Months with the Sony RX100 mark 2

I have been carrying around the RX100M2 and I must say I am very happy with the purchase. I do miss the ability to have longer or shorter focal lengths when using my old a77, but portability and great image quality in the pocket is what I looked for now.

Wish Sony would implement the multi-axis LCD like in the a77 or a99 but that would be overkill haha. ISO control is good for a compact.

 Chandelier

 Promenade Hotel Kota Kinabalu

Complaints? Nah. Most of it will be from the user point of view. :D

Christmas 2011

Happy Belated New Year 2012 everyone! Right now, it's the first day in school, I'm down with a flu and recently a very bad diarrhea after Christmas. My internet connection was bad as well so I didn't manage to update this blog. Last year's post count was just  a mere 45, compared to 115 in 2010 and 150 in 2009. This year however, I do hope I can have more time and photos to post and share.

Here are some photos of what I saw during Christmas at home in Bau.

Tasik Biru on the eve of Christmas. 

The rain poured heavily for almost a day on the 25th, and this what it looked like at Wind Cave in the morning.

However, the King tide raised the water level and by afternoon, the water reached the main road going to the cave.

Taiton, one of Bau's regular flood-prone area.

And by evening, the water raised even more.

First time meeting Dambo.

How I miss cheap foods back home.

Both of these are rarities here in KK. That biscuit will be used to make frozen cheese cake.  That Tong Nam, for me the best tasting soy sauce.

 

Nex - 3, Carl Zeiss Jenna 50mm f1.8 m42, Nex firmware v.4

20th June was a nice day for me and my photography journey. Not only I have gotten myself a 'new' lens, but Sony released the new firmware for Nex and SLT series cameras. The new firmware brought along some photo filters and the much awaited 'peaking' function. Peaking helps manual focusing easier with manual lenses. What it does it highlighting the in-focus' area with selectable coloured 'areas', in this case it can be yellow, red or blue. Those with a collection of old, legacy lenses can just get right adapters and enjoy the image quality that comes with it.

I myself have been experimenting with old, manual lenses for quite some time but I'm still unable to determine which lenses to get. I tried m42's Hanimex 58mm f2.8 and the Vivitar 135mm f2.8. Both are good lenses, but somehow I'm still on the edge until...the Carl Zeiss 50mm f1.8 came along. A good friend put this lens for sale, and without any hesitation I quickly closed the deal with him. Lucky me it's a M42 mount and reasonably cheap! Sorry for the photos of my cam, taken with my mobile HTC snapper.




Nice black colour with some brushed metal on the aperture and focus ring.





The new firmware also comes with photo filters; namely Toy, Partial (Blue, Red, Green and Yellow), High Contrast Monochrome, Posterization (BnW and Color), Pop and Retro and High-Key.


Notice the yellow mark in the middle of the screen. This marks the area in focus when peaking is activated.

Time to test out the photo filters with the Carl Zeiss Jenna 50mm f1.8, most of them using f4.


Partial Yellow.


Partial Red.


Partial Green.


Partial Blue.


My car tweets using Toy filter.

A series of photos using four different filters.


Toy.


Pop.


Retro.


High Contrast Monochrome.


Pop. Love the IQ from this lens.

Up the Irons!

Guess what reached me today?



Woohoo! Maiden tee! Bought this from Ebay.com, and it took more than a week to reach here from USA. This is Maiden's Final Frontier Tour tee which happened in June this year. I paid more than Rm100 plus postage.



The back view of the tee with venues where Maiden's played(below the graphic). For Maiden's next year's tour in Singapore which I will be attending, I will get the official tour tee for sure.


SGD192.64. Pen A, in front fo the stage. Worth the money? You bet!

Now, should I get Maiden's Vans shoes or not? Hmm...

GioGio : China-made GPS unit

It's school holidays again, and I'm enjoying my time in KK, which, will be my home for years to come. I still do not have any idea which school I will be transferred to, but I do hope it will be at SMK Limbanak at Penampang. The school is situated at KK - Papar old road, and I don't see any signboard that shows there's a school there. But I found my way, thanks to my 5-inch GioGio GPS unit.


Home screen.

GioGio? Quite a funny name but name's aside, it's a must have thing in my car nowadays. The idea of getting it came when I need an MP3 player for my car stereo system. The one that can store hundreds of my favorite songs, nice to look at and have a touch screen. I'm tired of burning CDs, and I'm not too keen of getting the small cigarette lighter MP3 player that accepts thumbdrives. I browsed through lelong.com, bid a unit and won! All in all it costs a bit more than RM300. I got the unit itself, windscreen mount, car charger, wall charger, USB cable and headphone. I put in a 8 GB micro SD for added storage.


Stylus pen.




Ipod-inspired interface for the MP3 player.


Movie player. Due to the low spec processor and ram, the movie stutters. A nice feature, but because of the shortcomings, I don't use it often.


Photo viewer. The display is not that sharp, but still acceptable.


I like this feature the most! FM transmitter to transmit the sound to my car stereo system. Luckily, it's in stereo.


Navi options. I used Garmin and Papago much. Garmin for the vast POI's, Papago for the 3D view. As the seller claims, the unit lock onto satellite signals less than a minute and it's proven.

So far, I don't have any major comments about the unit. However, the touch screen is not that sensitive at times. I do find myself pressing at the same spot more than twice. I hope the audio output will be a bit louder in future models, as I need to adjust the volume of the car's headunit each time I changed audio sources(radios, Cd and the GPS unit).

p/s I just bid another unit for a friend from another seller, with a different name and design. And a bit cheaper too. The best part is it accepts AV in, which means I can display signals from Playstations or even reverse cameras.

Cokin P-series

Recently I bought a used Cokin P-series filter set for RM150 from a good friend. It came with 5 filters which, I hope it would help me in getting better photos especially landscapes. I tried looking for the 49mm adapter ring to no avail, which led me in getting the 52mm as I already have the 49-52mm step-up ring. Lucky for me, after mounting ring, adapter and filter, I didn't have issues with vignetting for all my lenses.


I bought the adapter ring for Rm38 from a seller in lelong.com.my


Mounted on my camera via step-up ring and adapter.

Some views along Kota Belud-Kota Marudu road.








Punang, Lawas this evening.