ROBIN WONG

I have not owned a red camera before. When I saw this red Olympus PEN E-PL6 on sale in the used marketplace at such a low price, I just could not resist. After all, red is an important color for the Chinese New Year celebration, it symbolizes great fortune and vitality. Therefore, I got the red Olympus E-PL6 just for this occasion, and I was really excited using it for some street photography. Of course I have gone out shooting with the E-PL6, I paired my favorite Olympus 25mm F1.8 lens on it and got some cool shots. Initially I wanted to do bright colors only, since it is Chinese New Year, but there are only so many colored subjects I can find so it was a mixture of reds and other more ordinary street subjects that I normally shoot. Red camera for more prosperity! Huat ah! Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Happy Chinese New Year and Gong XI Fa Cai to those who celebrate! Chinese New Year is perhaps the largest festival celebration for the Chinese community, and it is a massive thing here in Malaysia too. To usher in the Year of the Horse, I am rocking a red Cheongsam and a red camera too! You don't see me wear red any ordinary day, as a photographer I prefer darker or more neutral toned clothing, but red is an important color for Chinese New Year. Red symbolizes vitality and prosperity, so wearing red and using any red items during the festival celebration will bring greater fortune! Oh yes, that little red camera is the Olympus PEN E-PL6, I have done some shutter therapy with the camera too. More about that in the next post. 

This is a continuation from the previous blog entry, I am dumping more images from the same series here in this post. I have come to love shooting theatre or stage photography. This was a mini concert, with singers and dancers on stage, accompanied by 6-piece band, the magic happened when all the chaotic mess came together to form such a wonderful sound and visual for the audience to immerse in. It was no easy feat shooting this event - everything was constantly moving, and I had no idea what was doing to happen where and when, if I was standing at the wrong spot, I would miss something that was happening away from me, and I cannot possibly cover everything. So, I did my best, and boy oh boy it was such a magical show to shoot! 

When I was tasked to shoot the dress rehearsal of Yesterday Once More: Boggie Nights for Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Center (KLPAC), I thought it would be a great opportunity to revisit an old friend - the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Original. After all, the camera has been my workhorse for so many years before I upgraded to my current E-M1 Mark II, and if E-M1 original can deliver great results all those years ago, it can still perform really well today. I was not wrong, and the show was super amazing! Shout out to my friend Bihzhu who was one of the headliners of the show. I also made a video to talk about why the E-M1 is still so awesome today (click here), and if you can't shoot good images with your old or current gear, maybe it is not time yet for you to upgrade! 

The last time I shot Thaipusam was just before the Covid-19 pandemic, it was in early 2019, I was with my friend Amir, and it was quite a fun session. I guess the reason I have not been back to shoot another one was due to the fact that we were actively avoiding crowded spaces even after the pandemic. But hey it has been so long now, I guess it should be as safe as it can be, so I decided to make a return to Batu Caves, the epicenter of Thaipusam celebration here in Malaysia. For those of you who are unaware, Thaipusam is a massive Hindu celebration of the victory of their God Murugan over the demon Surapadman, and as I have said massive, it was really massive. It drew more than 2 million people to Batu Caves for the duration of the festival, and I went with just my Olympus 12-50mm kit lens mounted on the camera that was launched together with it, the Olympus E-M5 original. Admittedly I was not as ambitious as before, trying to capture the dramatic and winning shots. This time around, I wanted to just immerse myself and observe more than anything, and of course, capture some quieter, intimate moments. In the midst of the mess, chaos and deafening drum beats and speakers blasts, you can still find some peaceful moments, if you look hard enough. I made POV video here, if you are interested (click). 

Many people have commented in my Panasonic GM1 videos suggesting me to take a look at Panasonic GF series as a feasible alternative to Panasonic GM1. Considering it is almost impossible to find a used unit of GM1/GM5 in the market, even if you can the price would be ridiculously over bloated, it isn't worth getting one. The rational is simple, Panasonic GF7 (or GF8/9/10) is so small and light, about the same size as the compact form factor of GM1, and it basically houses the same internals as well, having same image sensor, processor and features. You get the same image output and overall camera performance for both GF7 and GM1. However, is it really that simple? Does the GF7 has the GM1 magic that made everyone fall in love with it instantly? I discuss this and more in my latest video here (click). I am sharing my latest images shot with the GF7 and Olympus 25mm F1.8 lens here. 

