Canon Price Increase!

Oh noooooooooooo! I just read about this horrible piece of news from my favorite Canon site that Canon is going to increase prices on lens, flash and accessories by 10% effective October 1st. That's really bad news for us Canon owners.

Thank God I went on a shopping spree for my Canon stuff in the past few weeks. I've basically got most of the Canon stuff I need for now. Hehe. I'm almost broke now, from all that spending.

Here's my haul of Canon stuff for the month of September.


All that would have cost me quite a bit of extra money if I had to pay 10% more. I'm so happy I don't have to pay thousands of dollars more for all that. All you fellas thinking of getting some nice, new, shiny stuff from Canon, maybe you should start your Christmas shopping early. Hehehe.

Singapore F1 fever

I was on vacation in Singapore again last week. I arrived there on Sunday and had planned for a 1 night stay only. This trip was meant purely for camera equipment shopping. I wanted to get myself the Canon 17-40 f4L and 70-200 f2.8L IS and a wireless flash commander.

However, it was pretty exciting to see that Singapore was buzzing with F1 excitement. So I decided to extend my stay by a few more days to soak in the buzzing F1 fever atmosphere in Singapore. I also tried to get some tickets known as the "Walkabout Ticket" so I can go inside the spectator areas for some nice photos of the support race cars and also the F1 cars during the practice sessions. I found out the tickets were sold out 1 week ago. :(

Anyway, the atmosphere in the shopping areas were postively buzzing with excitement. Here's some pictures I took on the way to Peninsula Plaza for my camera shopping.


Even the MRT(Singapore's subway) is buzzing with F1 fever.





The usual Singapore standard of organisation. Top notch all the way. They even have these stickers on the pavement telling you exactly where to go.





Signboards showing road diversions, change in bus routes and spectator pathways.









Here's a Ferrari promotional booth at the fantabulous new mall called ION.









Let's see if I can steal some of the rear diffuser technology. LOL





I wish my steering wheel had so many gadget buttons!





Source of the Ferrari V8 Symphony Orchestra.





BBS alloy wheels! My all time favorite wheels.





Stray cats and dogs, beware of sharp edges!





Ferrari refuelling challenge.





Grrrrrrrrrr, I'm the best fuel rig man. Ferrari should hire me.




I really wish the walkabout tickers were available. I would have had some fun with my new, lovely 70-200 f2.8L IS. Anyway, the race starts in about 4 hours and I can't wait for it to GOGOGO!

Oh ya, I also got to meet Mika Hakkinen while shopping for my camera stuff. Go to page 2 for that. Hehe

Page 2- Mika Hakkinen still ROCKS!

Hospital

These were taken with the lil Leica D-Lux4. Lovely lil camera. I was bored out of my mind after spending a week there. So I went round shooting the hospital. I only realised how spooky it was after I uploaded the pics to my computer. My wife says I'm lucky I didn't shoot any "unearthly" things. LOL. Thank god for that!

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My favorite pictures

Decided to compile some of my favorites here today. So here goes...........
Pics were taken with Sony A200 and Canon 40D.

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Mika Hakkinen still ROCKS!!!!!

Wowzers! I was shopping for some camera stuff at Funan Digital Mall today and suddenly Mika Da Man turns up behind me at the top floor escalator. I was so pissed that I didn't have pen and paper with me. :(

BUT I was extremely lucky. My wife was waiting for me at the ground floor Food Court and she had pen and paper. Mika was right behind me all the way to the groundfloor. How lucky am I? Hehehe. So I quickly rushed to Subway Sandwich where my was, grabbed the pen and paper, went back to Mika who was still walking around the groundfloor. I called out "Hi Mika, would you mind signing your autograph for me please?". He was most gracious and friendly. He seemed really happy to see me telling my wife and kids about the legendary Mika Hakkinen too.

I told him I was a long time fan of his while he was signing the autograph. Shook hands and said thanks a lot for the autograph and asked if he would mind me taking a photo with him. He was most gracious and agreed to the photo. I said thanks again and he replied "You're most welcome". I really didn't wanna intrude on his private time while shopping in Singapore but being a long time fan, I just had to give it a shot. I'm happy I did, as I've learnt from my experience today that Mika Hakkinen still ROCKS and is such a nice person even with this crazy person bugging him for an autograph and picture. LOL.

Thanks for the autograph and picture Mika, you're a legend and you still ROCK!

Best camera shop in Singapore Part 2

I did some exploring at the mall across the road from Peninsula Plaza too. If you're standing under this signboard at the main entrance of Peninsula Plaza..






Look directly across Coleman Street and you'll see this. Just go ahead and walk by Ruby Photo. There's nothing much to see in there unless you're a film enthusiast. They have lotsa film stuff in there.





Once you're in that building, walk around and you'll see there's quite a few camera shops in there. This 1 is my favorite on the ground floor. It's called P&G Photographic Centre. It's a buy, sell and trade kinda shop.






The owner is really nice and friendly. He was the only guy who quoted me some really honest prices. The other shops were quoting me some rather ridiculous prices. He allowed me to try out some lenses too. Here we are fooling around with the super wide angle Canon 17-40mm f4L on my EOS 5D MkII. Hehehe






Checking out the field of view for the Canon 17-40mm f4L at 17mm. Can you say wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide!






For comparison, I took this at 24mm with my 24-105mm f4L.


There are quite a few other shops in there so be sure to go and explore them all.

Best camera shop in Singapore- Part 1
Best camera shop in Singapore- Part 3

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Krispy Kreme Donuts

Finally tried Krispy Kreme in KL today. I absolutely love Krispy Kreme but it only recently came to Malaysia. Before this it was Dunkin Donuts which is totally LAME! I wouldn't even give a Dunkin Donut to my dog. He'd probably spit it out. LOL.

And then came the pretenders called J.CO and Big Apple Donuts. J.CO comes from Indonesia and Big Apple is a home grown Malaysian company. They did a roaring trade before Krispy Kreme arrived in Malaysia as most Malaysians are very gullible and simply thought Big Apple is an American brand or something simply because it's called Big Apple as in New York Big Apple. I used to like Big Apple too, because I had no choice then. Big Apple is slowly slipping down a slippery slope I reckon. Maybe they've let success get to their heads or something. Am I the only one who's noticed the donuts at Big Apple have slooooooooooowly gotten smaller and smaller. I mean, come onnnnnnnnnn man, those donuts are not cheap by any standards and they're trying to rip us off now by using less dough and giving us puny little things they're trying to pass off as donuts?



Anyway, let's move on to Krispy Kreme now. First thing I noticed while waiting in line at the counter was how fat the donuts are. Ooooooh yummy, I couldn't wait to get my hands on them.






There's a special offer going on now. Buy a dozen and get six for free. So I grabbed a dozen and went upstairs. Look at how fantastic the decor is. It looks more like an exclusive restaurant rather than a donut joint. The ambience in there is just superb. Such a relaxing place to just kick back and enjoy a nice cup of coffee and some donuts. Big Apple donuts looks like a 7 Eleven store in comparison. LOL











Look at those fat juicy donuts! Big Apple donuts look like they came out of Ethiopia compared to these fatties.






Hopefully, Krispy Kreme opens up more outlets soon. There's only 2 shops now(Berjaya Times Square and Mid Valley) and 1 more coming up in Sunway Pyramid. I'm hoping they open a few more in PJ soon so I can stop going to Big Apple. If any of the Big Apple owners happen to read this, you guys better buck up and SOON. I am not gonna continue patronising your joints if the donuts keep shrinking.