Reedit Panorama: Sutera Harbour Sun Set

I found out that manually attach and stitch photo are easier that the preset automatic photo merge software. Thou, one need to master the skills and logic of the photo shop software so that one can manipulate the tools to serve your photo editing process.


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Above, the photo that i merged using photo shop photo merge function. I pretty easy if you take the photo the right way but it will be a mess if not with horizontal problem, wide angle out shape, shadow and highlight differences on each shot. I don't see any way for me to fix it using photo merge function. Maybe there are not or i just missed it. There are plenty way to fix some abnormality in the photo above. But I think by manually merge the photo it, one will have more control on the photo merging process.


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Above photo was merged manually one by one with photo shop. The difficulties are to find out the match and same point for both photos. The use the mask layer to brush of the uneven side and with match color function, you can match the contrast, brightness and the color level for both photos you want to merge. It sound a little bit technical but if one get used to photo shop one will know it. I actually found out this technique while using the photo merge function on CS3. Seem that photo shop kindly enough to let the user see how the software actually does it.

I wonder if I can manually merge a photo with attachment on horizontal and vertical. Will let you all know after tested it.

Photo: Bees

I don't really know what species are this bees. I actually plan to take some lizard but ended up taking bees instead. I have to use a tripod, high shuttle speed around 1/400 and external flash with diffuser box. Even with the setting, the photo still look a little bit blur and noise.



I used my zoom lens 70-300mm lens to capture this tiny bees. It actually look smaller but i crop and make it bigger, enhances the colors and sharpen it using photo shop. The result turn out to be nice.



I wonder what it would like if i took it using macro lens. The photo must be look nice with the overwhelming details if shot only one bees and hope that they will not fly away or sting you back.

Bloggers Meet with Peter Tan and Wuan at Kota Kinabalu

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It so nice to be able to meet Peter Tan and his newly wedded wife Wuan in person after reading his blog on and off for few years at Shamrock Irish Bar Waterfront. I knew Peter Tan's blog very long time ago from Project Petaling Streets Blog Portal. He well known with his fight for the disable people as himself is one too. For more information about him, please do go to his blog.

Thanks to Dee to spent some time to thought and organize this meet even thou this was an ordinary meet for bloggers. For me, I would like to listen some of Peter Tan's own story and experience of how he do these entire thing when he himself have all this difficulties. I have some time with Peter Tan and share with him my thought about some disable project I planned during my campus life that not worked out.

There are so many places that Peter and Wuan can go for their honeymoon trip, thou I think it’s hard for them to go during this first trip because of some mobility difficulties they experience. I hope the second trip in future won't be so difficult for them. I guess this is the first eye opener that Kota Kinabalu not a disable friendly. We have a world class holiday destination but sadly that not everyone can enjoy and experience the beauty of it.

Last, it's nice to meet back in person again with jacQ and bro, Julian Sabah, WeiChuen and Josie (lain kali kita try minum kopi o ping lagi). So nice to be able to meet with Edgar, Joy, KinkyJasmine, Racheal and two extra more that i forgot their name. Sorry about that.

Others link about this meet.

Caneeliea [Dot] Com : Life Of The Borneo Lady: KK Bloggers Meet Featuring Peter Tan
Peter Tan Digital Awakening: Kota Kinabalu Blogger’s Meet - Shamrock Irish Bar
JoyBlee A Day in a Life: Last Night at Shamrock (KK Bloggers Meet)
Simply Dee: Blogger’s Meet ~ Shamrock Irish Bar
Kinky Jasmines: Review on the bloggers’ meet at Shamrock - can anyone say sex?

Photo: Full Moon and the Silhouette of Kinabalu Mountain

I received a phone call from my friend again who told me that the moon is bright tonight with a fade shadow of Kinabalu Mountain. I quickly went to the Kepayan Sembulan Highway to take some shot of this scene. It turn out to be a very difficult shot as i don't know where is the best location for me to put my camera and give it a good exposure at night. I realized that i made a bad mistake when taking a night shot at the side of a busy highway.



This was taken with 70-300mm zoom lens with a steady tripod. I jack up the ISO setting to 800 to avoid blur shake effect. My tripod is for video camera and not photo camera.



