Category Archives: Photography
New Photos of Mythos
Mythos is getting bigger and bigger everyday, and we haven’t taken any new photos of him for a while. On a lazy afternoon he felt like being a model, so here we go…
Photos were taken using Panasonic GF1
Henry’s Photography Show
Deb and I went to the annual Henry’s photography show today. Well, similar to last year – nothing really exciting… luckily we didn’t have to pay for the admission. This time, I didn’t bring my DSLR, but Deb brought her GF1. See the last photo with the girls on the bike? That was taken using Panasonic GF1, not bad eh?
What did I buy?
The next big DIY project is to build 2 x hot light soft box to achieve professional lighting effects. At the show, a light adapter caught my attention, it is a little adaptor made by Westcott – it basically splits one socket into 4.
That’s awesome, because I was about to build something similar, that costs me only $17 CAD. Awesome! All I need is to get some light bulb with color temperature 5000K to simulate daylight.
Deb’s Trip to HK, Macau and Japan with GF1
My wife Deb went to HK visiting her grandmom, she then went to Macau and Osaka Japan. With the new Panasonic GF1, she took some good photos. All photos were taken using “iA’ mode (fully automatic mode) with the 20mm lens which is equivalent to 40mm on full frame. Since Deb is not a DSLR user, in order to avoid disaster I told her only needed to focus on her composition and lighting – let GF1 “iA” mode takes care of the rest. What is the result? Let’s take a look.
(Adobe Lightroom 2.4 was used on post-editing, mainly on resizing and cropping)
Verdict: If you use GF1 as Point and Shoot like Deb, it won’t let you down. The quality and sharpness is just amazing, especially at night. The f/1.7, 20mm m4/3 lens did a really good job, and I am impressed. Now, that makes me think that I may ditch my heavy DSLR at home for the next vacation.
Mythos vs Mythos
Mythos finally has a chance to meet Mythos the Greek beer! Let’s take a sip… Arrr.. can’t see straight line, can’t catch mouse anymore. Sober… declare DUI…. meeeooowwww…. Zzzzz.. The next day, it was such a nice day and Mythos went outside to hunt for bees.
All Photos were taken using Panasonic Lumix GF1 – P mode. Please note that Mythos didn’t really drink, it was an empty bottle.
Mythos meets Girlfriend 1
As Deb’s Sony point and shoot is going to retire, she got herself a “Micro Fourth Thirds” GF1 yesterday. It was such a good march break deal at SIG ($200 less than Henry’s/Vistek, only last for several days). The kit comes with DMC-GF1 body and H-H020 20mm f/1.7 prime lens, all are made in Japan.
Girlfriend and PEN
Originally we were looking at Olympus PEN E-P1 and PEN E-PL1, but after playing with both GF and PEN at Henry’s and Vistek, we totally agreed with our friend FBB – Olympus’s has slow/poor LCD screen, slow auto focus and it’s made in China. So, the winner is so obvious.
Anyways, today is not the best day for taking test shots in the park, since it’s raining out there. Anyways I will keep updating this page if I take more shots on a sunny day.
Update: The photos have been updated several times, all photos were taken using with Panasonic GF1 using 20mm f/1.7 m4/3 lens. Last photo was taken at Henry’s Photography Show on May 14, 2010.
Notes: GF1 is NOT a full frame camera, it has a 2.0 cropping factor, but since it doesn’t have view finder so the cropping will never be a problem to Deb. However, 20mm prime lens would become a 40mm in this case. We didn’t buy any zoom lens because 40mm is pretty close to a standard lens, it is good in most situation.
Verdict: I have been using DSLR for more than 5 years, I have a Canon 5D Mark II and I must say GF1 is very impressive. It gives me the DSLR feeling and photo quality, without the weight. It is excellent for travel. Well, this camera is for my wife to use as a point and shoot, basically I told her only focus on 2 things: Lighting and Composition, and leave it on “iA” or “P” mode. We will see the results when she comes back from her HK/Japan trip next month.
I also found that the pancake lens H020 has vignette effect in some cases, for some photos it is good and I actually take the advantage and post-edited it and even make it more dramatic. I also heard that I can buy an adapter to use my L-series lens on GF1 – that would be very cool.
