Review « ChanRaymond dot net

January 25, 2010

People Say…

Filed under: Announcement, General, Other, Photography, Portrait, Review — Tags: 3210, 3350, 7250i, 8310, iphone 3gs, nokia n97, Phones, Photography, sophie — Raymond Chan @ 9:05 pm

…time flies when you’re having fun.

I just realised today that it has been a month since my last update. Technically speaking, my last post was last year. I wouldn’t say I was having the time of my life, but when you no longer have uni assignments and exams to deal with, there’s always other things (eg. work) that bothers you. I have been taking it easy on the job-hunt. Heck, I haven’t even prepared my CV or resume to begin with.

So what have I actually done for the past month? Nothing much except for work and more work, really. Well, my niece, Sophie turned one month on 14th January. Here’s the cute little thing:

I have been a Nokia fanboy since I was 13. I still remember my first phone being a trusty Nokia 3210 (Google it if you’re too young to know the model), which had the best game ever (SNAKE!) during my schooling days. I would bring it to school and risk having it confiscated because it was against the school rules then (not sure about now). Later on I had the 3350, which introduced cooler ringtones and games. I had a 7250i when it first came out (one of the first phone with colour and polyphonic ring tones and camera!!) and then downgraded to a 8310 when my phone was robbed

The 8310 stayed with me for a year or so with me after I came to Perth, until I signed a contract for a N95, which was my phone for the past 2 years. I was deciding between the N97 and an iPhone 3GS, but finally couldn’t resist but to join the dark side – I got the iPhone.

Sad to say, I haven’t regretted the move from Nokia to Apple by the slightest bit. The UI is just too pretty and I love how it doesn’t lag at all, unlike Nokia’s line of “smart” N-series phones. Everything is right at my finger tips with the iPhone, and the app store is amazing, to say the least. Nokia has a lot of work to do to catch up in the game.

Happy Australia Day for all Aussies for tomorrow! =)

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June 19, 2009

I’m a Swine Flu Survivor

Filed under: Announcement, Confessional, Review, Rough Times, Thoughts — Tags: Announcement, Australia, Confessional, experience, flu, influenza, news, Perth, Review, Rough Times, survivor, swine, tablet, tamiflu, Thoughts, WA — Raymond Chan @ 7:16 pm

I am a swine flu survivor.

For the past week I have been taking Tamiflu tablets twice a day, prescribed by the health department for swine influenza patients. Personally, I think swine flu is a little overrated sensationalised by the media at the moment.

This is especially true when the death of the first Australian with swine flu was reported earlier today. For Pete’s sake he already had medical problems so he probably died due to his other illness in the first place. There is certainly no need to highlight the fact that he is the first person in Australia to die with the flu.

Yes, it was a harsh one week couple of nights alright. I was really ill – fever, chills, aching body, migraine, loss of appetite, cough (still going but don’t worry you wont get the virus), but thankfully I wasn’t vomiting for that 3 days or so. After that, with regular consumption of the tablets given by the health department, I was on the road to recovery in no time.

I certainly do not believe the virus has the ability to kill me, but of course if the symptoms were ignored and if I had chosen to sleep it off, it would’ve been much more serious than this.

So, if you’re having any of the symptoms that I had experienced, please do yourself and your loved ones a favour – contact your local GP immediately. The virus is not that bad-ass at all IF you have it prevented in the first place.

And yes I got paid for my days off work. *grin*

*This community service announcement is specially brought to you by ChanRaymond dot net *

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June 4, 2009

F Sparkle

Filed under: Review, Thoughts — Tags: contagious network, f sparkle, herbs, minerals, Review, tablets, Thoughts, vitamins — Raymond Chan @ 2:24 am

I was recently given a box of 10 sachets of F Sparkle courtesy of the Contagious Network. Since then I have been taking at least a sachet (2 tablets) every day to see if these tablets actually does what it claims to do. After more than a week, I have finished the whole box.

So what exactly is this F Sparkle?

Taken from F Sparkle’s FAQ (pdf), F Sparkle is a natural based dry tablet containing Vitamin B, herbs and electrolytes, which is approved (by the Therapeutic Goods of Australia) to be a supplement for both vitality and recovery.These tablets are developed to improve overall energy and vitality particularly during times of fatigue, stress and over indulgence.

Unlike energy drinks which are used as a “quick fix” and laden with masking agent chemicals, sugar and aspartane (which can be harmful) to hide the taste of the formula, F Sparkle is designed without sugar, guarana or added caffeine. The reason it is designed in tablet form is because tablets allows maximum delivery of vitamins, minerals and herbs without compromise.

It is also highly encouraged to be taken with (lots of) water as it improves essential hydration and balance.

