Toshiba High Speed 8gb SDHC

I just bought this Toshiba Micro SDHC card recently. It's actually a Micro SD card but comes with an SD card adapter. It's about time I upgraded from the puny 2gb card I had in the Leica D-Lux4. I was using 2 units of 2gb cards and it was a huge pain in the butt. I had to keep deleting stuff throughout the day and only keep the really nice pictures. I'd rather do that after I get home. The capacity was terrible for 720p HD videos too.

With 8gb, I now get about 1700+ JPEG shots at maximum resolution of 10mp or about 11 minutes of 720p video. I've been trying it out for a couple of weeks now with stills+video and it's been totally reliable so far. It comes with a 5 year warranty from the local distributor too. Be sure to register online if you get 1. It's really cheap at rm69(USD20) and the Toshiba brand provides peace of mind. Good stuff.

MILF

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this spaghetti strap top while doing my Christmas shopping. LOL. The 1st top that caught my eye said "One Hot Mama", then I saw this




Most Malaysian's don't even know what MILF means. Just imagine what the Americans and Europeans will think when they see Malaysian women walking around with tops like that. Will they receive any indecent proposals??? LOL.

Gadget Freak's Ultimate Hotel Room

Check this out guys. It's the ultimate gadget freak's hotel room. This is my favorite hotel in Penang. It's called Shangri-La Golden Sands Resort. 3 generations of my family have been here. I try and make it to Penang at least once a year or even more if my schedule permits. I'd heard that Golden Sands Resort is going through some renovations and was almost completely done when I went there.

Boy oh boy, was I surprised when I opened the room door. It really is a whole new look and it's a gadget freak's dream come true. Let me show you guys around the room.

This is the 1st thing you see when you open the door. Nice and cosy ambience, just perfect. I loooooove it.






The bed is a ginormous King size bed as requested.





Another view of the room.






Howzabout some flat screen TV goodness eh? It's also got a DVD player in the cabinet.





There's a really nice work table in the corner. This is my favorite part of the room. I'll get to that soon. The door next to the work table leads to my kids' room. It's exactly the same except that it has 2 single beds. My kids are gadget freaks too and went gaga when they realised what I realised.





Now, let's take a closer look at my favorite part of the room, the work table.

Nothing special eh??????



Open sesameeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Check it out! It's got a kinda command center thingy under that door. I discovered this thingy about the same time as my kids and I could hear them jumping up and down going "wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, we can connect our Asus EeePC to the internet and TV!". And they could here me jumping up and down saying the same thing. LOL.




Close up view of the console.


This is why I call it a gadget freak's room. It has 2 power sockets, 2 USB power points for iPods and stuff that get recharged using USB ports, free internet broadband connection and it allows us to plug in the AV wires from our laptops to the flat screen TV. It's absolutely brilliant. It truly is a gadget freak's dream come true away from home.

Part 1- Fun In The Sun

Snow in Malaysia!!!!

I was doing some Christmas shopping a few days ago and guess what happened? It snowed in Kuala Lumpur. I guess those crazy people who predicted a snow storm in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia were right after all. Hehe.

Here's a picture of Pavilion just before it started snowing. Oh, by the way, that's the silly fountain that cost rm7 million and which they claim is nicer than the legendary Trevi fountain in Rome, Italy. What a bunch of morons! It's nothing like Trevi fountain. That silly bowl fountain looks even worse in the day. All you see is 3 bowls stacked up. LOL




And then it started snowing!!!!! In tropical Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.




It doesn't look as good in the photo so I made a video clip of it. It's in full 1080p HD for those of you with HD screens.




For those of you who don't know, it's actually fake snow. Pavilion is doing this every night at 8pm. It goes on for about 30 minutes. It's quite a nice experience for those who have not been fortunate enough to experience a real white Christmas. I really enjoyed it even though I have experienced a real white Christmas. So those of you who haven't, hurry up and head on out to Pavilion to experience it. I'd recommend you guys to be there early at about 5-6pm because the traffic there is just pure madness when everyone is trying to get in there for the 8pm start.

