9pm during daylight saving time. However after waiting for more than 15 minutes, it did not arrive. I guess it could be that today is the first day hence it still follows back the old schedule.

Both of us were shivering with cold, sheltering ourselves at the tram station. Only the divider separates us from the cold wind, which was blowing ferociously. I spend the time by trying to take some night shots from both end of the street hoping to get a streak of lights coming from on rushing cars. As the time clicks by with our fingers almost becoming Popsicle, we decided to hop over to the train station to make our way back. That is how we spend our last night in Melbourne…..

Melbourne at Dusk

I have been trying to load photos using blogger but it always return with errors. Too tired to continue after half hour hence loaded a smaller version to Flickr. This picture was taken at Flinders Street Station at around 8.30 pm. This is right after watching the fire spitting “show” at Crown Entertainment. I will try to load some of the better photos once I regain my strength after a long and wonderful 8 days in Melbourne….

DSLR Final Part

FYI, I owned a canon Film SLR in which I used only auto mode and others such as landscape, portrait, night scene only, I have not branch out to the creative zone. So I am still a casual photographer, in other words the green box user. So when I first get my 400D, the first mode I tried is the green box. The result is not as good as I want it to be. Subsequent reads on some forum, it looks like there is some underexposure issue and majority of it, was raised by green box photographer like me.

Due to this I have been comparing the 400D with my Casio Z750 and I find that it could be due to the way the ETTL II of 400D works. Z750 photos was overexpose as compare the slightly under expose of 400D. So that’s where I finally branch out to other modes where I could set the Flash and also exposure compensation. I have took over thousand of pictures, ranging from toys, fruits, haze, my sister, my cupboard, my toilet, flowers and all of this is within the house. I am still not sure if its up to my expectation yet, I guess my Melbourne trip is going to be a testing ground.

I even bought a book on travel photography. I have also been hanging at the 2nd floor of Kinokuniya at KLCC for the past 2 weekends reading up on some photography books. The more I read the more confuse I become. I guess I am not the type of guys that could switch to photography as a career or I am too old. Anyway I still went out and bought myself an Rm2K plus lens, the EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens. Some might ask why EF-S lens, as Full Frame could be the future. I guess price of full frame camera will not drop so drastically. I even bought myself a CLR polarizer filter. I have not taken any photo with it hence I am not sure how good will it be wrapping around my lens and the picture quality.

Actually after struggling and spending time reading up sites after sites, finding ways to take good photos, I felt that the most important point is we should enjoyed it and not worry about the quality of the photos. Just take the camera out, look at the viewfinder and press the button……………

DSLR Part 1

I am in holiday mood, preparing myself to go to Melbourne during this coming DepaRaya Celebration. I have even promoted myself from a Point and Shoot (P&S) Camera user to a Digital SLR hoping to capture some good photos. I have been to some nice places and having good photos to remember of it makes a hell difference. Some might argue that its does not matter as its all in the memory. I would like to share my experience in the process of deciding

As we grow older our memory start to fade away. One day you might think that someone left hand is your wife left hand or even better some 6-foot tall, 40-26-36 blonde in the poster near your bedroom is your wife rather than the lady that sleep beside you with her facial mask on. So the best way to remind us is with a good set of photos. Although some might say as long as the photo is viewable is enough. Maybe my expectation is higher as I do not want to be reminded of a place in which I have been and enjoyed tremendously with the same quality I seen from our daily newspaper or the quality of what you see when we open our window everyday since early of this month, hazy…

Who do not like to open up your photo album or your digital image in your computer and saw a National Geographic photo popping up? Raise your hand or legs or some other thing else that can be raised (For guys only, hahaha)? However sometimes expectation and reality is a total different thing. We are just mere day-to-day nerds who sit and face the idiot screen for hours daily, what do we know about camera? When I decided to jump over, that’s where the headache and nightmare starts. There are 3 brands of Digital SLR Sony, Canon and Nikon to choose from and tons of technical camera jargon that comes my way. The 3 brands I mention falls into the category that I aim for which are at least 10-mega pixels. I am the type who likes resolutions.

Words like spot metering, partial metering, evaluative metering, flash filled, exposure compensation, flash compensation, mirror locked, sharpness, contrast, RGB, SRGB, E TTL II, depth of field and tons more. I guess the problem is we are not rich hence we need to ensure that we buy a good one. Actually I have an after thought, will talk about it at the end.

