A Mazy Megamall

I managed to give the decoration at Mid Valley Megamall a look last weekend during a quick lunch time visit. The theme was a maze - of sorts. A big Xmas tree in the middle, and to reach the gazebo right in the middle, punters had to walk through a small maze, made of fake plants.

As it was a Sunday, the place was packed. A pram could easily block the narrow walkway in the maze, so, it was not exactly a pleasant walkabout if you ask me .....

KLPF 2011

The initial plan was to give the Kuala Lumpur Photography Festival (KLPF) a visit yesterday, but I could not escape early enough on the Saturday and when I leave the hospital, it was raining heavily. Traffic into Mid Valley would be murder at the time. Therefore, I had to give Ripi's talk - due at 1 pm on Saturday - a miss. I ended up going to the exhibition on Sunday instead.

So, there I was, just after 11.30am at the third floor of Mid Valley, where the Exhibition Hall was situated. The place was already packed and the program was well under way. The talks were done on a separate area. I spent the majority of the time in the main hall where the main vendors were.

Usually, a "photography festivals" were the place where new products were showcased. The only new product I managed to sample were the new Nikon 1 system. There was a rush to that booth, and the product were only displayed behind a case. I was familiar with the others, including the Fuji X10.

Sony's booth was probably the most spacious, with separate area for compacts, and the new range of dSLR.Lumix had their own gallery at the back of their booth which I thought was rather good.Canon brought more of their compact range to the floor. Unfortunately, I did not manage to sample the S100.

The usual suspects were there - Nikon, Canon, Sony, Olympus, Lumix. The most friendly booth were the Lumix and Sony. They had plenty of sales members at the booth and they seemed to know what they were talking about. In terms of bargains, not much to be had really. The price tended to be the standard retail, but here, they threw in freebies - cheap ones unfortunately. Unwanted cases, slow memory cards etc.

I was very clear when I came that I wanted to explore three things. First was a portable remote triggered flash system. There were two small booth had them, but it was pretty basic. I had to pass on that.

The second was screen colour calibrator. Something like the Spyder. Nobody seemed to know what I was talking about unfortunately. Sigh! The last was a company that does high quality canves prints for my photo. I was lucky with that one. There were a few choices, and the one which impressed me was called "My Canvas Prints". Looking forward to see what they would come up with. I would be sending a few tests their way soon.

I missed Ripi's talk from Saturday. A shame really. I was sure it was a great one.I did not manage to find Luke Chua's photo. I managed to find Shazni's though. This one was of the Eiffel Tower.The exhibition was a success from the looks of things. But what made me wonder was the number of people turning up with their camera gears with them. The number of camera brought in was definitely more than the number on display. Maybe they wasted to snap the photos of the models there. Nah! I was happy just carrying my iPhone. I did not even bother to bring even the X100.

There was more people with camera, than the actual camera on the display booth actually.What were they shooting? Models of course. This was at the Korea Tourism booth.I couldn't help but admire these canvas prints at "My Canvas Prints" booth. Will definitely check them out soon.The only camera which caught my eye was the TX55 from Sony. Very compact and light, but the photos coming out from the thing was surprisingly good. It was going for RM1400. I might buy that one for Puan Anita. She was dissing on my old LX3 for being too big.

If you were into photography, these exhibitions needed your support. Watch out for the next installment.