Yet again, I am pushed to the limit.   My photo bud has beat me to the punch and he has again made an image ahead of me. On top of that, I have to watch a movie with my boy, which is mostly in Afghan language… in subtitles.  So if I  become incoherent… it is because of Kite Runner, so far it has been  quite good… but distracting to photography.

I had to scramble to do my assignment.  I had to make something simple.

Off to the fridge!

A lonely tomato.

I shot the tomato using a white plexiglass which I picked up in a signage workshop when I was still stationed in Thailand.  Got it for free and I still kept it and brought it with us here in Singapore as it is quite useful…

That plexiglass got me my Istock contributor status… it been really good.

I had cut the tomatoes and place them on top of the plexiglass put a Canon 550 ex underneath set at 1/4 power. The flash was triggered by a poorman’s wizard.

That’s pretty much it.

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the Generic Asian

p.s.  Here are his images and explanation

used available light (direct sun)

f7.1, 500s, iso100 (veg 016)
f7,1, 40s,  iso100 (veg 008)

these 2 are a staple in every refrigerator unit in the philippines.  its almost that a day will not pass that the simple onion and / or tomato will not be pulled out for use in the kitchen (in this case differently).  used most often as an ingredient to dishes, in the philippines, it extends its use as salsa or salad.  you see us pinoys can barely eat our food without having ewach and everyone’s side dish of salad (in our case its called “sawsawan”) which literally means to “dip”.

Being Asian, by and large, you either eat with your hands or with chopsticks.

On the other hand, some come from a part of Asia which uses the spoon. I use it as part of my regular arsenal of dining artillery.   Yes I like my spoon as much as I like my fork.  Let’s say I am an equal opportunity diner.

In photography however, the spoon has been difficult to photograph side by side its beloved partner, the fork.

The shape and curves of the spoon and the fork are different.  Those westerners may have been onto something.

This is again part of a series of images we will be trying to make on a weekly basis.

I found that it was extremely difficult to include both in one image.  My agreement with my shooting buddies is that we will shoot both spoon and fork in one image.

Very challenging from a lighting and  composition point of view.

The thing with shiny objects is that they are a beast to light.  This was particularly difficult with the fork I used, as this was our normal everyday utensils.  They were scratched and abused and therefore not very photogenic.  I also could not polish it as my wife would probably kill me if she sees me using some form of chemical to polish them.

To overcome this, you would probably want to kill all the shadows.  I did this by using a extremely large light source, which is not so difficult if your photographing small objects.

The other thing I had to watch was the reflections.  To recall, light travels in a straight line.  Placement of the subject relative to the light and lens is critical.

I shot the above image with a Canon 550 EX on TTL, with exposure bias of + 2.  The Speedlight was fitted with a softbox.  I set the aperture at f 2.8 aperture priority.

See my setup here.

I had to shoot at almost 90 degrees to the softbox to avoid glare and reflections.   I also used a white plate below which helped fill in some shadows.  I also brushed some oil to the chili so we can get the pickled fresh chili look.

I thought it was a pretty neat and simple setup.  No frills TTL lighting.

However, I was still spoonless!  SO in my lame attempt, here is a shot with the agreed spoon.  The chili was added to the scene to create tension.  I can here the fork whisper “Come on Ms. Spoon… spice me up!!!”

I also added a yellow kicker to give the spoon some points for interest.

Anyhow, that’s it for now.  I am open to suggestions and comments so please drop me a note or two.

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the Generic Asian

I recently had beers with a friend and he is a big fan of this beer.

From where I sit. Its not the best tasting beer, but my friend loves it to bits.

Anyhow, the beer as long as it is not made from sewage water is great especially when your around people you like.

Shifting gears, as part of an ongoing project with another friend of mine, we agreed to take photos using our available portable flashes and this time photograph beer.

This time he submitted earlier than me so I had to rush.

I basically used coffee to simulate the Old Speckled Hen Beer look and used soap as my foam.

I did use one light the Sunpak 120 J bounced off the white wall.  The flash is triggered with a cheap wireless trigger bought from Ruby Photo from Singapore.

I used a Canon 40D hand held set between f11 to f 20 @ 1/250th of a sec.

Hope you like it!

all photos are photos by the Generic Asian except where indicated otherwise.

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the Generic Asian

I have been working with a friend on possibly doing something photography related.  I won’t go on specifics, but I must say its not been that easy.

