Monday Blues.... Oh wait...It's Thursday

Maybe the weekend is coming, i'm just on hibernation mode. I wish i could stay in bed and look at the ceiling but we all gotta work. Now i'm just figuring my next move. Should i bid the Leica M8 just for GAS's sake? Or i should just ignore GAS? As history shows, GAS always won. I'm a slave to my desire. Not good at all, not good at all. Something about a Leica, i just wanted to have it, owned it. Its something i always wanted to do or have. Owned and shoot a Leica. It is just like owning a Harley Davidson, now that i own it, i'm not looking at other bikes. I hope i'm like that with Leica, because i'm actually tired of GASing for cameras. I should just concentrate on taking pictures or get another hobby or back to playing music. My Fujis are the best in the business, i have the cameras, i dont need no other cameras, i just need to shoot shoot shoot. but that's the thing, these gears, these cameras are just like toys to me. I mean we men never grow up. We still buy toys except that it is more expensive. You know we jumped for joy like a little boy when we get our so called "toys". I hate GAS. i totally am but i need it to feel alive LOL. Wait till my bank account goes zeros then lets see if i still feel alive!

Anyway, my mood at the moment is making my pictures over-processed, wayward colours, desaturated, contrasty, painted look, orthodox, all mix into one or not. I guess i'm bored. or i want to find/do/look something different. I'm not gonna print these over-processed pictures, just for web, just for fun. It's funny when i visited photography or camera forums, people or trolls get too critique, or attacking/bashing each other, especially fanboys who got really defensive and start swearing, attacking, arguing, fighting, and then there's the ego maniacs, and so on... i wont go into details but you know what i mean, you stumbled across this once in a while if you surf a lot on the internet. Why fight, why argue in the first place? Are we in the Olympics? Is there a gold medal to win for? When people start giving harsh critiques to someone else's photos, didn't they ever think that he/she wanted it to look like that? It's their taste, their cup of tea, who gives a sh!t what critiques have to say but of course being human, we were born with anger in one of our DNA and of course we got defensive and start arguing. i mean it's just a waste of time, arguing over the internet with no real winner of the debate competition which is not even taking place..... Oh boy i got too deep + emotional here... must be the monday blues eh wait, its thursday...weekend blues it is...... Its just sad to see our human civilisation is not even civilised...Sorry i just had to rant...You know how rants are...just got way off topic..........................

I believe taking photos are for the passion, pleasure, for fun, be it snapshot, documentary, reportage, art, manipulator, and the list goes on... but the root of it must be the passion, for the love of it.

Anyway, my mood at the moment is making my pictures over-processed, wayward colours, hey... didn't i already said this?

Lets put some random pictures, enough of this ramblings. Because a picture speaks a thousand words.

Some over-processed pictures goodies.

 Dark skies, moody landscape. Just like how i'm feeling today

There are times when i like to see things differently. Different colours. Like you're in a movie, the colours were never 'normal'. 

To photo nerds, this is taken with my Fuji X-M1 + kit lens. This is in Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, Kundasang, Malaysia, at Mount Kinabalu, ...far away from the city...... Thank god they have KFC here.

So whats next?

Next on my wishlist will be a few lenses, hopefully not another camera. I hope i can skip the X-T1. So tempting and yet so not necessary. I'm in love with my X-Pro1, i'll be shooting with it exclusively. Now my X100s just sits in the bag, it is still my favourite camera but the X-Pro1 being the new toy, needs to be played more lol. I like the X-Pro1, its like the X100S but with different focal lengths. I didnt realize that i'm a fan of telephoto. Usually my type of photography just needs the 28, 35 and 50 in 35mm format. Now with the X-Pro1 with 18-55, i tend to use 55mm a lot more which is about 82mm in 35mm format. I used to be a wide angle guy. Now with the 55mm, I like the tight crop that it produced. More and more photos from my X-Pro1 are at the 55mm focal length, which of course led to GAS-ing the 60mm 2.4 lens. For a start, this lens is getting cheaper now, the prices are dropping, because there's a new kid in the block, the 56mm 1.2 which is selling like hot cakes.
Next, i would love to get the 35mm 1.4 but then according to fujirumors, there will be a new version, a version 2 of this 35mm lens. No more information about it, just rumor of a new version, it could be faster, or sharper, i dont know but i'd like to wait before buying the old 35mm. So the list goes like this, it might change in the future Ha!

1 - 60mm 2.4 lens
2 - 35mm 1.4 lens
3 - 14mm 2.8 lens or 10-24mm lens

Here are some random 55mm shots, my eyes through X-pro1...

Uh Oh... Did i just bought the X-Pro1?

Yep! I finally did it....
My object of desire, object of lust, the Fuji X-Pro1, in the end i just have to own it. Purely aesthetical but great photos at the same time. It's a poor man's leica one said but better in terms of IQ, ISO performances bla bla bla... Its GAS. Everything is better.