So after weeks of crawling the net, I have finally decided Canon 400D is the camera to go for. Lets put the $$$ issue aside as I believe although I am not rich but I am the type who is doing quite ok and do not mind to splurge out some blood money to buy something in which I think could enhance or increase my happiness level. So I finally brought it a week ago and I have been playing around with it. Actually if I decide to buy Nikon D80, I do not think I could buy it even I have the money as it seems it has been an elusive camera, most of the stores that I went to say that they do not have any stock.

To be continue....

Landing on New Bangkok International Airport, Suvannabhumi Airport Video

Landing on Suvannabhumi Airport video....

Update on the Coup (thai)

One flickr user with some pictures bee and a blog with the name of 19sep and one in thai called revolution/

Coup in Thai

Started roughly at 10 pm last night. All TV channels slowly being black out and replaced by black screen and finally replaced with a screen announcing the coup. Tanks are all over the city. Refer to 2bangkok for more updated news.

New Bangkok International Airport Transportation Guide (Suvannabhumi Airport)

This End of September I will be going to Bangkok and I am not sure if its fortunate or unfortunate I will be flying to the Bangkok new airport on the same day that it has its grand opening for international flights or full scale commercial service. My wife emails me a nice guide, which has information on public transport. I managed to find it also at 2bangkok.com.

Land of Zorro or Zorroine and Petrol price

We are in heaven. We walked among beings that float on cloud. Ah! This ain’t no cloud, this is haze. Yeap, we are again surrounding by dust particles. I guess the header “When to go” in lonely planet site could probably change to “To visit in the time of Aug to Sept, where you can walk inside ‘clouds’. You can pretend to be Zorro or Zorroine and nobody will care. You are require to wear mask at all times to truly reflect the Zorro Culture”

Since yesterday I have already use my old air filter and open it in full blast in my living area. I could feel my breathing becoming less smooth even I am with my nasal spray. My nasal passage is fill with “gold”, I guess I might need a “gold digger” to dig it out. For those who have no problem with breathing, I guess u might not understand. Each smooth breath is rare as hitting an oil field.

Talking about oil or petrol, I read an article recently; there is a possibility that the high price of petrol could be due to the manipulation of someone. If you do remember in 1997 financial crisis the economy of some South East Asia countries like Thailand. Indonesia and Malaysia almost got wipe out by the currency manipulator. Most countries are now more prudent and have put in place some risk management process in regards to currency fluctuation hence the manipulator would need to find another “item” to grow their money.

Petrol could be the “item” that they are now playing with. Petrol is a commodity hence it opens to manipulator. Hence we might seen or in the area of the “peak” price of petrol. And as always, everything goes up might comes down. Is there a possibility that oil countries will suffer the same fate as those countries during the 1997 financial crisis? There could be a 200x oil crisis…………….

A belated post on World Cup…..

There are some who says watching football is wasting time as all we could see is 22 players kicking and chasing a round thing. When I was young I used to play football along the corridor of my flat. For those who have ever played football, getting the ball past the opponent goalkeeper and in between the post, is a feeling that you could not get from doing any other things. Even if the post is make of 2 tree trunks or slippers strategically position opposite each other, the ommh…you get cannot be describe.

9th July ended the month long of ball kicking. It was won by Italy. What have some of us got as souvenirs on this world cup? Some have panda eyes due to the late nights. Some got Brazil jersey. My wife bought for my sister a set of BTS (Thailand LRT card) of the 11 “pepsi” players.


Below is 2 of the famous one......

Should I? Should I?

3 weeks ago as my wife and I were walking around Mid Valley, we came across a road show on a particular “toy”. I have been dreaming of owning this toy for quite sometime. We have even bought one in Thailand recently. It’s not exactly the same type but its close. I guess before long I will be buying one for my Malaysia home but I have never guess that 3 weeks ago that day is the day that I would splurge my hard earned RM on one.

That day started off with an innocent “look see” altitude until I saw the road show. As I walked into the shop my brain has already started swirling with “should I? should I?”. I asked the particular salesgirl if there is any promotion. She said there is a cash voucher of Rm200. After touching it, viewing it, I walked out from the shop with more “should I? should I?”. As we walked around shopping for others things, my mind continues swirling. Guess what, after many round of “should I? should I?” finally this 32 inch black beauty (on the left) now resides in my bedroom.


What is the different between the 42 inch, 3 LCD projection TV (on the right) and the 32 inch LCD? So far the 32 inch is smaller but it’s sharper. Less “square” was seen when the action is fast. It’s still got the blur effect when you look at it in a close distance. I have hook it up to my notebook it seems quite ok. Hence my verdict is the 32 inch LCD TV is better in terms of picture quality, it just got the extra omph to it.