ROBIN WONG

In my recent hunt in the used marketplace, I came across an interesting camera which I never thought I would be buying. I got curious and I thought, at such a low price, why not? I bought this mysterious camera, which I shall not reveal yet, and I had it with me during my short trip home to Kuching, Borneo recently. Of course, I always made time for shutter therapy when I was in Kuching, and this was the perfect opportunity to test the camera more thoroughly. I am still in the midst of gathering more sample shots, and testing the camera, but sometime soon in the future, I will make a video to talk about it. I thought the camera did its job quite well, and I got some cool shots from my hometown! I am sharing these photos here. 

I have been away from Kuala Lumpur for about one week, and just returned from my short trip to Kuching, Borneo to celebrate my mum's birthday. Every year, in July, I will definitely make time to visit mum, and this would also be a good opportunity to catch up with some friends from my hometown, and stuff myself silly with amazing local Kuching food. Not to forget, I also always allocate some time for shutter therapy, and yes, there will be some shots I will share from my street shooting sessions and some photo outing adventures in Kuching here, very very soon. For this blog entry, I shall post a short collection of people I have met and the few favorite food that I have eaten. 

Most people would know that I am a prime lens shooter mostly, and I rarely use zooms. I do acknowledge the importance of zoom lenses, especially superzooms in some situations where you really cannot change lenses, for example dusty environment or you can only carry one lens with you. The convenience of having the ability to zoom from wide angle to telephoto outweighs the compromises of making a zoom lens, and getting the shot is always the priority when it comes to photography. I found a used Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm F4-5.8 in the marketplace for a good price I cannot refuse, and I thought why not give it a try? I brought the lens being paired with my Olympus OM-D E-M10 to Thean Hou Temple and took some images there. I shared my thoughts about superzooms and how the Panasonic 14-140mm performed in my latest video here (click). 

I attended the official Nikon Z6 III launch in Malaysia few days ago, and I had the opportunity to get my hands on one unit to test it briefly. During my short time with the Z6 III, I was truly impressed with what Nikon has done in their latest camera. I like the advanced stabilization feature, which is optimized for focus area VR, the near flagship level AF performance (close to Z8/Z9) yet it can focus down to -10EV in the dark and has reliable AI subject recognition/tracking, the large and bright EVF which has 4000nits brightness which helps me a lot as I shoot under the sun, and overall the camera build quality, handling and ergonomics are nothing short of being excellent. For all this, the latest full frame mirrorless Nikon is asking for a price lower than OM-1 II, at least here in Malaysia, which puts the Z6 III into the top of my next camera consideration list, when I do decide to upgrade. Don't worry, the time is not here yet, I am still giving OM System/Panasonic a chance to come up with a wow camera before I give up on them. My thoughts about the Z6 III in my latest video here (click). 

Following up the whole drama of I don't know how to have fun accusation from Lumix USA rep, I thought it would be fun to bring the old GM1 out for a spin in my favourite street hunting ground, Chow Kit. I was with a friend Jackie Loi, and after a quick breakfast, we had the Chilli Pan Mee, we headed to the old market area and started shooting around and inside the market. This time. lighting was much better, compared to last week's overcast weather, and I did not waste this opportunity to grab as many shots as I can with the GM1. The camera may be more than 10 years old now, but man, it still amazes me what the tiny GM1 can do. I paired it with the Olympus 17mm F1.8 and I thought the images came out quite alright. 

My awesome friend Jaya was invited to an official grand opening of the new DJI Hasselblad Store in KLCC Twin Towers. I had the privilege to tag along, and I got to say, it was nice to see Hasselblad finally opening their flagship store and displaying their medium format products for consumers to come in and see. Of course, it was not just exclusively Hasselblad, DJI also displayed their array of drones, action cams, gimbals, microphones and all other latest products in the store. I personally have used and own multiple DJI products before, and am actively using the DJI Pocket 3 for my vlogs and even making content for my main YouTube channel. Sinec it was a free and easy, fuss free event, I decided to roam around with my Nikon setup and took some random shots of the location and event. All images were sgot with Nikon Z5 and Viltrox 20mm, Nikon Z 40mm and Viltrox 85mm. 

Recently I made a first impression hands on video on the Panasonic Lumix S9 which I have published here (click). Two days later, I received an email from Lumix USA, basically disagreeing with my points in the video. Difference in opinion is fine, I do welcome them, but the way the argument was made actually did not register any sense, and I don't want to get into the specifics here. The ending of the email was the one that got me, basically I was accused of "not knowing how to have fun" with my cameras, as the Lumix S9 was created with fun in mind. Therefore, I decided to make a video to counter the "forgotten how to have fun" part, and I used their original Lumix GM1 as an example of how a camera can be fun without too many compromises (like removing mechanical shutter and flash). You can find my video sharing 5 reasons why I think GM1 is more fun than S9 here (click).