The hols are here...and it's like a mad rush to do the things that I have placed on hold for a loong time. Stuff like...
Pluck out my wisdom teeth!
Get my bike license! (i've been delaying this for way too long.)
Send in forms to Edinburgh and settle travel insurance.
Plan holidays=)
Say my prayers for people.
Rearrange my photo albums in flickr now that I have a pro account----I realised that all my photos are all over the place=S Cuz I have 2 flickr accounts. So now I have to re-upload everything from my other flickr account to my real one. Sadly I have to seive thru my accounts to see which photo has been uploaded where....slowly.
Happy Birthday E-zhe and Dai Kor=) Celebrated my sister's and brother-in-law's birthdays at Dozo. It's a really nice restaurant. The ambience was nice, the food was good and the service was great. I highly recommend that place.=)
Oh, and little stephen can walk properly by himself now=) And he also knows how to play with toy cars/trucks. He pushes them to and fro, while making vroom vroom noises. Really cute=)
Had quite a bit of difficulty waking up this Saturday morning to meet up with some friends for a morning cycle at East Coast Park. But I finally managed to drag my burnt self out of bed after awhile. And after spending some time pumping my bike tires, I was on my way to ECP.
Happy Birthday to you, Sheryl=)
Here are some photos of the cycling trip....taken using the innov8.
Although I live pretty near ECP, I haven't been to this part in quite awhile. In fact, I was actually surprised at how much the whole place has changed! The whole place looks very very nice. Nice place to cycle.=)
As mentioned before, the above shots were taken with the Samsung Innov8. I must admit that it really came in useful in situations like these. Well, as everyone says, photography is all about opportunities and being able to capture the moment when it happens. The thing is, although I own an SLR, it also means that it'll be impossible to bring that large piece of equipment everywhere I go---like on a cycling trip. And looking at the quality of the photos, the innov8 seems ready to be the first phone to truly enter the level of dedicated compact cameras.
A little two cents about the phone's camera: The layout of the camera's functions are pretty intuitive. The 4 point button has the 4 main functions such as flash, exposure, auto-focus and shutter-timer. There's also a dedicated camera release button, which makes it pretty easy to turn on the camera function on the phone. All I needed to do was to press and hold the camera shutter button for a few seconds and it's ready to shoot. However, the loading of the camera mode does take quite a while sometimes---up to 10 seconds. The phone also hung quite frequently the first few times I tried to switch on the camera mode. I don't know if it's just the trial set, but the hanging problem seemed to disappear the more I used the camera mode. Another nifty invention is the automatic cover for the lens. When the phone is in camera mode, the lens cover automatically opens, and vice versa.
After the biking trip, I must say that the innov8 does function pretty well as a camera. It does very well in good lighting conditions as seen from above. The thing about camera phones is the fact that although they may claim to boast 4/5/6/7/8/etc mega pixels, most of them are unable to practically produce photos of good clarity and quality. Especially due to poor exposure and slow shutter speeds---leading to blurry images. But the innov8 performs really well in this area, and the images does indeed come out clear. Oh, and not to mention that I was riding on a bike while taking all these photos! (By the way, the camera supposedly comes with an anti-shake function. Not really sure what that means, I think it's just a software configuration that bumps up the ISO so that the shutter speed is faster and not an actual anti-vibration mechanism.)
I initially thought that the Innov8 didn't have any digital zoom capabilities, but it was actually tucked away in the volume-control buttons. Well, 9 X digital zoom is pretty good. But practically speaking, this whole "digital" zoom function seems like a cheap marketing ploy by the phone/camera makers targeted at the mass majority of ignorant consumers. Most of the people don't realise that there is no actual "zooming" involved, all that happens in a digital zoom is that the camera crops the image and enlarges it to fit the screen---And the quality of the image also drops corresponding to the amount of cropping and enlarging. In short, you'll be better off just taking the image without any digital zoom and cropping the image using a proper image editing software. You'll get to the compose the image better and the quality will be the same, if not better, because the "enlarging" capabilities of programmes like Photoshop will definitely be better than those of handphones/cameras.
