Pasir Pandak

I've lost count how many time have I've been here actually. Jam pack with people as usual and if your thirsty or hungry prepare to pay jacked up food and drinks prices here. This is the last beach that I went with Eric on the very same day as the one we visited Buntal and Puteri. Pretty hectic and as a result, I've been pretty tired since. The beach itself isn't as clean as it used to be and for the money the only good looking beach here in kuching left is Pandan Beach near Lundu area. Then again, I've spoken with Terence the other day when he visited Pandan, he mentioned that the beach there also not as clean as it used to be. Hey come on people!, enjoy it as you may but please keep place clean for others too.

Take off your slippers, shoe .. and feel the nice sandy feeling on your feet. ^_^


Football fever is just about everywhere when its World Cup season.


I love watching football games .. but I sucked at playing it in real life. I'm extremely good at video game football though.


Oh hey ... my old gears. :)

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Pantai Puteri

I've never actually been here before. Serene place, beautiful, windy, nice amount of shade from the sun ... a nice place for family get together. It's located on the right hand side of Kampung Santubong. Best of all, it's still not commercialized and it remains free to the public. Saw a group of 3 photographer doing a model shoot there.

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Buntal

Initially my plan for this is to wait for sunset or better still if got some lightning action with the backdrop of a fishing village, but somehow I got the whole timing wrong. Not the first time already. With no standard zoom at the moment, I'm only resign to shooting with the 11-16mm and the 50mm. Not the best combination but have to continue to use until i got enough money to go for either the 17-50mm VC (Used) or Non VC (Used) or another prime in the not so popular 35mm F2 (Used).

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Western Union Lizard

A lizard on a western union sign board. nothing much to photograph lately.

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Canon Ixus 300 HS

Yet another exciting photo competition by Canon Asia. The theme this time around will be "Style and Performance" and stand a chance to win one of the 3 spanking new Canon Ixus 300 HS point and shoot camera. Nice. Click the photo above to go the site. Good luck guys... ^_^

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Unite We Jog

Consider it the utmost blessing one could ever get or hope for. It wasn't long ago that I started out on a perpetual quest to be healthy, because I was an eternal couch potato or somewhere in between. Morning go work, afternoon play ps2 while taking lunch, ps2 again after work until the late at night. It wasn't long ago that I look at myself at the mirror and thought ... wtf is that ? I started on a light walk, then a light jog, then some medium sprint and finally onto hiking. Hiking is my new addiction ... so much so that I've totally forgo my PS2.

Now to the utmost blessing part ... my sports activity partner. :)

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Kuching Ipoh Town Kopitiam

While waiting for the traffic light to turn green. Using the 50mm F1.8. No food shot because can't afford to eat there :P

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Sold

A mass exodus begins when I sold my EOS 400D about few weeks ago, today I sold the 55-250mm IS. I'm contemplating whether to get the Canon 17-40 or the Tamron 17-50 VC. Since I no longer have an external flash, any low light photography will require the 50mm F1.8. At the moment I only left the 50mm and also the Tokina 11-16mm. Sigh if only money is unlimited eh ? :)

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Prepare to be Justified

One photo competition just ended, a new one had begun. Well actually this contest started on the 1st June 2010 and will end on the 30th June 2010.

Very simple contest and may the best entries win. Click on the image to go to the link.

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Canon EOS 550D Winner

Well looks like Canon Asia already selected the winner for the EOS 550D camera contest. Congratulation to the winner named Nguyen Duc Tri. Although the winner is named, oddly there is no winning photo being displayed as yet. :) Better luck next time I suppose.

How to do a Quick Mask Selection

I was trying to do a cutout of myself the other day on photoshop so I could do animated version of myself as my blog header. First I tried using a magic wand tool which wasn't able to properly do a selection of the subject which I wish to cut out due to the relative poor contrast between the subject and background.

Magic Wand can be magical sometimes but not all the time. :)

Using Quick Mask mode would be a better way to do complex selection. First set the mode to Quick Mask mode.

Remember to turn the background into layers first, else the background will be white instead of transparent when you delete the selected portion from the photo.



Select a brush tool and set to large size point to do a quick coloring
of the subject that you want to select. For the moment we leave out the
edges first.



Decrease the size of the brush as necessary to color out the fine edges of the photo such as hair.



The time this process will take depends on the complexity of your intended subject. For my case here, it took me about 30 minute to select it out with various brush sizes.



Once fully colored, switch back to normal mode and the colored portion will be now a selection.



If the selection is on your subject but you want to delete the background instead, you can do so by doing a "Invert Selection" from the menu screen above.