I joined last year's Scott Kelby International Photowalk here in Kuala Lumpur, led by my friend Raja Indra Putra and I brought along only one camera that got a lot of attention - the Rolleiflex inspired mini TLR design Chuzhao. It is a cheap, plastic, toy camera that I bought for about USD25 and for such a low-price tag, I thought the camera was super cute and fun to shoot with. Some famous YouTubers have labelled this Chuzhao as a scam (or scamera, as in scam camera), but I think there were some mismatched expectations. You surely don't expect a USD25 toy camera to outperform your USD2000 smartphone camera, do you? Even if you compare with any compact point and shoot cameras from yesteryears, I doubt you can find anything selling at merely $25, a decent one will cost $100 upward! I think if you treat it as it is, a toy camera, and stop measurebating, the Chuzhao can be quite a pleasure to work with. I shared my thoughts on my latest video here (click). 

Last week, out of the blue my friend Bihzhu invited me to her first ever waterfall adventure for 2026! Of course, I immediately said yes. We drove an hour out of Kuala Lumpur to Jeram Anjang in Hulu Langat (Selangor) and boy oh boy, we have the entire place for ourselves! Such a secluded location, with water constantly splashing in the background, and the coldness of river water in the morning was just so refreshing, it was what we all needed to get away for a while and recharge. After dipping in the cold waters, we headed downtown to Kuala Lumpur for lunch. We had Bihzhu's favorite fish and chips, Lad & Dad at Wisma Coway, and it was awesome! The whole ordeal ended up with ice-cream, what better way is there? For a random Thursday, such an impromptu trip was just what I needed to break my usual routine. Nothing beats spending quality time with amazing company of friends! I have vlogged this waterfall outing here (click), images shown here are screengrabs from the vlog. 

It is always so fun shooting my dear friend Lily (IG @lilyayumiii), even if I am using just a humble old Nikon D50! This session was the same shoot as the previous blog entry, she changed to her second outfit for the day and we roamed the streets of Petaling Street and Masjid Jamek area in downtown Kuala Lumpur. Lily is always such a sport, full of energy and enthusiastic, hence it was easy getting great shots of her portraits. The beautiful morning light helped in getting that warm skin glow! Of course, the 6MP CCD sensor may be looked down by many today, I still think it produces excellent results! Who needs 100MP? 6MP for the win!

I have had the Nikon D50 and 50mm F1.8 D for a while now, which I bought for about USD50. The camera is old, we are talking 20 dinosaur years old, only has 6MP and 5 focusing points. Many would not even want to touch the obsolete camera today, opting for more advanced, latest and greatest gear. I believe if you cannot shoot good images with older gear, your images won't improve a single bit by upgrading to the latest gear. The pixel count, dynamic range and AF speed won't make your lighting control, composition, and creative execution better. I believe it is more important to upgrade our skills as photographers first, before we upgrade our gear. The Nikon D50 is a great reminder for me to put that in practice. I made a POV video to share how I got these portraits of beautiful Lily (IG @lilyayumiii). 

Special thanks to my friend Raja Indra Putra (IG @ripi888), he loaned me his Leica X2. I brought the Leica X2 to do some street shooting, and through my brief experience using the camera I cannot help but to notice some resemblances between the Leica X2 and Fuji X100 series cameras. They both share similarly sized APS-C image sensor, same field of view of equivalent 35mm focal length lenses and made into stylish, compact form factor. I must say, the Leica does a few things better - it is smaller, it has a better lens which renders sharper images and the AF is faster than what earlier Fuji cameras can do. I wish Leica brings back the X series cameras - having large APS-C sized sensor and a fixed 35mm-ish lens, with updated tech like faster AF, image stabilization and maybe tiltable LCD screen, that would be really amazing. I made a video to share my thoughts about the Leica X2 here (click). 

