exca's Xanga

Testing new lens

Fri, 23 May 2008 15:58:50 GMT

This is the first time I am using a technical lens. It is the Canon Tilt & Shift TS-E 90mm lens. This lens was made to create better product photography in mind although is can be used as a portrait lens as well. In short, you can adjust the depth of field (DOF) by tilting and/or shifting the angles to achieve a fully focused shots, or if you are creative enough, you can achieve super shallow DOF pics.

Last week, I used this lens to test on Justina AuYong for creative effect. I like the DOF effect by tilting the lens a couple of degree to achieve soft out of focus effect as seen the the following pics :D

An oldie but a goodie

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:47:06 GMT

Gong Xi Fa Cai!! I had a wonderful Chinese year break back at hometown.
Best time to relax mind and soul (and tummy). I pay tribute to the people
who need to work during the holiday seasons! You people rocks,
and you know who you are

I have got an email from a friend last week, quite an interesting read.
Read with an open mind lah.

---

A store that sells new husbands has just opened in New York City ,
where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions
at the entrance is a description of how the store operates:

You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors and the value
of the products increase as the shopper ascends the flights. The shopper may
choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next
floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!

So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband. On the first
floor the sign on the door reads:

Floor 1 - These men Have Jobs.

She is intrigued, but continues to the second floor, where the sign reads:

Floor 2 - These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.

'That's nice', she thinks, 'but I want more.'

So she continues upward. The third floor sign reads:

Floor 3 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking.

'Wow,' she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.

She goes to the fourth floor and the sign reads:

Floor 4 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking
and Help With Housework.

'Oh, mercy me!' she exclaims, 'I can hardly stand it!'

Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads:

Floor 5 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, Help
with Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.

She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor, where the sign reads:

Floor 6 - You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor.
This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank
you for shopping at the Husband Store.

PLEASE NOTE:

To avoid gender bias charges, the store's owner opened a New Wives store
just across the street.

The first floor has wives that love sex.

The second floor has wives that love sex and have money.

The third, fourth, fifth and sixth floors have never been visited.

Best New Year SMS Spam

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 14:54:42 GMT

2007 is history. Welcome 2008!

My mobile phone's SMS inbox was flooded with SMSes from 4pm new year eve till the new year day 6pm. Thanks for the messages friends, and you have just made the telco richer muahahahh..

We are getting lazier in recent years, we used to send greeting cards and now, everything is just a few press of buttons away, of course it is way cheaper then sending cards with postage stamps. I miss those days. SMS greeting is just as great. But my friends, do include your name in your spam message, so I know who you are, just like signing off a greeting card (if your name is not in my phonebook for certain reason )

In my opinion, of all the SMS received, this is the best one so far, from Steve Koh. It reads:

Some of the best moments in life :>
- Lying in the bed listening to the rain outside.
- A long drive on a calm road.
- Finding money in your old jeans just when you need it.
- Giggling over silly jokes.
- Having a friend to laugh and cry with.
- Getting a hug from someone who loves you.
- The moment your eyes fill with tears after a big laugh.
Wishing you these moments in your life always.. =)
Have a fabulous 2008!

May 2008 is a much better years to all of my friends! Happy New Year.

Kill Time 101. Part 1

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 17:10:02 GMT

Aiks, I supposed "Kill Time 101" meant the things I do when I am bored?

These are the following scenarios:-

1. Waiting for a friend who is late
2. Topic of discussion that doesn't concern me
3. Hand itchy
4. Eyes caught up with something unusual.

..naturally, I will reach for my cameraphone (Sony Ericsson K800i) and capture some of these

This is a glass of ice lemon tea, nearly finish and I use the camphone
with flash to shoot from the rim of the glass. Nice and unexpected effect.

Having wine at Tiff's Place (hope I got the name right). Pressing the
shutter and rotating the camphone simultaneously to create the whirl effect.
Try a few times and you will get it right.

During one of the Canon EOS Workshop at KL Birdpark, the make-up
artist spilled the foundation powder on the table. Oouch.

Lotus (is it lotus??) from the pond at Orchid Garden in KL. Camphoned
it while waiting for the workshop session to end.

My niece was playing origami and the shadow caught my eyes. Light
from the dining light on the dining table.

Decorative lights. I like the wires and decided to zoom in for the details using cameraphone.

Red wine glass. The top picture: light fall on the rims of the glass, which
create a halo-like effect. Nice.
The bottom pic showed a group of bubbles formed just after the waiter
poured the wine into the glass. I use the flash from the camera phone to add more light to it.

Lunch with client at a restaurant (Good Evening Bangkok) in 1 Utama.
Shot these amazing lights while waiting for them.

Comments welcome.

Enjoy!

