Swordie Bloggie

Today is Saturday, tomorrow is Sunday 23 January 2010… and tomorrow morning we are planning to go out early in the morning around 3.00 am for photography session at Kota Kinabalu Central market… we want to capture the life of people starting their business early in the morning… yes, starting and not ending or retiring from the night work.

Sometimes I don’t sleep till pass 3.00 am… but waking up at 3.00 am was never… as far as I can remember… will this mean I have to stay awake all the time?… that will make me feel walking on air!!! Yea, when I don’t get enough sleep, I will feel like walking on air… so what is my option tonight?… should I rent a motorhome? But wait, we don’t have motorhomes here… how nice if I can get a motorhome…. can park at the central market, sleep inside the motorhome and jump out from it anytime!!!

Oh, well… my option now is to sleep early… probably by 9.00 pm tonight in my bedroom… I hope my can get sleep that early…

Supposed to do gym tonight… but unfortunately it was blackout at City Mall. I arrived there around 7.10pm… only certain parts of the mall are lit up. I ask one of the shop keepers how long the blackout has been… he said quite sometime…

The gym is totally out… there is no single light I can see inside the gym… on the 1st and 2nd floor of the mall. So, I called Disney… who is also coming to the gym… he was still on his way. I told him about the blackout… then we decide to abandon the gym… and decided to go for night photography instead…

Since I did not bring my camera, I have to go back home… same with him. Going back is another hard part… there was a massive traffic jam at the main road outside the mall… and I was stuck there about half hour before manage to make a U-turn.

For the photography, we went to Kota Kinabalu’s Central Market… around it, there are many stalls selling foods… its quite lively… so we spend quite a long time there… and I was sweating and damm tired walking around… but well, since we did not go for gym, this is good way to do quick weight loss…

After that, we proceeded to KDCA to take photos of the dragon lanterns… and it was so tiring… worse than doing exercise at the gym… I have to use every part of my muscle to stretch out to have a good view of the dragons…

Yesterday, Saturday… 3rd October 2009, I help my friend to take photos for their paint ball game at Karambunai Lagoon Park… the lagoon is part of the Karambunai Resort. The park has many extensive sport and recreational activities… kayaking, water skiing, mangrove cruise and many more… will talk about that next time

This is my second time covering a paint ball game… the first one was in April for the same friend for their woodsball game at KKIP.

Last time it was held in an open space area… a site for constructing building. This time it is held in woods next to the sea… at the lagoon

It is quite difficult to take photos in the woods… especially when the players are dashing behind the woods… my camera can’t lock its focus on the player…

I reach the park a couple of minutes before 10am as promised since I have to replace my 3 years old back tires before that…

The first game started before 10.30 am with a cloudy weather… but still I got a bad sunburn on my neck and both hands

The second game started before 11.50 am with a bit of cloud…

And the third game started before 1.00 pm with rain… I did not enter the arena coz I don’t have rain protection for my camera.

And the third game ended in less than 20 minutes because the players’ goggles are forging… if you never wear a paint ball mask with goggles before, let me tell you how it feels… it is hard to breath underneath it… and with the cold rain, it make the goggle fogging badly inside…

And luckily I have a ponco… a thin plastic rain coat… it was given to me by Disney when we were covering the Borneo Downhill Challenge 2009 in May.

You can either swim in the lagoon or use the shower area to clean yourself… but the shower area was quite a distance from the arena… fresh water supply?… yes they do have… in fact they have many pipes without faucets around the park… it would be nice if they have it working so that guest can clean themselves without taking a long journey to the shower area.

Anyway here are some of the photos I took… will post the full album later… after I finish editing them…

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Last Saturday, 9 May 2009, went to Jesselton Point jetty to take photos with a friend, Willy. Nothing much to do there I guess. We were there from around 10 to 12 I think… lucky it was not that hot that day, probably still consider morning… but it was quite hot in the late afternoon.

The plan was to test my new lens… Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM. Formerly I was using my friend’s Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS. For now, I don’t feel much different other than the extra 50mm and the USM. But it’s cool to hold the lens… feels more solid and big.

