D700 Road Test - Deon

I have been looking around for test subjects to try out the Nikon D700 before I had to return to T3 next week. Sheer luck, one of my ballet pianists was also interested in doing a photoshoot. So we arranged the shoot at her house, to photograph her with her musical instrument - the harp.

Deon just got accepted into Melbourne University to study Music. Her primary instrument is piano and secondary instrument is harp. But she loves the harp so much that she's trying to appeal to have it swapped as primary instead.

I shot entirely in D700 NEF (RAW) format, which I sort-of regretted, because I came to realise that my Lightroom 1.4 and Nikon Capture NX do not read and support D700 NEF. Fortunately, Adobe Camera Raw 4.5 can support, so I did a batch convert to JPG before I get on to edit the images in Lightroom. Ironically, the outdated Google Picasa can read D700 uncompressed NEF, albeit not-so-accurate conversion.

I do find that most of my images are over-exposed but looked fine on the D700 LCD monitor. Without proper support for D700 NEF, I had to make do with the lost highlights, and probably re-process when the NEF format is readily convertible.

Here are some of my favourites. Almost all of them are shot above ISO 1600.

Piano Spa 5 by Fred Lin

Many people informed me and congratulated me on the release of Piano Spa 5, which they recently spotted at music stores, but Piano Spa 5 is actually done by Fred Lin, the co-composer for Piano Spa 4. I wasn't able to contribute in time for this release, so Fred agreed to do all 30 tracks in the album. He's now a full-time music producer currently based in China so it's an exciting time for him as he progressively gains recognition in the music industry.

Go grab Piano Spa 5 and enjoy the music!

D700 - Review in progress

I seldom - actually, never - reveal my works in progress online until I complete it. In this case, I cannot contain myself on the exhilaration of testing the Nikon D700. Although it's been a few weeks late since it launched officially in Singapore on 22 July, it's better late than never.

Thanks to T3 Magazine Singapore, I have a chance to try out not just the D700, but also the SB-900 speedlight flash.

D700 is one of those equipment that inspires you creatively, and such inspiration is important to motivate you to create works.

D700 is fatter than D300, and that translates to a more comfortable grip. Last night I was fervently comparing images between both cameras using same lenses. The only major difference is the ISO noise and the image sharpness.

This morning, I was snapping at Mayenne in her playful mood. At ISO6400 and a shutter speed of 1/125 seconds, I didn't miss a frame of her moment.


The only limiting factor is the maximum 5fps: that's even slower than the D300's 6fps. But the D700 compensates with a memory buffer that allows you to shoot at 5fps regardless of the image processing setting you have. 14-bit lossless RAW+JPEG Fine and Active D-lighting enabled, and you still can shoot at full 5fps. Not for D300, it drops to 2.5fps. Bleah.

The SB-900 is equally impressive. It's got a huge flashhead that auto-zooms with your camera zoom setting. It's wheel dial means you can quickly select your desired setting. The only irritating issue is the operation noise: the zoom mechanism is noisy, the wheel clicks when you turn. In other words, it's not ideal to operate the flash in a quiet environment (as if the DSLR mirror slap is not loud enough... sigh).

More detailed review, after I have spend some more time.

National Day 2008

Mayenne celebrates her second National Day.





And the House of Leong does it the n-th time in the annual "Dress-in-Red" BBQ Gathering.

The Dark Knight - finally

After almost 2 weeks of the islandwide theatrical release, I finally watched the Batman sequel, The Dark Knight, today.

I've read so many blogs about how good Heath Ledger is. I felt that his performance is overrated, partly because he didn't hog the screen time a lot. No doubt he portrayed The Joker excellently, but that is what good actors do. In comparison, I would very much prefer this year's Oscar winner for supporting actor, Javier Bardem, in his villain role for "No Country For Old Men", and felt his acting is more impactful, partly because of his extensive screen time.

The plot of The Dark Knight feels a lot like the Die Hard series, where the good guy has to crack riddles or solve dilemmas plotted by the villain in such an inconceivably flawless way.

But I took home another more important lesson that is the soul of the Batman comic's essence. And that is how a futile vigilante struggles in a city of ultimate corrupt to fight crime. Rather than creating a superhero that seems to always save the day at every appearance, Batman deals with real issues about how having a masked vigilante could make things worse, by luring villains like The Joker to unleash their talent to scheme just for pleasure.

The scriptwriter truly captures the essence of the relationship between Batman and Joker, and that they need each other to make their existence meaningful. I felt depressed that there is such a 'hopeless' societal city where being corrupt is the way of life. If I do ever live in this kind of city, I would have moved out long ago. But this is just fiction, a way of storytelling in order to deliver entertainment value, and at the same time teaches us some human values.

I'm not sure how the next Batman can continue to develop this human element. Or it could simply be a "Batman Saves The Day" flick, like what Tim Burton's previous Batman franchise did. Seriously, Tim Burton's version is family-friendly and has its values. Nowadays, it's harder to be good filmmakers because the audience expectations go up exponentially. With all the CGI-effects bombarding the cinematic world, how can you expect producers to make films that thrills audience and yet contains character depth?

Surprisingly, The Dark Knight does that. And it deserves to be on the fastest-grossing film of all time.

A Quote about Praying

I love this quote from the movie "Evan Almighty". This is what Morgan Freeman (as God) said:

If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?