I ended up made two version of photo shop touch up. The top photo was touch up fully with photo shop with high contrast to balance to moon and get rid of the blue sky and yellow streets light. It gives a feeling that one at the quite dark road side. I expose this shot to 10 second with slightly bigger aperture of f10. Longer exposure not good idea when lots of car passing by and it will spoil the photo.



The second photo was touch up in two processes. First i fix the white balance and exposure in RAW camera menu and do the sharpen effect, bright and contrast effect and little change on the blue and yellow color. The streets look brighter on the second photos.



I use the single lens and bigger the aperture to f1.8 and set the exposure to automatic about 1/15. It actually over expose and i tweak the highlight to make it darker in the RAW menu and the rest done with photo shop. One can see the shadow of Kinabalu Mountain on the below of the over expose moon. I guess I need to set the exposure balance to max negative to compensate over burn highlight of the moon brightness. Basically this is a bad photo that heavily fixed with photo shop.

Panorama Kota Kinabalu Second Port

This panorama shot came from 3 different photos. I took the 3 shots free hand without a tripod by referring the horizon and guide line. Then i stitch the photos manually with photo shop without using the adobe merge.



The second photo was taken on the port. The apartment overlook the port and sea and the city and i believe very expensive.

Photo Shot: MV Doulos at Kota Kinabalu

Wikipedia describes,

The MV Doulos is the world's oldest active ocean-faring passenger ship. She is now owned by the German charity Gute Bücher für Alle (Good Books for All), and is used as a floating bookshop. Over the years, she has been known as the SS Medina, the SS Roma, and the MV Franca C

I woke up early to send my mom to visit the MV Doulos, thou i didn't go up to the ship. I take this opportunity to snap some couple of photos for my collection and get the feeling of snapping a cruise ship. The sun shines directly to the ship for a few moments before a brief rain starts.



I'm not really dare to go over the red tape line for a better angle because this is a private property. Some of the port staff curiously watching me taking some photo of the ship and i hope they don't think that I'm a terrorist or what.



After few moments, I realized that it is going to rain. Big gray cloud swarming near the port area at the horizon and at that time I think i should go back to car or went up the ship. Thou, I choose to go back to car.



I managed to snap some last minutes of the ship before rain dripping. I have some other port photo and will show it up on the next post.

Portrait: The Cat 2

I don't have a cat pet, thou i don't have problem to take any cat portrait at my home. My house is a neutral area for cat. They mate, fight and even sleep at my house area. One day, two cats fighting and making so much noises. Never they know that my house has lots of strategic area for me to splash water at them to make them stop fight. The cat featured here is the champion of all cat fight tournament in which i failed to stop. My neighbor's male cat have a record amount of scars on his face and i feel that even on his psychology.



Took this shot using 70-300mm lens. It's so comfortable to take a shot to close up extend without having to move so near to the cat. He sure really a champ good looking cat that just lazy to clean himself.



This is the black and white version photo. I deepening the contrast and let a little more amount of burn highlight to get the same effect on the black and white negatives.



This pose reminded me "The ROCK" WWE wrestler star. I made some adjustment of the shadow and highlight on the photos and deepening the contrast. It might look darker, but the color seems to look nice and natural.

YouTube, Video Streaming in Masses

I wrote about web based drama lonegirl15 not long ago. It was thought to be a video blog but some viewers found out it was created by a production team and actors. YouTube is a good platform for ordinary individual chances to show and share their creativity, idea and works using their web camera or video camera. I saw lots of creative ideas came out made by only one person and simple editing tool.

Now day, video blog or video blogging is spreading around the internet users. One can express their thoughts, idea and feelings in front the camera rather than writing it with words. Video streaming become more practical today because of the high speed data transfer network. We're not limited to only text, layout and graphic interface but an extra addition of video to the web. News becomes more ever faster reaching to the community around the world.

I'm now I subscribe for two video log channel that is Communitychannel and HappySlip. Communitychannel was hosted by a girl named Natalie who live and study in Australia. She have an unique personality when talking in front of the camera and express her thoughts very good with a bit sarcastic and funny way. The most interesting came from her is her ability to do a snap multiple character theatrical act that most of student actor do when practicing the acting performance in front of the camera. There are some of her YouTube video that i find it so funny especially Parody of NoHoGirls "Indecent Proposal" and a little bit sketch about audition for Harry Potter.