Anyway, I wanna wish all my readers and followers a very merry Christmas and may Santa bless you all with lotsa gadgets this Christmas. Ho! Ho! Ho!

LensCoat

Here's a lil something I bought recently. Didn't have time to write about it. It's a neoprene protective cover for the lens. I had this on my Sigma 70-200 f2.8 last time. The Sigma was a black beast so I kept to the theme and used a black LensCoat on it. Here's how it looked like on my Sigma.







What I really wanted was the Camouflage LensCoat when I got myself a Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS. So I bought the Forest Green Camo LensCoat just after buying my new Canon lens. Hehe. Here's how it looks like.




I absolutely love it. It provides really good protection from minor bumps and scrapes. It will also help keep prying eyes away too. I hate walking around with a big white lens while on vacation as it attracts unnecessary attention. I don't mind when normal looking people are staring but when shady characters start staring, that's when I get worried. I don't wanna get clobbered on the head and the camera stolen, just because every Tom, Dick and idiot knows that a white lens costs big money.

It costs a bomb. I paid SGD135(USD100) for it in Singapore and it hurts the wallet just a wee bit but I'm happy with it and that's all that counts. Hehe. I kinda like the Digital Camo color too but that wasn't available when I bought mine so I might get that next time so I can match it to the new digital camo Crumpler Industry Disgrace strap I just bought. Looks kinda funny with forest camo on the lens and digital camo on the strap now.

Kingston Elite Pro 16gb CF card

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! Just bought this for my EOS 5D MkII. It's a Kingston Elite Pro 133x CF card. I will no longer crave for more capacity.

I've been suffering with 4gb cards all along. A 4gb card is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay short of capacity when used in my 5D MkII. I loved that card though, it was fast and reliable. That 4gb card is a Kingston Ultimate which is supposedly twice as fast as the Elite Pro. I've been wanting to buy a 16gb Kingston Ultimate for a looooooooooong time but the local shops haven't had it in stock for some reason.

I got fed up and decided to just grab an Elite Pro 16gb for now. I really, really need the capacity. You know what? I'm glad I did coz I've been playing with it the past 2 days and it's great in my 5D MkII. I tried burst shots, 1080p videos, RAW shots, JPEG shots and it took it all in stride. Best thing is, the Elite Pro is half the price of the Ultimate card. I bought it for only rm144(USD40). I can have 2x 16gb Elite Pro for the price of a single Ultimate card. Good value for money I'd say. lucky for me the local shops didn't have the Ultimate 16gb in stock. Hehehe.

Photography bookshop in Singapore

This is the coolest bookshop I saw in Singapore. It's called Riceball and it specialises in Photography books. I love bookshops with all kinds of books, but this bookshop that specialises in photography books is like heaven. I loooooooooooooooove it. Naturally, I couldn't help myself and bought a few books in there. Hehe. The guy who works there is a photographer too. So it's really nice to actually talk to someone who knows about photography rather than just a normal salesperson. I give it 2 thumbs up, and my toes too if I could. Hehe.

If you visit Singapore, you really must check this bookshop out. It's located on the ground floor in Funan Digital Mall. How to get there? Check out my article called "Best camera shop in Singapore". There are instructions on how to get there from Orchard Road(main shopping street in Singapore).

Canon EOS 450D so cheaaaaaaaapppp

OMG! I went shopping today and saw that the Canon 450D is extremely cheap now. It's only rm2100(USD600). I just couldn't help myself and brought 1 home. I was actually thinking of getting a Canon G11 as a daily use compact camera that I can walk around with wherever I go. I liked the idea of the G11 coz I can use my Canon Speedlites and the ST-E2 wireless commander with it. However, my daughter's been bugging me to get a small SLR coz she loves photography too, and the 5D MkIIs that I have are really heavy for her. So I decided on the 450D since it's so small and compact. It's practically the size and weight of a point n shoot cam. LOL.

It's a nice lil camera really. I've tried a few shots with the 18-55IS kit lens and the picture quality is pretty good. I even think it's nicer than the 40D I had. The AWB is certainly much better than the 40D which tended to be really warm. I will torture it in the next few days and also try it out with my L lenses to see just how far this lil fella can go.

