Manual PANO with Sony A7S

Testing out manually panorama stitching with photoshop. not really manual. auto stitch intelligently by photoshop. photoshop is a genius! no banding. this is before i realised that my Sony A7S has a panorama feature built in...duh! *facepalm!*

A Picture A Day: Mountain

I wasn't really sure to upload this pic on 500px but this is the picture that get the most likes...about 30 likes...sad i know but there are actually people who likes it so thats not a bad thing either..... i think for me personally this is a shit picture but people do like it....that means i shit gold!! hahah but no.....that just shows we are different in everything we are, we have different taste, we lived different lives, different perspective.... we are just humans.... subject to our own opinions...

This was shot with my Sony A6000. Such a little gem. When i have my A6000 i really didn't blog that much... so i'm gonna change that....maybe.... and the one i uploaded on 500px is a little bit underexposed....just a noob editing pictures skills with laptop monitor full maximise brightness....wtf!

And i also start using Google's free Nik collection specifically the dfine noise reduction... i noticed even with the lowest ISO theres an amount of noise in the blue skies, which is kind of annoying...lowest ISO = noise?? maybe its the digital sensor characteristic but yeah...its annoying...

So this photo was taken late last year when i was in Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, famous for its mountain. I love spending the night here at the chalets, no aircondition, just natural breeze, peaceful, quiet, just insects noise, away from the city, and frikking one minute hot water shower n the rest is ice cold water....nasty. Nature at its best. 

Hi, My Name is Dark Moody

I'm beginning to dig the look of my 'Andy Lee' wannabe look. It has the sort of surreal feel, painted look and really dark mood feeling about it, as if its about to rain in a few minutes. I dont really shoot a lot of landscapes lately or ever but now that i have that 'dark mood look' recipe, i wanna try it on all of my landscapes pictures but first i need to shoot more landscapes. I've been digging my library and see if i can find more landscapes pictures but alas there's only a few. Shucks! I need to get my ass off this couch and start taking photos!

I found a few photos from my last year's trip to Kota Kinabalu Sabah. I'm diggin the look. I'm calling this my "Dark Moody" set.

All shots taken with Fuji X-M1.
Awesome little camera!

My 'Andy Lee' Wannabe photo

I was reading dpreview when i stumbled upon an article featuring Andy Lee with his Iceland in Infrared landscapes photos. I'm not so much into landscapes, i love it but its always been done to death. "Hey, look at that, a mountain!" ..(setup tripod, set long exposure, shoot). I'm not saying that its not beautiful, it is beautiful when done right...to my eyes. What i'm trying to say is, our eyes are the best camera of all time. No camera can replicate what our eyes can see. So when you shot landscapes, sometimes you'll say to yourself, "It's nicer to see and experienced it with your own eyes than looking at photographs" or maybe i just sucked at photography. I guess its the latter. It's like my first time looking at the Eiffel Tower with my own eyes, i'm just in awe and it was breathtaking. I didn't have that same feeling when i look at a poster of Eiffel Tower. So when you look at pictures of landscapes and it was breathtaking, it makes you wanna go there and experience it yourself but to find out later, that place was just normal looking, it is beautiful, dont get me wrong but the pictures look nicer, then you got yourself a 'landscape photographer' genius. Andy Lee is one of them. When i look at Andy's pictures, i'm just inspired. It is my cup of tea. Bravo, bravo, that is nicely done. It's how he post-process his pictures, i bet if its OOC, its just normal looking landscapes but then he laid down his personal touch and OOoommpphh.... breathless!

For me, its all in the post processing, composition and light. Chasing light. I dont have neither. I'm still looking for post processing recipes and light? Me chasing light? Maybe the light chases me and if lucky i got a camera in my hand. and then came composition..... i'd be damn lucky if i got it right.

Here's my wannabe 'Andy Lee' look .... its not anywhere close....

So to Andy, Good Job, Bravo and i salute you...

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.

First attempt at night photography

This is taken from my hotel window. First attempt. i never done any night photography. i always imagined i do. im just so lazy to go out at night and take photos. But i do read on the how to, Rule of 600/400, star trails, long exposure and so on. Oh by the way this is in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.

This hotel is located at the mountain's foot? lol... just somewhere in between...lets just say im at the mountainous area. Was looking out my hotel window when i realised that the sky was super clear. There were stars. so i quickly took my XM1 out of the bag and get my small tripod. Those tripod work wonders!. Set it to 25second and playing around with the ISOs, aperture wide open, mine was f/3.5. Set the self timer to 2 second and boom!

i was in awe with my results. its not the best night photography, im not gonna win whatever photographers price out there but it was my first attempt and i was really surprised that it looked damn good. i couldnt believe that so many stars are actually in the sky. it was really fun.

Just another B&W

Dunno why it looked so washed out... it was contrasty blackish in my folder....

But somehow i liked it.

This is taken in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.... and nop thats not the famous mountain...

Just another black and white...