Christina Ng: A different point of view

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:09:00 GMT

Last Friday (16th Nov 07), I was working with Christina Ng again to update her modeling portfolio. The last time I photographed her was in Aug 2006. Christina's popularity in the print and TV media gained momentum tremendously in the recent 2 years since she began modeling. I still remember 2 years ago she called me with a sad tone telling me stories about some senior models giving her discouragement in this highly competitive industry. Well, looks like she is doing pretty well today!

In this blog entry, I am showing you some pictures that I personally like (may be different from the one she like), I call it a different point of view :D However, you could still check out her site for some more realistic and composed pictures hehe..

...and oh yes, I need to thank my professional make-up artist, Taisu whom I have work with several projects. Above: Christina getting ready for showdown.

Every model need some beauty shots. These shots are to showcase your facial features, full frontal, left and right side views, smiling and serious look. Normally these kinda shots are clean cut.

One of my favourite style. She told me that the red dress was her mum's (in the 80's from Japan) and we wanted to do something nostalgic, so the dress was just perfect.

I like the mysterious feel to this picture. her face was halfway out from the lacey curtains.

Lashed and makeup design by Taisu.

Mono contrast. Simplicity sometime just works fine.

Alrite, that's all for now. If you have some ideas, do drop me some comments. :D

Before & After

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 08:39:24 GMT

I guess everyone know Photoshop do wonder to your pictures :D

Undeniable, I use Photoshop to polish my shots, every time. Bear in mind that if you want "overdose" of digital slimming/enhancement or whatever, personally, I would not advise it. It feels like cheating, your casting agencies wont like it, your client wont like it as well, and most likely, they will give you the same answer: "Actual sample and final product doesn't match". Minor correction is OK in general. Professional studio does that anyway hehe.

This sample files shown here are not about digital physical enhancement. Is is about adding effect to put more life into your shots. Thanks to Velva the model and Taisu the makeup artist.

What I did was applying the brush effect (water spot glow) and putting "water" into her eyes.

As for the pic below, if you see the left pic, the overall feel was quite bare and nothing to shout about. With a little creativity, I have added dust and wind and smoke to give this pic some motion and life. The end result will look mysterious. I only use brush effect on this pic.

Still, you need to produce good picture in the first place to achieve better results.

Practice more.

Dear friends at work Part I

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 07:39:49 GMT

Sometimes, in our line of duty, we get to meet a lot of familiar faces especially during events and shows. It is always good to see my darling angels at work. This blog entry is to tribute to them for their hard work...and also, you guys could see more of me, clearly (coz I seldom post my pic online), like it or not hehe.

Xuan-Xuan and me during one of the studio session, I think this pic was about 2 years old. My eyebags syndrome is getting quite serious. Lake of sleep...always :D

Velva and myself during the Canon EOS Outdoor Portrait workshop a last month. At the outing, the heat has made us sweat like shower water running, but everyone was so shutter-happy because of the angels there. Below is Angeline.

This pic was snapped by my colleague Reon during the "Teh Tarik" session with Christina after she done with her job for Sony Alpha700 Launch. She is holding roti-tisu.

Esther, Me, Christina and Rose. This was the event I attended earlier before the 'Teh Tarik". All pretty gorgeous. Below is Esther.

Canon 20th Anniversary Gala Dinner last week. Seen working there was Codee, Velva and Crissty. Looks like Santarina eh? hehe.. One more with Velva and Crissty, and Velva and me.

Besides work, some of us do meet for tea and coffee once a while. I had a cake for my last years birthday from Christina and a few friends, weird that I cant find the other friends pictures. Will post it when I found it hehe. Sorry ya friends.

Rach buying me Starbucks coffee last year :D yummm..coffee, my favourite. Thanks Rach

Dansui Connection

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 16:17:55 GMT

Time flies. Since May 07 till now only I manage to get to put in some content here, but I do read others blog..hehe.

Here are some pics which I took last week at Taipei, Dansui, Yuren matou. Using Sony Ericsson K800i Camera phone. Anyone been there?

Will put in more exciting pics and story here pretty soon.

Dramatic Sky

Tue, 08 May 2007 04:20:57 GMT

It was a lazy sunday a few days ago and it was around 7pm when I looked out to the sky from my balcony, the wonderful sight of the dramatic sky caught my attention. I do not have any DSLR camera with me, thus, using my cameraphone to capture the wonderful scenes, one of the best I have seen in recent years in Malaysia.

Sony Ericsson W800i

1 Noob, 1 Pro

Sun, 06 May 2007 12:04:08 GMT

These are some similiar shots which was captured using a cameraphone (SE W800i) during break time and the final images captured by DSLR used in the T3 magazines.

This Brazilian Hunk was done using camera phone.

... and this appeared in T3 using DSLR

"The making" using camera phone

...final enhanced digital imaging for T3