ROBIN WONG

I can't believe it, December is already here and the year has gone by that quickly. However, there are a few huge events happening as the year is approaching the end. I will have a photography trip to somewhere far away from Malaysia coming very, very soon, and more details will be shared here as well. That means I will have plenty of fresh, out of the ordinary photos and different content to share with you beautiful people, both here on my own blog as well as more photography heavy articles on Ming Thein's site. On another hand, I am also involved in another project with Olympus Malaysia, which I am extremely excited to talk about and I was told that the official announcement will come within December itself. In an unrelated topic outside of photography, I also will be reviewing an interesting product this month. So many things happening, and I sure hope I can catch my own breath. A few more excitement before 2018 leaves us cannot hurt.

Until the coming updates, here is a recent portrait of me shot by a good friend, Robert Evangelista with his Olympus PEN-F and M.Zuiko 45mm F1.2 PRO lens. I should be posting more images of myself, so people can actually recognize me when they see me in real life!

Immediately after the outdoor fashion porttait photoshoot which I blogged about before this, my mates and I decided we needed some overpriced hipsterish food for lunch as our stomachs were grumbling loudly. Coincidentally one of our favourite spots was located within 15 minutes walk from our shooting location (near Central Market) and we made our way there before any of us passed out of hunger. It was Chocha Foodstore, restaurant that serves fusion food and they do have some really interesting items in their menu. I had a plate of olio aglio with roasted duck while my friends had the rice dishes. We did order salad on the side, and the must have, Cencaluk Fried Chicken, their signature dish and a must must must try!

Before we ate our food, we serve them to our cameras and lenses. Images shot with Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II and M.Zuiko 25mm F1.8 lens

Currently I had a loaner Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm F1.2 PRO lens and I thought it would be awesome if I can shoot some portraits. Then there was this fashion model street shooting event organized by local fashion label RG by Ruzz Gahara, featuring their latest collection. It was a huge event, open to anyone interested and on the actual shoot itself almost a hundred strong photographers of all background, sizes and shapes appeared. There were a dozen models wearing the latest fashion wear from the local designer and the participants were free to shoot, direct and interact with the models. In return, of course postings on social media and appropriate hashtags were requested from the photographers. I think this was a brilliant PR idea to get as much exposure as possible from young and learning photographers. The models, fashion wear, make up and event coordination were fully sponsored. I went in with two objectives in mind: 1) to observe and learn how the hell the organizers can coordinate such a large number of participants in an outdoor event and 2) to put that 45mm F1.2 to good use and see some bokelicious shots.

I did not have the chance to shoot every single model because there were too many of them. Also the event went on past noon, and my friends and I decided to cut our shooting session short and head to a nearby restaurant to fill our grumbling stomachs. It was an enjoyable session for me, and I was again amazed by how the Olympus F1.2 PRO lenses render such beautiful images. The "feathered bokeh" may not be something I truly understand but I can differentiate the 3D look the F1.2 lens creates that the counterpart F1.8 lens version does not deliver as effectively. Some of these shots were taken with the F1.8 version (I did swap with my friends present with me, allowing them to experience the F1.2 PRO lens as well. Sharing is caring) and you can clearly see for yourself how different the rendering is. I am a huge fan of the original Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm F1.8, and will probably not sell it off ever, due to it's light weight and amazingly small size. I am still happy with what that tiny lens can do, but I do admit that F1.2 new PRO lens is something different altogether.

All images were shot on the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II.













I still have a long way to go when it comes to shooting portraits and I do not pretend to be good in doing this. It is a work in progress, and I have to push myself to take up more arranged shoots to work better in communication/interactions with the models, directing them for poses as well as paying attention to subtle details like background composition as well as lighting. To be entirely honest, the only shot that I was happy with was the opening shot only.

Nevertheless, photography is a journey, and I am in no rush.

Any of you beautiful readers out there own an Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm F1.2 PRO lens? Do let me know your thoughts on the lens!

Important note: If you are doing any Black Friday shopping at B&H online, kindly do use my affiliate link (here) for your purchases to keep me going and so I can afford coffee money to keep me awake to write more photography articles here as well as on Ming Thein's site! Any help is appreciated. Just use the link and feel free to navigate around and I will earn small commission from your purchase. Thanks!

A previous photography client was requesting for a old shot I did in 2012 and as I was in deep excavation into my hard disk storage, I pulled out additional images which I have taken during similar time period. I found some interesting old shots of KL night scene, all shot with the M.Zuiko 12-50mm kit lens on the first OM-D E-M5 camera. I was in situations that I wished I had the 7-14mm or anything wider than the 12mm on the kit lens to capture a wider scene. Unfortunately some of the spots that I took the images from were no longer accessible to me, and I am posting the images here in this blog entry to remind myself not to take things for granted. What is here readily available to us today may not be here anymore tomorrow. It is then crucial to make the best out of what we can at the present moment and worry about things when they are gone.