Accessories!!

Its probably in packaging process for shipment right now since i bought it over the weekend. Fingers crossed hopefully it arrived safe and sound here, in one piece and in great working condition.  i just dont like to return items as i find it a hassle process here. i just want to receive it and play with it straight out of the box. I'll wear this x-pro1 as my fashion accessories lol.
I bought it with the zoom kit lens the 18-55mm. i was having a hard time whether to get the 18mm prime or the zoom lens. After a lot of reading reviews online, many pros and enthusiasts seems to liken the zoom very much. its sharp, a bit faster than your normal zoom kit lens, its at f2.8-4, very well made and maybe it focuses better. I chose the zoom also due to it having OIS. i love image stabilizer. i can shoot pretty slow shutter hand held, just for fun, but its better to not get lower than 1/10 or 1/20 although the lens is capable but ya know, sometimes it might not be as sharp as you wanted. i said in my previous post i can take sharp pictures at 1 sec hand held, well... not really... i did shot it hand-held but i put my arms on the desk to keep hold steady, and sitting down at the same time. that was just a fun test shoot. realistically, if i cant find a place to put my arms down on something, its not gonna be sharp, heck, its even gonna ruin the picture lol.
Anyway, back to my GAS. I also chose the zoom for its versatility, one lens to do all. wide, mid and tele. Guys, like Laroque and Lovegrove pretty much sold me this zoom lens. Now that i think of it, i just want the 18mm prime for its square hood look. Maybe i'll just get the 35mm. that lens is in my wishlist. no. wanted list. and the 14mm.
When i bought my X-M1, i thought to myself, i dont need a viewfinder. i just compose with my LCD as i did with my iphone. It was true for the first week but then i just miss the feeling of having a camera planted to my face lol. although as much as i love my X-M1, i am missing the viewfinder and Fuji did not make an external viewfinder for it. They have the X-E1. And at the same time i was really impressed with the image quality, this is when i decided to get the X100S, for its retro look, viewfinder and prime lens (i always shoot with one focal length). Pretty ironic now that i chose the zoom. But with an X-Pro1, i can change lens. i look at it this way, its a X100S with interchangeable lens.
Why get X-pro1 not X-T1 you say? Well, that rangefinder looks, just do it for me. Its a 2 years old camera but by no means its a bad camera, it might be discontinued or obsolete but it still takes beautiful pictures. Its like a 2 or 10 years old guitar, if its in good shape, it still plays music/notes... i mean its still a guitar. same goes to the X-pro1. it will still take pictures until it breaks that is. But then, the X-T1 is still in my wanted list so there. haha.

Well, looks like i'm going Fuji all the way. Sorry Oly. Hopefully there is a Fujimpus. Fuji's image quality plus superb performance of Olympus. Fujimpus.

Cant wait to get my hands on my new old X-pro1.

3-axis IBIS and XC OIS (revised)

I was playing around with the 3-axis IBIS of the OMD EM10 and it was pretty to cool to actually get a pretty sharp picture at 1sec hand held. Of course i had to push the camera up in my face while my eye on the EVF of course to hold it steady. Like really push it to my face. and then i have this idea to compare it with my Fuji X-M1 which dont have IBIS and see if this 3-axis camera is really useful/working or its just a placebo effect. So i try shooting my Fuji at 1sec hand held and to my surprise, it was pretty sharp too.... i was discontent! and here i thought a camera with IBIS and a camera without one is gonna win by a mile and no that is not the case. so i tried shooting both at different speeds and both was able to get sharp pictures (some after a few tries), so i was like "what the hell IBIS?" . i was cursing, swearing , bull this bull that until i realised that the XC16-50 lens on my X-M1 has OIS! ... what a noob.

In the end, i have enough shots for comparing IBIS and OIS.

X-M1

ISO 200, 16mm f3.5 0.8sec

 Cropped

 EM10

ISO 200 14mm f4 0.8sec

cropped

i used 0.8 second here because of its high rate of not having motion blur after only the first try. i can get sharp pictures at 1sec (hand-held but my arms were on the desk to keep steady) but thats after 4 to 5 tries. During that time i can feel my heartbeats lol. I've tried my x100s at 1sec and none of the pictures are sharp maybe just one but its just not realistic to shoot 1sec with it hand held. So i guess these image stabilizers do really work. IBIS or OIS which one is better, i dont know. Based on my non-scientific test above both are similar. i heard the EM5 with 5-axis is much better than 3-axis but not much. After these test i frikkin love image stabilizer. sometimes i just play around with slow shutter to test the image stabilizer just for fun.

If only the primes has image stabilizer. This is where the Oly shines because IBIS is not lens dependent!