Check it out at www.fingeronshutter.com

1) A HDMI port!! woot!!

2) SPDIF output 3) Firewire.. and… eSATA port!!

Hmm.. I am not sure why I am so happy about it. Maybe soon when I get a surround speaker system, or a firewire/eSATA HDD.. Hmmm…

Anyways.. here’s how the inside looks like..

It’s kind of ‘normal’ looking. BTW, it’s a Dell XPS9100. I remember when Dell makes PC casings which are… screwless. This one looks very much like the standard casing you get from Ah Chow’s Computer Shop Sdn Bhd. :S

Men and cars somehow have a strange mythical bond. But of course not all men have that mythical bond with the machines. Just like how not all men like football.

It can be kind of cars.

Then there’s the ladies.. well.. people actually. People photography.

It can be an environmental portrait..

Or a fashion show

Or..

… a planned shoot.

It does not mean I only shoot the ladies. I do have a fair share of photographing men as well. HAHAHA

Sometimes a little bit of abstract portraits adds a bit of extra flavour if you must.

But after a while.. when i look back at the photos I have taken, (apart from the random abstract photos) I find that i prefer more ‘action’ photos.. or a more emotional photo.

An action photo brings the photo alive.

Of course there are many ways to bring the photo alive or to have a very interesting photo. But I find myself more drawn to these kind of photos.

.. it like a taking adding whisky to your coffee.

Of course I do take various photos as well. Like food photos and standard people having fun photos.

Then at times…

..combining food and people having fun in one photo is rather interesting as well.

I recently stumbled upon an old digital camera which was previously deemed missing. For many many years, this little camera lay dormant in a box somewhere in the office. 

Unfortunately, it was a goner.

But it had served us well over the years. So, instead of just chucking the entire unit in to the trash bin, I decided to open it and have a peek inside.

A few screws later…. this is how it looked it. The back cover came off, revealing the motherboard and the LCD screen.

After removing it from the ‘outer casing’.. this is how it looks like. The lens assembly, the cylindrical flash capacitor and the SD card slot. At the bottom of the lens ‘barrel’ I presume is the little motor which either focuses or power zooms the lens.

From the other side, you can see the flash unit and the round black thing is the speaker. Just below the flash is a little white/greyish pimple like thing which is the focus assist lamp.. or rather LED. The extreme left is the optical viewfinder… something which you do not get on the latest compact digicams these days.

This is the back of the lens assembly. The little hole is where the light comes through the lens and hits the sensor.

Speaking of the lens. This is quite an interesting find. There’s only two aperture setting on this digicam. Big… and small.

And here comes the interesting part… the sensor.

This is the sensor.. on the motherboard. The blueish glass sitting on top of the sensor is some kind of a filter or protector. I am not much of a camera hardware tech guy. haha. If I am not mistaken.. that’s the low pass filter. I am not sure. But.. moving on…

A perspective view of the sensor.

This.. ladies and  gentlemen.. is the sensor. Fully naked and exposed. Interesting colors eih? This is the 1/2.5” sensor usually fitted into standard point and shoot cameras.

This is the 1/2.5” sensor in comparison with a 10 sen coin. In comparison….

… the 1/2.5” sensor next to the LCD screen, which.. is very similar in size to a full frame 35mm sensor. Don’t ask me why I do not have a real life 35mm digital image sensor as comparison. I do not have the luxury of someone handing me their full frame digital SLR for me to dissect.

I had dun taking this camera apart. Unfortunately, I shall leave it as it is for now. I have totally no idea how to put them all back together.

Now if there’s anyone out there who have a camera or a handphone camera which you wish to dispose of, lemme know. I would love to dissect them

The invite was like an early, a very early Christmas present. We were to have a chance to blast down the Sepang F1 Circuit in a BMW!! I did not have much information about the event. I did not know who are the organisers. I did not know what it is for. I do not know who are the other participants. But having a chance to drive the ultimate driving machine on an international race track is not something you turn down. So early Sunday morning, I got up much earlier than my other Sundays and headed down to YT’s house. YT is the friend who invited me along.

As it was many many moons since I dropped in at the pits, YT and I wondered along the roads of Sepang but finally found the entrance to the pits.

There was a generous number of ultimate driving machines made available to the participants. But most of them are the 3 series. There was a 5 series and an X1.

It was not a matter, driving along the tracks in a 3 series would be much more fun.

YT and I were assigned to one of these, the 320d Sports. It’s a turbo diesel. And no, i was actually  not disappointed at all. I have always wanted to try out of these mean turbo diesel machines after having a little taste of it’s immense torque earlier this year as a passenger.

After a short briefing on track etiquette as well as safety stuff like how to position yourself in the car, we directed to our cars. Each car is assigned two drivers.

And we have grid girls as well. hehe

This is YT after adjustment of driving position.

And we were off!! Since ALL of us, saved for a couple, had totally no experience whatsoever driving on the Sepang track, we were to ‘convoy’ around the track.

But make no mistake, it’s not a sight-seeing convoy.

We were going rather fast!!

Especially at the straight where we literally floored it.

The turbo diesel with it’s humongous 350nm of torque kicking in at just 1750 was of great help pushing the car out from corners. Making it possible for us to hit 180kmh before we had to hit the brakes. As we were all novice drivers, we had to give way to the faster cars who were also in the track as well. This meant we had to use the inside of outside line, which meant coming out of the corners at a low speed. The immense torque was useful in this situation. Pushing the car out into speed in a short time. I like!

