ROBIN WONG

I was at Malacca for a few days last week for a quick shoot, so of course, I took this opportunity to do some street shooting and filled my stomach with amazing Malacca food. It is so interesting to note that just by driving 2 hours away from Kuala Lumpur, we get a different selection of food, some we can't find in Kuala Lumpur, and even if they have it here, the taste and quality would not be as good as they were in Malacca. In another life I could probably be a full-time food photographer, I enjoy shooting images of food as much as I enjoy eating them! I must admit though, I did not shoot all the food that I ate during this trip, there were times I was just so hungry I dived into the food ignoring the camera. Not pictured: satay celup, ponteh pork, cendol. 

TTArtisan sent me their 75mm F2 AF lens for Nikon Z mirrorless full frame mount cameras. I tested the lens on my own Nikon Z5, and boy oh boy, was I surprised. The lens performs incredibly well despite its compact form factor and light weight, and for the asking price of merely USD178, I thought this is too good to be true! I have also brought this lens to shoot several paid jobs, though I can't share my images from my private clients, but I also have done some street shooting with it and you will see these images here in this blog. I have also made a video sharing my thoughts about this lens here (click). 

I saw the moon floating around in the sky just outside my bedroom window and my hands got a bit itchy. So I grabbed the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II with M.Zuiko 75-300mm II lens and mounted them on a tripod, and took a shot of the moon using the tripod high res shot, yielding an effective 50MP output. This was JPEG, I could not be bothered with processing a RAW file since this was not going to be delivered to a client and I wanted a quick result. Sometimes, I enjoy instant noodles too. I thought the resolution resolved from a cheapish 75-300mm II lens combined with the pixel-shift composite method worked really well, not the best moon shot out there, but my finger itch was satisfied. This reminds me of the song from Radical Face, Bad Blood having these lyrics "but there's no magic inside the moon, it's just a rock you can't reach". 

I managed to get my hands on a demo unit of the newly launched Fujifilm X-M5 at a touch and try session happening inside the Artishutter X N4 camera store last Saturday. I am genuinely curious about this camera, an entry level camera with advanced features that is made into a truly compact and lightweight body in the year 2024, and selling for under USD1000 price tag, is it too good to be true? Since I only had the camera inside the store and did shoot with it extensively, obviously this is not going to be a review, but I am merely sharing my hands on experience with the X-M5, what I like and dislike about it. I also have made a new video about the same topic here (click). 

My dear friend Bihzhu celebrated her 41st birthday recently, and she had quite an unusual celebration - she held a mini party happening right at a waterfall. The location was Lata Beringin, and I went with my friend Spencer. There were plenty of amazing people, all of whom were Bihzhu's close friends, and we were surrounded with so much laughter and love. We had delicious food filling our tummies and went for a dip in the cool waters, just chilling. This was a much needed getaway and a break I needed from my busy routine of being a photographer and content creator! It was a genius idea to have the celebration in the open outdoors, close to nature, and that sound of waterfall roaring constantly in the background, being in the cool river water was really refreshing. It was the recharge and reset that I needed. Again, to my beautiful amazing friend Bihzhu, happy birthday and I wish you bountiful of blessings, love, happiness and peace. Many happy returns! I have also made a vlog documenting this special occasion, you can find the vlog here (click). 

Last Saturday, I attended the wedding luncheon of Ivan and Chin Lay at Chow Kit hotel in downtown KL. Ivan is an old friend whom I have known since forever! We were classmates in secondary school, and we still kept in close contact until this very day. I am so happy for you Ivan, congratulations to you and I wish you abundant happiness, love and blessings for your marriage life. Of course, my itchy hands brought along my camera, but I was very being very careful not to do anything crazy to overstep the official photographer on duty. I had my Nikon Z5 and the TTArtisan 75mm F2 AF (I am still in the process of reviewing) and I took some shots from my seat during the cake cutting and champagne toasting ceremony. I am so, so happy so see Ivan being so happy on this special day! 

