ROBIN WONG

Last Sunday, Jackie, Jaslyn and myself decided to get together to celebrate Jaslyn's belated birthday, and after a long discussion on where to eat for lunch (typical Malaysians) we went to Naughty Babe Dirty Duck. I think the name instantly won me over, sometimes branding is crucial and in this case it worked on me. Not only was the name playful, but it tells clearly what kind of dishes to be expected from the restaurant. I thought this would be a fantastic opportunity to give the OM-D E-M1 Mark II some work out since it is not doing much these days, and I brought along the M.Zuiko 12-40mm PRO since it was Sunday and I was in a very lazy mood. 

Here is a video (click) that I did sharing about some practical food photography tips. This video was made a few months ago, in April if I remember correctly, during the full lockdown period in Malaysia. I was stuck at home, so I filmed the whole thing (my talking head shots) at the balcony. Situation now is not that much better either, though we are allowed to move around, I am still hesitant to do street photography or shoot if it was not a paid job. How I wish things can return back to normal soon. I thought sharing this video here would be appropriate since this post is about food photography, and you will find a lot of my previous food shots all compiled into that short video. 

Coming back to the Naughty Babe & Dirty Duck adventure I had with my friends last Sunday, the food was scrumptious! If you love pork and you love duck, this is a good place to explore within Selangor/KL area. I am no food expert, so I am not the best person to describe the taste of the dishes, or give a full review of the restaurant (I see a lot of "reviewers" trying so hard I cringe every time), so I shall just share what I can do the best - shooting some shots of the food that we ordered! 

I have always shot my food pictures with M.Zuiko 25mm F1.8 and 45mm F1.8 lenses, and I still prefer to carry them around since they are so small and tiny. However, I got to admit, I seldom use F1.8 wide open when I shoot food, and I found myself stopping down to F4 or narrower to achieve more depth of field - I want more parts of the food in focus and look sharp in my images. If I was shooting so close up to the food and have the aperture set to wide open F1.8, it will only be that 2 strands of noodles in focus, and everything else is blurred! That is not how food photography works, you want to reveal the texture, the glossiness of the oil, every little detail counts. It makes sense to shoot food with M.Zuiko 12-40mm PRO lens, and if I do need that isolation and shallow depth of field effect, at 40mm zoomed in all the way, with aperture at F2.8 I can still get pretty blurry background. 

Do you enjoy shooting food as much as I do? I know the best part is to devour the delicious meal after the camera exercise. Do share your thoughts!

When it comes to improving photography skills, I find that a lot of newcomers are asking all the wrong questions. I understand that learning about your gear, how to fully master your cameras and lenses and get the best out of them is important, but photography is an art form and there are a lot of other important things to learn and consider, outside of just gear obsession. In this blog entry I want to discuss the more critical questions that you should be asking yourself, if you are a photographer and you want to take your game to the next level. 

I have also made a video (click) on this topic, for those of you who prefer to listen to my voice while multitasking, doing other things at the same time. I am not here to judge, so I provide options. 

The most common question that I get is - what is your camera settings for this image? How did you manage to capture this photograph? More often than not, it was the how, the technique, that most people are interested in, especially beginners and newcomers. I understand that technicalities cannot be avoided, but allow me to steer you off to a more important question that can make all the difference - what are you shooting?

The subject content in your photograph is the most important consideration of your photography. You must know what you are shooting. Most people don't pay enough attention to this and just worry on getting the shot, without knowing what they are doing in the first place. Deciding what to include in your photograph is the most important thing to do, and you should do that first before deciding how to capture the image. The problem with not deciding your subject first - your images come out looking empty, with no focus, no emphasis on important subjects, just random sunset, another landscape shot of the buildings in the city, another normal scene on the streets, another portrait of a beautiful model, but nothing else significant. 

