Playing with lights

I am not really a big fan of flash photography, the reason I am saying that is probably because I totally suck at it, and I am. Last night I decided to get two of my flash guns and experimented on Jin in our lounge room. The first one was placed slightly to the right about a meter behind Jin and the second one was pointed towards a wall on her left. I quite like the results :) The three shots below were taken with 3 different flash ratios. I think I am starting to like it! Time to hunt for a bunch of PocketWizards lol!

Welcoming the Little Brother

Finally, this little brother of Canon has joined our ever growing Canon family. At first glance, the G11 definitely does not look like a typical point-and-shoot (pns) camera. With metal and composite construction, it is also much heavier than most typical 5x compact cameras out there, and the built quality is excellent. There are plenty of controls on top of the camera and I think the most useful one being the ISO dial. Comparing to G10, G11 still sports the same sensor size but with reduced resolution in order to improve image noise control. As this is the very first G-series compact I have ever own, I am unable to provide you with any comparison between them but from what I read online, it certainly works in favor of G11. Jin will bring this little baby for a test drive later and hopefully able to come back with some sample images to post.

From my brief experience with it last night, the only fault that I can find with the G11 is the tiny little viewfinder at the top. The VF is too small for my liking and I find it really hard to compose images through it.

Copyright of humans

Well, this is the second day of my do-nothing week, a break from my otherwise stress ridden, life-degrading and boring work life. Well, not exactly do-nothing as such, I did go out and do some grocery shopping, mowed the lawn and cleaned up my front garden this morning before the weather got too hot. Tomorrow unfortunately need to go back to work for a few hours in the afternoon but I am really looking forward to the dinner with a few friends coming over tomorrow night.

Now where were we....oh yes, for those of you who love taking photos of people in the street, or anywhere for that matter, have you ever wonder about your rights as a photographer? Have you ever wonder your action of taking photos of people (or buildings, statues or display of arts such as the sculpture by the sea) infringes any copyrights at all?

Well, I have been asked a few times because of my itchy trigger finger and I have also been told off a few times for doing just that. Well, I have done lots of reading this afternoon and I am glad to find out it is indeed perfectly legal to photograph anyone, with or without their consent (within certain limitations of course) in Australia, under the current Australian laws. Better reading here. However, in a few countries like France, publication of unauthorized photos (including on personal blogs/websites) is strictly prohibited although candid shots in public areas are not illegal.

Photography is not (yet) a crime!

The Blind Side

I am not really a fan for drama but this movie is both intriguing and inspiring! The film is based on the earlier real life story of Michael Oher, who is a current NFL player playing for the Baltimore Ravens. Michael (The Big Mike) came from an impoverished family of 12 siblings and he was separated from her drug addicted mother since he was young. Since then, he moved from one foster family to another until he met Leigh Anne (Sandra Bullock) and Sean Tuohy (Tim McGraw) on one cold night. Leigh Anne realized that Michael was homeless and was shivering in the cold weather, she decided to invite him to stay at their house. Slowly, Michael became part of Tuohy's family and their children love him.

Because of Mike's huge stature and gigantic strength, he is particularly suited to play American football and soon, he captured the attention of coaches from around the states. However, to in order to receive the NCAA scholarship, he needed to achieve 2.5GPA (I have no idea what it means but probably equivalent to TEE in Australia) but his GPA was too low at the time. Hence, Leigh Anne hired a private tutor to teach him at home and soon, all the teachers at the school were trying to help him out as well.

This one of the best "feel good" movies I have ever watched and it is probably Sandra's best!

The Goose

Went down to Busselton for the long weekend and it turned out to be the perfect break just as we wanted albeit a really short one. We have passed through this tiny town numerous times in the past but we have never stopped overnight. As expected, most accommodations were fully booked for the long weekend but we were lucky to find a great motel room vacant near the beach. Unfortunately, we didn't take many photos as initially planned, partly due to the unusually hot weather I guess. This morning, we went to The Goose by the beach for some breakfast and what can I say, the photos speak for themselves! They were delicious and servings were rather generous too. I had the "Big Breakfast" and Jin had French toasts with grilled banana and bacon. MMMM :))

Epson Stylus R2880

I have been looking at larger format photo printers for sometime now. Honestly speaking, the inkjet printer technology has advanced tremendously since I bought my last Canon S750, which was about, well.....8 years ago :) But I can vaguely remember that it was not a cheap A4 size printer and considering how much I paid for it, the print quality was a bit disappointing even at the time. Nowadays, you can grab a better one from Harvey Norman for as little as the price you pay for a large pizza down at your local pizzeria.

From weeks of reading reviews, I have narrowed down my choices to only 3 printers; Canon PIXMA Pro9500 MarkII, Epson Stylus 1410 and Epson R2880. Epson Stylus 1410 is an dye-ink based printer whereas the other two use pigment-ink, and also is the cheapest among them. At the end, I settled for the Epson R2880 as it is the only printer that takes roll paper for panoramic printing. This is also the main reason why I chose the Epson over Canon, even though Canon is a newer model for the same price.