Things get complicated rather quickly and because its complicated things just fizzle out.

Anyhow, this was actually the theme of my post today and its about lighting done simple and on the cheap. Actually, the general idea is we will try our best to photograph something as mundane as pencils and see how we can make it look “professional”.

So with that theme in mind, I needed to start on something simple everyday items you find everywhere and I decided with a friend that we were going to photograph pencils!

 shot with available light

With the theme of simplicity in mind, I took a bunch of old pencils sharpened them and then bound them together with a rubber band.

Again, in keeping with the theme of simple & cheap, I decided to use available light and a simple torch light which anyone can buy for a few bucks in any decent store or grocery. I decided to use an led torch from Osram.

The whole set up is simple.  I needed to mount the pencils so they stay still.  (very easy, pencils never complain, even when you tie them up).

Then, I set the camera at f11 for 25 secs. closed all the lights, put the camera on timer then push the button.  Actually the time was not much of a factor, I think, all I needed was about 8 – 10 seconds of “lighting time”.  Because it was completely dark, my eyes needed a few seconds to adjust, thus the 25 seconds shutter speed.

I “lit” the background first, then the pencils in the foreground paying attention to the highlights on the pencil.   I had to make a few trials, but overall, this was a pretty simple technique and a cheap one at that.

All photos were shot with a Canon 40D using a 100 f 2.8 lens

KISS “Keep It Simple Stupid” approach also works in photography lighting!

That’s it for now… see ya!

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the Generic Asian

I always wondered what this whole internet social network thing is all about.   I am not sure exactly what it is all about or what it is supposed to do or what its good for.

As I write this though, I am playing poker in facebook.  I just called a 384 bet with an ace and jack and I lost!  Back to the post…

I am also in twitter, linked in and flickr.  By the way, I am still playing poker.  Pair 6s now!  Lost again…

I must say my favourite social web 2.0 blah blah blah is flickr by an ocean.

If you click on the link to flickr, you will see a photo I uploaded and it has benn my most viewed photo sets I have uploaded.  I am amazed how much response I have recieved from the photos of these series.

My original intent on having flickr was to share photos to family… keep connected.  But I think I was expecting too much from family… They were not as connected as me I soon found out.

Well look me up at flickr…  you’ll wee what it has become.  A graveyard of my photographic junk.

TTFN… LOL, OMG… just learned this recently from FB. : )

Let me know where you are in the WWW of social networking…  I am keen to learn.

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the Generic Asian

I have not been a victim of the current economic turmoil.  I am however in a situation and I expect will be in this situation for at least another month or so…

This move is a lot more difficult than I expected.

I moved countries yet again… from Bangkok now in Singapore…

I will be back with regular updates…  but bye bye for now!

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the Generic Asian

I love gadgets.  In fact, I am a sucker for gadgets.  You guys should see the “junk” I have in the house.

4 watts of pure joy

From my IPOD to my affinity to cheapo watches (I have about 30 watches now) to the Heathkit 4 watt vintage amp, I just can’t get enough of this stuff.  I consider myself a typical gadget freak.

With two kids and mortgage payments, I am also a cheapskate gadget freak.  

I have, like any respectable geek, set aside a “slush” fund for my gadget addiction habit.   First of all It is not a lot of money and I can choose to save for months and blow it all of on the latest, newest greatest, or buy small buy lots of it.

I actually have not bought anything for the past couple of months and my slush fund was aching to be spent.

Enter Headphone Amp…  : )

I was always intrigued by headphone amps.  I always wondered why one would want or ever need a headphone amp.

Many of the audiophiles and the purist suggest that in products like the IPOD and other portable MP3 devices, suffer from being under powered.  They say it is like driving a Hummer which was fitted with a Honda Civic engine.

I had searched online and given my massive shopping budget, I was drawn to the CMOY headphone amp.

Quote From Wikipedia.org

(some technical jargon… bring out the aspirin)

A CMoy is a pocket headphone amplifier originally designed by Chu Moy on the headwize.com Headphone Resource Site and public discussion Forums.

The headphone amplifier is designed around single or dual-channel op-amps such as Burr-Brown’s OPA2134 or OPA2132PA, however, a wide variety of op-amps have been successfully implemented.

The amplifier’s design is quite simple. It consists of only a few components, can be assembled on a small section of protoboard, has a lower parts cost than other headphone amplifiers, and can run for many hours on a single 9 volt battery.