Anyway, here's the new baby in the family. Hehehe.



It's so cheap now, you guys who are still suffering with lil Point n Shoot cameras better hurry up and go grab 1 of these lil beauties for Christmas. Life is Good, make it a good Christmas. Hehehehe.

Holy SHIT!!!!!

Holy SHIT!!!!!! That's all I could think of when I saw this recently. It's like OMFGBBQSAUCE! How could you allow your car to get like this and not wash it. It just boggles the mind. Why on earth do such people exist? It's like OMG, can't you at least send the car to an rm8 carwash or something if you're too lazy? It's just absolutely disgusting. I mean, I know it's a shit car(Proton Saga) but does it really have to be full of shit???? He or she probably deserves it if they catch the bird flu or something of the sort. LOL.

Corsair CMXAF2 vs OCZ XTC2 ram fan

I was in a dilemma deciding between these 2 ram fans while I was at the PC shop so I decided to take both of them home. I was previously using the old Corsair fan that has 3 small fans in it. It was a hell of a noisy beast with those 3 lil fans spinning at about 6000RPM.

Let's take a look at the fans now. Here's the new Corsair CMXAF2 fan.




Here's a picture of the old and new Corsair fans together.










Here's the new OCZ XTC2.



It has foldable legs.



Bling bling lights.





Here's the Corsair and OCZ fans next to each other for comparison.






The OCZ is very nice with a lot of bling factor due to the blue lights. It also has a high and low speed selector on top which is really handy. However, the speed selector is a rather pointless thing as I find the fans are too slow on the low setting so it's most likely gonna stay on high for most people. Due to the height of the OCZ fan, it has to use thinner fans which produce less air pressure. Not only does it have less pressure, it's also a lot higher up from the rams so it's not gonna cool the rams very well.

The Corsair fan has better build quality, thicker fans with more air pressure and sits right on top of the rams. You can also see that it has thicker blades. All that adds up to a lot more air flow over the rams.

After testing both, I decided the new Corsair fan is much, much better. It's a simple and fuss free design with good build quality and good airflow. The decision to keep the Corsair fan was a no brainer. The Corsair fan wins this match with a knockout punch. However, if you don't really need tons of ram cooling then the OCZ is a viable choice for it's good looks and variable speed selector.


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EOS 5D MkII bag tag

Here's something I bought recently. It's really cool for Canon EOS fans or 5D MkII owners. It's a bag tag in the form of a 5D MkII with an EF50mm f1.4 lens on it. It's made of 3D rubber. It actually feels like a mini camera, just thinner. Hehe. I should have bought 2 so I can have 1 on each of my camera bags.

Canon Sports Photography day.

I recently went for Canon's Sports Photography day. The event was held at the Sepang F1 track and we were allowed to go around the areas reserved for the Press and Media people. It was a really fun day. The instructor for the day, Mr Ruddiee Khaw was superb. A very down to earth and practical Pro with 20 years experience. He kept telling us to trust the camera that we've paid so much for and don't listen to smart Alecs who keep telling people to use Manual mode. The camera get's it right over 90% of the time. Ruddiee says those noobs don't know shit and their advice is bullshit. LOL.

It was a fantastic day out with 50 other Canon SLR owners. Thank you Canon Malaysia for organising a great day out. I will be looking forward to join more of these events in the future. Anyway, here's my shots for the day.


The Car Park pass provided by Canon. This pass allowed us to park right behind the pit area.





I'll start with the girlie girls. Hehe.





Don't know what happened to the chic on the right of pic. She must have tripped or something just when I snapped this shot. LOL











Now to the cars.









I loooooooooooove this classic Monster Mustang.






















Motorised ballet!!!!!





Pure concentration before the start.









Nice sunny day at the track with bright blue skies and puffy white clouds.











Battle scarred Porsche




















A very looooooooooooovely, very exclusive Porsche Gemballa GT.











Check out the size of those wheels! 335/30/20!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




The End. Podium session to end the day.





Game over. Time to pack up and go home.