Sony AMC August Seminar

The excitement of waiting finally end. The Sony AMC August seminar was held today at Le Meridian Hotel. As usual, it’s FREE for Sony Alpha user!! The event was posted at forum for pre-registration and all seats were reserved in just 3 days! What man! The funny thing is, no one knows the seminar details until last minute

As sneak preview by George, the Sony AMC person in charge (actually he is the product manager), there will be few important announcements during the seminar. All rumors and speculation link up with A900 full frame SLR launching or F58 flashgun release date. Hahaha.. It didn’t happen here but what actual announced will benefit AMC most.

Let’s see…

1. Every seminar participant will get a Alpha Survival Kit (retail price RM599) for FREE!!! Although it just some merchandises and accessories like bag, t-shirt, watch and etc. It show how sincere Sony to keep the user happy.

2. Aphanatics forum would be our new home and AMC.com.my is converting to knowledge database. This is a good move to open the forum to more user and expand our territory and poisons Same time new moderators were introduced to all. They are all AMC forum pioneers by the way. 100% support.

3. Sony will sponsor RM1000 monthly to Alphanatics as club fund. The best thing is we can snow ball it and decide what to do with the fund. Can I suggest to buy a white lens and loan to member??? (in my dream) Truly can’t find anything like this in today world. This is not a hoax. Believe it.

4. The biggest surprise is – Malaysia will be the host of world 1st ever Alpha Convention!!!! And it happen in October!!! World class speakers are coming down to give free talk for 3 days!!! Who is reading this please go out and grab your alpha SLR now

I feel very energetic with the Sony AMC effort in expanding its market share and same time practicing good consumer service. The user is final winner. Although I am just a ordinary customer, but feel like doing MLM and want to recruit more member to join us Not to forget today seminar speaker were Ted Adnan and Darren Chang. Both are very experience in portraiture and automotive photography respectively. The talk covered basic to intermediate skill level, now everyone can shoot.

A Day with Leica

Today I obey Sony Alpha and join Leica. The outing was organized by Photo Malaysia and Schmidt Marketing. Leica is the Rolls-Royce in camera industry. So the price and quality is all at premium level. There were two groups of user, black and white film and digital. I was in the digital group and given a Leica M8 loan unit. Even though it was 30 minutes of usage, it has proven I am a lousy photographer and M8 is a good camera. The specialty of M8,

1. It’s a rangefinder. What you see from viewfinder is what you get, no darker nor brighter. Just it doesn’t has DOF preview as SLR.

2. The viewfinder will display the gird/guide line for framing, thus different focal lens will have different square size. I always hard to frame (although just 30minutes of usage).

3. No autofocus. All focus done by my index finger. The middle view finder will display the split image, just match it at ur subject. The difficulty when focus subject is not in the middle. Bye bye multipoint auto focus.

4. The camera is light so hardly notice shaky hand. Also the mechanism is simple, just a nice ‘qichak’ buzz.

5. No funny stuff like vivid mode and stitch shot. All you have are Aperture or Manual (self define shutter speed and aperture). Thanks Leica there is continuous shutter and timer.

6. Aperture dial from lenses. The Manual mode will have metering info to tell you dial up or down. Cool! (because it make me feel like driving an antic Rolls Royce with Turbo)

7. No zoom lens. Save the zoom effects with SLR.

8. Small body size. Can shoot like lomography (shoot from hip).
9. THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT. VERY CLEAN AND CRISPY IMAGE. POISONOUS!!!

I am happy to be a 30 minutes Leica user. In the afternoon we back to Schmidt HQ to attend seminar. Sifu Teng Wei enlighten us with colour management stuff. It’s technical as attend a degree course, but it does clear many doubts and mysteries happen in digital photography workflow. Finally we receive a Leica T-shirt (which wear by the Leica promoter) and two prints of best shot. Not a bad day since we paid registration fee. Ok, Sony AMC I am coming back now.

Sony AMC Malacca Outing

Sony AMC and Photo Creator have brought the second outing to Malacca. Merchandise of this outing is ‘Very Smart Alpha Black Vest’. Finally Alpha Shooter got their shield and it’s black colour, which is rare and can easily spot on by people. This outing is more organized compare the first one. Participants were brief about the shooting technique during the journey. While everybody enjoy the DVD movie on bus, I zzzzzzz.

