Maybe I should get bridge camera....

It's has been quite some time that I want to upgrade my Pentax A20 compact digital camera to a better camera...  better compact camera. I am not ready yet to carry around a heavy camera, complete with all the the complicated accessories, each time I go on travelling.....

For all this while, my compact partner has been doing his job well above my expectation... but we human as always can never satisfy.... 

My Pentax optical zoom at 3x is inadequate.... I need zoom 10X or more... 15X is better.... Sometime during travelling, we need to zoom or super zoom, to capture the moment we desire....Like photo of human face expression, photos of action etc....I faced difficulty in getting good close up natural shot of beautiful moments without disturbing the subject.....Once a moment lost, it's lost forever....

And standard 35mm is not wide angle enough... I need lower than that..  28m maybe or 18mm would be better.... So I don't need to step back again each time I need to snap photo of close subject....

At first I am thinking on buying compact digital with 10x zoom and wide angle as per my previous blog entry. But this camera manufacturer company..... they're really intelligent and professional in getting your money, especially from people like me who are not yet keen in owning a complicated and expensive DSLR ....  

They created a new category (not so new actually lah....) of camera in between compact camera and DSLR.... a bridge camera. 

This is from wikipedia... 

Bridge digital cameras are a type of high-end digital camera. They are comparable in size and weight to the smallest digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLRs), but they lack the removable lenses, larger sensors,^[1] mirror, and reflex system that characterize DSLRs. The term "bridge" characterizes the way in which these cameras fill the niche between the DSLRs and the compact digital cameras. Although bridge cameras are closely related to consumer compacts, they are sometimes confused with DSLRs due to their similar bodies and large zoom lenses. Almost all bridge digital cameras feature full manual controls overshutter-speed, aperture, ISO, white-balance and metering. Generally, their feature sets are similar to DSLRs, except for a smaller range of ISO sensitivities due to their smaller sensors (a DSLR has a 35mm,APS, or 4/3 size CCD or CMOS) and fewer expandability options (such as interchangeable lenses, battery grips, and wireless flash options).

For better details.. read wikipedia link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_digital_camera

For me, the reason perhaps the following:

• Reasonable pricing, in between compact digital camera and DSLR
• Single zoom lens for macro, wide angle, zoom and superzoom
• Can capture movie... this option is available in compact digital  and high end DSLR...
• no need for me to invest on additional lenses...
• Smaller and lighter then DSLR....

Jogjakarta Visit: Photo series 2....

Photo of local silver handicraft not far away from Candi Borobudur....

Candi Mendut.. located not far from the famous Candi Borobudur.... it's older than the Borobudur... During festivities, local Hindu still conduct ritual from this Candi to Borobudur...
Restoration work ongoing at Candi Borobudur... one of UNESCO world heritage....
One of the view inside one of the Borobudur levels...  if you noticed, the stone blocks were placed interlocked each other... there's no cement or concrete used. That's why the restoration work is a tedious work... the stone need to be  sculpted into a interlocking block shape...manually
Buddha idol inside the stupa.
View from one the 4 steps to climb the Borobudur.... the weather was not so good that day.. if not, we can see Mount Kidul not far away... mystical mountain in Javanesse tradition...
Buddha statue inside the stupa.....
The stupa that contain and protect the statues.........

Jogjakarta visit: Photo siri 1

Dear readers....

Two weeks ago I visited Jogjakarta or Yogyakarta or Djogjakarta... There's no standard spelling for the town, as mentioned by the local...

The following are the photos I managed to snap with my compact camera... some of the photos were snapped by the friendly local, as I a am a solo tourist...

This is Jalan Malioboro, the famous street in Jogja... famous for the roadside stalls selling Javanese Batik, handicraft, Dagadu T-Shirt, delicious street food...You can find many hotels along the road, the luxury or the budget hotels... for the budget hotels, the room is clean and service is good...
Bank Indonesia colonial style building... beca (trishaw) is common transport in Jogja... you can hire the beca for affordable rate and they are kind enough to give you a ride around town...

My advise is, take the beca ride early in the morning, so you can enjoy Jogja beautiful old scenery.....You can see quite a number of old people cycling using old fashioned 'Speda Ontel'.... by 9am the good old scenery will be polluted by modern transportation especially motorcycles...

