Woof !

I sold a Canon 600D to a customer who owns a pet grooming establishment today. As we were talking, I told  the customer about the loss of a customer's dog (which I kind of elaborated yesterday). True to my intuitions, it was very hard to find a lost dog, especially if its a purebred. He gave the following reasons:

1. If the dog was found in another person's house, the person would've tried to return it to its owner.

2. Purebreds, especially house kept ones are not very good in their sense of direction, having being kept in their owner's house for all their lives. Once they escape, they almost immediately loose their bearings, and wander further and further away from home.

3. There is a market for purebreds as pets to unsuspecting buyers, or more sinisterly as breeding stock (Fortunately the Chinese folk in Malaysia don't find dog meat very appealing). The latter occurrence would be more likely if the dog was female as it could give birth to several generations of pups which are worth a lot in the market.

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The first dog that I could remember having in my life was a long haired, dark brown mongrel named 'Duffy'. Duffy and her sister were given to my late grandpa as pups. After I was born, my mom took her to our home and she has remained with her ever since. She was a nice dog with a nice temperament, but she was always ready to bark when strangers approached our home. I still remember the day when Duffy passed away. My mom told me when dogs were going to die, they would do so away from the sight of their owners. She wanted to get out of the house, and so we opened the gate for her. After going out for a while, she strangely came back and lay in front of our gate. And there she lay for about half an hour, until she finally passed away. We packed her in a large box, and carried her to the bush at the end of the road. Boy was she heavy. We dug a hole with a 'cangkul', and put her in the ground before we covered her up. 

We had another black dog named 'Dickter'. Somehow, all the misbehaving dogs in our house had 2 traits - they were black, and could contort themselves so well that they could squeeze between two iron bars. We didn't need to let Dickter out. He let himself out, and always made it home punctually for dinner. After gobbling the food, he would let himself out again.

Unlike Duffy who passed away peacefully, Dickter had a tragic death. He was out one day a few meters from our house when a car knocked him down. The owner then swiftly drove away. My parents and I ran out quickly to survey the extent of the damage. Alas, it was too late. We dragged him back into our home promptly. After a short while (about 20 minutes I think), the driver of our car was asking around the neighbourhood (including our own house!) about the whereabouts of our late pooch. Mom told him we haven't seen him around, and them he left. I remember mom telling me later that he might have come back to take our dog and cook him for dinner! Oh well.. considering that we Chinese eat anything with its back towards the sun, I guess it was true. We buried him afterwards at the same spot.

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BTW, the mutt in the image above is named 'Pug' for obvious reasons. She has a soft bark (and you have to be really close to hear her), and she's afraid of heights. I look forward to take photos of her puppies soon.

Cheers.

When its quiet

Its getting dark and I've just had some nasi lemak ayam for dinner at the local mamak store. Feeling a little full, I take a walk to the playground in the middle of the neighbourhood. It is silent, save for the sound of children playing on the swings while their dad sits quietly at a chair reading his newspaper.

A breeze of cool air is so refreshing after being in an air conditioned environment for the whole day. The playground and adjacent basketball court is quiet. Children and their parents are eating dinner at home while having fellowship at the table while their grandparents are watching chinese drama on TV.

The tasty aroma of stirfried food, the clangs of cooking utensils, and cries for a customers order can be heard from the food outlets. A jogger passes by slowly , presumably trying to burn a few calories before having dinner afterwards. The harsh light emitted my passing vehicles shine brightly into the night.

I take some time to reflect upon the various occurrences that happened today.

A friend described to me that a lady is distributing flyers to passersby nearby my workplace, desperately trying to get hold of her lost dog. (The poor mutt escaped from her house because she forgot to close the gate). She came to our shop yesterday afternoon, distraught and teary eyed, seeking help for a flyer to be written up for distribution. Her boyfriend of course was less sympathetic, wondering in his mind why on earth is he being ignored just for the sake of a dog. Of course, yours truly had to be involved, and I had to take some time off from my regular work to design a simple ad for her. Seeing such a sad soul, it is indeed hard to be truthful to her. The chances of finding her dog once more are very slim, despite the generous reward offered.

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I also posted on my facebook status that I "just had a close encounter with the long arm of the law by selling a camera to a police officer. He was being difficult at first, but fortunately nothing happened. Whew..."

