Some recent update

I knew I've been not maintaining my English blog. Blame to the work load that come to me. After moving back to Penang from KL, I lost most of my free time I used to have when I was in KL. From 5 days work per week to 6 days work per week, from nothing to do in the office back then to a practically no rest working hours, I have no much time for me to think of blogging.

Once in a blink of my mind, I wanted to stop blogging, that includes my Chinese blog.

Of course I don't wish to stop blogging. Just I might take out some time to write a post in my blogs.

So, what I am up to these days ?

I Mac myself. LOL.

Not a new one of course. I bought this 1 year old MacBook Pro from a friend of mine who he wished to upgrade to iMac. I was exited with my first ever Mac. Been using it for a month and am surprise to see how fast it turn on and turn off when compare to my brand new Dell Inspirion desktop. This Mac is just a 2 core Intel processor, where my Dell desktop is running on i5 processor.

However, Mac isn't that Godlike after all, it do hang occasionally. LOL. Look like bite an apple a day not always kick a windoz away. :p

And blogging with Mac is a headache for a windoz guy like me. I find the HTML codes from Safari browser is not understandable with extra lines and extra commands. Look like a Mac machine isn't that friendly anyway.

My son is 2 years old now, and he started to speak more words. He could already speak out a simple sentence in object-verb-subject format. He has learned lots of things from the adults by just observing what we do and what we speak. And he likes been photographed.

My soft box DIY project has been put on halt although I've drawn out the plan and the materials are ready. One word : lazy. LOL

Anything else to update? No. As my life isn't that interesting after all. LOL.

Jupiter and its moons.

Jupiter is the closet to Earth from 18th September till 24th September. It can be easily been spotted by naked eye. If someone has a binoculars or a small telescope, Jupiter's 4 Galilean Moons can be seen easily.

I shouldn't missed this great opportunity to photograph Jupiter with my own camera and lens. 400mm super zoom lens is good enough to photograph this giant gaseous planet and its moons with ease. The distance between Jupiter and Earth is shortest on 21st September 2010, but the weather is not that encouraging; raining whole day long, and even when the rain stops, thin layer of cloud is still overcast the heaven. However, being the next brightness object in the sky after the Moon, the cloud could not stop the light from Jupiter creeping through.

There was a small period of time when the cloud is thinnest and the rain stop at night, and the light pollution was minimal I could point my camera to the heaven to witness my very first time, to see the King of Planets of the Solar System. Quite disappointing to see through my 400mm lens that what I saw was only a small white dot, not quite I imagined as a clear picture of Jupiter with its red spot. Although disappointed, I continued my will of photographing Jupiter and let the camera do the job of capturing the light from heaven. To my surprised, not only Jupiter is enlarged in the photo from a small dot to a decent size, 4 of its 63 moons can be easily seen on LCD of my camera ! :D

What setting do I need? High ISO, big aperture and long exposure. Shutter speed less than 1 sec is ideal so not to encourage "star trail". Hence, high ISO and big aperture would compensate the limitation of the shutter speed. Closing down the aperture with provide a star flare effect.

Jupiter could still be seen by naked eye till October. This is my hope that the weather condition would be promising for astro-photography.

Baby Ver 2.0

Three years ago, we got married.

Two years ago, he came and joined us.

And she will join us in a few months.

Welcome, Baby Ver 2.0. :D

Camwhoring again....

Camwhoring again ! LOL
I think I need one extensive face-beauty treatment.
I believe only a high air pressure sander would smooth-en my face. >.<

The Universe is in my hands !

..... not quite, and not yet.


Two months ago, I discovered this interesting magazine in a book store, it's "Built A Model Solar System". I said to myself:"Wow, how cool is that! We can actually built a model of our Solar System !" With all the gears, mechanisms, calculations, moving parts etc etc and it's so engineering !

The magazine talks about our Solar system: Sun, planets, moons, asteroids etc etc. Printed in high quality glossy paper, and printed in the UK, I find this is very educational.

Without much thought, I purchased the first issue. Inside the first issue, there is a form stated if I subscribed this magazine through the publisher, I could get some free gifts and also a free next issue. With no hesitation, I faxed in the form, and waited happily for the magazine send to come.

Few weeks later, I received a parcel from them, and yes, I got one free gift (which is a holding file so I could keep all my magazines in this file) and two books with some parts of the model I am going to built.

Not bad, huh ! And the "Sun" is actually made of bronze! I can feel the weight ! :D

Months has passed, and I should be building up my model, right? No, I am not. Why ? Because I haven't receive any magazine from the publisher since last month. LOL.

I think the respond of getting the magazine is not so great and the publisher decided not to continue sending out their magazine. Even now I couldn't find the latest issue in bookstore.

I guess I have to stop dreaming building my own solar system then. :(

Or I should optimistic enough to assume that the publisher would actually accumulate some issues before sending it out to us.

Let's wait and see. I do hope I could continue this project. My hands are getting itchy, I need things to do !!!

Stamps

Stamps for sale.
Anyone?

From Macro to Infinity ~!

These two lenses occupied my almost empty drybox few weeks ago, and I am now no longer limit myself on shooting normal zoom range. Now I can go macro with Sigma 50mm F2.8 Macro, and go extreme tele with Sigma 400mm F5.6. Thanks to my 2nd elder brother who is now in UK who brought back these two lenses for me. He used to speak Minoltan, but now he speak Canonian. These lenses technically can't understand what his Canon camera body tell, hence he better send it over to M'sia and let his youngest brother's Sony body talk to them.

Sony camera speaks Minoltan, anyway.

Shooting into sky with long lens is not new to me. I've done it before, and I've shot moon pictures numerous times. But macro photography is a total new thing to me. Never try, never know that macro photography really takes out much attention and patient to do so. Again, although I had done this many many time, I salute you guys who has the patient and attention in macro photography.



This is my very first macro photos from a true 1:1 macro lens. These ants basically stay there, hence I could able to go near them without disturbing their routine life. A flash was placed on camera left slightly behind the ends at level 1/32, triggered via Sony on-body flash commander.

Although it's a 1:1 macro lens, still I need to crop my photos. Is that normal?

I admit I got hooked by macro-ing now. I am really a little late to do macro-ing, but hey, is there a age limit for learning? No, right ?


I have no idea what is this thing, but it's motionless while I was taking its photos. Some body told me it's a larvae of a ladybird.....

Anyway, plant portrait is much much much easier than insects!! At least they don't move, if there is no air movement. :D

I think I like macro-ing as well. :D