It was a cloudy day in Malacca. The sunshine has gone so the chicken rice ball sold out too. Without good feast and my photoshoots is degraded to amatuer level (lousy reason). We were served with Nyonya dishes for dinner and enjoying the best shots slide show. Upon reach KL again it was 2330.

The famous Red House.

Heritage building and bicycles.

Broken roof and sunlight. The house was abandoned.

In front of Rudy Hotel.

Shimmering from old window.

Reflexology centre. I like the feet picture and sandals.

View from bottom of St. Paul Church ruins .

This angle is nice but I unable to cover the full church building. Need a wider lens

Cloudy day, moody cat.

Zoo Challenge – How to shoot animal?

Sony Malaysia organizes outing for Alpha user in back to back two weekends. We are the luckiest one. The outing not just a user gathering but prize is given to the best photographer as well. Before be at Zoo Negara Malaysia, it’s good to do some homework on shooting technique. I got few tips from net and books.

1. Shoot from creative angle. Let’s say from animal eye level and not from top looking down at the animal.
2. Close up for animal expression. They are some identical moment of each species.
3. Use fast shutter speed since animal like to move around very fast. 1/125 is the minimum.
4. If you are close then please don’t flash, otherwise you are not just scare them away but make them blind too L
5. Set your camera to vivid saturation mode for more colorful images.
6. If you have telephoto lens, use it. 75mm (or 4X zoom on normal camera) is very short for zoo shooting. (I know because I was limited to that, wish to have a 200mm on hand)
7. Isolated the man made objects from your subject to make it look natural. (Don’t shoot the cage and fence if you manage to)
8. There are many flora and ponds to use with your creative composition. Try it.
9. Be simple. Not just photography but applies to your shooting gears too. Carrying unnecessary weight will send you home earlier.
10. Be patient. Animal might not pose for you. Shoot and re-shoot.

We were given two hours to get our best shot. Unfortunately my long telephoto lens broke down at event started moment. I forced to use short telephoto lens to complete my assignments. Last time I been here was 5 years ago, but nothing change beside the KFC trademark restaurant has closed down. Pingu family (penguin) left two. Other animal has reached heaven, I think. I managed to walk the whole zoo in two hours. From there you can guess how small the zoo is or how not interesting it is. Finally I submitted a western cowboy look photo for contest. Not paying much hope on this since I was limited by the shooting range. I agreed I lost my patience to wait animal posing

Some participants did come out Nat-Geo quality photos. The grand prize is Cybershot camera and runner-up gets a photo backup hard disk. No Alpha lens given as prize, kind of surprise for us. However, Zoo Outing should be fun and who care about prize? Then story continue at Ampang Boom Store which serve the best nasi lemak as rewards.

I have prooven I can shoot

Sony Malaysia has organized an outing for Alpha user. Alpha is the brand name of Sony SLR series. Praise to Sony who always practice good customer service and relationship. Although it is strategy to expand its market share, but consumer is benefited in this situation. The outing takes place at Putrajaya and a dedicated tour bus has been arranged. We are divided in to few small groups and lead by professional photographer. It is very good approach in learning photography. The master did enlighten me on the composition matter which is always the harder part. We need creativity for this. Being a digital camera user, the technical part can be left behind and we can always shoot again with better settings. The auto mode gives balance image quality which sometimes look dull and no style. Photographer can further explore the shutter and aperture value for better ‘mood’.

The first stop is Germilang Bridge. The bridge is a modern abstract built. It has variety of expression from different angle view. It is all set by photographer’s creativity. It can be a archery, robot, alien… Then we proceed to PICC before ending with sunset at Dataran Putrajaya. Not to forget the trip includes a dinner at Putrajaya Seafood as well. Each participant chosen their best five shots to be concluded by master Kim Teoh.

Most of the shots are similar from participant. May be all were shot at the same spot. Kim Teoh didn’t comment much on my photos, no praise from him as well. Some participant really delivered wow factor in their shots. Life is full of surprise. When they announce 2nd runner up for the day, my shots are on the big screen. I was stunt since I don’t think I have the best shots but my photos are kind balance in quality. That could be the reason I stand out. Be in 3rd place I get a remote shutter cable which is useful in night shot especially stars trails. It’s is a fruitful day and really cheers me up since the previous contest result was controversial. I have proven that I can shoot! The next challenge is Zoo Outing on next weekend. See you then and wish me luck.