Sadly, as with other camera phones, the samsung innov8 does not have any optical zoom (ie "actual" zooming). I think the first phone to combine that function would be a pretty good seller=)
Well, given the fact that the camera is 8 megapixels, it means that the images should be able to provide/tolerate quite a bit of enlarging and cropping, so i decided to put it to the test. Below is a trial experiment. Once again, it was taken with one hand while I was cycling along the park connector.
The actual image above.
And the cropped image. I think the image speaks for itself.=)
Got a surprise phone-call a few days back, while I was on the bus back from the Kelong. In fact, I was half asleep when I answered the phone, so I couldn't really remember what the conversation was about. All I remember was that I was selected to review/comment/try out one of their new products--the Innov8.
Haha, I wasn't sure how the selection process was but I think it has something to do with me joining their Samsung group a long time ago and them checking out my blog. Something to that extent=P
Anyway, dropped by Samsung Hub the next day to collect the camera/PDA and sign some documents. Was actually hoping that they'd give me a free sample or something? But turns out it was only on loan for a few weeks. It was cool nonetheless? I still get to try out the new phone which is supposed to be the top of the range. Well, looks like I have the next few weeks to go crazy with the innov8...=) Let's see what I can do with it=)
In any case, my first impression of the phone? It's pretty big. Yup, no doubt about it, it was preeetty big. But then again, this is supposed to be the top of the range for a PDA/phone/Camera. Tried searching for it's "competitors", and the only one close to it is the Nokia N95/96 and i must admit that the Samsung wins it hands down in the size and design part. Well, here are some photos that I took of the phone.....I guess the pictures speak for themselves.
I wished they didn't print all those weird pseudo-DVD-player-compatible-files logos on the back of the phone. It's kinda pointless and it spoils the clean look of the phone.
There are tons of reviews out there on the specs of the innov8, so I won't bother writing them wholesale here. Tons of good reviews are also abundant on the www, so don't expect any copying and pasting here either. But here's a brief introduction to the phone....
It has:
Wifi (I can't live without this in a phone)
Bluetooth
GPS (was really really happy to see this function in the phone, was hoping against all odds that I could loan it for a few months so that I could use it while roaming the streets of edinburgh/UK in april. But looks like it's not gonna happen)
2.8 inch screen (QVGA...not HD)
Movies with DivX support (tried it out....for a VGA screen, the quality was actually not bad. But I think Mark's Sony Erricson was better.)
Camera. And not just any camera....a 8 Megapixel camera! Hence the name innov8. Well, I am always skeptical about cameras who try and play into the whole consumer ignorance by max-ing out their resolution and marketing it as the "winner". Especially on these PDA phones, when camera quality isn't obviously a stong point. Part of my skeptism also comes from the fact that I have yet to meet any camera phone that can function as a compact camera replacement. But after reading some reviews, this model looks pretty promising. But I guess the next few weeks will tell=)
Video Recording---- 120fps or 30 fps
Embedded Games.
8GB memory
Runs on Symbian S60.
The rest are pretty exotic specs (to me at least)---like dual speakers, 3.5mm headphone jack etc etc. I guess the jack will come in pretty useful to those of u who listen to mp3s on your phone. But not for me at least. I have my ipod for that. But I guess this would also be pretty useful for listening to videos/movies esp online?
In any case, my main interest in the phone would be the camera and the video recording.....so let's see what this thing can do=) And given the fact that the name of the phone is derived from the 8 megapixel camera, I think that's a good place to start grading the phone. Well, before the phone battery died, I managed to take a few shots. Here they are:
I must admit that I was pretty surprised at the clarity and quality of the photos that came out of the phone. (Never judge the quality of the photo by how it looks on the phone's screen. Can't be trusted).