Personally, although I have never really reached the target of 1 litre of water/sachet, the tablets did actually help me when I work. Often, by 10pm, I would be worn out from the physically-demanding tasks at work, but with the tablets, I could still keep going until the tasks are all done. Taking the tablets is almost the same as drinking a large can of Red Bull/Mother for me, except F Sparkle is a much healthier alternative and lasts much much longer.

I also find that even after late nights of movies and gaming, waking up at 2.30pm the next day is no longer as difficult as it used to. I guess all the ingredients in F Sparkle (pdf) did really sparkle up my body.

Then again, I still wish the tablets are a little smaller and taste better in the mouth.

For more information, visit F Sparkle at www.fsparkle.com.

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May 15, 2009

Which Vertical Grip to Buy for Nikon D40/x/60?

Filed under: Accessories/Equipment, Photography, Review, Thoughts — Tags: battery grip, equipments, Nikon D60, Photography, Review, Thoughts, vertical grip — Raymond Chan @ 2:12 am

I bought myself a vertical/battery grip from eBay for my Nikon D60 today. After having sore fingers from long shoots which involved horizontal and vertical shots, I admit that the D60 body is indeed a little too small for my hands. Its shape is perfectly fine except for the fact that my pinky doesn’t have a place to rest itself and the finger next to the pinky (ring finger?) often finds itself rubbing against the edge of the camera, causing discomfort halfway through an event, and at the end of the event I’ll often see the poor finger going red and almost bruised-like.

Only costing ~AUD65, the third party (Nikon does/will not produce one for D40/x/60) vertical grip will be my hope to not just improve the comfort whilst handling the D60, but at the same time increase battery life with an additional slot for a spare battery, and in situation where both batteries have depleted, there is also an alternative of using 6AA batteries to power up the camera. Increasing weight for the body, this also means that it will be easier to carry heavier lenses as the weight from the additional vertical grip will in a way stabilise the weight of the lens, hence helping with stabilisation of the camera whilst shooting.

Of course, all good things have their flaws. These third party grips, although having a vertical shutter in the portrait orientation does not have the half-press shutter which allows AF before taking the shot. Notwithstanding that, in order to use the vertical shutter, one must change the settings in the camera to “remote release” and pull the infrared hatch from the grip which will send its signals to the camera’s infrared in order to take a shot. This means every time I want to switch from using the normal shutter to the vertical one, I would have to:

Change the menu settings to remote release.
Pop up the infrared hatch from the grip so it’ll send the signals to the camera.
Press the shutter halfway only to see that it doesn’t support half-press shutter.

There are a couple of sellers claiming that their version of the grip supports half-press, but as far as my research went (in Google) and according to one of the sellers who claims such function, no 3rd party grips for D40/x/60 will support half-press shutter nor will the shutter be able to function without changing the shooting mode and popping up the hatch for the infrared. So don’t waste your money on the expensive ones which claims that the grip will do this or that. Just get a cheap one since all of them are made in China anyway. But as a rule of thumb, look for the one with similar texture of the camera, don’t get the ones that look completely smooth and plasticky because it will not complement the body.

Photos when I receive my grip in a couple of weeks (hopefully)

And oh, did I mention that with the additional grip, my D60 will look more professional too? lol

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May 8, 2009

Tamron 17-50mm f2.8

Filed under: Accessories/Equipment, Photography, Review, Thoughts — Tags: 17-50mm, 18-55mm VR, advertisement, equipment, f2.8, nikon, Photography, Review, tamron — Raymond Chan @ 11:02 am

I got my almost-new (1 month old) Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 a couple of days ago to replace my Nikon 18-55mm VR.

All I can say so far is that it is one sweet lens. I’ve had it stopped functioning once, where it would just stop focussing and I could not take any shot at all. I had to turn my D60 off and back on but that happened only once out of about 200 shots. Build-wise, it’s similar to the Nikon 18-55mm, just bigger (67mm vs 52mm) and heavier. I might need a vertical grip if I plan to use this for an event because I have trouble trying not to hurt my fingers while holding the camera for a long period of time.

Anyway, focussing is mostly hit but there are misses. I’m still doubtful of the speed of focussing as well because it varies on the lighting. It takes a little more effort than my Nikon 18-55mm VR to focus in darker lighting, but I think I will just have to adapt to that. Wide open shots are soft, but f4 and onwards they’re decent. The hood is not as strong as my Nikon one (55-200mm VR), but I guess I can live with that.

I’m putting this Nikon 18-55mm VR for sale. As you can see it’s still in a pretty good condition. I think I would have done about 2,000 shots with the Nikon since it’s fairly new after the break-in to my car last year.

No scratches or marks, just a little bit of dust here and there. I’ll part with it say, AUD$160.