I'm always fascinated about destiny and whatever Higher Being whom some people strongly believe. To give a simple illustration, you might encounter some people who seem to always say things that aren't the most pleasant to hear. But do you wonder why you get to hear these words? Perhaps it was some pre-destined arrangement to forewarn you about some events, or a wake-up call about how you live your life.

Every action you take will indirectly affect someone I stay up late so that I can hear Mayenne's cries and put her to sleep before Angie hears it and gets up from her bed. I spend time capturing and editing photos so that my clients will see themselves good-looking and perhaps boost their confidence in life. I compose piano music and sell them in CD shops so that someone could buy them and play at home and make their newborn baby sleep better, resulting in better sleep for the parents too.

One of the things I've always wanted is to be wealthier. Now I think back and realised that I have been wealthy all my life. I remember a saying from my friend: "If a problem can be solved by money, then it is not a real problem." Although it sounds like some saying from the triad society, it makes perfect sense.

I need a HDB flat when I got married. I get one by getting a HDB loan and paying the mortgage via CPF.

I need a new car when I got my first kid. I get one by paying cash which I saved over the years.

Wealth is all about yourself. Even if you earn $20,000 a month, you might end up paying for the $3m house loan or the $200,000 luxury car or the $5,000 living expenses.

And in fact, I care about how you feel about your wealth, because, who knows, your state of happiness may indirectly affect mine too.

Live happy.

NATAS Travel faire

Today I applied half day to go to NATAS Travel Fair to book a tour package. Angie and I had already decided to head for Hokkaido to check out the beauty (or lack) of North Japan. October is probably not the most scenic time to go: it neither is the flower season nor the Winter season. But Angie wanna go to a temperate country, and I have, as usual, no strong opinions on where we should tour.

We drove to Singapore Expo, and had a hard time finding a parking lot. Never fails to amaze me the number of Singaporeans who don't work during office hours, or apply leave to sign up a tour package in order to utilise more leave.

The more shocking part is yet to come.

We strolled to Hall 4, saw the queue to enter into the travel fair. We followed the queue, and it led us to the end of Hall 6. Anyone who've been to Singapore Expo will know how big the place is. The queue went from the end of Hall4 to the end of Hall 6. Walking alone takes about 5 minutes, letting alone queuing.

We struggled for a moment, and decided to give up on entering the Hall. Fortunately, there was also a Watson Warehouse Sale at Hall 3, so we popped by and bought some stuff. Then we bought a drink at Burger King and sat there for a moment. We saw the queue move quite smoothly and rethought our decision. Then I told her I'd go and queue up, and if I reached where Burger King was within 15 minutes, we'll go into NATAS.

It took me less than 5 to achieve that.

Angie then joined me on the queue.

Then the queue seemed to stop.

(Hmmm...)

After 15 minutes or so, we finally got into the Hall. But more queue to come - admission fee. There were 2 queues: pay by cash or MasterCard. Pay by MasterCard and enjoy $1 off, so we went for the MasterCard queue.

OK finally we're in. We headed straight to the Big Players. First stop, ASA Holidays. We got a queue number and was served after 4 numbers. We found that the 7-day Hokkaido package is actually 4 days at Hokkaido tour and 2 days at Narita. And the package turned out to be over S$2800.

Then we checked out CTC Holidays. The tour itinerary is better, and we get options of a 6D6N by JAL or 7D6N Northwest Airlines. With JAL, we fly on midnight, arrive Narita in the morning, and transfer to Hokkaido. With NW, we fly in the morning, arrive Narita in the afternoon, stay overnight, next day transfer to Hokkaido, thus the additional day. Ironically, NW package is cheaper at below S$2500.

We proceeded to check out SA Tours. We were presented with an itinerary that is generic from Oct to March, and seemed to showcase the Winter season more. Also, the day flight is more expensive than the overnight flight, and the quoted package is about S$2600.

We decided to go for CTC because:
1. It's the cheapest.
2. We liked the itinerary a little better.
3. Our previous Japan tour is also with CTC.
4. The sales guy is an experienced tour leader to Hokkaido which added to the convincing factor.

In order to enjoy freebies from the credit card companies, we paid $4000 for the deposit. Competition among the card companies is tight, but I decided to pay by UOB and got the Philips DVD player. It's not exactly a high-end model, so I really wondered if it's really more expensive than the luggage bag that is redeemable with just $2000. After redeeming it, I then realised that I am not eligible to go for the lucky dip (every $800 spend) once I redeemed the gifts. I walked away wondering if I could have won a better item from the dip. Then again, I was never the kind with luck. Last Sunday I spent enough at Centrepoint to earn a lucky dip and got myself some hair salon discount voucher.

Well I guess the UOB offer is still better than OCBC, which apparently gave away some cooker for a $4000 spend. But I think Citibank's the best: a 3-piece breakfast set consisting of a coffee-maker, toaster and juicer. Looks expensive, though I still prefer the DVD player for its practicality.

Truthfully-speaking, we are not well-prepared for this purchase. On hindsight, we should have done more research on the right places to visit in Hokkaido, as well as comparing the freebies of each credit card companies.

But after all that we had gone through, I'm glad we got ourselves a good deal and will be looking forward to see what Hokkaido has to offer.