The last day of the Tekka festival was especially fun, even after 2 full days of shooting, I was surprisingly not too exhausted and was still running around at good energy levels. I guess I have slipped into shooting routine and can pace myself, prepare myself mentally for the shoot, compared the days prior. I particularly appreciate the powerful 5-Axis Image Stabilization built into the Olympus E-M1 Mark II's camera body. For shots that I do not need to freeze movement, I can intentionally slow down the shutter speeds to dangerously slow numbers, like half a second, or longer to gather more light, consequently getting clean images with lower ISO numbers used. This also applied to use of longer lenses, though I need to be more conservative, for example, the 75mm F1.8 lens, I went down to 1/15-1/25 second shutter speed, all done hand-held. Instead of using impossible numbers like ISO12800, I can get away with ISO1600 or lower, and to me, that is a lifesaver! I just cannot shoot with another camera for a job without similar or better image stabilization, it just makes things so much better. 

This is a continuation from previous post, sharing more images from my recent shoot for KLPAC (Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre), the Tekka audio visual festival 2025. Basically, the festival ran for 3 consecutive days, and I was shooting nonstop for almost 3 full days. Despite the challenging low light situation, I managed to get some really good shots with my Micro Four Thirds setup. I brought along the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II and prime lenses, Panasonic 9 and 15mm F1.7, and Olympus 25mm, 45mm and 75mm F1.8 lenses. I just find it so much easier to handle smaller lenses, allowing me to change them around quickly and more efficiently, and of course, all that (camera + 5 lenses) being fitted in my shoulder bag, they weighed less than 1.4kg only! If I were to use any other systems, no matter how minimal and lightweight the setup, it could easily double or triple that! I really appreciate how I don't have to suffer all kinds of discomfort or aches after long hours of shooting, handling Micro Four Thirds super light gear! These images I am sharing here in this blog entry were from the Day 2 of Tekka!

I was shooting an event for Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC) recently, it was an audio-visual festival called Tekka, and boy oh boy was it a challenging shoot! Not only was the light so dim most of the times, but there were also times when all lights were turned off, and to get some images I need to balance the overly bright projector against pitch dark audience! While this seems like a nightmare and most people would prefer to shoot with full frame cameras and ramp up the ISO to impossibly high numbers, I'd like to argue that Micro Four Thirds is actually more suitable in this particular shoot. I talked about all my reasons in my latest video, which I am not going to repeat here, as these reasons have been said several times before already, and honestly all I want to do is just to share the images from that job here. Images were shot with Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II and Panasonic 9mm F1.7, Panasonic 15mm F1.7, Olympus 25mm F1.8, Olympus 45mm F1.8 and Olympus 75mm F1.8. 

I honestly don't know what happened, I made this video about why Panasonic should bring back the GX7 more than a year ago, and never got to publish it until today. You can check out the video here (click). I guess there were more urgent and time sensitive videos to publish at that time, and the old, non important video got pushed further and further down the buffer list, I almost forgot it ever existed. I think Panasonic GX-series cameras will do really well today, there is a massive demand for compact sized classic styled camera with high imaging capabilities, and the GX series fit those criteria. If only Panasonic could bring out the latest GX10 with updated image sensor, better AF capabilities (with phase detect) and some newer modern tech, the GX10 will fly! 

Happy New Year 2026 to all you awesome people out there! Let's start the new year with a bang! I found the old Panasonic Lumix G1 in the used market and I just could not help myself. The Panasonic G1 was an extremely important camera in the history, not only was it the first Micro Four Thirds camera, but it was also the first mirrorless camera ever launched in the industry. It paved the way forward for the mirrorless revolution, and fast-forward to now in 2026, all other camera manufacturers also have their own mirrorless cameras! I brought the Panasonic G1 out for some shutter therapy, and I made a video to talk about what I like and dislike about it, you can check out the video here (click). It was still quite a fun, capable camera to shoot with today!