Once your done, pressing delete will erase the background. You can now perform all sort of image manipulation as you see fit.

Here are some of the things you could do ..


Using the Gaussian Blur filter while the background is selected will blur the background and make your image pop.




Or turn the background to any other color including black and white. A very popular editing method which you could find in contemporary wedding photography these days.

So I guess that's it. Any question ? Feel free to drop me an email at theunclelimblog@gmail.com.

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How to create a favicon

A favicon is basically the small icon that show up next to the site's url bar on most browsers. Think of it as a way to personalized your website beside getting your own domain name. Here is a simple way of creating your own favicon using Adobe Photoshop.

Create a new PSD file with size of 160 pixels x 160 pixels width and height.

Add a background color, any color to suit your website or to your liking.

Create some text like initial of your website or something. Again this is to your liking. Save as PNG, JPG and go to Genfavicon an online favicon generator. Pretty neat website. Once it's created, upload the favicon to an image hosting site such as Photobucket. Follow the instruction on the genfavicon and copy the shortcut icon html code and put in between the header portion of your html page (email me on this your not sure how at theunclelimblog@gmail.com, I'm having trouble putting any html code as a blog post).

Your site should have the favicon when the code is saved and page refreshed.

UPDATE!!!
14th August 2010.
This current method only works for Firefox. For those working with both the Firefox and IE, click here. This tutorial is obsolete.

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A Secret Recipe

These photos had been in the camera for quiet sometime, only now got time to touch it up. The time dear and I spent together after her exam at secret recipe. Used to be a crowded place, seem to be swatting flies lately. The french fries is atrocious. The chicken puff (can't remember what it called) taste pretty good.

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A Sensible and Natural Progression For a Beginner Photographer

The following article is based solely on my experience as a habit DSLR shooter (not on the pretext to kill but taking photographs :) ), take it for what it's worth, as a pinch of salt even.

Overview

DSLR camera have evolved tremendously over the last few years, with manufacturers (Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, Leica and many many more) trying to grab a market share on a booming market. DSLR. It wasn't long ago, DSLR is considered a pro's tool (actually it still is, if your talking about the 1Ds or D3s that is), but more and more budding photographer started out with either an entry level DSLR or even a semi-pro camera body. DSLR is and always will be an expensive hobby if we take into account that most (but not all) are unlikely to make money from it.

For the Love of Photography

Interest is the basic virtual motor function that kept all of us continue to do something we love and enjoy. The same applies to photography. My photography interest stems from a life long dream of traveling around the world and capturing beautiful scenery, people from all walks of life, a newborn and other living creature other than us people. I love looking back at all the photos that my relatives including my father took back in the 1960s to the 70s because once that image is burnt into the film, the memories of that very moment is captured and to be kept for as long as the photos can withstand the tale of time. Before you venture into photography, ask yourself first. What is that you want to achieve with photography ? When you know the answer, everything will progress naturally.

DSLR : An Expensive Hobby

Back in the heydays of film photography, the whole trial and error with the manual exposure and countless number of film rolls and getting it developed are probably the biggest drawback (well it's actually a rewarding experience too depend on which side your rooting for) of taking photography into stride. In other words it's expensive back then, and it still expensive now. Due to our poor Ringgit values against the USD, anything that is within the region of four digit figure and above is considered as expensive. Sure, the current DSLR doesn't require film rolls, getting a camera body is only a 1/8 of the story if you really want to fully enjoy the DSLR experience. Yes i'm talking about the accessories.

Camera Body

From the 1000D to 1Ds Mark IV, all are capable of capturing astounding photograph as long as you know the limitation of each. If your really loaded, you can probably continue to upgrade body with each new product announced. Or you could just retain the body and only upgrade once you find the body is limiting your photography in someway.  What I'm trying to convey is, camera body are just a tool, you still need to upgrade your skill to be able to utilize it effectively.

Story of a Kit Lens

Most DSLR are now packaged with a kit lens or twin lens combo. For a beginner, getting one with a kit lens or two are probably the most sensible way to start out photography. By kit lens I meant the usual 18-55mm IS (or non IS), 55-250mm IS, 18-200mm IS, 18-135mm IS. These are pretty standard lens are good enough to practice using the camera with until you understand which type of photography your most interested in. Be a photography enthusiast not a gear head.

Lenses

Once you get the hang of your camera, what's next ? if you are satisfied with your current lenses then there is no need to upgrade. Again, unless body or lens is limiting your photography, there is no need to upgrade. Don't get suck in by the peer got this and that and you also want it syndrome. Not only in photography but also in life.

