Hello Siri!

No iPhone 5!!!!! Drats! I've been making do with my iPhone 3Gs for so long now it's starting to look like an antique :( So when the announcement came from Apple early this morning our time that it is actually an iPhone 4S, I was totally disappointment. BUT WAIT! As I watched the video, I got more excited. The big big thing for me as a photographer was of course the new 8MP camera and optics that also shoots 1080p HD video! Not only that, they have added a 5th lens to the camera plus a larger f2.4 aperture allowing for low light photography. There's an image stabiliser when shooting videos too, so no more Blaire Witch projects :p WOO HOO!


However excited I was about the camera, there was this new assistant they introduced which you can't help but love. Her name's Siri! Check her out below.

Now THAT'S AWESOME and did you see that baking section of the video, that's so ME! I am always checking the damn phone apps for conversion of temperatures, cups to grams etc with my oily and floured covered fingers. Now Siri can help me :D *dancing around the living room*

*added on 16 oct* Ok I dunno how Siri is going to respond to Singlish but here's a rough idea from Mr Brown with S.I.M.I! HILARIOUS! If you are Singaporean, you got to listen to this podcast :p LOL!

One last great news is iCloud. iCloud stores your music, photos, videos etc wirelessly and pushes them to all your devices. Automatic, effortless and seamless they tell you. Now that's just spiffy isn't it? Here I am trying to delete photos and apps I don't use from my iPhone just to be able to store new data. So iCloud is gonna save me all that storage problem :)


Ok, you know where to find me when the iPhone 4S starts selling in Singapore, at the phone shop :D

Hip Hip Hipstamatic!

When I was almost due to deliver Dylan, I got a present from my husband, the much talked about iPhone. It was the very first version released and his friend helped him buy it from the USA. For something as talked about as the iPhone, I was most annoyed at how limited it's functions were. You can't MMS, can't forward a text, can't shoot a video, can't take a decent picture, can't this can't that. I was beginning to think the phone should be named iCan't. Anyway there were other stuff I was happy with it, it had WIFI, I could listen to music on it, it was great for showing off photos with it's big screen and it's nifty finger sliding menu navigation was great :)

Fast forward a year and a half later, finally M1 is selling the new iPhone and with great data plans as well. I got mine a month ago and I think I went mad with all the new funtions and features which I was unable to do with the old phone! I could surf ANYWHERE with 3G, in the car, on the MRT, really, anywhere! MMS, copy paste, text forwarding, video recording etc are all standard features of the new iPhone.

BUT the best part of the iphone is the APP STORE! It's evil, I have purchased more than 20 apps since I got the phone and my favourite photography app is the Hipstamatic! It's like having a few lomo cameras all within your phone and the hip-to-be-square format just makes it all so retro. My old love with film cameras now available on my iPhone! Check out some of my favourite pictures taken with the app, and it's just US1.99, what you waiting for? ;)

Hipstamatic if you are listening, what say you pay me a commission for all my friends who bought your app after I introduced them to it? :P

Now I know what I've been missing

Last Saturday, I bought my first full frame DSLR, the Nikon D700. I tested it out immediately at home on the kids. It was already night, and they were both watching Ice Age 2 (check out their intense concentration and occasional bursts of laughter from Kayden), so that will have to do. I pumped up the ISO to 6400 expecting some noise but CHECK IT OUT, this shot below at 100% zoom, at a ridiculous ISO6400, it is freaking AMAZING! I was blown away by the performance of my new toy! Now I know what we Nikonians have been missing from the Canonians :p Even the grain is unlike those annoying digital garb I get from my D200, the grain on the D700 is almost film like. I can't be happier with my buy, this is one SUPER DUPER CAMERA, now when's my 20mm coming?

at 100% zoom:


all the images were converted to monotones within the camera and I just added a slight curve in photoshop










Dylan discovered my camera and tried to make a grab at it ;)

Never trust your Lomo

before i say anything... ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

and AAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH again!!!!!!!!!