I was experimenting with an interesting technique to shoot birds with my smartphone, purely out of curiosity and fun recently. I attached the Olympus 75-300mm II super telephoto zoom lens onto my smartphone, Poco X6 Pro, well, technically the Olympus 75-300mm II lens was mounted on Olympus Air, a camera module that was then connected to the smartphone wirelessly. I thought this method was quite fun, and it worked really well. I went to Kuala Lumpur Bird Park to get some bird images; some I was quite happy with. I shared the video screenshot of the viewfinder of my smartphone while capturing these bird shots, you can find the full video here (click). 

I know I have been quite harsh in my previous post commenting on the Olympus E-M1X being a mistake, but I did review that camera, and it was a fairly capable Micro Four Thirds camera, perhaps the best performing during its launch. I was in an Olympus Visionary trip to South Africa, so I managed to use the E-M1X with long lenses to shoot some wildlife images, and I supplemented those with even more sample images taken all around Kuala Lumpur at various locations and different scenarios. Insect macro, cityscape, street shooting, night shooting and even a music live performance, I tested the E-M1X in every possible shooting scenario I could do. Sometimes, looking back at these images, I can get impressed by the intense amount of effort I put into my reviews, I am not sure if I am able or willing to do such extensive review again for any camera in the future. It was fun, I enjoyed shooting with the E-M1X, I still think it is too large and heavy for Micro Four Thirds and its existence brought more issues than necessary. Nevertheless, it is a camera, and it can shoot great images. 

Olympus OM-D E-M1X was released in 2019, it became the first camera to break away from the Micro Four Thirds principles of making small, portable cameras yet delivering high performance. In fact, the E-M1X was larger and heavier than most cameras, whether DSLR or mirrorless. It was a daring attempt by Olympus to target a separate user group altogether, and it could have worked with the intended vision of what E-M1X was designed for, but somehow it fell short. Consequently, the E-M1X was the beginning of a series of mistakes that led Olympus to their downfall. I want to take a closer look at the E-M1X and share my thoughts on why this was a mistake that could have been avoided. 

Old CCD compact cameras are all the rage now, and that can be seen with the increasingly ridiculously high selling prices in the used market. I personally think these old compacts are super fun and can deliver great results, if you know what you are doing. There is something about using a truly small, pocketable camera with minimalist control and simplicity that encourages more fun while shooting images. After all photography isn't all about technical obsession, if you can put aside the chase of crazy megapixel numbers, impossible dynamic range and fantastic clean high ISO images, maybe for once you can actually enjoy the process and magic of making images happen. However, I also don't believe in spending unnecessarily for an old piece of gear, and it makes no sense that these older cameras are selling higher than their original retail prices during launch. If you can find an old CCD compact at a cheap bargain, or if you already have one lying around and is still pretty much alive, or if you can borrow one from a friend just to play around, I think it can be a break from normal routine that you may just need to refresh your photography experience. Otherwise, it is indeed a waste of time and money!

I must confess an uncomfortable truth, I bought the Olympus PEN E-PL1 due to peer pressure back then, I was asked to join an Olympus PEN group to help out and I did. The qualification to become a member? You have to own an Olympus PEN camera. What a mistake I have done, and a hard lesson that I have learned. Of course, nothing good came out of caving into peer pressure and trying to please people around me, I know that now. Things did not go well, the group (well, the top leaders and founders) were at each other's necks and not long after the arrival of Olympus OM-D, the group disbanded and that was the short story of a short-lived photography group that was created out of personal ego and not for the love of photography. I got burned for being honest and staying true to myself, things got really ugly, and I am still traumatized by this incident until today. But hey, that is a story for another day. I did regret buying the Olympus PEN E-PL1, it was not ready, and Micro Four Thirds format needed more work, and I consider the first true camera to be ready from Olympus mirrorless system was the OM-D E-M5, which was indeed a WOW camera and took the imaging world by storm. I still kept the E-PL1 around, and I shared these set of images during my last week's Live Stream on YouTube. While I had no love for the E-PL1 (ugly design, slow AF, poor screen, nothing to shout about), I do love these set of images that I have taken about 4 years ago, some time after the pandemic lockdown was lifted.