Conventions

Was learning some new tricks to give some artistic impression to photos.. There are no hard and fast rules so the outcome isn't always deterministic..

A park in hill country of Sri lanka.. atleast they have a nice park to hang around after school.

Convention is the evil of photography..

Real is not always tasty..

Memories

I got to go for a Malay wedding of a friend.. thanx to saffiya and ina for the invitation. The bride is ina, who i met at the office i did my training. thanx to cheeps for da pic. Well it was a nice experience, quite similar culture as mine with some not so similar stuff.


Kids at this kindergarten we went for some project. we basically did nothing there and wrote some crap for the report.. but i must say da kids were wonderful.. This kid in focus would certainly suit a horror movie.. what do you think ha?

Days to nightS

Time just flies by so fast here.. at the end of the day you realize you haven't done anything.. Everyone's silenced by loads of exams and nothing new happens..

even the small things catch your eyes when nothing else interests you..


A ruined church in Melaka.. remnant of da british rule

Light-rooM

I've been checking out this new software from Adobe called the Lightroom. This they say was developed with the assistance of photographers to suit their needs to adjust photos quickly and do it for large amounts of em.. I got a 30 day version and it's cool..

The most important thing is that it limits the way a photo can be edited so that it won't ruin da pic. In photoshop i must say the control is limit less, but it sometimes destroys the pic if not used properly.. and it may take time to get the right adjustments..
This tool is more stream lined i would say.. give it a try, the interface is awesome!

Here is a screenshot.. does it look cool or what..


It has much less compared to photoshop though.. it doesn't have for example the layer blending, filter effects, gradient map, selective color etc.. This one was coloured a bit in light room and needed photoshop to get the glow/blurry effect..

First 'second' lense..

I bought my first extra lens yesterday and it's a low light lens.. well you can call it a portrait lens as well. It has fixed zoom and because of that they say it's made with finer precision to retain good picture quality. This has been the standard lens for Nikon cameras in the 1970's.

Because of it's large maximum aperture of f/1.8 it can take in a lot of light. Also this produces a very narrow depth of field effect which is good for portraits. The drawback of this with my camera especially is that i can't use the auto focus feature because the D40 doesn't have the auto focus motor built in the camera body. If it was a D80 for example i could use the auto focus feature of this lens. anyway there is a small green light that helps to focus n when i get used to manual focusing, it won't be much of a hassle.
This was near the shop i bought da lens. people window shopping..


Ok this is the lens..

We went dining to this buffet place.. fed up of food in da end. well may be only me..


testing testing..


spooky lights.


'cummon take da pic already.. food awaits!'


There were three bosnina chicks as my frens say.. (i hav no idea why they think they're bosnian but who cares..) they certainly took da attention of the whole place. the other ones didn't come across my view finder.. Apparently they were eating fruits paying money for a buffet which has loads of fried chicken!


The deserted ERL train station in KL-central.


KLIA transit.. wish i could go everywhere on this..

Busy weeks.. atleast not for me

Campus life has nearly ended.. If i don't fail the exams this sem i should be outta here.. nothing interesting happening recently either. Although tomorrow i'm planning to buy a new lense, my first 'second' lense.. sounds odd. hope to have some more fun.. I'll tell about it more when i get it..

I've been seeing this scene below everyday i come back from campus and finally felt like taking a pic. Lights from putrajaya city illuminate the background. Our uni is actually on top of a hill..


It's been circuits all around these days.. people doing projects and i was called to take pics to put in their presentation slides. Although the one below couldn't be put on a presentation as it doesn't have any informative value to it to be honest.. i did take some 'normal' pics for them..

This is how they grow components in a Ferrite pentoxide medium.. the right amount of sunlight helps teh growing process to be completed within a few days. it's much cheaper than to buy new components..


Gave some blue PCB look.. some high end circuitry work..


Assignments call for sleepless nights.. usually only da night before da deadline.. I'm amazed how some people do assignments in one night, which took me around two months! well.. that's MMU..


...and the usual objects that lie around.. create some interesting effects given the right conditions.

First photo assignment

I might just get in to business.. should i start with weddings, funerals.. advertising would be really interesting. well for now i'll just hope no one dies and keep this a hobbie.
One of my friends needed some pics of a housing scheme nearby for their project. Although we couldn't get much as the guard seem to think of the place as some sort of a palace, i got to have a walk around and catch some stuff worth putting here..



I like this one.. i added the sky though.. hehe, has a dull n gloomy look. can rest my eyes on it for a while..

When U hav nowhere else to go..

Do i need to go somewhere or what! i've been stuck here in campus for far too long. Just to break the numbness it was a walk to teh nearby Cyberpark for some pics. My pics are becoming increasingly redundant since recently and i really need to start visiting some interesting places. This isn't really da kind of place i mean.. i need to go far far away, well no chance for now..

Some interesting macro stuff on the way...


A stack of hay near the road. no idea what it's doin there..



A pic of the place 70 years ago.. well they seem to have the construction goin on..


Just before i stepped on and snapped a gas pipe.. U may have seen the news about the fire on paper next day?






There were so many shapes in that building.. i din kno where to point.


The evening light gave some darkness in the water.. or may be i need to clean my lense..



This pic is actually upside down. a reflection on da water..




Was really gettin dark out there and theres no place to eat there.. was starving. Anyway was a good place for a change..

A rewarding sleepless night

Project work was killin me and it was another sleepless night,the day before another deadline.. Yet it was an amazing sight to see sunrise straight through my window.. something i've never seen from my room before. The sun is usually in da back window when i wake up.


I was checking a zoom lense of a friend.. it was a 18 - 135 mm. i'm interested in the 18 - 200 mm which would give alot of zoom as well as not having to switch to a wide angle lense. But i hear it's damn expensive..i'm hoping for the best..
Enough with lenses, i was testing this and these were two friends of mine who appeared nearby. Hope they wouldn't mind me putting this pic. Although it was taken without any thought of composition, looked kinda cool. most of all, they liked the pic too.. hehe.

MerdekA!! fireworks

'Merdeka' in malay means 'Independance' as i've understood.. and it happened to be their 50th anniversary last week, and they sure know how to spend big bucks on fireworks..
I don't mind at all.. the shows were spectacular. It's a fireworks competition of many countries participating and by now, i must say i'm quite fed up of fireworks actually.
Anyhow, this was a great chance to checkout how to capture fireworks from da cam..
Thanks to chath, his personal technique helped alot. It's basically to shoot burst mode and pick the good ones at da end..hehe, seem quite unprofessional doesn't it. we'll it gets the job done.





It wasn't always just pressing da button.. when there were big explosions goin on it was needed to increase shutter to avoid over exposure.. especially the ending was sort of a big bang..



Our plan was to go to putrajaya city center but the roads were packed.. nothing moves. To hell with parking and people have just abandoned their cars and were wondering around for a place to see da fireworks..

We managed to get to the lake area which actually was a good setting with the lake reflecting da fireworks and this island in the middle gave a good base for da pics..








Things were heating up close to the end with bigger ones going off each time..



These huge ones just keep getting bigger and it lasts there for heck of a long time..


The ending left everyone at the park 'owweee' - ing for a while.. right next to me were some creative multimedia students shooting for their assignment.. somehow they sounded less passionate about photography and it was more like, just another assignment for them..



All in all was an amazing moment..