Decide on the story that you want to tell, do you have an idea that you want to express? Or is that feeling or emotion that you want to convey through your photographs? Photography is a powerful medium to tell stories and you can use that to your advantage, if you know what the story is that you want to tell first. If you are shooting portraits, what is it that you want to tell about the people in your photographs? If you are shooting a location landscape, what is special about this location that you want your viewers to see? The "what" is a very powerful question that you must not ignore, it will make all the difference!

I certainly hope it is not due to peer pressure. My friend has one, I want one too. It looks cool to own a DSLR or mirrorless camera, let me get one, just because I can afford it. Nothing wrong with that of course, but I hope if you are serious about photography, you will evolve beyond these initial reasons. 

The worst trap that I have seen a lot of photographers fall into, is the FOMO (fear of missing out). They see some YouTuber celebrity use a new camera and they must own that. Oh wow that is a new shiny looking drone, let's get one. The YouTuber shows some nice drone footage, and everyone wants to be able to fly a drone and get that eagle's eye footage. But why? Why do you want a drone? Just simply because you saw another photographer doing it and you want to do the same?  You got some nice aerial shots with that new expensive drone, and that's it? What are you doing with the drone after that? Are you going to tell people that the reason you are doing photography is because you got influenced by that celebrity YouTuber who has 1 million subscribers? You have got to be able to think a little bit further beyond that, figure out your own reasons for purchasing any gear. 

Olympus Malaysia has just made an announcement on their official pages on the changes that will happen to the imaging business in Malaysia. In case you have missed the announcement you can go to  their Facebook post here (click). Considering that I am based in Malaysia and I do have quite a huge number of Malaysian readers, I thought it would be great to go through these changes and discuss them here in this blog entry, just to keep everyone updated. I have also just had an online meeting with the Olympus team last evening, I have been prompted about these updates ahead of the announcement today, so I shall share what I do know the best I can. 

Here is the video version of this article, for those who prefer to watch a video format instead of reading (click here). 

 

The most important change to take note is, the Olympus Malaysia camera division will close down, and they have appointed an official distributor to carry on the imaging business. The sole distributor company is OMD World Imaging Sdn Bhd, which is fully owned by YL Camera. For those of you outside of Malaysia, YL Camera is one of the oldest, largest and most respected camera retailers in Malaysia. I have personally shopped there and purchased many items over the past few years from YL Camera. I cannot think of a better company to take over the Olympus brand in Malaysia, and I fully believe that they are capable of keeping the business running, and ensuring a smooth transition process. OMD World Imaging will full take over everything starting 1 December 2020, ahead of the timetable of Olympus being fully transferred to JIP. 

A few other important changes to take note for Olympus consumers here in Malaysia, the current official service center in Kelana Square is being shut down, and will be fully relocated to Sunway Velocity Mall. This new service center will commence operation on 1 December 2020. All the current repairs, servicing and any product issues will be taken care by the new service center in Sunway Velocity Mall, under OMD World Imaging. Full support and after sales services will still be provided, this is ensured during the transition process. 

The Olympus brand is not going anywhere, the sales of cameras, lenses and accessories will continue in Malaysia. OMD World Imaging being the official distributor is responsible to bring in the Olympus products into Malaysia, and then distribute to all the local camera retailers all over the country. If you already have a favourite retailer, the camera shop that you purchase all your Olympus gear from, you can still continue to support that retailer. 

One more important note - all the social media platforms, website and online store will be discontinued. OMD World Imaging will start new Facebook Page, Instagram account as well as new sites. Do follow the new links, because the old sites and pages will no longer be updated from today onward. They may even be shut down in near future. 

I want to talk about the closure of Olympus Malaysia's camera division. This affects me more than I'd like to admit. I was employed officially by Olympus Malaysia from 2013 to 2017, I have worked more than 4 years in Olympus, serving as their Product Specialist. My tasks were to engage customers on the ground level, organizing consumer events, photography workshops, product launches, touch and try events, as well as doing product training for everyone (staff, consumers, photographers, dealers), to engage photographers, media and take care of anything Olympus product related. I did enjoy my time working for Olympus tremendously, I have met many wonderful people, both from internal colleagues to the industry partners and friends. I have also learned so much from my time there, and have grown to be who I am today, largely thanks to my time in Olympus. 

