At 10mm, things starting to look rather amazing!

Actually I was more interesting in getting the Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS but Jin was trying to convince me into buying an ultra wide-angle lens first before our Europe trip this coming Spring. After reading what Ken Rockwell has said about the Sigma 10-20mm, I was a bit skeptical at first but after handling and trying on the lens at the Cameraland, I bought it without a second thought! It was indeed a very well-built lens with decent optic and quite a lot cheaper to my original choice, the Canon 10-22mm. What's more, the lens came with a free hood and a well-padded carrying bag for starter! The lens is fairly sharp at 10mm even wide open, CA is very minimal and barrel distortion is well controlled, something that I really hate at the widest end of my Canon 17-85mm. It uses standard 77mm filter.

As for the Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS, well that will have to wait a little longer, may be just before we go to Europe (duty-free)...just may be... :)

Another cup?

Actually in this one I kinda cheated a little bit. Because the coffee grind that I used was not dark enough, I actually dusted my espresso shot with some cocoa powder first before I pour the milk. I quite like the effect and the milk foam actually tastes quite good as well!

For latte art, the rounded base coffee cup supposed to be the best because it allows milk foam to produce better swirls with the coffee shot....well, a decent set of coffee cups is certainly on my shopping list next time :)

My very own Rosetta :)

Well, it might not look like much but it meant a lot to me for the countless practice pours that I have done in the past 2 weeks. I know I still have a very long way to go to make a decent pour but for now, this would do for me :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

p/s: My favourite grind at the moment is the Bin 75 hazelnut from Gloria Jean. It's a very mild roast with a hint of hazelnut, simply superb. And best of all, you can get them is Woolies or Coles!

Have we a match?

Hymm...what do you reckon Wayne? :)

A Wedding

I wonder where the groom was getting all the hair from LOL!

Noisy or Shaky

Recently, I have been told that the iso I used for some of my shots were too high. Well, unless you are a brain surgoen or a guy who sleeps with tripod/monopod, camera shakes as a result of less than ideal shooting situation is always a big hurdle, even with IS/VR activated. Without any sort of image stabilization, I would always try to shoot at shutter speed of at least 1/60, preferably 1/100 or higher to double sure that my day would not be ruined by my shaky hands. I would trade a shaky shot for a noisy one any day and the world is never perfect anyway! But that is just my opinion :)





Lately I have worked a lot with the 50mm f/1.4 and what I have found is with the aperture wide open (1.4-1.8), images produced are very soft with a fair amount of bokeh chromatic abberation. Stopping down to f/2.8 or narrower produces much better results but increases the depth of field for portaiture work. Shooting landscape with the 50mm prime presents a bigger challenge as I found out during our trip to Sydney and Melbourne. During the whole trip, I sticked to my beloved 50mm prime while Jin has the zoom lens. Using f/13 and above produces softer images somehow when viewed at 100%. But of course, these situations vary with different lenses, some expensive zoom lens I believe are pretty sharp wide open but then I will have to save more money to find that out :P

A fun evening with a bunch of old friends

After gobbled up 6 pizzas from out favourite pizza heaven, Little Ceasars in Mundaring, we went for a quick photo session around South Perth. Unfortunately, the sun has set by the time we got there and the dwindling light did not help us at all. As a result of higher iso and the use of flash, the shots turned up very grainy and some, unnaturally exposed. Shooting portait is still very new for both me and Wayne, and a lot still need to be learnt. I guess I am probably better suited for flowers and insects photography lol!

Big car, small on comfort

You would think a big car will be more comfortable on a long journey, well, our rental car during our stay in Eastern States was quite the contrary. I know I know, before you say anything, a big fat Ford Falcon station wagon was indeed an overkill for only 2 of us with a couple of luggage and not truely an environmental friendly to travel I might add. But here is the fact, this big ass car is not the most comfortable way for a long journey and a total shocker around city traffic! The driver's seat lumbar support is way too high for my back and I don't consider myself to be a short person the last time I check. Every time I put my foot on the accelerator, it constantly reminded me that I was driving a fat car because it is just too sluggish given that it has a 4 litre V6 in the bonnet. Last but not least, the gear stick is a tad too far for my liking, luckily it is an automatic. However, I did find one rather pleasant surprise though, despite the engine size, it is actually quite economical to drive....or may be the fuel over there was cheaper at the time :)

Only a life lived for others is worth living

I couldn't even remember what was the last movie I wrote about in my blog. Not that I haven't watched any since then but none of them are really good enough for me to write about. I did come across some horribly bad, ill-conceived movies though, and a few good examples are the Babylon A.D. , Max Payne and The Day the Earth Stood Still - nearly 5 hours of my life wasted because of these three movies!

Well, finally I have a movie that's worth talking about - Ghost Town. Starring British comedian/producer Ricky Gervais as a dentist Dr Bertram Pincus who was discribed by his co-worker as "a f***ing prick", who absolutely loathed human race and had zero social skill. He gained the ability to communicate with the dead after momentarily dying during a blotched colonoscopy. Dr P was forced to mend his anti-social ways when he found himself haunted by ghosts who had unfinished businesses in the living world, including the suave Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), who remains concerned for the future of his attactive but slightly eccentric Egyptologist wife (Tea Leoni). This romantic comedy is a total stand out from those typical romantic "Hugh Grant" style chic flicks.

It's not the type of "laughing out loud" comedy but it was just so brilliantly made! 4.5 stars from me. Big thank you to Karen for recommending this movie :)

p/s for a LOL comedy, you can't go past Death at a Funeral, it's an instant classic!

Amazing pluggin for PS

I discovered a new pluggin for PS last night while surfing through one of my flickr buddy's photostream. It is capable of creating some amazing high quality artwork from a few clicks of your mouse. Check it out if you are interested!