Then on Sunday, after sending off my sister to the KK airport, I took my nephews to the Tanjung Aru 3rd beach to watch the airplanes landing and taking off. If you are familiar with the airplanes viewing spot, you will be saddened… if you have not been there for sometimes the place has been fenced.

Previously there are some areas where you can park the car near the runways and watch the airplanes. But now, the fence has been moved right next to the road until there are no more places to park cars.

I spotted a photographer… he is an airplanes spotter I guess. He use a tall ladder so that he can snap the airplanes landing and taking off above the fence. I did talk to him and he is an airplanes spotter for BKI… the Kota Kinabalu International Airport… KKIA.
 

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Nothing much to do today except went to hit some balls at Lintas driving range at 9.00 am. Wanted to finish the 200 balls, but it seems impossible. I only manage to hit about 120 balls and headed for some food at the nearby shop… breakfast with noodles and fish

Then do some adjustment to my shutterbomb photo blog. Do you know that the Google custom search is so powerful?… But the only drawback is I can’t make the search box centered… anyone knows how to do it?… I tried to ‘center’ it with the ‘p’ and ‘div’ tag.

And I’ve been neglecting shutterbomb… maybe it is time for me to upload photos there… coz my 250gb mobile drive is half full with photos I taken.

Today, went to attend Digital Photography Talk at Pan Pacific Sutera in conjunction with the Federation Asian of Photography Association (FAPA) convention. It started around 10.30am. The FAPA convention is held at 1Borneo… about 15km from here.

Me and a friend was the first few registering at the Level 1 of Pan Pacific Sutera… we arrived just after 10am… we are the non member of the FAPA convention registering I guess… coz most of them are busy with photography session outside the hotel near the swimming pool.

Then when it started, it is in Chinese… OMG… how lah?… ayoyo… never mind lah… just listen lah…

Lucky, the speaker is talking about how to enhance photos with Photoshop… so can guest what he is doing… ‘agak agak saja lah’… but even his Windows is in Chinese character… odoiiii dogo…

The talk end at around 12pm. Since nothing to do, we decided to have lunch at 1Borneo, where the FAPA thingy and Photo Exhibition held.

After lunch, we walk to the South Atrium of 1Borneo where the photography exhibition is held. The photographs displayed are great… Then I noticed someone familiar… at the corner of the stage. They are doing some photography thingy. I went there and ask if he is Flanagen… aahh… correct lah. Then there is another familiar face… Edgar… I never met them before in real life… only in their blog… Another ‘famous’ photographer is with them… but forgot lah the name/blog… hope Flanagen and Edgar can enlighten me here… I can add him in my blogroll.

They are doing a ‘noble project’… 999 Portrait Project… to capture 999 portraits to put into Canon magazine… I think lah… you can read at Flanagen’s “We want you for 999 Portrait Project!!” and Edgar’s “999 Portrait in 1 Week Project and We Want YOU!”

But I did not know what they are really doing at that time… although they did ask me to participate… I think I was still ‘pening-pening’ after attending the talk in Chinese. Feel bad did not participate… I only know more about it after reading their blog after I went back… but hopefully I will go there again on Saturday or Sunday… to see the Canon booth… I want to see their gears… hopefully they will showcase their super duper gears… just like what they did in KL… but I doubt it… and hopefully they will be still there doing the noble project… OK, to those of you who want to participate in the 999 Portrait Project, go to 1Borneo… I think they are doing it for 1 week… not sure when it going to end… hope they can tell…

After the fireworks photo session in the previous night, I went back to 1Borneo for the Big Boyz Toys – Beauty & The Beast the next afternoon for car show. The cars are displayed at the LG and G floors.

At the LG floor, they put all the not so cool cars… MPV, mini, sedan etc.

At the G floor, they put all the so called Big Boyz Toys… Z4, Lotus, Lexus, Ferrari etc… Although they called it big boyz toys, I don’t think those cool cars have any PS3 on it like what the Pimp My Ride usually installs. They are all the standard kind of boyz toys… none with ICE.