This is Taman Sari... Once were the Java Keraton forbidden garden and private bath area... during the heyday, it was told around 20's concubines lived together here....
The main entrance of the Taman Sari... as you can see the entrance door is quite low... this was politically built on purposed.. so that that anyone who enter, must bow down... especially for the 'bule'...
Photos captured inside the underground mosque, inside the Keraton area... it was told during Dutch colonial era, the Muslim Java Keraton have to perform the Islamic ibadah not openly.... so they built the underground mosque complete with place to conduct Jumaat prayer....
one of the view inside the Underground Mosque...the 5 stairs represent the 5 pillars of Islam and the 9 steps represents the Wali Songo....
Gamelan musician and singer performing during shadow playing (wayang kulit)... in Classic Java language which I do not understand at all.....

The Keraton Guards taking breaks.... 

Photos on Bandung visit....

Last week I have the opportunity to pay a visit to Bandung, accompanying some visitors from Malaysia. These are a few photo that I managed to capture using my Pentax compact camera.
The paddy terrace field is located just along the toll road, Jakarta to Bandung....
I made some adjustment using Picasa,... I have to salute the traditional jamu vendor... she walked tirelessly uphill, selling the product even though she has to walk uphill for km .... early in the morning, for only a few Rupiah.... 

Taking close up photo with with far background...

The tips below can also be used if you want to take close up photo with far object background. The tricks is the same, focus on the close up object, half push the button until the camera lock and don't let go, move a bit and make the far end object at the mid of the finder.

Push fully the button. You won't have to do this if your camera has manual focus of have multiple focus. Then again, I am talking about compact digital camera... with autofocus and single focus. 

Tip for taking photo of duet....

Dear readers....

It's a common mistake that we do when taking picture of duet (2 peoples). We only realized and puzzled why the subject image is not focused. This happen to me a lot, last time, before I learned about the trick. 

Compact camera operate on auto focus, it tend to focus the image that is nearest to the focus point. You can see there's a square in the middle viewfinder.

The tricks is, focus on one subject, push the snap button half way until the camera is focused (you can see that the square become green in color, does not blink, or the led focus light stop blinking... this depend on the type of camera), don't release your finger, move the focal to the middle of duet subject, push the snap button fully.

If you focus straight away to the middle of the subject, your camera will tend to focus on the far object, leaving the subject blurred and unfocused.

Wide Angle..

A wide angle lens is a lens whose the focal length is substantially shorter than the focal length of the normal lens, which produce the similar image size for the camera.  Typically, a lens with focal length of 35mm or less is consider wide angle. Most of the compact digital camera came with a 35mm lense.

But due to some circumstances, the 35mm normal compact camera is not wide angle enough to capture image that I want. Most of the time when I need to capture all the family member photo, I need to step backward, which not a problem if you have large house... what if you have limited space. And in my line of work, I need to snap photo of all the equipment inside the equipment room or shelter, which is normally not large.

Wide angle is the solution for me right now... 35mm is not enough.. probably I need 28mm or less... so the area captured became larger. And I don't like to step backward when taking photo..... you never know you will trip on anything, cause your eyes are in front.

perhaps the link below will give better explanation...

http://www.panasonic.net/avc/lumix/compact/tz5_tz4_tz15_tz11/lens.html

Early morning macro photo tip...

Early morning surely a good time for relaxing photo shooting, probably due to right composition of lighting, fresh air, cool morning dew and for me.. nice cigarette. Took this photo at my kampung in Muar, early morning.. around 7am...  The object is a typical banana tree leaves, heavily doused in morning dew....

the setting are....

• Camera; Pentax Optio A20, 10 Megapixel
• Super Macro mode; 8 mm (this depend on your camera type)
• F/8, 1/40 sec, ISO-64, Flash ON. Put the camera in force ON flash mode.
• Steady hand

Once the object focused, slowly press the button....

Night Photo tips

This photo was taken back in 2004, when I am staying in Shah Alam. That night the weather was hot, perhaps due to the sunny day earlier. As I watched outside, the moon brightly shine and since I don't have anything to do (Max Payne game already finished...), I took my camera and search for anything nice to snap.

The setting on the camera was;

• used tripod definitley
• Highest resolution setting
• setting; F/5.6, shutter speed 6.2 sec, ISO-100, Flash OFF

And the main factor was, the good weather on my side.... and the Pak Guard allowed me to snap several shot......

