More XP work

Had my camera with me today and chanced upon this scene which I thought would look interesting when cross processed. This is a digital cross process, like the previous post, where the results are warmer and stronger.

Random stuff over CNY

OK and so I'm down to the last day of the new year break, darn, counting down the hours to booking in again. Double darn. Anyway, have just gotten round to processing the photos from the fishing trip, which were terrible(that's what 3 days of no sleep does to you) and also have processed some test shots from my newly acquired 135L, which has a 11-year old vintage but still produces fantastic results. My L disease will not be sated for the moment until I acquire a 28-70L to fill up a small gap in my equipment at the moment(which technically is covered by the 50/1.4, but oh well, more is still more eh?). I've got plans to acquire the full L prime trinity(35/1.4, 85/1.2 and 135/2) by the end of army too, which should be quite a reasonable goal since I'm already a third there, although it is the cheapest of the trio. I'm also missing my 1dII's operation quite a bit, ever since having given it up for the 5d. Why can't the 1dsII be cheaper? Hurhur. Probably will pick up an old 1d or 1ds for those occasions that demand that operational capability, heh, but I'll leave that for the future. Priority for spending after the 28-70 gets into my dry box is bike lessons and subsequently a bike. Yea! Finally can get my own transport.

Anyhow, the fishing trip was a real bummer, with almost no one coming, despite the strong interest expressed back in camp. We basically got 2 bites in 8 hours anyway, totally pathetic. We did catch a few crabs though, but unfortunately they were about the size of our palm at best and probably weren't really worth eating. We threw them back, fortunately for them, mainly because we were too tired to deal with the hassle of bringing them back home.

Here are some very poorly taken images, with my brain off. Oh well.

Reagan with our best catch. Which was more fun to play with than to catch. Hurhur


The three surviving musketeers.


Crabby's hilarious pose.


And our CNY catch. Don't laugh, please...


Ok and here are the 135L test results, shot at Han's CNY party. I think I should have used it when we were playing Taboo, but it only occured to me later. Damn you, lack of sleep! The IQ is really impeccable, but it kinda looks like the output from my magic drainpipe and I wonder if I should have bought it. At least it's f2! Heh. The output's great at f2 and the DOF is razor thin, demanding careful and judicious usage. Beautiful resolution and bokeh, as can be seen from these wide open images(ok you can't really see since the images are so small, but go buy it, you won't be dissapointed).

Cho, looking gay. Glorious bokeh


A rare shot of the han brothers together. shallow DOF rendered meatloaf han OOF, though just barely at this distance.

Enjoying the CNY break

Ok so I'm really really enjoying the absence of sandflies, tekkaning, camo cream and such over this 4 days and 4 nights. What a great book out! Strangely enough, I sleep on average about 3 hours a day but my body automatically wakes up at 8 or so at the very latest. I felt dead tired this morning and thought I would seriously need to sleep in the afternoon but as the day progressed, the tiredness seemed to slip away. I hope I'll still be fresh while fishing tonight to get some great photos of my section mates and the fishing trip. Hurhur. Back to feeding the mosquitoes, but at least it's on our own terms now and we'll have fun doing it! Damn, I can't wait to ORD; funny considering I haven't even POPed! Anyhow, decided not to sign on with the navy because they told me flat out my photography would have to take a back seat, so um ya, it's down to air force or no command school at all right now, since I really dont relish army life at all, nor do I see any joy in becoming an officer commissioned by Nathan. I don't think it makes you a better person, just a more busy one. Anyhow, given the joy my new toys(the 16-35L, 80-200L and incoming 28-70 and 135L) have been giving me will probably make me want to go shooting again and again! I'm infected with the L-virus, sigh.

I probably won't be putting up any long blog posts for quite a while more, and most will definitely be short ones like these, since I'd rather do a multitude of other things rather than writing about myself; like photograph for example. If you still need any lovely photo advice, I'd be happy to provide specific tips to solve any imaging problem you can throw at me, but I probably will not be continuing with the PIME articles, since they take about 2 hours each to write. You all know how to get me, so do so, 24 hour hotline guaranteed, except when I'm in camp. Hurhur. Please leave 1 week for information turn around if you email.

Was just fiddling with cross processing this morning, and cross processed the picture of Joce I took the other day, so now the pic has more mojo. Digital cross processing attempts to emulate what I did with my slides for the lomo project, process them in c41 as opposed to E6, giving you highly saturated off-colour images, which may add to, or destroy the photo. Here's the result. You can actually get actions for this online if you have photoshop, making the process much more simple. Of course, the most pretty results are achieved manually, but normally I just use a do-it-all action. Mail me if you wanna know more.

Selected images from the SSS V Day Fashion show

Ok so I wasn't slated to cover the show, nor was I intending to, but since I had my camera with me, I decided it was a good time to field test the 100/2, so yup popped off a few shots. Forgot that I haven't processed these yet, so pushing them up before I go out.

