ROBIN WONG

There is a super awesome exhibition featuring 12 local Malaysian artists happening how at Sasana Kijang (Bank Negara Malaysia) titled - JIWA MEMBUMI. The official translation of the title to English is "the soul of the land". The exhibition is comprised of mixed media presentation, digital projection, sculpture pieces, paintings and a majority of the exhibits are of course, photography prints! Both my good friends Azul Adnan and Grace Ho (whom I have talked about previously) are also highlighting this show, and I am so, so proud to see their amazing photography work displayed in large prints. Congratulations to both Azul and Grace, you both know how incredible you are, and I will visit both of you again at the gallery some time soon. For those of you in Kuala Lumpur, or visiting the city, please consider slotting some time to check out Jiwa Membumi exhibition running from now till 25 February 2025. Gallery is open to public everyday (except Mondays) from 10am to 5pm. You can check out the official website for more information here (click). 

Technical notes: Bags are not allowed into the event venue, so I packed the smallest setup I can - the Panasonic GM1 and kit lens 12-32mm pancake, carrying into location by hand. If you see some weird skin colors, well blame Panasonic and their weird color science. All images shot on the GM1 except the first image, stolen from Azul's phone. 

My friend Kevin from Australia gifted me a circular fisheye lens, the 7Artisans 4mm F2.8 for Micro Four Thirds, so I took this opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and go insanely wide with my latest street outing session. The 7Artisans 4mm gives an extremely wide coverage of 225 degrees field of view, that is more than 180 degrees vertically and horizontally. That was an extremely challenging setup, trying to compose with such wide angle frame, I accidentally fitted in unwanted subjects within my frame too many times. While it was not easy shooting with the circular fisheye lens, it was surely a super fun outing, and I thought I got some really cool shots. I mounted the 7Artisans 4mm F2.8 on my Olympus OM-D E-M10, and you can find the images in this blog entry. For POV street style shooting (showing what was around me and in front of me before I clicked my shutter button), you can find my last YouTube video of the year here (click). 

Continuing from previous post, as I was still playing with the Panasonic 14-140mm F4-5.8, this time I brought it out on a street outing. It was an outing organized and hosted by the celebrity crazy famous local photographer, Abeden Mung, and I was merely participating. We had over 200 people showing up for this mini gathering, so I was just wandering around doing my own things. I think street photography is personal and I just pointing the lens at anything that caught my attention. Superzoom lens was usually not my first choice, but I did not find awkward using it at all this time around. I must say though, I do prefer to use primes over zooms for my own street shooting. For this one exception, here are some superzoom street images. 

I attended a KLPAC (Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Center) show several months ago titled RWD/FWD as an audience, with a fixed seating, but I still wanted to work the camera to grab some shots. I figured the best solution would be a superzoom, the wide focal length coverage from wide angle to telephoto allowed me to do more with just one lens. And let's face it, this was not a job, I could not be bothered with the hassle of changing lenses to get the optimized results, I was shooting for myself, so what if I needed to bump up the ISO because the aperture was not F1.8? There was no consequence, I was shooting for myself, so I used the Panasonic 14-140mm F4-5.8 on my old Olympus OM-D E-M1 (the OG), and I thought I got some really cool shots! I talked about using the superzoom in my latest video here (click). I share the images from this KLPAC show in this entry. 

The second part of my test with the NiSi 49mnm Close Up lens was using it on my own Olympus 60mm F2.8 Macro. The Olympus 60mm macro lens alone can achieve 100% magnification, and by quick ruler measurement, by attaching the NiSi 49mm Close Up Lens, I can take the magnification further to a whooping 158%, which was incredible! I took this opportunity to shoot smaller critters, or go even closer to the bugs revealing more details on their eyes, and I got to say, the image quality coming out from this combo was nothing short of amazing. All images were shot on OM System OM-1 using wireless off camera flash, and I have also made longer explanation in my latest video here (click). I am just throwing the images I got from this macro lens + close up lens combo around in this blog entry. 

NiSi contacted me and asked if I were interested in testing their Close Up Lens and I immediately said yes. It is not an every day opportunity to collaborate with a company doing insect macro photography, something I am quite passionate about. I did tell them that if I don't like the product, I will continue with the review, but it turned out that I was quite impressed by what the  Close Up Lens can do. Basically, the NiSi Close Up Lens is a simple attachment that you mount onto another lens to reduce the minimum focusing distance, bringing the lens closer to the subject, increasing magnification. This can turn a non-macro lens, like the Olympus 45mm F1.8 into a macro-like lens. Based on my simple calculation (you can check in video) I estimated the maximum magnification of Olympus 45mm F1.8 was boosted from 0.11x to 0.56x with the NiSi Close Up Lens attached. I have talked about my experience using it in my latest video, you can check it out here, but in this blog entry I am sharing all images taken with OM System OM-1 with Olympus 45mm F1.8 + NiSi Close Up Lens 49mm. Teaser - I will share images taken with the Olympus 60mm F2.8 macro + NiSi Close Up Lens in the following blog entry, with insane magnification going super close to the bugs!

One of the amazing things about Micro Four Thirds system is the collection of really awesome compact sized, portable lenses that are excellent in optics design and can deliver great results. Sometimes it still puzzles me how something so tiny-ly built can render astoundingly sharp and beautiful results. Even the lowlist kit lens from Micro Four Thirds is no slouch either, they are impressively sharp. I compiled a list of 5 best budget lenses for Micro Four Thirds system under USD150 (used or new) with autofocus - the lenses are Panasonic 14mm F2.5, Olympus 45mm F1.8, Panasonic 12-32mm F3.5-5.6, Olympus 40-150mm F4-5.6 R and Yongnuo 17mm F1.7. I made a video to further expand on my explanations, you can view it here (click).