Updating

So, the iOS 8.2 update was out tonight. And with that, you would be able to connect the iPhone to the upcoming Apple Watch at the tap of a button. And no, I have yet to own the Watch.

Anita on the other hand had been fascinated by the gold MacBook. Looked slick according to her, until I pointed out that the connections in and out of the thing would be tricky and proprietary. But I supposed she only need the port for charging.

As for the update itself, it was rather a big one. Around 2.2GB on my Mac Pro. I used that instead to save time rather than over the air. Thankfully there was no glitch so far as I would be on call tomorrow.

Events Added

Shame that I had a full clinic planned tomorrow morning - and not to mention a couple of important meetings to boot. It was just past 10am now, and I thought I should just quickly go to bed for a nap and wake up at around 1 am. Apple had an announcement to make, and I guess it would be about Apple Watch.

But there were a few other products needed refreshing. So, I would imagine that it would be interesting event, something which may be worth waiting for. And then there was a small matter of FA Cup Quarter Final between United and Arsenal. That would kick-off an hour after the Apple event finished!

How I wished I had taken tomorrow off .....

Back with the Cron

After taking the new zoom for a couple of spin, it became very clear that I should stick to primes for photowalks. Zooms were good for the family outings and general use, but for my own snaps, definitely prime lenses were the way forward.

I just was not impressed with the new zoom despite it being top of the line. And I don't think it was the fault of the lens per se. It was more of a personal choice and the fact that I had been spoilt by the quality of the Leica lens I had with me.

So, to prove the point that I still possess some photography mojo, I went for a quick walk around Bukit Bintang last Sunday. With me came the Sony Alpha 7 mark II with the Leica Summicron-M 50mm through an adaptor of course.

The result? Stunning photos. Definitely the lens - and the fact that the Sony was full-frame made a major difference. The colour rendition was a lot better and I don't mind the manual focusing. It took a bit longer to get the snaps, but I was a lot happier with the setup.

The main difference was the micro-contrast on the lens. The Leica had them in abundance. I would still use the zoom, but only when the need arise. For my usual walk-about, the Alpha 7 and Cron combination looked to be with me for a while.

The New Zoom

For the last few months, I have been stricter on my Thursdays. That's the only day when I have no clinics, and I have decided to devote the day for 'me' time. Yes, there were the occasional lunch meetings, or even worse, the ones which started at 5pm, but I would try to keep those to the minimum. I also tried to keep distractions to the minimum on those days and would stay away from the hospital as much as I could.

I was lucky last Thursday, when I was able to have lunch with Anita as well as took a new zoom I got last weekend for a bit of a spin.

It was a Fujinon on the X-T1 and I have been waiting for this lens for a good part of a year. The original announcement was made at the beginning of 2014 about a new pro-level standard zoom for the Fuji X-series. So, I ordered one in and was contacted by my usual dealer last week. It was the Fujinon XF 16-55mm 1:2.8. And it was a monster.

A much bigger lens than I thought, which was a surprise as it didn't carry an image stabilising motor on it. Using it on the X-T1 took some getting use to, and I had high hopes for the output.

It focused amazingly fast and accurately, and the results out opened was pretty sharp. But I had a problem. Since the beginning of the year, my main system had been the Sony A7 mark with Leica lenses. They were primes of course, and once you used the Leicas, nothing else came near them in terms of sharpness.

Although I understood the quality and the convenience of autofocus, the X-T1 with the new zoom was not the most mobile of setup. It was like carrying my EOS 7D with the 17-55 f2.8 zoom all over again. Although I must be honest, that the results from the Fujinon in terms of colour rendition and sharpness were much better.

I may take the combo for another spin this weekend, but my initial impression was somewhat flat. I was expecting a bit more. Maybe the Leica lens were poison! I am willing to give it another go though, and hopefully find a bit more joy. I will be posting more on the Fuji and Sony comparisons later ....

Droning Around

One of my colleague at work had a drone a few months back and had uploaded footage from the device. Looked pretty fun and the main issue he had was the flying time. The drones really eat up the batteries and if it took a couple of hours to charge for a 10 minutes flying time, it was hardly worth it.

So, I initially bought a small drone just to familiarise with the idea. A couple of hours charge, with only around 6 minutes flying time. With no extra battery unit to boot. Not exactly a great deal, but it got us started. And it only had a lame camera attached to it.

After a couple of sessions, Idlan and I decided to go for an upgrade. And oh boy! Upgrade we sure did.

We bought ourselves the Parrot AR.Drone 2.0. Power edition, which came with a couple of high capacity batteries, which would last easily half an hour of flying. And it captured images at 720p, beamed directly and recorded onto the iPad which we used to control it with.

It took some getting used to, but it worked better than the first drone. It cost a fair amount as well. But if we were to do some droning, might as well go for the proper one.

Would I recommend the drone to people? Well it depends if you wanted it or not in the first place, and if you have money to spend. It certainly was not cheap but if you were willing to invest, this would be the best value for money.

Hopefully I could spend some more time flying it as we only managed to fly it at the apartment compound so far. We might just bring it to a park in town but I was sure it would attract some attention. At least we should be able to get some decent footage ....