The New Zoom

I have a few zooms for my Canon DSLR. They were good, but when it comes to image quality, you just couldn't beat a prime. Another advantage of prime was the fact that you could get a fast wide aperture.

My favorite lens for the EOS 7D was the 50mm f1.4. But this being an APS-C camera, you would get an 80mm perspective with this lens. That's good if you plan to do portrait. But a pain to get architecture snaps. The 35mm f1.4 for Canon was just too expensive and heavy. But lately, Sigma and other third-party lens maker had come up with some gem of lenses.

But still, fast prime lens could still be bulky and limiting.

Then I discovered the X100. A small compact but with a 35mm f2.0 lens. I fell in love with Fuji ever since. I just love the palate of the jpg coming off the lens. After all, they had been the premier maker of film negatives before the digital age. They would know a thing or two about colour rendering I was sure.

Then the X-Pro 1 was released. Now I have also added on the X-T1. But the main attraction for me as far as the Fuji lineup was concerned was the selection of lens. More specifically the primes.

Despite their spec, they were highly portable. Now, I have 4 primes in the line-up. I have the 35mm f1.4 to start with - equivalent to 50mm in full frame term - then I added on the 18mm f2.0 which cover my favorite focal length, the magic 28mm. Shane Shame that the lens wasn't the sharpest.

Next came the much anticipated 23mm f1.4 - a 35mm equivalent.

Right around the release of this lens, I heard the announcement of more lenses on the pipeline. 4 lens caught my fancy. Fuji would be releasing a fast portrait lens, the 56mm f1.2, a wide angle zoom the 10-24mm f4 with OIS, the standard zoom 16-55mm f2.8 and the tele-zoom 50-140mm f2.8. The last two only coming out later this year or early 2015.

I bought the 56mm a couple of months ago and that was permanently attached to the X-T1 lately to compliment the GR which covered the 28mm perspective. The 56mm was very sharp even wide open at 1.2 at the risk of making the depth of field too narrow for comfort.

The recent walk in Pudu convinced me that I should explore the wide angle perspective even more. The idea of owning the 10-24mm zoom didn't seem too bad after all. A quick phone call to my usual dealer soon sorted that out. I picked up the lens last week.

I only managed a single outing with the zoom so far. It was at Pavilion in harsh early afternoon sunlight. And the contrast made me jump when in uploaded the snaps onto Aperture. I had to tone down the contrast, and despite being a zoom, the snaps were sharp wide open from edge to edge. The OIS helped with indoor snaps as the amount of light the lens had to gather at wide angle was enormous.

So, going out for photowalk may pose an issue from now on as I wasn't sure which lens to take with me ... It looked like it would be the 10-24 for the next few weeks though ...

More samples from this lens here and here.

Interstellar

I went into the movie last night expecting a sci-fi ride. One of those standard Hollywood fare with spectacular special effect. But what I got coming out of this movie was a more philosophical debate. A rather deep one at that. Not something I bargained for.

But this was not to say that the movie was a farce.

I would put this movie on the same level of Contact, which for me one of the best sci-fi movie I had ever watched. Again not for the special effects, but on the philosophical conundrum at the back end.

A lot of the concepts were far fetched. May not even be scientifically true as well, but intriguing none the less. Although it made more sense than Inception.

Typical of Nolan's movie, one had to pay attention at opening scenes as they would return later.

I felt that I got more than I bargained for at the end of the movie. The closure was satisfactory but still there were questions unanswered. Would I recommend the movie to everybody? Not really. Those not interested would definitely doze off halfway. But for me, I would definitely be getting the DVD when it comes out ...

Excruciating

It had been a long morning and as the afternoon wore on, the heaven opened. And as usual, Friday afternoon rain spelled heavy traffic.

I've been stuck for the last 30 minutes, hardly making any progress. And the rain looked to continue. That would also spoil our weekly Friday Evening outing.

Praying that the traffic smoothed out in the coming few minutes.... Happy weekend all!

BLS Weekend

Every couple of years, I had to attend a refresher course on Basic Life Support and pass a quiz at the end of it to collect a certificate. This time it would be this weekend. Saturday afternoon after clinic to be exact.

At least I didn't have to attend the full course again - over three days. I just needed to turn up on the afternoon, sit for a short lecture for revision and then exam. Hopefully it would be as straight forward as that.

But, before that, I had to do a bit of reading. Oh dear ...

Immigration Time

My current passport had expired. But since I was imposed by a traveling and flying ban by Puan Anita, I didn’t bother renewing my passport. In December, me, Anita and the boys were planning to hit Singapore, so it was time to renew. The boys were still at school, and since I seldom had free time, I had to utilise all the free mornings I had. So, today was the day.

I got all my documents ready ahead of time. I even stopped at the Immigration Office a couple of days back to double check on the documents I needed to bring - I can be like that. I was told that all I needed to bring was my old passport, my MyKad and to fill in a simple sheet of paper on my details and the rest would be taken care of on the day at the counter.

RM300 for 5 years ....Heading out happy ...I set off to the Immigration Office at Wangsa Maju, about 15 minutes away from the Gombak House just after 7 this morning. The office opened at 7.30 and there was already a queue when I arrived. I was the 35th customer to be served. The officer checked that my documents are legit and I was told to take a seat and wait for my number. It was around 7.50 am then.

My number was called at around 8.10, handed in the documents, had my photograph taken, thumbprints scanned, documents signed. Got my number back and asked to wait to pay at another counter in the next 15 minutes. I was already with my payment receipt at 8.28 am. The lady behind the cashier told me that my passport would be ready in about an hour’s time. Time for breakfast I thought.

A mamak restaurant at the end of the row sorted that out, and I was back after 20 minutes. I started browsing the net and checked my twitter feed. And just before 9am, my number was up for passport collection!

All was settled within 90 minutes without any fuss! Great stuff, and the staffs were friendly too. Even the security - mainly made up by Rela officers were kind and helpful. They had a separate lines for customers with young children and old folks. They would be served and attended to much faster. But to be honest, it couldn’t have been much faster than this!

I was very happy and impressed. The system was efficient as advertised, and I was glad that I went to a smaller office where the crowd was smaller. Next week it would be Anita’s and the boys’ turn. After being through the process today, I was not worried at all about what they would have to go through.

A few suggestions would be to have a bigger screen for the numbers - the one there had only a couple of lines and there was no numbers on top of each of the individual counters. The PA system was also out of commission on the day, so you had to pay attention to when your number were called. I didn’t have time to see if there were toilet facilities and sure available, as I was sure those may come in handy …..

Great job guys!