HappySlip also do the same multiple character act video but i have to give it to Natalie of her wider adaptation and ability to jump from one character to another different character and not back to the same old character. HappySlip is a pretty charm lady and actually more famous than Natalie. She has most views of her video, even thou i feel that his acting skills not really that good. Maybe is her looks and her capability in singing that attract lots of people. Moreover, she live in America that is the YouTube country that enable her to join any conference organized by YouTube management.

Another YouTube user that i subscribe is a local named zanazlee. He is a freelance film producer and full time mass com lecture. He also create a videoblog for his self too. He created some good short political and travel documentary and posted it in YouTube. I don't know if there is any YouTube community in Malaysia or Sabah specially. I think there are some but it was hard to locate them.

I also sent some of the video clip i made into YouTube. The location is here. I also want to create some self made video on YouTube. I has some idea in my mind and wish to produce it using my sort of expensive video camera for wedding video that i never have chances to used after bought it. Well it also depend if i can put it nicely on a video.

Portrait: The Cat

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This is some photo that i took right after i some shot with sun halo on my previous post. I find it the cat look more interesting than this sun halo because i just heard my friend told me that he saw this phenomenon last few weeks ago and had shot a photo of it. It kinda feel stupid to read in news paper that this is a rare and one in a life time phenomenon when i did saw it many times.

i remember when josiekupi told me that the cat look so gete or horny. Well i laugh out loud because indeed it look as it. I used 50mm f1.8 lens and 70-300mm lens to on this portrait shot. Both of the lenses did gave different feel. 50mm f1.8 gave a more focus point to the cat's face with it high DOF (deep of field) meanwhile, the 70-300mm gave more detail and close up on the overall cat's face.

Sun Halo: Optical phenomena at Kota Kinabalu

I still sleeping at my bed in my room, my friend rang me and tell me that there are ring halo around the sun. Not a really interesting sight because i saw it almost 5 times for this few years, but never took a single photo on it. Halo according to Wikipedia is a

A halo (ἅλως; also known as a nimbus or Gloriole) is a ring of light that surrounds an object.

Halos, also known as ice bows, are optical phenomena that appear near or around the Sun or Moon, and sometimes near other strong light sources such as street lights. There are many types of optical halos, but they are mostly caused by ice crystals in cold cirrus clouds located high (5–10 km, or 3–6 miles) in the upper troposphere. The particular shape and orientation of the crystals is responsible for the type of halo observed. Light is reflected and refracted by the ice crystals and may split up into colors because of dispersion, similarly to the rainbow.

Sometimes in very cold weather optical halos are formed by crystals close to ground level, called diamond dust. The crystals behave like jewels, refracting and reflecting sunlight between their faces, sending shafts of light in particular directions.

Atmospheric phenomena such as halos were used as an empirical means of weather forecasting before meteorology was developed.

Other common optical phenomena involving water droplets rather than ice crystals include the glory and the rainbow.

wikipedia

I found out it not easy to shot any photos that include the sun with a dSlr camera. One has to be very careful not to look directly at the sun or risk your eyes gone blind. The lens feature in dSlr lens can direct into your eye receptors and injured it permanently. So, i have to be careful not to look directly to the sun too long. Then i thought of an idea of what every sun astronomers do by putting a black object in the middle to cover out the sun. Thou, this is not the safest way because the risk of looking directly to the sun with the lens still there. I have to snap the sun very fast and most of the shot not really aligned well.



The photo above was taken directly using the camera. I had to shot it fast and not directly focus on the sun. The black round was added after that using photo shop.



The photo above was taken with a 10 cent on top the lens. I can put the coin on the lens because of the attachment filters and i don't have to worry of scratching the lens. Still i need to be careful to avoid looking direct to the sun.



The sun halo looks better and clearer after post processing using the photo shop. It to believe the ring should be like rainbow and not a white line due to the definition from wikipedia. I use a smaller coin that is 5 cent for this shot. I tape the coin on a silo tape and attached it at the center of the lens. Now, the black point look smaller and one can see the ring better. This is not any professional astronomy shot but merely a photo testing from me of a phenomenon that my friend woke me up for. Thanks for that!