The instructor whom we had to follow pushed a little harder after each lap. After a while, tyres were squealing and rubbers were burning! And the traction and stability controls were working extra hard to keep the cars driven by newbies in check.

but inside the BMW. It was just like your Sunday drive to the market.

Could not say much about the tryes tho. hehe.

It was definitely fun. It was definitedly informative. We now know how far we can push our BMWs when we buy one.

Thanks to YT for inviting me.

Thanks to Quill Automobile for organising the event.

Thanks to UOB for hosting us.

Each time I go fill up my car, 35 litres of fuel goes into it. I fill up roughly about 6 times in a month. Another conservative figure. This means that in one month, I would have purchased 210 litres of RON95 fuel. Assuming 100,000 people like me, we would have consumed 21,000,000 Litres of fuel a month.

Let’s see that in point form :

• 35 Litres per fill up
• 6 fill ups per month
• 210 Litres of fuel per month per user
• 100,000 users
• 21,000,000 Litres per month for all 100k users.

From tomorrow, there will be a reduction in subsidy of RON95 amounting to RM0.05 per litre.

That’s RM1.05 Million saved each month. Or RM12.6 Million a year.

Wow…

According to the Malaysia Automotive Association, we have a total of 3,749,782 vehicles registered in Malaysia from 1980 till March 2010. [source]. Ok la.. assuming half of those vehicles have been scrapped due to age, damaged or rendered not road-worthy, there’s still 1,874,891 vehicles on the road today. So my estimation of 100,000 users is indeed extremely conservative.

But just for information purposes, let’s use our newly found figure and take out 1,000,000 vehicles out of the equation. So that we can equal out those who drives less and thus uses less fuel. That leaves us 874,891 users on the road. So feed that back into my little simple equation and you get :

Savings from subsidy per month : RM 9,186,355.50

Saving from subsidy per year : RM 110,236,266.00

WOW!! Now that’s a lot of money.

Let’s see if these savings are put to good use.

Again, I am not finance guy. Neither am I an economist. I am in no way qualified to actually do any calculations like this. The above is a very simple layman calculations based on whatever I remember from my Form 5 Math classes.

I may have even misinterpreted the tabulated figures on the MAA website. HAHAHA.  Maybe someone out there can tabulate a better and more accurate figure.

Cheerio!!

Seriously… the 24mm is a nice piece of lens. Definitely keeping it. Sometime ago I wanted to sell it off to finance another lens of similar focal length. But might consider selling it if the price is right. It’s not your everyday lens..

The photo above was taken I think about a year back.

Here she is again posing… she’s getting very good at this. I just love how the lens throw the background into a blur. Yet you get the wide angle feel to to the photo. Nice! I like!

This is the new pose we taught her. She learnt rather fast.

And… of cos.. a photo of Danielle and her uncle…. ME!!! hehehe

And the 24mm is also a semi macro.. meaning it can go quite close to the subject…

.. like this bowl of prawn mee.

Jessie followed us on an outing one day. I was with my 24mm. hehe. It’s kind of a good walkabout lens… for me.

Semi macro shot of a Canon 5D attached with a Lens Baby. Another interesting.. very interesting lens.

Another semi macro shot.. of.. erm… a tree bark and some moss.

Interesting flare…

Nice angle.. 24mm might be a bit wide for some people. But I like it!

Can do this kind of photos.. hehehe.

Ok.. i shall go out and take more photos using this lens. It’s kind of a fun lens. 

This is a photo taken with a 24mm prime lens at f1.8. It gives a rather unique angle and feel to the photo. The following photo of fishingcow is also taken with the same 24mm prime lens at maximum aperture.

It’s wide… and it has bokeh!!

Loving it!!

I was contemplating selling it, but now I think I shall keep it It’s not easy to use and needs some time to master. I still getting the hang of it. Hopefully will master it soon

But somehow, over the past couple of years, this ability seems to have diminished. I wonder if there is a reason for this. Was there something new in my life that have nudged they writer in me aside?

Was it photography? I doubt it. Photography probably was one of the many subjects I could write about. Right down to technicalities which may bore some of you to hell and back.

Was it being in a relationship? Hmm.. it could be a possibility. I am not the kind of person who is able to wrestle out my feelings and then churn and mould them into words. Maybe that’s because I am not the kind of person who shares my personal feelings, especially the ‘down feelings’ with the world. Or probably a handful of you who actually do read my blog.

Or was it that I just lost all interest in writing?

Maybe I need an inspiration? Do writers need inspiration? Are writers like artists? Do I need to sit at starbucks with my notebook and stare into empty space and wait for an inspiration to strut by? An inspiration with nice long, nicely toned legs plugged into an equally well toned body topped with an oval-shaped face and mesmerising eyes hidden behind Gucci sunnies sashaying by?

Or maybe I should travel a bit. So that I may have something to base my inspiration on?

Maybe.

Inspiration inspiration. Where art thou?

Maybe I should go take some photos. Maybe from those photos I may draw some inspiration.

Maybe…

Originally a ‘feature’ of lomo cameras, where it’s build is kind of ‘proton-like’. So there’s little gaps in the fittings, allowing light to enter the camera, affecting the light-sensitive films inside. However, the leaky-light effects somehow grew on some people. That and some other characteristics of a lomo-cam is (roughly) how lomography came to be.

This particular photo, however, is digitally enhanced by an application in the camera phone. Not bad lar. But nothing beats the real thing