Inspite of this, a well-made CMoy amplifier can drive even demanding headphones, like Sennheiser’s HD600 or low impedance Grados quite well. These characteristics have made it very popular among DIY hobbyists, especially those who have not built an amplifier before. The CMoy headphone amplifier can be fit into Altoids tins and can often be found for sale on eBay (search CMoy).

That intrigued me.  I can on the cheap, get my curiosity for headphone amps satisfied and spend some time at home doing this, therefore making the wife and kids happier.

But….  I have not held a solder in years and my soldering skills is less than stellar.

Enter the Penguin

There are actually quite a few reviews of this headphone amp.  But I really did like the one done by the Headphone Addict from http://www.head-fi.org

Apart from the really cool designation of Headphoneus Supremus, his avatar was what convinced me.  It was a turntable wielding yoda…

headphone addict

Seriously, the Headphone Addict had the most comprehensive review of the Penguin Caffeine Amp.  Check it out here at this address http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/review-penguinamp-caffeine-portable-headphone-amp-w-bass-boost-aka-headstage-lyrix-262751/

My curiosity had turned into lust… I just had to get one.  Checked online and looked for other options and finally found that www.ebay.com was my best bet to get my hands on these puppies.

I just got to have it.

Many of you know I live in Bangkok… Bangkok is a place that never ceases to surprise me.  On my lunch break, I had wandered off to Panthip Plaza yet again and surprise.  A small hole in the wall shop was actually selling The Caffeine Ultra Amp!!!

The shop was also selling a range of great fun and fantastic headphone related gadgets.  The shop is located on the ground floor of Panthip Plaza towards the back as you enter.

The shop owner / keeper hardly spoke any English, but despite this he was extremely, extremely helpful.  He had let me try stuff and to his best ability, answer my headphone newbie questions.

Needless to say.  I bought my headphone amp right there and then.

Everything was which was written by the Headphone Addict is true.   I will not rewrite what he has written so just head on over to his site here http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/review-penguinamp-caffeine-portable-headphone-amp-w-bass-boost-aka-headstage-lyrix-262751/

 All I can add to his review is.  It is worth getting a headphone amp be it the Caffeine or any other headphone amp as it really improves the listening experience way beyond a mere swtiching of a loud button.

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the Generic Asian

There have been many things that I always wanted to do but never really knew how to do it.

I recieved a message from The Drunken Blog and I am writing this post because of him/her.  The Drunken Blogger is working his/her way up to buying a digital camera as soon as possible.  But in the meantime the Drunken Blogger mentions he/she will try to live photography through me and possibly others.

In many situations, I have many ideas, but had not the skill nor the creative mojo to bring these ideas to fruition.

So in line with that let’s try to channel creativity through each other.  

What I propose is that we post a few ideas and concepts and let each one of us here to try to interpret them in photography terms. Anyone can propose a theme.  (Please keep it as clean as possible… you know what I mean)

For now… to kick things off, I always liked the idea of connection hopefully someone can interpret this in photo terms.

Please spread the word that we are doing this little experiment.

So I am crowd sourcing my creativity. : )

For now, here are the ”rules”

1. The photographer will continue to own the rights to the photographs and where possible mention who shared the idea and/or concept for the photograph.

2. Each photo should have a title.

3. The photo creations must be your original creations

You can link your creations from the comment page on my blog or email me directly.   You can also give me sugegstions on how / where we can upload photos for sharing purposes.

I especially like it when I recieve feedback on my blog.  So please leave a comment or two if you can.  Even just to say hello.

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the Generic Asian

p.s.

This is a big leap for me and a possible ego buster… given that i only have about 3,000 hits on my blog, so please help me spread the word!!!

Canon G10

First of all, this is not a technical review of the Canon G10, but more of a user experience review with some non-technical review of the technical aspects of the camera.

One of the many challenges I have in having photography as a hobby is you would always want to be ready and you had to lug a bunch of stuff around.

In the past,  my primary gear was my Olympus OM1, the legendary Zuiko Prime Lenses (all 7 of the primes), my analog sekonic Light meter (no battries needed) and bag full of film.

Forward a little bit to the future in 2001.  I had my first endevour to the digital age with the Fuji 6900Z.  It had many issues as I began my move to digital age, but as a whole I loved this camera for what it can do.   It was small, it was light, it had all the bells and whistle and most of all it produced great images even printed well at A3 sized prints.   The main issue I had was that it was slow and it used lousy batteries.

