The Decors are Out

Xmas was gone, and it was now time to look forward to Chinese New Year. It would be a busy time of the year for me as I would be covering my colleagues, but it also meant that the decorations would be out at the shopping malls. It may not be as extravagant as the last few years due to the economic situation, but the opening gambit at Pavilion was quite decent.

I have also seen photos from Nu Sentral and 1 Utama as well, but yet to find time to go out there. I also had the time to have a look at Suria KLCC, and as usual, they tended to be a bit conservative and predictable there.

It would be the year of the Goat. Last year, the Wooden Horses appeared in hordes at Pavilion, turning into a spectacular spectacle. For this year, there was a giant golden goat in the central foyer and lanterns all around. The entrance was nice however as the lanterns formed into an arch welcoming the punters through the Bukit Bintang entrance.

The angle from the famous fountain was nice, in fact many stopped to look and take photographs. Shame that there were so many constructions going around the area, clogging the place with traffic. I wished that the walkways would be exclusively for pedestrian, and the cars would be diverted away. That would open up the area into a large boulevard, connected to Starhill, all the way to Lot 10 and Bukit Bintang.

I went there before the rush of shoppers walked in - on an afternoon when I had no clinic. I had a chance to look around, but wished that I had more time to explore. Next would be Nu Sentral for me I think, but finding the time would be a challenge. Maybe this coming weekend.

Filling up the Cabinet

Last week, I purchased a dry cabinet to store my camera gear. It was only today that I managed to get all my camera gears sorted out to fill the case up. It turned out to be too small. I should have gone for a bigger unit!

I dusted off my old DSLR, all the lens - minus a couple which I couldn't remember where I placed them - and all my compact cameras from the past.

I got them all cleaned and the batteries charged up. All except the LX3 were working OK. Not sure what happened to the Lumix. Hopefully it was all down to battery cell issues rather than anything more major. An old, but still capable camera. But as with all the early Lumix, it had this rather weird tinge on the jpg especially in low light. In needed plenty of work in post, but most of the time I just shoot in black and white.

I fired up the giant 7D, and shot a few frame. That was when I realised how inferior the white balance algorithm on the Canon compared to my staple, the Fuji. The X100 would more likely get the colours right, or just with minor tweaking. The 7D then went back into the cabinet ....

Now, everything were in order, inside the cabinet. While I was cleaning the bodies and lens, I decided to photograph them. The GR certainly did a great job here ....

The Meeting Point

I have been to Pudu Plaza a few times but not really familiar with the area. I was always intimidated driving to the area since traffic was usually bad, and there were too many cars parked on the side of the street. Manoeuvring could be a challenge. Most of the time, I parked inside the complex, but never ventured around on foot.

For the photowalk, I parked at the plaza, and walked across the street to get to the meeting point, Ali Food Corner. I was greeted by the usual faces, friends I get to meet once a year during the photowalk. Happy faces.

Said hi to everybody, took my seat and ordered my breakfast. Plenty of new faces. The number of walker exceeded 50 which was great.

The meeting proper then started with Ripi - the walk leader for the past 3 years - gave us a briefing on what to see and some pointers, followed by the customary group photo. Best to do it first thing as before long, everybody would be walking at their own pace and get spread out. Walkers would reach the end point at their own time and some may not meet again.

Group photo done. Time to move ....

Low Light Express

I must say I was expecting way thick from the iPhone 6 camera. The day I got my 6 Plus I took it to Pavilion to do some testing. Not in daylight but right after sunset. I really wanted to know how good it was.

There were plenty of people and more than enough subject keep me going. The lantern show was still on, and mixed with the lights at the fountain, it was quite a spectacle.

I got snapping straight away, alternating between the iPhone and the GR. The results? It was better than I expected. And the main reason was the optical image stabiliser. The shots looked crisp and the noise level was more than just acceptable. Not as good as the GR, but certainly no slouch.

Would it replace the GR in my pocket? Unlikely. Was it any better than the 5S. I wager to say that, it was not as big a jump between the 4 and the 4S. The main reason why the shots were successful was the image stabilisation system. You'd never be able to get the same shot on the 5S due the low shutter speed.

The image on the 6 Plus also appeared less contrasty as compared to the 5S. It was certainly easily rectified with apps such as Camera+. Otherwise the camera retained the 8MP sensor size, but I was sure much of the update happened under the hood at the software level.

Shooting speed was reasonable although the bigger size of the phone felt cluncky in my hands. If felt too big for me to position the shots freely, unlike the older iPhone or even my GR.

All in all, the iPhone 6 Plus still carried the reasonably good camera and with the addition of some software magic, the output still was among the best compared to other phones. I felt it better than the Oppo. From what I heard, the Lumia was still the King, and this latest Apple offering did little to knock the Windows phone off its perch.

Gearing Up

Another year had passed and it would be another installment of my yearly photo walk and getting to chill out with friends with a camera. Scott Kelby's Annual Photowalk was back. As usual, time to get ready with the gear, get the batteries filled up with the juice, polishing the lens and the lot.

Tomorrow, I would be bringing a couple of cameras. My XT-1 attached to the 56mm Fujinon f1.2 and the smaller Ricoh GR. That way, I would be able to cover wide angle - with the GR able to capture 28, 35 and 47 mm - and the XT-1 obviously the equivalent to 85mm in old money. Should be a great outing although the weather forecasters to be suspect. And there was the issue of the haze as well although it hasn't been too bad today.

My Fenix 2 also needed chargingThis time, we planned to congregate near Pudu Plaza by 9am and would be venturing towards Pudu Market. Should be a decent sized crowd and looking forward to great snap.

We would be spending the evening at the apartment hopefully after that, whereby could get on with post-prodiction and uploading. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

The walk last year was written up here.