ROBIN WONG

Yesterday was a public holiday in Malaysia (Hari Raya Korban) and I took his opportunity to catch up with my friends, whom I have not seen in a few months. Everyone is busy with their own lives, and only on weekends on public holidays we can meet and hang out. Usually, we would go to a comfortable restaurant or cafe and had many hours long session of conversations. This time we went to a Botanica & Co. Seriously, nothing beats great food with awesome company of friends, and having even better conversations. I know I need this more, and I should make more time out of my filled timetable to allocate for my friends. It was my first time being to Bamboo Hills, such a cool name in a nest of restaurants and cafes somewhere not too far from Mon't Kiara. I initially wanted to take portraits of my friends at the location after our meal and conversations, but it rained so heavily, so that had to be put on hold. Maybe next visit to Bamboo Hills again, we shall have some shutter action. 

I believe the Nikon Z5 and Viltrox 85mm F1.8 is the best budget full frame setup for shooting portraits. The Z5 brings some modern tech in a low price tag - large, bright high resolution EVF, 5-Axis IS, mini DSLR like handling and operations, effective human face & eye tracking AF and a full sized full frame image sensor that renders great dynamic range and shallow depth of field (compared to smaller cropped formats). The Viltrox 85mm F1.8 is capable of producing very sharp images with beautiful looking bokeh, and I was impressed with what the lens can do with such low asking price. Both Nikon Z5 and Viltrox 85mm I bought from the used market for around RM3500 (less than USD700) and you just can't get anything better with the set of features and performance at similar price. I made a POV shooting video on the portrait session, you can watch the video here (click). 

We often strive to get the most extra-ordinary images; hence we go great lengths in hopes of obtaining the award winning, Nat-Geo worthy results. Many would travel to exotic locations for photo safaris and plan an elaborate photoshoot that would take a crew of dozens and weeks to execute. There is nothing wrong in doing the best you can to produce imagery beyond the normal expectations, but I also believe in finding beautiful things in the ordinary setting. Photography is storytelling, it is a medium to communicate your ideas, it is a way to express your emotions. You don't need to travel all the way to Iceland to do that. Sometimes, your best shots are right in front of you, you just have to see it. 

When I was studying in Perth, Western Australia the blue boathouse, or more prominently known as Crawley Boatshed was just a stone throw away from my University. I sew it almost every day, if I have to go to the city, and back to Nedlands where I stayed. I have seen it so often that it never occurred to me of how special the boathouse was, and it seemed like a popular spot for wedding photography, and now an iconic spot for tourists to take a selfie at. I never paid much attention to it, until I left Perth, and started my photography journey more seriously, and I found out how incredibly beautiful that boatshed was. The visiting years returning to Perth for friend's weddings and visiting other friends, I brought my camera to take some shots of the Crawley Boatshed. Special thanks to Charmaine and Chris who hosted me in 2019, I managed to take a night sky shot of the boathouse with long exposure of 45 minutes, creating star trail in the background. This is my favourite shot of the Crawley Boatshed, and the only one I have taken at night. 

I have been itching to do some black and white mini project lately. Shooting everything without color makes things a little bit simpler and more challenging at the same time. The colors are usually distractions and can add too much information for the human eyes to process, leading the attention away from the main subject in the frame, or taking away the depth of the story the photographer is telling. Without colors, the scene is plainer, and the focus can be placed directly at the main subject. However, shooting in black and white is not as easy as it seems, you need to have better understanding of light, how to execute contrast in composition and there are many things to avoid as well. I am still a learning photographer in this genre, and I do love black and white. I should do more black and white photography soon. Heck, I even have dressed myself in monochrome for a year or more now, I talked about it here (click).about it here (click). Here are some of my older black and white images. 

I found a Sigma 19mm F2.8 at a clearance sale and I bought it out of curiosity. The price was so low, I won't regret it even if I did not like the lens. It was one of the first few prime lenses that Sigma made for mirrorless system, and it was originally designed for Sony APS-C mirrorless cameras. However, they also made the mount available for Micro Four Thirds, and this was a huge deal back then because in the early days there were not many choices for mirrorless native lenses, even from the camera manufacturers. Now, with so many options for lenses available, I cannot help but wonder if it was still worth getting the Sigma 19mm F2.8 today? My video on this topic here (click). My video on this topic here (click). 

Special thanks to my friend Jaya, I managed to sneak into the official launch of Fujifilm' latest products, the GFX100S II and X-T50. Obviously as I have said many times, I am not important enough to be invited directly for anything camera related. I am not exactly a media blogger and I don't do press releases or announcements, I have never done any here on my blog. This is a photography blog and honestly I don't want it to turn into a media site, hence I guess I shall never get invited to any of these launch events. Nevertheless, since I was there, I had a great time catching up with many friends I have not met in a while within the Fuji active community (Calven, Qippy, Arthur from DCM, TJ, some media and dealer friends). It also felt a little strange because the week before the launch of X-T50 I already made my first impression video on the camera, which was made available for touch and try by consumers in dealer shops. Anyways, it was a fun, exciting event and I was happy to be there, observing. Fuji indeed has come a long way, and they have carved their own unique position in the market. Here are some images from the event. 

I started doing photography more seriously in the year 2008, when I just arrived in Kuala Lumpur. I got my first DSLR, the Olympus E-410 (which was stolen from me) and subsequently the E-520, and I started exploring the vast and beautiful world of photography. I have had a running blog at that time, which slowly transformed into a photography blog, where I share my weekend adventures capturing new images, and I also wrote about the challenges that I have faced and the lessons I have learned. I continued doing my shutter therapy consistently, week after week, year after year, and I still have the same fire I had 16 years ago. I still pick up my camera whenever I can, and I go out to shoot. I remained persistent and I did not know back then that I was in for the long game. 

Panasonic has just recently launched the Lumix S9 camera in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and I managed to sneak myself inside, as a plus one to my friend Jaya Jaya (thanks man) who was invited to the event. Obviously, again, I am not important enough to be invited directly. I am just a photographer being isolated on his own island. Having the opportunity to get my hands on the Lumix S9 and used it briefly, I decided to do a quick first impressions preview on location and shared some of my thoughts about the Lumix S9. Obviously, this is not a review, I did not have enough time with the camera to make a meaningful review. The Lumix S9 is indeed an interesting camera, and I have a lot of things to say about it.