I did a POV street photography video in Malacca and it was first attempt at anything POV for the YouTube. Do check it out here (click). Photography was not the main agenda of the short trip to Malacca, I intended that to be food adventure and catching up with some old friends. Also I wanted to chill, relax and just get away from the metropolitan Kuala Lumpur for a little bit, before resuming my ever crazy busy life. It was a great weekend, had plenty of fun, ate too much awesome Malacca food and I did manage to squeeze in some time for shutter therapy. So I am sharing my shots here, all shot with the old dinosaur Canon 5D classic and 50mm F1.8. 

I recently purchased a budget manual lens 7Artisans 35mm F0.95 just because I was intrigued by two things - the 35mm unusual focal length (70mm equivalent in 35mm format) and super bright aperture F0.95, which I never had before. I have made a full video sharing my thoughts and mini-review on the lens, you can find the video here (click). I shall not repeat what I have said in the video here this time, I don't think this lens has much to shout about, but it is a decent performing lens for the low asking price with some noticeable flaws, but I am really enjoying the fixed 35mm perspective as well as the extra creamy bokeh of F0.95 wide open! I shall let you guys feast on some of my favorite shots from this lens here instead. 

Images were shot with Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III and 7Artisans 35mm F0.95

I brought the recently purchased Olympus PEN E-PM1 to the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park for 2 main reasons - to support the local business, KL bird Park has been closed for most of the year due to lockdowns, and also to prove a point that you don't have to break the bank to enjoy photography and get great results. I shot with the 10 years old PEN Mini and budget telephoto zoom lens from Olympus, the combo being compact, costs RM250 (USD60) got me some images that I am personally happy with. 

I made a video showing the birds in situ, and me sharing my thoughts, you can watch it here (click). 

In my casual browsing of the local used camera listings, I found a used Olympus PEN E-PM1 (launched 2011) for the price of only a few cups of coffee! How could I say no to such cute, little thing, which can still perform really well today and deliver fantastic results? I thought this would be a good chance to satisfy my curiosity about the Olympus PEN Mini concept, which I did not have the chance to. I made a video to share my thoughts on the E-PM1 (video here). In summary, the camera is super small and light, the AF is superbly fast and reliable and the image quality is still great today, easily beating any flagship smartphone camera today, which I have proven in video. Here in this truncated blog entry, I just want to share some of my latest shots taken from the streets of Kuala Lumpur, all shot on the E-PM1. 

I found a low priced, great condition Panasonic 15mm F1.7 and I immediately nabbed it. I have been eyeing one for a while, but I could not bring myself to pay for the full price. I am possibly one of the most frugal photographers out there, but hey, it is not like I am swimming in cash right now with so little jobs I get no thanks to the current on-going pandemic situation. I want to talk about the reasons why I added the Panasonic 15mm F1.7 into my camera bag, and of course, share some quick thoughts about using that lens for both my street photography and doing some simple video work. I have made a video as well on this same topic, you can find it here (click). 

In case you are not aware, I have owned a Fuji XF10 since early this year, read my review here (click). The reason I bought that XF10 was to force myself to shoot with wide angle in street photography. It did just that, and I thoroughly enjoyed the wider perspective, allowing me to see things differently and compose my shots outside of my usual tighter framing. However that XF10 was unacceptably slow in AF, and it has caused me to miss some critical moments when I needed the camera to react quickly. I cannot understand how a modern camera can have such slow focus (stop talking about snap focus, that is a lousy trick and a poor excuse for the underperforming AF). Therefore, the Panasonic 15mm F1.7 is the perfect lens for me to use for wide angle street shooting on my own Olympus cameras. The equivalent focal length is not exactly 28nm, but it is close enough, and I don't have to sacrifice AF speed. Quite frankly, I don't see anything special about the XF10's image output too. I am perfectly happy with what I am getting from my current Micro Four Thirds setup. 

Back in May just before the total lockdown started, I found a cheap portable printer online while doom scrolling on Lazada (online shopping platform here) and I bought it. The Paperang P2 was a thermal printer, same type of printer for receipts you get after you purchase items at the store with your credit or debit cards. It does not require ink for printing, and the papers are cheap, hence I decided to get one, just for the fun of it. You do need to connect to the smartphone via the official app to print your images. The pairing of printer to smartphone was easy and printing process was relatively fast, just a few seconds. Of course, the print is only in black and white.