Email me at ray@chanraymond.net if you’re interested. I’m also selling my Nikon Sb400 Speedlight if you’re interested.

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May 1, 2009

Shinjuku Incident

Filed under: Review — Tags: jackie chan, movie, Review, shinjuku incident — Raymond Chan @ 12:00 am

L and I was dining out one night earlier this month and decided to catch a spontaneous movie before we head home. I was checking for movie schedules via my mobile and found Shinjuku Incident which starred Jackie Chan, so we both decided to watch the movie although we didn’t know what to expect from the movie.

I am surprised to find out that there was not much publicity for the movie and there hasn’t been many reviews of Shinjuku Incident.

Maybe it’s just L and myself, but Shinjuku Incident is without a doubt one of the better Jackie Chan films and possibly on par, if not better than the much-hyped Ip Man.

Shinjuku Incident is a drama about Steelhead (Jackie Chan) who entered Japan illegally in search of his girlfriend, Xiu Xiu. He gets into trouble with the Yakuza when he found out that Xiu Xiu has married a Yakuza leader. The whole movie mainly revolves around Steelhead and his friends’ lives and how they fight to survive in the dog eat dog world in Shinjuku.

With two hours of runtime for the movie, development of characters were done really well. However, towards the middle of the movie I noticed that the movie is somewhat rushed and there were parts that I wished was shown a little bit more instead of fast-forwarded. But other than that the individual characters managed to shine through the flaws of the movie.

Jackie Chan fans might be a little let down as this is probably his first serious movie for which he does not know martial arts and a sex scene was included. I was expecting a totally different movie but it came out surpassing my expectations. Apparently this movie is banned in China for its violence and portrayal of its illegal immigrants.

In conclusion, the whole movie was executed brilliantly, although there could be more scenes that should be left to progress at its own pace. Fans of the Young and Dangerous would be able to see the similarities in this movie. Shinjuku Incident is definitely a must watch movie for all Jackie Chan and Young and Dangerous fans. I give this movie a good 7/10 for its good storyline and twists in the middle of the movie.

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March 8, 2009

The Standstill

Filed under: Confessional, Other, Photography, Review, Rough Times — Tags: Big W, Confessional, contact, Nikon D60, Perth, photo book, Photography, Review, Self Gratification, standstill, Thoughts — Raymond Chan @ 2:55 am

I have to confess that I have not held my D60 for a while now although I have faithfully brought my gear to uni every Monday to Wednesday. There are just so many things going on in uni and personal life that I have decided to put photography to a standstill. I’m afraid I need to re-organise my time completely. Perhaps with a start to an earlier sleep?

On a totally unrelated note, I have finally received my photo book which compiles 20 of my 2008 and early 2009 photos from BigW. Yes, BigW has a photo lab which prints your photos on books, canvasses, etc. It was a promotional offer of an 8×8 photo book of 20 pages (excluding cover, so 20 photos [1 photo/page]) for half price (~$10), so I decided to have a go at it. The offer has been replaced by a canvas offer which starts at around $40 which I still am quite skeptical about (the quality, I mean).

Here’s a quick look of my photo book:

The front and back cover could probably have been much better with pictures, but I was rushing to finish the photo book because I only started doing it on the last day of the offer. The annoying BigW online photo application could have been much more user friendly, but it wasn’t as fun as I had imagined it to be. They also need more font options.

Yes, you are seeing (oily) finger prints. For reasons unknown, the paper is glossy-ish, plus my choice of black background probably was a bad idea to begin with. Probably should have started with white. Purity. Innocence.

First page is a pretty heavilly-edited shot of a couple of Japanese Koi fishes which belonged (notice the tense) to L’s mother. They died a few weeks after I took the shots. No, it wasn’t me.

The print quality isn’t bad at all unless you decide to grab a magnifying glass or something. If looked closely, I can see that my some photos have quite rough pixels which is not that apparent at all on my screen. But if you’re just doing this for a once-in-a-while thing, I think it’s quite worth the money. Just maintain a 15cm distance when you view the book.

The line in the middle shows some signs of strain now because it just wouldn’t stay open long enough for me to take the shot, so I had to use a wee bit of force. I should have used the polariser as well to get rid of the reflection of the Speedlight, but I just couldn’t be stuffed doing so much at this time. Yeap, the pictures are (half) fresh from the camera, after editing for the blacks anyway.

So here ya go, my mobile number (and more fingerprints). That’s the back cover by the way, and yes, I should have done more than just my contact details.

ps. Please don’t spam my phone, but instead, I’ll be eternally grateful if you would invite me to your wedding/birthday/party/etc for free photography.

p.s.s Shan has written something that I have been thinking about lately and he has really hit the nail on the head in his post the Importance of Failure. Thank you for sharing, Shan.

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