123 of Photography.. for less than beginner

Dear readers...

I would like to share some of my limited knowledge in photography either through reading, chatting with friends, and most of the time..... trial and error.. which produce errors most of the time.  Luckily nowaday, we use digital camera and discard any error right away. Snap 10 shots, keep the best one, and delete the rest. In the old  days (macam la lama sangat).... snap photos, finish up the film rolls (24, 36 etc), take to the Kedai Gambar and a week later, we only discover where our mistake, such as shaking hand, overexpose, underexpose, non focus....or the person is not ready yet (belum posing maut)

If any of you have better knowledge, please do share with me and write comment.

• Aperture; it's the size of the opening of the lense that control the amount of light. It's just like our eye iris. It's written in f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8. The bigger the value i.e. f/8 the smaller the aperture. 
• Shutter speed; is the amount of time in second, that the shutter is open. Stated in 1/1000, 1/500, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30, 1/15, 1/8, 2, 4, 8 sec. The bigger the value, the longer the shutter is open.
• ISO; is the measurement of the sensitivity of the image sensor. The lower the number, the less sensitive to light and the finer the grain.  Higher ISO setting, means more sensitive to light and more noise.
• Tripod; is a must if want to night scene or low light photo, unless you have very stabil hands like Olympic Pistol shooter.
• Resolution; the highest is the better. Shoot pic using the highest resolution. If you want to reduce the quality, reduce it later by using software such as Irfanview, Picassa, etc.
• Macro mode; is when you when you take close up photo like flowers, bug etc. The focus distance is about 2-10 cm depending on camera type.
• Steady hand; Please ensure you hold the camera on both hand, to add stability, eventhough your camera is small. Don't be like Hong Kong moviestar...single handedly shoot gun while jumping and flying... this just don't work in photography. And please ensure, that only your finger push the trigger, and not your whole hand. 

Actually there's lot's of tip out there in the web...  this is one of the website that I found very useful... http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/digital-photography-tips-for-beginners/

Mount Kinabalu

This is photo was taken way back 2005 when I was in Sabah during USP project. If you noticed the date, it's new year... yes new year 2005, and I am on site deep in Borneo with my colleague, ensuring the project timeline meet....

At 8am, the weather was good and the sky clear. After taking breakfast, I grabbed my camera, took a few shot. Mount Kinabalu is totally beautiful, like a huge granite rock perched from the ground... 

And within a few minutes, thick fog slowly covering the mountain view... 

I will definitely return to this beautiful place....

Morning moment....

This photo is a good example of moment that I want to capture.. 

It's pink hibiscus (Bunga Raya merah jambu laaa) in early morning, waiting to bloom. The kampung morning dew still cover the flower petals. In a few minutes, this moment will gone and can't be replicated  exactly. Once the morning dew dry out due to the sun ray, the flower will bloom.. leaving this moment forever .. to create another unique moment... Subhanallah...

I took this picture at around 7am, after finishing my Suboh prayer, I just walk around my kampung house in sarong, looking for anything interesting to snap. 

Fotografi

Dear friends,

It's always hard to start writing something about anything... hmm apa aku nak tulis ya. OK, Wikipedia to the rescue. It's mentioned in history that the first obscura camera (pinhole camera) was built by Abu Ali Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haitam, born in Basra (around 970 AD). He's know in the west as Alhacen or Alhazen, famous scientist in that time carrying experiment on optic and produce Book of Optics.

Why do i like photography? I think one of the reason is.... we can capture moments. Every moments in our life or our surrounding is unique, there are no two moments which is identical. There are no two or more raindrops, children smiling, flower blooming etc identical. They're all unique and as we know, any unique items will be consider as rare and special.

Perhaps because of this reason, I choose to use digital compact camera (beside the cost aspect, heheh), because it's so portable and can be use almost instantaneously. Well actually not,  because compact digital camera will have some delay time, in between your press the snap button and the camera capture the image. But at least you can carry easily, anywhere you go.

I am more toward, less than amateur and practical kind of guy with photography... so I would like  a camera that can take family Raya photo with no fuss, as well as night photo with low light. In addition, I want to snap macro and super macro photo of flowers and mushroom, at the same time I want to snap scenery view of mountain and beaches. And I want to take video image with sound...  

Most of the compact camera in market today have that option plus others option which i don't understand.. and probably will not use....