If general photography is your kind of thing ....

General photography is probably the most popular type of photography because it covers vast amount of scene and subject type. Just about anything can be considered general. From a subset of street, travel to a friends and even a newborn. Its probably the most rewarding branch of photography because your basically capturing everything in life around you. It requires the least amount of equipment.

Recommended Lense

• Tamron 17-50mm VC (or Non VC) - A very highly rated third party lense, covers a common range and got F2.8
• Canon EFS 18-200mm IS - Very good all around lense, decent image quality and not heavy.
• Canon EFS 18-135mm IS - Comes as a kit lens for 7D, 50D and also 550D.
• Canon EFS 55-250mm IS - Decent telephoto lens. Inexpensive.
• Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 - Not so well known as 17-50 version but still fantastic none the less. Full Frame compatible.
  

Only if you can afford it

• Canon EFS 17-55 F2.8 - Also a very highly regarded lense, the price is quite killing especially when it's not FF compatible.
• Canon EF 24-105mm F4 IS - 5D kit lens, very nice range. Everything you can expect from an L glass.
• Canon EF 24-70mm F2.8 - Also known as the Wedding Lense. My dream lense. Frigging expensive.
  
• Canon EF 17-40mm F4 - Good normal range lens, too bad about the F4 and non IS.
  

Specialized only

• Tokina 11-16mm F2.8 - Ultra wide angle, can be difficult to use if your not sure how to use it.
• Canon EFS 10-22mm - Another very popular lens, wider range than the Tokina but no F2.8
• Canon EF 16-35mm F2.8 - Best ultra wide lens for full frame. Damn expensive.
  
• Any fish eyes lenses.

If portraiture is your kind of thing.....

I find myself not attracted to portraiture photography for some unknown reasons. But its also one of the more popular branch of photography. I mean what's there not to like ? Guys with camera photographing beautiful ladies in all sort posture. :)

Recommended Lense

• 85mm F1.8 - very nice Bokeh capability. Super sharp.
  
• Canon EF 70-200mm F4 - An L lense but not so expensive.
• Tamron SP 90mm - Yes this is a macro lens, but it's surprisingly a good portrait lens too.
• Sigma 30mm F1.4 - nice to squeeze some background into play.
• Canon EF 50mm F1.8, F1.4 - Former is dirt cheap and later cost 3 times more but nicer. Both are good lens.
  

Only if you can afford it

• Canon EF 70-200mm F4 IS, F2.8, F2.8 IS - very good, very expensive.
• Canon EF 135mm F2 - Superb lens.
  
• Canon EF 100mm F2.8 - Ditto.

Accessories

• Canon 580EX II, 430EX II - flashgun
• Light stand - to hold the flashgun and also softbox, umbrella
  
• Softbox, Umbrella - Light modifiers
  
• Reflectors - to bounce ambient light to eliminate harsh shadow.
  
• Radio Flash Triggers - to fire flash off camera (some allow TTL, some don't)
• An assistant to hold all those stuff above for you. hehe.

If macro is your kind of thing........

To see the world that we don't normally see with our naked eyes can be a very fascinating experience. Macro photography can be categorized as a specialized branch of photography namely because you can only do it with a Macro lens, lens tube, macro attachment or even reverse lens. But if you really serious about macro, getting a macro lens is probably the only way to enjoy macro photography and also a ring flash while your at it.

Recommended Lens 

• Tamron SP 90mm - Affordable
• Canon EF 100mm F2.8 non IS - very nice lense to start with.

If you can afford it

• Canon EF 100mm F2.8 IS - just introduced not long ago
• Canon EF 180mm F3.5 - Professional grade.

Accessories

• Canon Ringflash - a must accessories considering the lighting condition are usually not feasible to handhold.

Prime vs Zoom

There is always this age old debate on whether to go with prime or zoom lenses. Prime lens basically means the lens only have a single focal length while zoom lens have multiple focal length. Prime is fast, zoom is versatile. So basically from my point of view both type have it's pros and cons and both are equally useful in any shooting arrangement.

Conclusion 

With all that's been said with trial and error over the past few years, it's safe to say that for a budding photographer, the key point is to learn to enjoy the camera first before deciding on further upgrades. This is to avoid buying the wrong lens for the wrong purpose and had to go through the hassle of selling in order to get the correct piece of lens for you. All these doesn't matter if your loaded. :)

My Ideal Combination

Any Canon Body + Tamron 17-50mm F2.8 + Tokina 11-16mm F2.8 + Canon 70-200mm F4 non IS + 580EX II