Wider View

It was always nice to try new things in photography. On some of the blogs, I saw some nice shots using wide angle lens on street photography, something I was yet to try.

So, last week I decided to dust off my wide-angle Fujinon 10-23mm and took my X-Pro2 for a walk. I was pleasantly surprised with my captures.

I decided to snap in RAW mode as I felt that I might struggle to bring up the shadows using such a wide-angle lens in high-contrast environment. But the beauty carried through even in my indoors, high ISO captures. Maybe the stabilisation built into the lens helped.

It allowed my to capture the scene in perspective, giving a meaning to the composed image while giving me plenty of leeway for post-processing cropping, at the expense of loss of resolution. The 24 MP sensor coped well and the final images retained their contrast as well as their colour.

I tried the setup at three separate venues. First when I left the LRT at Central Market on the way to Urbanscapes House at Medan Tuanku. Secondly at the Urbanscapes House itself, pushing it to high ISO and testing the stabilisation. Lastly, I ventured on around Masjid India before catching the LRT back to NU Sentral where I parked.

Next step, the 42 MP Alpha 7R mk II full frame with the 18 mm Batis. My ultimate goal would be to pair a medium format body to a wide angle prime .... at least in my dreams ...

RAW Capture

I tended to capture my shots in jpeg. This was true especially on my Fuji X series camera. The jpg coming out from the camera were often spot on and tweaking the RAW files were just time consuming to be quite honest.

On the other hand, my Leica M and Q could only produce reliable photos when the scene were captures in RAW. Their jpg were either too soft, or too harsh. They could not be relied upon. Their RAW conversions however - I used the native Aperture software - were amazing. They were consistently sharper and render nicer tones.

The Sony however, were a bit of a hit and miss.

RAWJpeg - in this pair, the jpeg had a significantly cooler tone to the jpeg. Contrast also a bit higher.RAWJpeg. The difference in dynamic range is pretty obvious resulting in higher contrast in the jpeg. The tone is also slightly warmer.RAWJpeg. Sorry about the crop but I prefer the jpeg on this one. The shadow appeared to be more defined but I think this is from the post-processing.In the last few weeks, I had been trying out snaps exclusively using RAW. The Sony files coming out from the Alpha 7R mark II were a pain since the captures were 42 MP, producing RAW files of 53MB each! It could slow down my post-production. The Fuji - 24 MP - were bearable. The question was, was the extra effort worth it?

I must say that there were subtle differences between the RAW and the captured jpg. The tones were more consistent and the colour tended to be richer. I wasn't sure about the sharpness though. The jpg at 42 MP were certainly sharp enough ....

RAWJpeg. I prefer the more life-like tone of the RAW on this one.RAWJpeg. I prefer the jpeg on this one. It seems that jpeg from the Fuji is more pleasing compared to the Sony.From now on, I plan to stick to RAW. This would be especially the case as I plan to move to medium format at some stage. Better get into the habit ....

Sunny Start

The weather today had been a changeable one. It started off gloriously with sunshine up to lunch. But by the time I went to pick up Idlan after football, it had started to darken. It was raining heavily on the drive back and when we reached Bangsar, the was some flash flood near Lembah Pantai.

Luckily the rain stopped before the traffic started to pile up. It looked serene outside with fresh air after the rain. It was nice having a cup of coffee at the balcony.

Having mocha at d7 while discussing a few stuffsGlorious sunshine when I returned to the hospital after lunchIt was still sunny when I waited for Idlan during footballWith the Kelby Walk coming in a couple of days, I was praying of more of the same morning weather. Glorious sunshine before rain coming after the walk was done .... Fingers crossed!

The Discovery

Anita and I had been a big fan of Voyager. Last year, when we got Netflix installed, we managed to get through the whole series again. We went through pretty much all the episodes, which brought us the memories of staying in England when the series were first aired.

I was also into The Next Generations and Deep Space Nine. Anita wasn’t much. So, when the latest instalment of the Star Trek franchise was released, we got curious. We soon learned that Michele Yeoh would star, but it turned out that it was more of a special guess as the season developed.

After watching three episodes, we were hooked. We were not initially very keen on the characters but soon understood their motivations and circumstance. It would make for a great series I was sure. Now, we couldn’t wait for the weekly episodes ...

Idlan Got Oreo

I have given my Nexus 6P to Idlan after his Oppo broke. I had been using the Huawei P10 and the experience of vanilla Android was always something i missed. More so when I saw the pushed update on Idlan’s phone the other day.

It was for Oreo. Damn!

His phone had been smooth as silk since the update and I was not sure when the update for Huawei going to be .... guessed I would have to wait a bit longer ....