The glorious Fuji 6900Z

I loved the Fuji for what it can do, but it still was lacking in many ways.

However, from then on, I was hooked in the digital era.  I got the Fuji S2, then the Canon 10d – 30D and now I use the 40D. 

Ok some of you probably know that in my real life work, I do travel.  A lot less these days, but when I did in the past I would lug around whatever DSLR I had at the time and then I would go about my business.  There were times that I would bring the camera around, but would never get a chance to even shoot a single frame.

It was either I was too rushed to bring the DSLR out or it was too dangerous for me to bring out a DSLR as it would just stick out too much.

I have been hearing a lot about the great new cameras such as the Canon G10 and The Panasonic Lumix L3.

Beautifully designed and highly regarded camera from Panasonic

A full review from 60 HZ productions was made comparing the Canon G10 and the Lumix LX3 was made on their website.  Please click link here for the article.

Furthermore, I follow a podcast called This Week in Photography or TWIP where one of the more interesting hosts had purchased both the LX3 and the G10 for his review and had said he had returned the G10 because the LX3 was much better.

On other, websites like Luminous Landscapes, they also had some mind boggling reviews of the Canon G10 and had great reviews on it.  Click here for the article.

Heck I was more confused than ever!

So, I did whatever sane person would do is for me to find out for myself.  I currently live in Bangkok and in Bangkok, there are very few places where you can buy cameras, let alone newly launched ones.

I headed for a mall called Panthip Plaza where everything from copy DVDs to rack servers are sold.  I had gone to the 4 or 5 shops that sell cameras. 

The best price I could get for the Canon G10 was around Baht 16,000 or around US$ 460.  Comes with the standard set with 2 gig SD card.  The Panasonic LX3 was also around US$ 460.   These products are most likely gray market products and would probably not have the usual warranties.

In terms of form factor, I liked the G10 better.  It just felt better on my hands.  The LX3 was just a bit too glossy for me.  And I also did not like the idea of having a lens cap which I can and will most probably lose in a heartbeat. 

There were many reasons and it took me about 3-4 hours of looking, playing around with the camera in various shops and to cut a long story short, I went with the Canon G10.

The main reasons are as follows:

1. It felt great on my Asian sized hands.  Not too small, not too big;

2. It was made by Canon.  And I have never had any issues with Canon and I trust them.  My consumer experience with Canon and their service is 1 billion percent positive;

3. It had a viewfinder and the LX3 did not have it.  From experience on shooting outdoors with just using an LCD screen as you main feedback I can tell you its not the easiest thing to use.  Or maybe its just me.

4. Nice video capture.

5. The layout of the dials and controls seem to be logical and felt like a photographers camera

6. My Canon flash works with it.  I have 3 Canon 550 EX.

7. Shoots raw

Great logical layout and I really like the exposure compensation dial

Big LCD screen with nice colors.

The main thing I disliked about the G10 was that the dial to move either the aperture or the shutter speed was too small for my taste.  I guess I am just used to the way it was layed out in the traditonal DSLR.

I chose the Canon G10 simply because I like Canon.  I like the workflow I have with the DSLR and I can use the same workflow with the  Canon G10.

I was thinking of doing a side by side comparison of the images, but really there are many of these out there who would be more competent than me.  Websites like DPReview, Ken Rockwell and many others would provide a more technical and a more comprehensive review of this camera.  I have linked them here for you to see.

Having said that I did a side by side vs. the 40D used the 28-80 F2.8 L lens. I had set up my studio strobes and did a quick setup.  Downloaded the files and did my pixel peeping….  and I really can’t tell the difference.   If at all the G10 was bit on the warm side but not much.

At the end of the day for me, the reason for my choice was simple.  It felt good on the hand and it is made by Canon.  I guess for normal consumers like me. 

My experience with the Canon brand has really won me over. 

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the Generic Asian

I was listening to a podcast by Brooks Jensen called Lenswork.  He is probably one of the most insightful photographers I have come across on.

In one of his podcasts, he did mention that he was working on what he called a folio.  A folio, as far as I can remember,  is a body of work without it necessarily having tied up to a theme.

So this week, I would like to share with you a folio I shot for a model who wanted to build her book.

I shot the sequence of photos entirely using one or two canon 550 ex off camera.

You can see the rest of the photographs I made of her here  http://www.flickr.com/photos/thegenericasian/sets/72157608168640812/

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the Generic Asian