Many of you may not know this, but I was sent to Japan for product training on a yearly basis. I have learned the trade secrets, understand the how the cameras and lenses work, the design and thought process of the engineers in making OM-D and Zuiko products - essentially these enabled me to be able to share my tips and tricks on Olympus products here in this blog and my YouTube channel. My level of product knowledge was unfairly higher than most people because of this exclusive training that I had access to, and believe me, I know a lot more secrets that I cannot even share here. If only you knew half of the things I knew, you will have a different level of appreciation and admiration for the Olympus brand. One thing I can say - Olympus is second to none when it comes to lens making, know-how and expertise in optics design, and overall lens manufacturing technology. You may choose to disagree with me, because you have not seen what I have seen, but if you have, I am sure you will see Olympus very, very differently. 

Therefore, it greatly saddens me to find out that Olympus Malaysia will exit very soon, and I will miss the people that I have worked with closely, and all the fond memories that I have had. It is one thing to leave the company, since I do still have a great working relationship with Olympus Malaysia, considering the fact that I am now an Olympus Visionary, but everything is coming to an end. I guess the saying is right - all good things do come to an end eventually. 

Here are some images of my ex-colleagues, the team that I worked closely with in Olympus Malaysia

During the meeting with the Olympus team last evening, the question about the status of Olympus Visionary program for Malaysia did pop up. We did not get a definite answer, and it is not up to Olympus Malaysia to decide this anymore. Whether the contract for my Visionary status will be renewed or not depends on the new company, OMD World Imaging, as well as JIP after they have taken over. Contractually, I will still be an Olympus Visionary until the end of this year. At this point of time, I don't know if I will still be one in 2021. 

There are two possible outcomes - the first one being the more optimistic one, JIP/New company will renew my contract and want me to continue to work closely with the brand as an ambassador, and after reviewing the contract and everything is agreeable, yes, I will jump in and continue being an Olympus Visionary, no second thought! I have been an Olympus Visionary for 2 years, and I think everyone knows that I am sort of the unofficial Olympus ambassador for many years before that. You all know how much I love the brand, and how much I love talking about Olympus products. 

The other outcome, which is not that optimistic, is the decision not to renew the Visionary contract, and honestly, that is also perfectly fine with me. I know a lot of you are deeply concerned and I am very thankful to have an audience that genuinely care about me and my well-being. But hey, I cannot be an Olympus Visionary forever! Also, I am not going anywhere. Just because I stop becoming an Olympus Visionary that does not mean I will stop shooting, or making new content. I am a photographer, it is in my bones to continue shooting, creating new photographs and share them here! I will be here updating this blog and my YouTube with new content, that is not going to change, I will share as much as I can, about Olympus products, about photography, and whatever that I think will benefit you beautiful people!

Of course I will continue to use Olympus. Considering the seriously of Covid-19 pandemic which I don't foresee going away any time soon, the photography business has taken a huge hit. I will be honest - I have no more shoots for the rest of this year. I did manage to somehow secure quite a few jobs earlier when the lockdown was lifted in June, and business was slowly recovering, but now the government decided to do another round of partial lockdown, prohibiting all events and gatherings, I basically lost all remaining jobs of the year, they are all effectively cancelled. Knowing that I have zero income from my photography business, it would be stupid to invest in a new system! The sensible thing to do is to continue to use my current Olympus OM-D system, to minimize cost to the business. The Olympus OM-D is more than sufficient for my professional photography work (I can't speak for everyone), and definitely it will continue to be more than sufficient for a very long time. 

So, Visionary or no Visionary, Robin Wong is here to stay, I will shoot, shutter therapy goes on, and you won't see me go away just yet!

That's all the update I have to share about new changes to the Olympus business in Malaysia, and also how I felt about the closure of Olympus Malaysia. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. I cannot promise to have all the answers though!

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