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Please also check other photos taken using GF1. This is a very good camera, strongly recommeneded.
Vegas Trip
Deb and I went to Vegas for 5 days just to get away from the cold, and one of the purposes of the trip was to celebrate both of our Birthdays as well as Valentine’s day. This way, we can avoid the massive headache to think about what to buy for each other.
One of the key events was to dine at a French fine dining restaurant, Joel Robuchon, a Michelin 3 Stars rated restaurant. We have eaten many fine dining restaurants in Canada, including Quebec and Montreal, but nothing come close to Joel Robuchon. That was really an amazing experience – the food quality was so incredible. The dishes were packed with flavors that I could tasted them coming from different layers, every ingredients were just perfectly matched. There are ONLY 81 restaurants in the world have Michelin 3 Stars according to wiki’s information, no one has ever passed 3 stars (Notes: Jole has restaurants all over the world, but not all of them are having Michelin 3 Stars, some even have bad reviews – do your homework before you go)
The day after the nice dinner, we joined a fully guided walking tour with Grand-adventures.com, that was an awesome one day trip with visiting Cars’ Route 66, Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon. Then, the rest of our trip was to stay at the Strip and went to visit the famous Fremont Street via bus, walking and mono rail and taxi. It was a fun trip!
P.S. We stayed at MGM Grand West Wing at $70 average per night which is rather cheap compared to Wynn or Venetian ($200-$300 per night).
Happy Birthday to Rini, 2 years old!
Happy Birthday to Rini, she is 2 years old today! Tonight, we celebrated together with Mythos (it was Mythos’ 1 year old birthday in December). Agenda for both cats today: Mom and Dad didn’t go outside, and they slept with both spoiled cats on the bed under the sun (see pictures below). Despite it was -10c outside, it was so warm and confortable inside, and well… almost slept for the whole day, What a life!
All pictures in day time was taken using 50mm f/1.4. This lens is good for low light condition and it is a good portrait lens, however it is not as handy in many situtations, especially taking Cats photos because it has no Macro.
Mythos & Rini Christmas Video
Thanks to Vince and Tyatt for the Christmas Cat Toys! Mythos and Rini LOVED them so much, there are so many toys in the bag!! Merry Christmas to everyone!
Also, here are several still photos:
The background song in the video is called “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas – Hippo the Hero, by Gayla Peevey in 1953″. Find it from the usual place if you want this song. Personally, I think the lyrics is a bit odd, why would you want a stinky hippo for Christmas? LOL… Well, there was a real story behind this song in 1953, check out Wiki.
Meowy Christmas – Behind the Scene on making the card
Meowy Christmas everyone! Many friends and family members have received our e-card, here is the behind the scene on making the card.
Taking the photos of Mythos and Rini was NOT an easy job, they hated the cat apparel so badly. HAHA… But putting everything together in Photoshop took me around 2 hours, it was not too bad. To make fur texture background that matches our Cat Theme, I used Alien Skin Eye Candy texture. Then adjusted the Hue/Saturation for green color – just for Christmas. To make the photos stand out, Eraser Tool with different brushes were used to create the edges effect. No 3rd party plug-in was used to create the text, all are standard features of Photoshop. I just applied drop shadow and inner bevel on the text to make it more 3D, that’s it! Finally I stole an ornament photo from Internet, of course I removed the watermark by using clone stamp, changed the color and made several variation of it. Anyone can do it, make your own card!
Nespresso – Citiz and Milk
After having some really good Latte and Cappuccino in Europe, we felt that we needed to buy an Espresso machine that can make both. After looking for various different brands, we found that Nespresso satisfies both convenience and quality. Without the need of using the pressurized basket, we just buy the capsules. It may be a little bit more expensive but it’s still cheaper than Starbucks.
Don’t get it wrong, I love Starbucks and I go there very often for morning coffee and various drinks. However, I have to admit that Cappucinno and Latte at Starbucks sucks badly. My alternative – coffee shop that serves Illy brand. Anyways, having too much fun with this new toy. See my first Latte Art in the last photo? LOL