Looking at these old images, I cannot help but to be at awe at how much the image quality has improved over the new iterations of Olympus OM-D cameras. Even on the E-M1 (first 2013 version) the dynamic range, especially on the highlight region was better preserved (perhaps half a stop better) than the E-M5 original, as I did not remember having such extensive highlight clipping issues shooting similar scenes later using the E-M1. Of course for E-M1 Mark II the headroom is even raised further and as long as shooting under reasonable ISO numbers, the dynamic range is more than sufficient for all the photography that I am doing. I cannot say the same for you, since we are different photographers but I have not encountered a situation when I needed that much more dynamic range. I am speaking as an event, portrait, wedding and lifestyle photographer. If you do a lot of landscape or shoot in extremely challenging situation with difficult contrast, then I can understand the limitation and frustration you are dealing with.

I cannot wait for the rumored new camera to arrive. I sure hope Olympus paid more attention to the high ISO (I do at times, need one more stop usable ISO, that would be a huge advantage) as well as any improvement to the dynamic range is plus. I do not necessarily need more Megapixels (20 or even 16 is enough for all that I do). Unfortunately I do not work for Olympus anymore, I no longer have insider information so like everyone else here, I shall be tuning in to rumor sites and wait patiently.

What is your wishlist of features or improvements in the coming new Olympus OM-D camera?

As a photographer, it is no secret that I like colorful things. The more vibrant. bold and having mixture of multiple strong colors excite me. It is evident through the kind of photography that I am doing and I cherish beautiful, striking colors in my shots, both I am doing personally or commercially shot for my clients.



There is this vegetarian health-conscious hipster cafe in Bangsar which my friend Robert Evangelista have been frequenting lately and they serve the most colorful food I have ever seen in my life! The place is called The Good Co. and everything there is vegetarian (with options to go full vegan upon request). They put immense amount of effort to making sure their serving looks fabulous. One fine afternoon, I thought why not have a meal there, take some shots of the food so I can share here with you guys, and do some work there? After all, a change of scenery is good to inspire creativity, especially I do need to do a bulk of writing on photography heavy articles.

butterfly pea brown rice, healthy sambal, free-range egg, kyuri, tempeh, roasted peanut, cherry tomato, rendang monkey head mushroom
Google Map: https://goo.gl/maps/fXhX1RqzE8r

My friends and I were exploring an old neighborhood in the city area where residential flats were still standing amidst the vast development and modernization in the surrounding area. Walking around residential locations, I was being conscious about not intruding into the privacy of the residents there. After all, street photography is valid only in public, communal spaces which excludes private properties and residential buildings. Admiring the old architecture and building structural designs (I was a civil engineer after all) I decided to whip out the smartphone to utilize the wide angle lens, which I did not have with me on my OM-D camera at that particular session. The ventilation wall at the stairs drew my attention and I paid closer attention to it. All images were shot with Motorola G5S Plus using Google Camera App (ported over).



My friend actually teased me because I wasn't shooting any human subjects (out of respect and acknowledgement of privacy at residential spots) and that it must be a boring outing for me. I have learned long ago that if we truly keep our minds open, we will see subjects that compels us to shoot. I have trained myself to find beauty in ordinary things, not necessarily things that are out of the usual of spectacular. There is beauty and photography opportunities all around us, we just have to grab the camera and walk out to capture them. If someone says "there is nothing to shoot" then something is very wrong with his mindset when it comes to shooting. Being a passionate, hungry and growing photographer, you should never run out of inspiration and drive to shoot. Your fingers will be unbearably itchy anytime you are away from you camera.

To me, doing a photowalk is not necessarily about shooting the subjects that I want to shoot. Sometimes it gives me an opportunity to explore beyond my own comfort zone, move out from what I like to do and experiment with different approach and shooting styles. There are times I do need to see things differently and find an unusual approach to get the shots. After all, the more we shoot the more we learn about ourselves, our vision and voice in photography. It is an on-going process and the journey never stops.

So my question to you, have you spent enough time shooting lately? If not, what are you waiting for, grab that camera and go out and make some nice photos! That camera is not going to click by itself.

Every time I am walking around, whether I have my Olympus camera with me or not, the ever trusty smartphone camera is on standby to capture something that catches my attention. Usually that something will be visually striking, and I am particularly drawn to interesting and bold colors. Most of the images I am showing in this blog entry were taken when I was strolling around Brickfields in KL, and the buildings there have walls in vivacious combination of colors, I just cannot help it but capture frames after frames. Some images (the obvious one with the fallen road sign, Jalan Sultan) were shot in Petaling Street, the epicenter of street photography activities in Kuala Lumpur. I must admit the Motorola's humble smartphone camera does pretty well in such well lit environment and the colors do pop (with a hint of over-saturation) and come to live.

Looking at these images, they were far from what I would usually be satisfied with coming home from a typical shutter therapy session. Nonetheless, I also have to brave myself to explore other styles and approach when I shoot on the street. I am a fan of color photography and Malaysia is such a colorful place (literally). It does not take much to open my eyes to the wonderful variety of colors splashing all over the city streets. Maybe these are not qualified to be called street shots, but who cares. All I wanted to do was record the beauty that I saw.









There are times that we just have to set aside our gear obsession and not worry too much about technical perfection. Start seeing the beauty around us and shoot with whatever tool is at hand. I think visual artistic appreciation does not have to go too strictly with ever-increasing megapixel race and larger format war. Just be happy, use what you have and enjoy the beauty around you!