There wasn’t much car on display too, but good enough for the big boyz toys model photo sessions

They also have photography competition but I’m sure the organizer did not do a proper event plan for the photography competition… nobody knows what to do or how to enter the competition. I approach the MC and ask about it, but he also doesn’t know what’s going on… he asked me to talk to the ‘event manager’… I went to meet the ‘event manager’… he admitted everything are last minute… at the end I did not enter the competition because I only carried my Sony T200 with me although I manage to get some shots at the models

I called my friends and told about it because there will be another session next day, Sunday… And they did go for the event… but I did not coz I was so tired.

I almost cancelled my plan to join the others for the fireworks events at 1Borneo last night. It all because me and my boss went to meet the Director at 5pm. We only came out around 6.15pm! Furthermore, after that I have to send someone to Hungab and another at Kolopis!

I reach home around 7pm and immediately change my office cloths, grab my sling bag and back on the road again… destination 1Borneo, that is about 20km away! And no dinner! In my bag are my big gun, a video cam and the T200. Everything is in tip top condition… fully charged and full of storage. The video cam even has 8GB of memory stick under its hood

Less then 5km from Alam Mesra… our new meeting place which is opposite to 1Borneo… CRAPP!!! Traffic Jam!!!… Clock shows 7.40pm

Lucky the jam was not that long… I manage to meet them at the kedai kopi around 8pm. Ordered my drink and food… fried rice only Eat quickly then 2 of my friends hop into my car and we went further away so that we can get better view… about 1km – 1.5km away from 1Borneo. We set our gear on the road island… there was not much people there. Only the 3 of us using tripod Wonder where the other photographers…

The show did not start at 8.30pm… we got ‘insider info’ that it’s going to be delayed to 9pm and it’s going to be shoot from the top of the hotels at 1Borneo… Novotel or Mercure. Exactly at 9.02pm the show started… and I was still posing for photo

The weather was so good… so clear… our position is great… using my 17-85mm lens at its widest setting, I can capture everything… BUT the only unfortunate was ‘what I requested did not come!’… NO WIND!!! It turns out like a nuclear bomb being released at 1Borneo. The show only lasted for 5 minutes… and can’t do much becoz of the smoke! And… please comment how to take fireworks… this is my first time using M on DSLR, and I did learned few things last night. Normally I just use P. I set my shutter speed to 2.5 seconds… I should have set it to 4 or 5 seconds  

Went to check if the Canon EOS 400D is ready at Investline Sdn. Bhd. during lunch time today. We sent it for fixing last month. Look like it’s not ready yet.

But it was fruitful since the Canon EFs 55-200mm f/4-5.6 IS lens is available. Now I have the chance to use it first before the 400D come back

I told Lucy, the taukey, that I will write about her shop in my blog… and I gave her my blogs url Trying to get free promotion… win win mah…

I also get myself a HOYA CIR-Polarizing filter with 0.75 pitch. I know what polarizer can do, but I’m not sure yet about the figures. I will try this first and hopefully I got the right one. More of the polarizer result at my SnapShot ShutterBomb.

Investline Sdn. Bhd. located opposite of the road in front of Centre Point, Kota Kinabalu. You can get a good price from Investline if you know your way. I’ve compared with other shops around, and found out prices for body and lens can be much more cheaper here

The look of the 40D with the 70-250mm… very long till my Lowepro bag has to be modified a bit to fit it inside.

Maximum 200mm towards Centre Point, Kota Kinabalu and Wawasan Flyover while moving inside car.

Last Saturday, did some extra work at the office from afternoon. Went back around 6pm and stop by for drinks at Grand Millennium Plaza at Penampang Bypass with Jonathan.

When we arrived there, the sunset is just setting… so immediately took out camera. There will be more photos from my big gun at my Photo Blog soon.

 
Jonathan with his big gun… no lah, thats my S5… checking what he captured… he said got ‘Tiger’ on the photo he took… I also confused