After picking up the printer and a 9.8m roll of A3+ glacier photo satin 300gsm paper from PRA Imaging in Northbridge this afternoon, I spent the rest of the day playing with it and managed couple of prints along the way. The print quality is astonishing and is almost as perfect as those from your local photo lab! The biggest problem with this printer the capacity of the cartridges, sadly, the printer has grown in size but the cartridges are smaller than those in my S750 :) Well, with nine of those bleeding, I got a feeling we will definitely end up spending much more in ink cartridges than the $1325 initially paid for this printer!

Just for fun

While waiting for the sunset, I found the shooter in front of us rather....entertaining :)

Sign Your Life Away!

By the way, kimtojin has got a new PhotoBlog! :)

Now back to the business side, talking about complaining, incidentally, I do have something to write about today. Last week at work, I received a much unanticipated phone call from the Department of Immigration regarding a statutory declaration which I have witnessed about a year ago. The person at the other end was identified as an investigator who works for the department. He refused to clarify the nature of the investigation over the phone and instead, wanted to discuss the issue with me personally. With much anxiety and confusion, I waited for him on Monday at work. He finally showed up in the morning, when we were flat out with customers and I was inundated with prescriptions. "He couldn't have picked a better time" I said to myself. I went to the semi-secluded backroom with the two investigators, I was interrogated like I have done something seriously "dodgy" and of course, the whole conversation was recorded as well.

The problem was I might have witnessed an alleged false declaration and the signature on the paper was suspected not to be that of the declarant! I must say, I did witness every declarant signs off their declaration in front of me and I thought I was doing the right thing. He pulled out a copy of the declaration in question and placed in front of me and said, "Do you still remember who the person was?" Yea...like I remember what I signed off yesterday!

He pulled out another two pieces of paper stating my responsibilities as a witness and gave them to me. In a nutshell, apparently each time, I suppose to check what their are declaring and double check with them to make sure they understand what they are declaring?? ....and demand a photo ID with their usual signature to make sure that the declarant is not putting false signature on or something. It's also prudent for a witness to check that the statutory declaration does not contain any blanks and all information is completed! Of course, this doesn't prevent them from adding extras at home after it has been witnessed right??

What a lot of rubbish and a totally bonkers if you ask me! ...and all these trouble for performing a free service to the public? Next time I am going to start charging at least $5/signature!

We are now dumber thanks to our brilliant privacy laws

While we all care about our privacy and right, but if a person commit a serious crime or crimes, logically I would think that he or she has decided to relinquish all the rights to live as a normal person. But no!! Don't worry criminals, in Australia, we take good care of you and we punish those victimised by you!

This morning I woke up to the news that a convicted pedophile and child rapist has apparently escaped from a high security prison in Victoria. However due to privacy law, the authority is banned from using a electronic GPS device installed on him to track down his whereabouts. Now that dangerous low-life could be anywhere as we speak, I think we are all made dumber by our ridiculously outdated laws!!

LINK

Avatar

I can tell you right now, there is no better movie to wrap up 2009 then this blockbuster movie from James Cameron - Avatar!

You know when you go to watch a movie that is all hyped up, where almost everyone; critics or critics-wannabe alike, all said it's a bloody good movie, quite often you will leave the movie in disappointment because of your high expectation for it. Fortunately, this is not the case, James Cameron delivers a movie that is both original and spellbinding. If you haven't already watch this movie, do yourself a favor, go to watch it in 3d and your eyes will thank you for it. So stop reading this spoiler and get your butt into the movie!

Avatar is set in the year 2154 and takes place on a moon-like planet called Pandora where humans or rather, "evil" RDA corporation trying to mine a precious mineral. The only problem is, na'vi, a clan of feline-looking native humanoids is in their way and they are refusing to move. The science division of RDA, headed by Grace (Sigourney Weaver) created avatars, genetically engineered human-na'vi hybrids, to study the mysterious tribe. Jake (Sam Worthington) is recruited to replace his murdered twin brother and take the role of an avatar to infiltrate the na'vi. While studying them, Sam slowly falls in love with the princess of the na'vi clan, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). The story takes you through one of the most engaging and beautiful journey of Jake and Neytiri, and how they eventually fall in love.

However, when Jake fails to convince the clan to move away from their Hometree, where the greatest deposit of the precious mineral is, all hell breaks loose. The human forces, headed by Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) starts to attack the Hometree and killing many na'vis along the way. Jake takes the na'vi side and starts to lead the na'vi to counter attack the humans. The main story is very simple and it reminds me of the movies like The Last Samurai. However, all the characters are so brilliant portrayed in the movie and they are so engaging...yes, did I mention engaging? ....emotionally engaging...it's simply beautiful! Although the movie has its sad bits but do not worry, na'vis believe in fairytale and the ending is a fairytale ending too :)

I give it a 4.9 out of 5! I hope James Cameron will continue to make the two sequels he promises lol!