ROBIN WONG

I am so sick of seeing camera manufacturers stripping away important features in newer cameras with the excuse of calling them "fun and more film like". The bitter truth is them trying to minimize production cost and maximizing profit, by removing hardware and crippling the camera, while still selling them at exorbitant prices. If we are seriously considering taking away features and make the camera "more fun", let's go to the far extreme - I am experimenting with the Olympus Air as a standalone shooting camera, with only a singular shutter button. Without the aid of viewfinder or LCD screen to compose a shot, without the ability to adjust camera settings, all I could do was just press the shutter button after aiming the camera blindly at my subject, this proved to be quite an interesting session. I got some really cool shots too! I did a video to show you how I captured those shots (no cheating) here. 

During my recent Fraser's Hill adventures I managed to do some birding with the loaned OM System OM-5 Mark II camera. I also managed to borrow the Olympus 100-400mm F5-6.3 Mark 1, and the 400mm longest end telephoto reach proved to be useful as the birds were not that near. Fraser's Hill is a popular spot for bird watching and bird photography, it was reported that 250 different species of birds can be found in this one singular location. Of course, I only had limited time divided between birding, shooting insect macro and filming my video for YouTube, so I did the best I can. I tagged along the Malaysian OM System Ambassador, Richard Chong as he guided me to locations where the birds were known to be spotted. I'd be completely useless myself hunting the birds on my own! So shout out to OM System Malaysia team and Richard for all the amazing work! Hey, it is not an everyday thing Robin Wong does birding!

Since I was up at Fraser's Hill, I just have to do some insect macro photography while testing the new OM System OM-5 Mark II camera. Fraser's Hill is known for diverse insects, bugs and spiders, but I only had so little time to do my macro photography. I went into the easiest trail, Hemmant Trail which was about 1km long and shot most of my images there. I used my own Olympus M.Zuiko 60mm F2.8 Macro lens and the old Olympus FL-50R flash, mounted on the camera. Since the OM-5 Mark II isn't compatible with the FL-LM3 flash, I could not use my usual one hand camera, one hand wireless flash technique, so I had to improvise. I used the Macro Softbox sent to me by Emilie Talpin (US OM System Ambassador) for this around instead. I thought I found quite a variety of bugs this time!

Over the weekend, I had a 3 days 2 nights trip out of the city to Fraser's Hill in Pahang for the international Bird Race 2025 event happening up there. I tagged along the YL Camera team, thanks for having me along and the great hospitality, and of course, the OM System team was also there, and they loaned me the new OM-5 Mark II to play around with during my duration of stay in Fraser's Hill. I took this opportunity to do some nature photography, a little bit of insect macro as well as bird shooting. I will be sharing image samples from the OM-5 Mark II in my coming entries. Here, I just want to divert your attention to my latest video (click here), a hands on preview of the OM-5 Mark II camera, after I have shot with it for a few days. 

One of the many reasons I have stopped consuming content on Instagram is the similarities of all the images being showcased - it was as if everyone was trying to outdo everyone by copying what everyone else was doing. That is the unhealthy side of social media, it shows you certain expectations, and if you want to play the game you have no choice but to participate and do the same thing - shoot the same kind of images, with the same style and composition and finishing off with exact same post-editing approaches. The typical "film-like" look, or cinematic colors with orange vs teal tinge within a frame, or the expired film look, you get the idea. It is getting increasingly difficult to find original ideas to get inspiration from. Instead of trying to be authentic, many people just chose the easy way out - if you can't beat them, join them!

I brought the old dinosaur, Nikon D50 with merely 6MP CCD image sensor out for some shutter therapy. I did it to prove an important point - more megapixels won't make you a better photographer. The chase for the latest and greatest and the megapixel war have gone a little ridiculous, with "everyday carry" casual camera made to have medium format 102MP, I thought was counter-productive in many ways. If you can't shoot good images with an old, 6MP camera, you won't be able to shoot good images with a 102MP camera either. More megapixels don't make better photographs - composition, lighting, story-telling, decisive moment, the emotion and idea in your images will make or break the quality of your photographs, not the megapixel count. I shared my thoughts in my latest video here (click). 

For the past 2 weeks or so, there has been no rain (almost) in Kuala Lumpur, and the weather has been unbearably hot. Staying indoors is fine, though I do not have air conditioning in my room, with the ceiling fan going full blast, it is somewhat tolerable. However, doing anything outdoors in the harsh, burning sun while being drenched in sweat is not the most fun thing to do. I love street photography, but I also love my skin, and I really don't want it to be roasted to crisp. I really hope the heat spell will be over soon, and we get some intermittent rain to cool things down. I want to do some shutter therapy, but the thought of being barbequed alive out there stopped anything from happening.