Gavin and his toys


Who would've thought you'd ever see Cherlyn being photographed on a runway? You can barely get her to take a photo on her birthday.


A random event in the show. For posterity.


Joan, who looks great in a wedding gown. I am so gonna photograph her wedding.


Claire


Now retired YAG alumni Aunty Suit Chee, throwing caution to the wind.


Ok that's it, didn't shoot much so not much to share. Ciao, I'm off.

OK, so I don't work well in crowds

With little space to maneuver and get great angles, had a really tough time producing anything decent from the Chinatown trip where I was hoping to test my magic drainpipe properly by helping Joce with her art project. Unfortunately, we couldn't locate any drunkards for the new year; they were probably scared off by the insane crowd. Wasn't really happy with anything I shot except for an accidental picture of kumquats, which I strangely like, and a picture of Joce in glasses. Pretty much everything else I shot was trash, but for the sake of a blog post, which I struggle to put up these days, here are some images. Hopefully, the fishing trip on Sun will yield better results.

In no particular order, and since I'm rushing to go out for new year shopping, and since I only slept 2 hours last night and don't feel like writing much, here are the images, randomly posted.

This guy can talk continuously without breathing. He should do Kar Mun's mono.


Random festivities


One of my favourite sausage places in Singapore, Wurstelstand. The other one I really love is in Plaza Sing basement, but I can't remember what it's called. Go on weekdays, he'll serve you with a smile.


The photo of Joce, so cute! Hurhurhur.


And the odd photo of kumquats I liked.


Here's an interesting stall with pretty good satay, although the sign says not satay. The meat is pretty soft and succulent, with good flavour. They even have their own jingle and the dude in red sings it too. Worth taking a look at when you're next in chinatown.




A random image of a street vendor.


I think basically the problem is, I'm out of practice.

Ivan's 21st

My blog has been dry for a long long long time now because of frigging NS, where I have totally no time to shoot and it sucks hard. I recently acquired some great glass about several weeks back but really had no time to use it at all in a good field test. Ivan's 21st seemed like the perfect opportunity to use the 16-35 and the 80-200 that I bought, but after some deliberation, I decided against bringing the both the lenses and only brought the 16-35 as I felt I would probably get to test it more and a wide would be more useful than a tele for the party. I had some misgivings about the 16-35, since there were a lot of rumours about the quality issues for pre-2005 models, but I must say that the results did not let me down. The lighting was difficult, but the 16-35 still produced pretty good colour, contrast, and sharpness wide open. Could I have gotten it sharper and more contrasty? Yes, stopped down maybe one or two, but I was also testing the lens' capabilities so I kept it wide open all the way. I also tested the famous low noise capability of the new 5d I've acquired, and it's magnificent to say the least. The IQ that comes of the camera is very high, which shows up nicely on the gargantuan 2.5" LCD, a welcome change from the 1.8" one i used to have on my mark II and certainly much better than the 1.5" puny one on my 350d. Could I have made the shots better with a flash? Yes yes, of course! The flash would have been a highly suitable tool for the event that would have dramatically improved several images. Did I have my flash in the bag? Yes, but I was also field testing the 5d, so I pushed it to it's limits by shooting at the expanded ISO 3200. The verdict is it looks great, but I'm still unused to the 5d interface and I often missed quite a number of shots. The AF tracking of the 5d is also nowhere near as fast and accurate as the 1dII I'm used to; the af was unable to get a lock on a number of occasions. However, I constantly reminded myself that I switched in order to do more landscapes and less events, and so yep, I've been spoiled by the MKII's interface, and so now I'm going to learn how to do more with less. I've still made a resolution to get another 1-series when I start working proper jobs again though, I think it seriously makes a difference. Hurhur.

Anyway, enough crap, here are the images! Not that great I know, but hey, it's my first outing with my new buddy, plus I've not been shooting for quite some time so I'm a little out of touch =). The party had fantastic Indian food, please introduce me to the caterer. The prata was to die for, I'm going to look for that "The Prata Place" outlet. Ok everyone got dunked, except me, cos I was really really against going in and fought for my life. Jamie's phone proved itself to be waterproof to some extent. Lol.

One of my favourite images of the party, CBCHO after getting dunked. damn I love the 16mm perspective.


Ivan dunking CBcho.


The guys, JC was there too! Joshua, Ian, JC, Jamie(from left)


Jamie and Deb, where my lens managed to resolve the pores. Hurrah! Jamie ruined this nice photo of course. Don't worry, I'll do another set for the both of you sometime.


Jamie and Ivan, the birthday boy.


Ian and Nicky, both very wet from getting dunked.


A group photo of all of the guys in the pool. I pity the owner


Ian, Slain


Joshua, about to be slain. Panning technique was off, but oh well.


One of Ivan's friends from perth, getting raped.


And the photo I loved most, although it's an abstract of sorts. Reminds me of lomo rubbish I like to take. Hurhur.


Ok am off to church now. Tata.