ROBIN WONG

I had the privilege to attend Amir and Halina's wedding reception last weekend. Amir has been a constant street shooting partner in crime, we have attacked KL streets together for countless times, and I have been a constant admirer of his black and white street photography. About a few months ago, when Amir asked if I would be interested to do a quick pre-wedding shoot on the streets for him and Halina, how could I say no? 

Now, that pre-wedding shoot was not as straightforward as I thought. The shoot took place some time in September last year (about half a year ago!!), when KL was still enveloped with thick, unhealthy, ugly haze, yet we needed some shots done outdoor. On top of that, we only had about 3 hours to get everything done as everyone was quite busy, and it was a group shoot (there were other photographers, which means I did not have full 3 hours to myself). And in the shooting plan we were to cover a few different locations. Nonetheless, being ambitious and excited at the same time, we braved the great KL haze and made the session happen. 

Now do bear in mind I do not do wedding photography for a living. I sometimes take up actual day wedding photography assignment to fund my gear purchase, as well as to buy that extra few cups of overpriced coffee (which you often see in my blog entries, coffee after shutter therapy sessions). It is even a rarer occasion for me to do pre-wedding photography! I did however, enjoy myself tremendously. 

All images were taken with Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II with M.Zuiko 7-14mm F2.8 PRO, 25mm F1.8 and 45mm F1.8 lenses

It has been a while since I last saw Ariff AB performed live on stage! Had the opportunity earlier this evening to see him at "Live @ The Actors Studio: Singer Songwriters" first session for the weekend.

Had my Olympus PEN E-P5 with me and did a quick recording of one of his newer songs, "Alas Birdie".

Ariff AB Official FB: https://www.facebook.com/Ariff-AB

Ariff AB Official Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ariffstardom

Video was recorded hand-held, with M.Zuiko 45mm F1.8 lens. No matter how many times I have used this camera I still cannot believe how awesome the 5-Axis Image Stabilization is, especially when it comes to stabilized video, shot hand-held.

There are two more rounds happening this weekend, one on Saturday evening, and the last one on Sunday evening, 830am onward at KLPAC! I will be there on Saturday night, come along, and support some awesome local music!

Every single time I visit Penang, the island of awesome food, I must, must have multiple servings of the following two dishes: Cendol and Char Kuey Tiaw. 

Cendol is from South East Asia but I am not entirely sure if it is from Malaysia. Nonetheless, this is a super popular sweet desert among the locals, and a treat to have especially walking around under scorching Malaysian sun. The dessert's basic ingredients are coconut milk, jelly noodles made from rice flour with green food coloring (usually derived from the pandan leaf), shaved ice and palm sugar. 

Char Kuey Tiaw, while readily available throughout the country, everywhere ranging from high class restaurants to roadside hawkers, somehow Penang got this dish right, and once you have tasted the Penang's Char Kuey Tiaw, you will think of other versions a little lesser. Char Kuey Tiaw literally translates to "stir-fried ricecake strips",

Cendol, high in sugar content, and the Char Kuey Tiaw, full of saturated fat content, are my two favourite dishes in Peninsular Malaysia. 

Olympus Malaysia had two events over the weekend in Penang, namely the PEN-F and 300mm F4 IS PRO Touch and Try on Saturday and a Basic Portrait Photography Workshop with Young Sun on Sunday. Since I was working on both days, I had no chance to roam on the streets (how I wish I could in Penang). I did however steal some chance to shoot a few frames during the Portrait Workshop, conducted by a fellow Olympus user, and professional photographer Young Sun. I always look forward to events conducted by Young Sun, there were plenty to learn and his enthusiasm easily outshines mine when it comes to photography. Not many people I have met are more passionate and obsessed with photography, as Young Sun. I have learned a great deal myself, fully inspired, just observing him do what he does best, portrait photography. 