Some flaring, but pretty good at moderate light conditions---still clear. (Haha, I am trying to be as objective as possible, but I must say that I am impressed. But then again, I am basing my standards on the low-levels of camera phones and not to those of compact cameras)
Went into the Woods restaurant at Vivocity, and tried snapping apicture of the ceiling lights. This is where the camera starts showing it's limitations. With a max aperture size of F5.7, it means that in low light conditions, the shutter needed to be open for a much longer time (and with a *theoretical* max ISO of 800), hence the images came out expectedly blur.
Soon after that, the phone batt died because I didn't manage to charge it since getting the phone.
In any case, I managed to use the phone for my OG's cycling trip this morning at ECP. Will upload the photos soon=)
And here are some of the pictures of the sun as it began it's...erm...descent. =P
Sunset on the Kelong=) Really nice....
Chin Siang admiring the Sunset. And this is a photo of a nice friendly uncle who was there fishing too. He was also from Singapore. He kept giving us tips and sharing little snippets of his fishing escapades. Apparently, he comes out to fish at least 3 times a month and sometimes he stays for as long as 7-10 days. He was staying there for 1 week for this particular trip=)
And this was the sunrise that I managed to catch from my bed=) Was half asleep when the sun started to rise. At first I was too lazy to move and decided to just admire the sun from my bed. Then li jumped out of bed and started taking photos, so I decided to join her. After snapping for a few minutes, the whole group of us then went back to sleep=P.
Here are the photos from the kelong trip=) Situated near Sibu Island off the coast of Malaysia. Had a good time there fishing, mahjong-ing, singing, talking and sleeping=)
The weather was perfect too. It was sunny and bright..if anything we just underestimated the power of the sun and got burnt quite badly. Especially Shanyong and Xueying.=P
Chin Siang, Shanyong and Serene. Here we are at the jetty, after alighting from the bus driven by some crazy speeding driver.
Jianping and Xueying. His shirt was really that bright! It's not like I color boosted the image. Liyana and Mirriam. On the 25 minute boat ride.
Nadia and Xueying Chin Siang, Jianping and Melanie.
Here we are on the Kelong=)
The lucky girl with the first big catch of the day=)
Followed by Shan Yong=)
We had some really delicious meals, which included mostly fresh seafood. Such as fish, sotong, crab, prawn etc etc.
The sunset was really really beautiful.....wow.
Haha....Li decided to save the little fish. So one by one she would look inside the pail of "jigged" fish and choose the surviving ones or the "cute" ones and set them free. Here's one that she's setting free=)
And here's one of the prized catch of the day----A cuttlefish/Sotong/squid (not sure=P). Caught by Xueying.
Woke up the next day for a few minutes to snap some pictures of the sunrise..and went back to sleep.. Sleeping....=)
The 3 Gar-fishes that we caught.
Some of the "jigged" fish that we caught...=) minus the fishes that Xueying and Shanyong decided to bring back home.
After the morning adventure, the group of us trooped over to Bedok corner for some lunch--which has really shiok ching tng! Really good! After lunch, we were hoping to catch a movie in the blistering heat. But there were no suitable movie timings, so after some arcade fun and grocery shopping, we made our way down to Sentosa=)
It was a nice and relaxing evening. Was wishing that i could stay a bit longer but I had to go home and pack cuz I was leaving for Kelong the next morning at 630 am.
The sun was setting when we arrived at the beach. There also weren't that many people at the spot we were at, which made it even nicer=)
Had a really fun time at Bedok reservoir a few days ago. The group of us woke up pretty early for some forest adventure=) It's this pseudo-OBS obstacle course---just that it's 5-8 metres above ground in the middle of trees.=P
Photos below are taken by Yansheng=) He didn't join us cuz he had already done it before.