I believe lots of people saw and photograph this phenomenon. Here i listed some blog that wrote about it in instant and post it in their blog.

Life Less Ordinary: Hello Halo
Limadang.com: Amazing Sun Phenomenon In Borneo Kota Kinabalu! (22 degree Halo)
Life of a Borneo Lady: A Halo Afternoon
Julian and Morin Photo Blog: Unique Phenomenon
Bits of Life: The sun is magnificient, surrounded by halo-rainbow!!
The Autumn Party: Halo!
Mizz Luzy: Fresh from the Oven

To see latest update, please click giuk.net site

Self Portrait: A first attempt

After looking at some few self portraits I feel that I should try it out too. With 50mm 1.8 lenses on me now, i do some test shot at myself in front the mirror.



I took some few shot. Most of the problem is that my face expression, the camera position and the face angle. Luckily, the natural light set in so nicely with the shadow and highlight set so balance.



Taking self portrait with both hand occupied is a difficult task. One hand need to hold the heavy camera and another hand need to hold the mirror. Then you need to adjust the angle of this two devices and with a pinch of luck, you might get a good shot with many time of tries.

Ipoh Mali: Ipoh almost like version of NameWee

Less controversial than Namewee, another Chinese rap artist Point Blanc, in the making to the Malaysian musical industries. Hip hop rap is the never ending music trend at Malaysia since KRU all the way to Too Phat. They are all going at the same end. No major achievement on the international market except for the local market. Even thou i doubt that if they really make it that big without that over rated publicity.

I don't know when Malaysian Chinese starting to venture into hip hop rap. I guess since the Taiwan and Hong Kong artist started to sing the hip hop genre. Before that we saw some love ballad from Malaysian Chinese all the way to Taiwan like pin guan and fish and ah ngui crash on the half way. Namewee seem to have a chance but i really doubt that he can survive with a hip hop images on his tag. His only break through is when government don't like his national day video clip and he got lots of free publicity online and on printed press. Ah Ngui is the one who bet on hip hop and turn out to a bad investment. His best song was believed to be bought by one china singers and he made lots of money over it.



I don't know if this particular hip hop singer will be able to make big in where ever market. I doubt that he will ever make over next year if he still sticks with the hip hop image. Don't misunderstand me, i like some good hip hop song but it seems like most of the local hip hop artist not really good on their hip hop presentation. It looks like they just imitate the style from some hip hop music video. It has a fake feeling when watching at it. One might think that is great to have some great artist such as malaysia idol jaclyn victor, amy mastura and some other hip hop fella that i not even remembered will help on his popularity in the clip. No one know that the amy and jaclyn not in hip hop rap medium and it sound silly to take advantages on their non hip hop fan base.

Photos: 70-300mm and 50mm f1.8 photo testing

Mother and kitten resting
on top of the air conditioning

My haiku attempt, a Japanese traditional poem. This photo was shot using the long zoom lens. Cheaper version cost less than RM500. According to one photo equipment shop owner, there are lots of different between cheaper and expensive lens. The main is the technology. Most expensive lens is compatible with digital SLR camera and the cheaper one not. Digital lens utilized all the digital feature of the camera such as vibration reduction, multiple point auto focus, better lens and silence mode. Silence mode is important when you want to take sniper shot on animal or when you spying on husband who got mistress. Vibration reduction is so useful when shooting on a moving platform and zooming on a high distance. The multiple point auto focus help to lock on a moving object such in football tournament and high speed racing.



50mm with max f1.8 aperture lens turn out to be so good in low condition light setting. I took some nice picture on my cousin's wedding with it. The disadvantage is that it cannot to be use in spot shooting in such as actual day wedding. The best use for this lens is on presetting shot as everyone knew studio shot. The DOF (Deep of Field) effect is produce by this lens make the object stand out. Viewers who look at the photo knew instantly the focus object in a photo. The effect also can be copied when using a long zoom lens such as 70-300mm when taking portrait. I plan to take some panorama shot with this lens in future.

Jonas and Marina Unofficial Wedding Photos

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Note: Morning function was taken with Canon IXUS850 Point and Shot Digital Camera and the dinner photo was taken with 50mm f1.8, 18-70mm and 70-300mm lens