I had 2 rolls of film which I have put off developing for some time. One roll was shot with my Nikon F100 at my good friend Marc's wedding in Dec 2007. The other was shot with my Lomo LCA during my delivery of Dylan in the labour ward and his first few weeks thereafter. I was so looking forward to the pictures from the latter roll as some of the shots were shot WHILE I WAS IN LABOUR, from my point of view. Damn, those images keep flashing in my mind now as I think of what could have been, the shots now gone forever because the stupid film got stuck on the 3rd frame so any shots after that are all over frame 4 :'(

So many questions, why then did the winder still advance? Why didn't I use the DSLR? Why why why? Too late. Now I am seriously contemplating another baby just so to get those shots again hahaha, yes I must be mad.

Off to get the Lomo checked! :s
You have yourselves a great weekend!

(the roll from Marc's wedding)

Chestnut out, Almond in

For the longest time, our backdrop colours have been white, black and a dark brown one we call Chestnut. Whilst the white and black rolls have been changed a few times, the chestnut has been surviving the torture from all the Little Big Shots we've shot over the years. It's so torn and creased and we do love it's rugged looks but most parents wouldn't want a torn backdrop in their children's portraits so we decided to change it. Do welcome our new colour - Almond.

As usual Dylan is the guinea pig, here he is looking so utterly cute :p


the trademark wrinkly nose smile :)




I "painted" in the flowers digitally, does it look real?


And this is one of the coolest family I've ever shot. Both Mum and Dad sport tattoos on their bodies and while chatting with mummy, I learnt that daddy has a high risk job handling nitrogen, how dangerously interesting!

LX3 rocks!

Here are some test shots from the Lumix shot last weekend. All straight out of camera JPGs, no editing done. Shot at ISO 200 on Aperture priority mode.

Lumix DMC-LX3

Our first digital camera was the Canon G1 (a real digital dinosaur now as they just launched the G10!) and back then I thought it was such a great compact digicam as it has some manual settings and a LCD screen that can be flipped and rotated. We have not bought another point and shoot since then (if you don't count the HP one which Erwin got at staff price while he was still working for them) and I am now contemplating the latest offering by Panasonic, the Lumix DMC-LX3 which boasts slightly better features over the G10 (which I would have considered instead had I not come across the LX3).

In short, the LX3 has:
- A Leica 24-60 F2.0-2.8! yes, f2! For all the zoom geeks, this is not for you as it stops at 60mm on the long end.

- Full HD video recording! Whoo hoo! :D Time to say bye bye to my N73 (what I have been using to capture videos of my kids as my iPhone has NO video recording capability)

- Full MANUAL settings!

- A 3inch LCD

- 3:2 or 16:9 format, NICE! (my G1 and most other compact digicams has the 4:3 format)

- RAW shooting!

- High ISO up to 3200 but I wouldn't shoot that high on a compact, max 800.

I first heard about this camera from one of my favourite blogs and then I google for a review and this is the best one by a photographer.

You may ask why I need to get this as I already own a couple of DSLRs. Well, other photographers may find joy in lugging their DSLR everywhere they go but I don't. If it's a shoot yes I'll bring out all the gear necessary but for ordinary days out with the family or with friends, who needs that heavy bag to add to what I have to lug around on a daily basis already? Namely, 1 x 8kg baby, 1 x 3yr old toddler, 2 x diaper bags, 1 x personal bag, 2 x baby carriers, 1 x stroller and 1 x husband.

So that's why I need a compact camera - for all the other moments in my life when I do not have my DSLR with me. And so far the LX3 seems the best choice for me :)

17-35 - test shots

I guess you cannot take what I have posted below as true test shots as I did some post processing to the images. It takes more effort and creativity to shoot portraits with a wide angle. Obviously you have to avoid putting your subjects too close to the edges as this will cause them to distort unglamourously :p However, it's interesting when you get subjects up close yet have a sense of what's going on behind them due to the wide angle perspective.



In case you are wondering why there's no ball in the shot, it's the sand he's kicking at!






These are Dylan's feet.








Kayden asking the zillionth question for the day :s Since he turned 3, it's been why this, why that? It gets really annoying after like the 3rd question is been repeated 10 times.