Now here is a rare chance to see some model portrait shots, taken by me. I acknowledge I am pretty much noob when it comes to studio portraits, and I can only wish one day I will be able to be half as good as Kirk Tuck in portraiture shooting skills. One baby step at a time. 

I was shooting with the Olympus PEN-F, and my own M.Zuiko 45mm F1.8 lens. All images are almost as good as straight out of camera, with very minor tweaks in contrast and exposure adjustment. 

All credits to Young Sun though, with the lighting set up and directing poses for the beautiful model. You may visit his photography Facebook Page here (click). 

The least used Micro Four Thirds lens for me (amongst all the lenses that are available for me to use, which excludes the majority of Panasonic lenses) would definitely be the M.Zuiko 17mm F1.8 lens. 

However, I have been doing my best, trying hard to familiarize myself with the elusive 35mm perspective. I have used the Fujifilm X100, which has a fixed equivalent 35mm focal length, and I have also subsequently used the underrated M.Zuiko 17mm F2.8 pancake lens, for a few shutter therapy sessions. I have also found an article written by Chris Gampat at ThePhoblographer here about "Beginner's Tip to Shooting Portraits with a 35mm Lens" extremely helpful when dealing with human subjects on the street. 

My 35mm journey, a love-hate relationship which many of you have known now, is a continuous work in progress. I think (or I would like to think) that I am making some good progress, and hey, there really is no rush to accomplish anything out of my shutter therapy sessions. All I know, for certain is that the more I shoot, the more I see through this 35mm perspective, the better I will get, and I will definitely get there. 

All images were taken with Olympus PEN E-P5 and M.Zuiko 17mm F1.8 lens

Last week I was at South Africa for a work trip, and the first few days were spent at Kruger National Park, where we had a few sessions of "game drives", going out into the wild to see the animals. I thought this would have been the perfect opportunity to test out the M.Zuiko 300mm F4 IS PRO lens. I have mentioned previously that my review images (read my review of 300mm F4 PRO lens here if you have not) were taken from an ordinary user perspective, as I did not have the chance to travel far into the wild to do any meaningful wildlife shooting. Many people have pointed out that my photographs of the birds in particular may not be applicable in practical shooting situations since I got ridiculously close to the birds, which does not happen in real life. Therefore, having the chance to go to South Africa and shoot the wild animals there, I must do my best to test the 300mm F4 PRO lens again!

There were a few obstacles standing between me and my imagined ideal shooting conditions. 

There were about 8 of us in a jeep, and in each jeep we only had ONE M.Zuiko 300mm F4 IS PRO lens to be shared. So while you are looking at the photographs shown in this blog entry, take note that I did not have the 300mm lens at all times. However, I am only showing photographs taken with the 300mm PRO lens. 

The lighting condition was horrendous. I was told by the locals that at this particular time of the year, Hoedspruit, Limpopo area has the best lighting any photographer/cinematographer could hope for. In my mind I was visualizing the golden, warm, "national geographic" light quality when shooting during early morning or near sunset, having that magical glow on the wild animals. Over the course of three days, the sky was constantly cloudy, with a few threats of thunderstorm (though the rain was light and quick, nothing serious). The lighting was soft, dull, uninteresting, creating undramatic images, which I often would describe as uninspiring. Experienced photographers would have put away their camera, since lighting is almost everything in photography!

For this particular "game drive" session, the M.Zuiko 300mm F4 IS PRO was NOT the ideal lens to use. We often had the chance to get super close to the animals, at times, about 5 meters away only. The 300mm was just too tight for proper framing. I understand that communicating with the ranger (driver of the jeep) to coordinate locations stopped would have helped with better compositions but remember the jeep had 8 people with cameras and there was only one 300mm lens? It would have been selfish to ask the ranger to relocate the jeep further just for myself to shoot, while others without telephoto zoom lens would treasure the every bit nearer distance that we could get. The better lens in this situation would have been the amazing M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 PRO lens.