A few friends were confused as to what I was trying to say. Let me elaborate. Because my colleague and I were a bit late to serve this 'top brass' police officer of a certain race, he called us derogatory phrases like " You will not be around in 7 days if you ignore me" and " You think you are so rich, that's why you're not serving me?". Its as if we were freshly caught criminals undergoing interrogation in a police station. His comments are wholesomely inappropriate, especially when he is in full uniform.Such is the repulsive behaviour of our royal malaysian police, who are supposed to adhere to the motto "tegas, adil dan berhemah (firm, fair and prudent)". No wonder so many unwanted things can happen when you're in police custody, even though you're not officially charged for a crime. :s

Of course, I'm not generalising the whole force, but some certain individuals who think they're superior to us just because they are at at the top of the food chain as compared to the common citizen. I pray that I wouldn't have to go through this ever again.

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Such is my day on 28 March 2011. Good evening everyone.

Cheers.~

27 March 2011

The week's almost ending. I finished work early today, so I took a little walk around the neighbourhood with the Samyang AE 14mm f/2.8.

Note: Some of the images in this entry are photoshopped, so it doesn't really count as images straight from the camera.

I haven't managed to use the lens much at all, so it was quite fun to explore new creative possibilities with this lens.

This is the worst flare result I could extract from the lens, by pointing it directly at the sun.

 The ultra wide field of view distorts space to the point where it can be a bit unsettling to view the image for long periods of time.

 This is what happens if you don't take care of your Perodua. The car on the right is just a few years old but yet it looks like it came out from a scrap metal workshop! :s

 This image illustrates the complex moustache shaped barrel distortion that the lens gives. Hence, this is not a very good lens for architectural subjects.

 The minimum focus distance is 0.28 m, which is pretty remarkable.

I hope all of you had a good weekend.

Cheers.

PJ ss 17 night stalls

My brother and I had dinner at the Petaling Jaya ss17 commercial area earlier. I also managed to take a few shots with the Samyang 85mm f/1.4.

We don't always eat at places like this because of the dubious nature of how the stall owners maintain the hygiene of their food and eating utensils (as they do not have a proper shop and running water). So, we choose to be safe rather than sorry later.

The roti canai mamak stall.

This stall sells pretty decent Chinese desserts such as tong sui.

Behind the desert stall is a series of rickety tables and chairs for you to sit down and have your meals.

The not-so-mobile roti man (bread man)

I guess I was a bit cowardly to go right up to the subject with a wide angle lens. Hopefully I'll have the guts to try a more direct approach next time.

cheers.

Good ol' days

During the good ol' days in summer, a bunch of us from OCF (Overseas Christian Fellowship) would hang out at Aunty Kiat's house for a summer barbecue dinner, and nintendo wii thereafter. [Btw, I uploaded this to facebook on 28 nov 2009.]

Fast forward a year later, Aunty Kiat came back recently for holidays , so we met her at Wang Chiew for dinner yesterday evening.

 Sweet and sour pork ribs.

Fried bean curd

The last time we met was in the middle of Chinese New Year, so it was nice to see familiar faces again of the returnees in KL.

 Fresh steamed patin flish. Tastes great~

3 blokes from the land of the hornbills

 Managed to have a few shots done with the Samyang 85/1.4 too. I love the bokeh and shallow depth of field at 1.4 :)

Back in those days when I was the 'unofficial' OCF carlton photographer, I always tried to get a group photo after every event. Our minds are finite, and we tend to forget things that happened a long time ago. Photos help us to remember them in seconds :)

Happy Friday everyone~

new kid on the block

So I managed to get my hands on a relatively affordable Made-in-China Nikon AF-D 50mm f/1.4D lens. Although its not that new, the glass is pretty pristine. There are heaps of photos online about how the lens looks like but today I'd like to talk about a few properties of this lens.

 

 First of all, its sufficiently sharp at the center at f/1.4.For optimum sharpness, stop the lens down to f/2. Edge resolution peaks at f/4 and above.

As a matter of fact, the DX-only Nikon 35/1.8G lens is sharper at the center wide open as compared to the 50/1.4G. I wish Nikon had produced a FX lens with the same optical properties as the 35/1.8G at that same affordable price point.

 The autofocus speed of the 50/1.4D is pretty fast - at least 2x faster than the 50/1.4G lens from infinity to close-focus.

I guess you know what I'm about to mention here. The seven bladed aperture blades produce heptagon shaped out of focus highlights, which aren't very pleasing to see if you're used to the rounded highlights of its cheaper cousin, the 50/1.8D. You can also notice some vignetting at the edge of the FX sensor.

 The heptagon highlights become more prominent as you stop down the lens.

With the Sarawak elections around the corner, I can't see how the our government is making good their promises to the people, especially in light of the recently released video by Datuk T.

As with other large aperture primes from the film era, purple fringing is quite significant, especially at areas where contrast is quite high.

With a minimum focus distance of 0.45m, this lens isn't suited for macro photography, but it should make the food on your table appear sufficiently delicious.

Thats all for now folks. Have a very good evening.

Cheers.