ROBIN WONG

It was a lazy Sunday morning that I participated in a Fujifilm Malaysia event led by my friend Azul Adnan (IG @azuladnan). It was organized in conjunction with J One Camera Store, and the theme of the outing was Black and White. Yes, you heard that right, it was a Fuji official outing, which means, I have a Fuji camera at hand. More about the camera to be revealed soon, I just wanted to share some quick snapshots taken earlier this morning in the event. Azul, as usual did a fantastic job sharing about black and white photography and he led the group in a short walk from GMBB in Bukit Bintang to Lalaport Shopping Mall, and back. We were asked to submit one photograph for comment and critic, and I submitted the opening image of this blog entry, the panning shot of the man carrying a wrist watch in his hand. It was truly a fun outing, learned a thing or two from the amazing Azul, and I must remind myself to do more black and white shooting. 

When the awkward pink colored broth Ramen showed up on my friend's social media suggestions, I thought this would be fun to give a try. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? The Oki Shokudo restaurant serves fish broth ramen, and their specialty is the Pink Ramen. It was the beetroot juice that contributed to the pink coloring. Since I have not tried a fish broth ramen before (we typically opted for Pork based broth), why not explore new things? Food knows no bounds, and I was glad I went to Oki Shokudo. The ramen was good, but nothing exceptional, I dare say it was a good first try, maybe no repeats. Still, quite an interesting experience seeing and eating something pink. 

It is almost comical when it comes to suggestions on how to improve a photograph, the most common answers are - use a sharper lens, use a certain magical camera feature, use bokeh or add some mystical LUTs, filters or film simulation effect. Most of the times, these tricks do not even work. Instead of focusing on what you can do with your cameras, lenses or even editing skills, why not pay more attention to the subject and see if you can improve the following: lighting, background, composition. Even a single change of background can drastically improve an otherwise, failed, boring shot. An example shown in the cup of coffee here. 

When you hear ISO25600, most people would cringe in fear, but I think that is not the end of the world. I found myself in a position where I had no choice but to shoot with crazy high ISO numbers up to 25600 recently. I attended a play at Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Center (KLPAC) as an audience and I was shooting from a fixed seat. Since this was not a job, I brought a simpler setup, a small camera, Olympus E-PL6 and a small telephoto zoom lens, the Olympus 40-150mm F4-5.6 R. The compounding effects of smaller lens aperture with dimmer than usual stage lighting and constantly moving actors on stage left me no choice but to shoot with uncomfortably high ISO numbers. You know what? The images come out perfectly fine. Yes, of course there is noise, there is obvious image degradation, but if you don't pixel peep, and if you look beyond the technical flaws, I believe what matters more are the stories, emotions and the moments of the show. I hope I have successfully captured them! Obsessing about high ISO noise won't get you anywhere, if you need to bump up the ISO, bump it up!

Continuing from yesterday's blog entry about using the Sigma 56mm F1.4 for portraits, here are more shots from the same session. All images were taken on OM System OM-1 camera. Initially the plan was to meet up and shoot in a local park. I arrived an hour and a half earlier than the others to film my talking head footage and B-Rolls for my POV video. However, as it approached the meeting time, the sky turned pitch black and it poured cats and dogs. We decided to change location to an indoor venue, obviously so we did not get wet. I have shot in this particular place several times before, and it has been a reliable, versatile location for portrait shooting. Zarah (IG @zarahjuana_06) our beautiful model was a great sport and I think I got some nice shots of her using the Sigma 56mm F1.4! I don't think I will do a full review for the Sigma 56mm, after all it is an old lens and there are already many reviews available out there. I just want to have fun shooting with the lens! 

Sigma 56mm F1.4 is a highly regarded portrait lens for Micro Four Thirds, and finally I got my hands on one. I have used this lens briefly previously, but never had an extensive shoot with it. I mounted it on my OM System OM-1 and did some portraits shooting, with POV video recorded! You can watch the POV video here (click) to see my camera's LCD screen before I press the shutter button. From this limited experience, I found the Sigma 56mm F1.4 to produce very good results - resolving admirable sharpness with plenty of fine details captured, excellent contrast and beautiful bokeh. This was just a portrait shooting session so I did not shoot the lens with a full review in mind. The lens rendering however lacks overall depth, they look rather flat and could use better 3D pop, which I see more from my usual portrait lenses like Olympus 45mm F1.8 and 75mm F1.8. Nevertheless, it is a decently budget lens, priced way lower than the Olympus 75mm F1.8, so I don't expect the output to be equal. For the money I have paid, indeed the Sigma 56mm F1.4 is a great value lens that delivers beautiful portraits! Special thanks to our model of the day, the beautiful Zarah (IG @zarahjuana_06)

We have to acknowledge the fact that smartphone camera is, and has been the most widely used camera for a while now, and even the most dedicated photographers with their die-hard gear of choice would turn to smartphones from time to time. I am no exception, for convenience, for the day to day casual shots where the camera seems to be a chore to take out of the bag, or for just some very quick snapshots, why not? Of course I am not buying into the marketing propaganda of how the latest smartphone camera can outperform the best of the best professional grade mirrorless or DSLR cameras, like they can replace the whole system, seriously? Let's be real, there is a place and time for every device, and for what I want to do with my photography many times the smartphones are just not good enough. That is an argument for another day - why smartphone cameras today is still lagging behind dedicated cameras. For today, I just dug up a recent photograph taken at the observation deck of Icon Siam, the largest shopping mall in Thailand. We have had a full day photowalk and I was completely exhausted. A quick snapshot was all I could manage, and that was the perfect job for the smartphone camera.