In light of things...

Hello all!

I have an external flash that was for my Pentax K20D but I didn't know how to use it for its full potential. One of these was the slave function which allowed an external flash to be triggered without being attached to the camera. I didn't know how this worked or even what all the terms meant so I didn't dabble with it. Anyways, I played with the unit for a while and got some interesting images from it.

Pentax ME Super. Still working. I should shoot with some film again some time.

Now, the K20D has been sold and now I have a Canon 650d and Fujifilm X100 which use different mounts. As well as listing me lenses on Ebay, I put the flash up for sale.


Later that evening, I was watching the latest DigitalRev on Youtube and it featured a pro photographer name Zack Arias.

I think I became an instant fan of him because of his personality and the way his photos turn out from using external light sources. Then I discovered something from this video and that was that you can use the flash on a camera to trigger an external flash.

I got my Canon and started playing with the flash. I managed to get the external flash firing (yay!) but after a couple of shots, I realised that it was firing after the exposure was taken. Meaning that the pictures weren't lit as they were supposed to be. I played around with the camera and external flash settings but I gave up after while, then came back and tried again to no avail.

I switched to my X100 and managed to get some good results. Unfortunately, they were self portraits because I nothing interesting to shoot and no one would be around at 4am when I took them.

This was inspired by Sooyoung.

One of my "decent" photos.

Pijama man!

Back to DSLRs

Hello all.

Today I made a rather big decision in my photography endeavors. I bought a Canon 650d today with the 40mm f/2.8 STM lens.


If you didn't know, I started out as a Pentax user with the K100d then K20d, and slowly revolved around this system until a few months ago when I sold me K20d camera to fund the acquisition of the Fujifilm X100. I kept a couple of lenses for when a decent Pentax DSLR is released. I was contemplating on getting the K-5, however, with the discontinuation of Pentax by its owners, Ricoh, I became uncertain with the brand and where it will go. Being such a smaller market compared to other brands did not paint a good picture for the future.
So I decided to go for one of the big players in Canon.

40mm f/2.8 STM lens on the 650D.

I choose this because I wanted a small body with small lenses which was why I considered getting the K-5 before. 40mm also seemed like a good length to compliment my X100 when I need a more tighter frame. A few of my friends shoot with canon so I can swap lenses with them from time to time. I also wanted to try video recording with an SLR and thought this would be good as the camera cans shoot 1080p and the lens is silent when focusing. Maybe I'll get a mic later. I managed to get a bit of a discount on this set up. I might have gone with a 60D but I learned that it is a bit bigger and heavier which is not good for me as I have very shaky hands.

Construction suddenly became more rapid recently.

The instruction manual is palm sized! They must be really intent on helping the environment.

I'm sorry. There was not much to photograph around here.

I took this handheld. Came out alright.

My baby. The X100.

The image quality is quite good, even when the lens is wide open. I can't get the best out of the raw files as the program I use (Dxo Optics 7) doesn't want to read the files for some reason. I have the same problem with my old K100 files. The 650D and 40mm lens are not yet supported by the program so there are no auto-corrections for the images. The schedule says the program will update to include them next month.

When playing with the video, I found that it was very slow to autofocus. When you select to track something, it is a little bit better but still a bit slow.

Other than these hiccups, the camera should be quite good to use. The swivel touch-screen makes accessing settings quicker and easier while the ability to focus and take pictures with the touch-screen should make for some stealthy shots, which reminds me of the Olympus E-P3. I don't know if there will be a day when a micro-four thirds is as good or better than an SLR in terms of image quality (The Om-d em-5 is close!) but for now, I am happy to hold an DSLR again. The size and weight reminds me of the Pentax K100d.

Oh and I recovered this picture from my old photos when I went to Japan. Hopefully I can recover more later or make more of them.

Adelaide Kpop Group

Hello all.

On Friday, I attended the 2nd Adelaide Kpop Fans Group Meetup at the Goodwood Community Hall. It was a fun day with lots of games, music and performances throughout the day.

I have been a part of the group since the end of January which only started late last year. The group has already grown to nearly 600 members and still growing. They are quite a fun bunch. The group can be found here at AKF Facebook Group and also check out the performances of various memberson the AKF Official Channel.

Over 70+ members attended.

Our leader and MC.

One of the first performances was an electric guitar cover of Big Bang's Monster. It was one of my favourites.

Oreo Cow.

Everyone getting to know each other at the beginning.

This was one of the first games we played called Dragon Tail. The aim is for the front person to grab the tail off a person from the other team without breaking the chain or losing their own tail.

Admins conversing.

Girls trying to find Their favourite Kpop star on the cards.

My friend (The Troll) and his girlfriend. This was taken by my friend Angela who is a pretty good photographer.

The multi-functional leader cleaning up the act.

Dance cover of Shinee's Lucifer. I used to want to do the dance to this song. This and Sherlock.

Onesies are becoming popular.

Watch the performance here. 2 Of them will be going to Melbourne at the end
of the month to perform at a charity concert!

Another game we played was the Aeygo Competition. Some bits were funny, while others were just AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWdorable.

Onesie cat in the middle.

We played a game called chicken where the everyone hops and one leg and tries to knock the other team over. This video was made by one of the group members. And sorry again to Mimi! (Person I pushed over). Please don't hate me D=.

Shoes!

Great dance cover of Exo-K's History.

The admins liked putting people in the middle for some reason.

Freestyle contest.

The final performance of the day.

After the event some of us went to dinner. I managed to quickly get this shot.

I didn't include all the videos and photos taken that day but you can see them on the FB group and AKF Official Channel.

I give a shoutout to Millie because she asked me to as well as other people I know from AKF. You guys are great!

Dessert time!

A double post!

On the same day as the hike, my friends and I went to eat dessert at Eggless on Goodwood road. I have tried to go there many times but it always seems to be full. This time my friend made a booking and I got to sample what was on hand (Finally!).

Pretty lanterns.

My friend's tea.

Had some peppermint tea to wash down what I ate.

Fig pudding. My favourite out of the sampling plate.

Apple something? I can't remember.

Mocha cake to finish. I struggled at the end.

Hiking at Mt. Lofty

Hello all.

I went hiking with my friends at Mt. Lofty in the Adelaide hills. I used to go there to exercise each weekend but it has been a while so we decided to take a more relaxed pace. Obviously I took my camera to document the hike. There are a lot of pictures in this post so give it time to load.

Someone left their scarf there

Was trailing some people and saw one
person with an interesting walking stick.

A bushfire had gone through and burnt the land
but the trees and plants were already regrowing

My friend Angela started playing with my
camera.