ROBIN WONG

It was a brunch catching up session I had with my friends Jackie and Jaslyn recently, that we decided to try this trending restaurant Arimau Beta at Hextar Mall. I had low expectations, it looked like a normal restaurant trying to be hipster and unique by blending different local dishes together, namely nasi lemak and dry chilli noodles. When the dish came, all I did was whip out my cheap smartphone camera and took a quick shot with little regard to my composition. I just wanted a documentation of what I ate. Surprise surprise, the Dry Chilli Noodles Ayam Balado I ordered turned out amazing - in fact it was one of the best tasting noodle dish I have had recently. The photograph may not do the dish justice. It was unlike anything I have tried before - and the unique blend of nasi lemak ingredients inside the dry chilli Noodles turned out extremely well! Who would have thought? Perhaps I should revisit this dish and capture a proper photograph. 

There is a weird mystery going on for a while now, every now and then I'd receive emails or comments on my YouTube videos with random people welcoming me back to Olympus and saying how they got heartbroken when I stopped using Olympus and glad that I have returned. It got me completely dumbfounded, because the truth is I never stopped using Olympus! I seriously wonder where this confusion came from, because I take a lot of pride in not being the photographer/content creator/influencer that changes his cameras as frequently as they change his underwear!

One of the cameras that I wish I have purchased many years ago was the Panasonic Lumix LX5. It came out in 2008, I just graduated and started working on a lousy engineer's salary in Malaysia and I could not afford one. I have always been curious about what the LX5 can do, I have heard so many positive things about the camera. Now in 2026, I found a used unit in the marketplace at such a cheap price, though in quite a banged up condition. It is still fully functional so I brought it out for some shutter therapy. It was so fun shooting with something truly compact in form factor, yet the camera was capable of delivering great results. Panasonic used to make such amazing little compact cameras. It is too bad that they have discontinued the LX series, but I think it is the right time to revive it, Panasonic should definitely bring compact cameras back! There is a huge demand for it, why not? I made a video to talk about the Panasonic LX5 here (click). 

I have gotten this question more and more recently - Robin, why do you shoot with the LCD screen of your camera instead of the viewfinder? It was directed to me at the POV street shooting video on YouTube, with the purpose of the video showing how I composed my images before I clicked the shutter button. For sure, you would know that it is impossible for me to record the viewfinder if my eye was pressed on it while I was framing my shots, right? I thought it would be fun to record the moments before each photography was taken, with the action camera showing wide view of my surrounding as well as the LCD screen itself. Needless to say, this has nothing to do with my preference to shoot with LCD or EVF, the only way for this format to work was to shoot with LCD screen!

I have several photographs printed and exhibited at Ricoh Malaysia's GR Gallery at Eslite Bookstore in The Starhill, Bukit Bintang. It came as a surprise when I was invited so submit some images for this exhibition, because I was only briefly involved with Ricoh Malaysia for the launch of their GR IV last year. It was humbling to be featured and having my images displayed among many other talented Malaysian GR photographers. If you happen to be in downtown Kuala Lumpur, do drop by The Starhill (previously known as Starhill Gallery) and see if you can spot my images there! Exhibition is open to public on shopping mall hours from 1-30 June 2026. 

I did a fun experiment recently - I attached the Olympus MC-20 2X teleconverter on the old Four Thirds DSLR lens, Olympus 50-200mm F2.8-3.5. This combination officially is not compatible, but I managed to make it work. In order to attach the MC-20 Teleconverter, a compatible lens requires a receiving in to slot in a protruding part. The workaround was the Four Thirds to Micro Four Thirds adapter that has a hollow gap in it which allows the protruding part of MC-20 to fit in nicely. I technically had a 100-400mm F5.6-7 lens to work with, so I participated in a birding outing to Fraser's Hill organized by OM System Malaysia and YL Camera! The performance of this combo was a mixed bag, I did get some decent output which I am showing in this blog entry, but if you are serious about birding and wildlife photography, I'd say the glaring compromises are enough to point you to the other direction. I shared everything in my latest video here (click). 

While I had too much fun playing with wide angle compositions during the Pak Peng Arcade job, I was also required to shoot the event like a normal event. To document what actually happened, wide angle lens was not sufficient, often times longer lenses are needed. In this situation, many photographers would prefer the use of zoom lenses for flexibility and convenience, but I chose primes instead. My lenses I used for this shoot were Panasonic 9mm f1.7, Panasonic 15mm F1.7, Olympus 25mm F1.8 and 45mm F1.8. I did bring along the Olympus 75mm F1.8 and used it for several shots. I used my main camera, the Olympus E-M1 Mark II, still rocking on even after almost 10 years now! Since I have showed mostly wide angle shots in my previous Part 1 and 2 of Pak Peng Arcade series, all the images in this blog entry will be from non-wide angle lens.