There were a total of 4 flying foxes...or zip lines as they called it. They brought us from one site to another and spanned across the reservoir waters. There were a total of 4 sites---ie 4 obstacle courses, connected by the 4 zip lines=).
The highlight of the course was this giant tarzan swing, which involved us jumping off a platform and swinging across a 10 metre gap into a giant cargo net, with a rope attached of course.=P
The group of us....=)
Here's a photo showing the layout of the course. The 4 straight green lines with white arrows are the zip lines and the green zig-zag lines with green dots are the various sites.
Haven't had the time to properly reflect on 2008. Wasn't sure what to write since so much happened and my thoughts seem pretty incoherent, so here goes...
2008 has been one long and arduous journey, which somehow still managed to pass by in the blink of an eye.
To remember 2008 would be painful, but to forget it would be unforgivable.
All I know is that medicine is one long journey, and sometimes we get so caught up with our small world, with trying to be on top of our studies and away from the end of the bell-curve that we get so engrossed with ourselves and fail to think beyond our own.
To me, you guys will always be my dear batch mates, my close friends, and a family of future colleagues. Friends who I have shared, enjoyed, suffered and laughed with for 4 years and counting. Colleagues who have stood by me and who I will stand by in the future. People who I will definitely be turning to for help and advice in the future.
A lot of things happened and some great losses were experienced.
Personally, I will never forget these events.
But is remembering enough?
I spent a lot of hours and sleepless nights trying to find a meaning to all that has happened. And the question I kept asking myself is whether remembering is enough? And after awhile, I realised that memories are meaningless if we fail to let them change us and make us become better people.
All of us have perfect vision on hindsight, but sadly, just a few months on and we are back to our old selves, with past events becoming nothing more than a hazy fog at the back of our minds.
We can't go on attacking our own----our friends, our colleagues, our family. We can't keep on forsaking them or ignoring the consequences and behaving non-nonchalantly or in a "couldn't care less" attitude. Even if we believe that we have the "correct" intentions, there are some ways to do it. And using a disclaimer like "you guys know I am brash and straightforward...." before going on an onslaught is just not....right (for lack of a better word)?
It's practically the same as someone saying "you guys know I like to kill people...." and going round murdering people.
Does the fact that our expected behaviour is as such excuse us from any basic moral and social norms/courtesy?
We ignore the fact that our actions speak more than our words.
Sadly, in this warped world of politics, internet, business and play on words, all of us have become so convoluted in our thinking that we have failed to even recognise such simple things.
2008 has been tough for me, and more so for my close friends. If I have hurt anyone, I ask for forgiveness. If I have wronged anyone, I sincerely apologise. But more importantly, let me know. So that I can apologise to you, change and be a better person.
We all say we won't know what we have until we lose it.
We also say that if only we had done something, then maybe, just MAYBE, things could have been different.
But on reflection, I think the main thought for 2008 for me is this....remember how it is to have lost, remember the choices I would have picked differently if I had known better, AND with that memory always in my mind, live my life the way I would have wanted it NOW.
Because it is more important that we let 2008 shape us to become better people and to stop ignoring what matters most.
That way, everything that happened in 2008 did not happen for no reason. And any loss or hardship that we went through won't fade in a whisper, but will always be ingrained as a part of who each and everyone of us has and will become. And that is far greater than any memory we bring up from the crevices of our minds once in a while.
There was this old story I heard a long time ago. I can't really remember how it goes but I won't forget the moral of it, it went.....
"I would rather have a son who laughed with me while I was around than to have a son who only cried for me when I was gone."
On another note, technology has reached to such astounding levels. But has technology enhanced our ability to communicate? or simply replaced it? or worse, degraded our communication skills?
In the past, when we speak to someone, we get an instant reply; when we write a letter, we get a response; when we shed a tear, we receive a gesture.
But now, we expose our lives and secrets on the world wide web for everyone to see. Overlooking the manner of how we use technology, the far more solemn issue comes when random people start reading these personal words and how they "respond". How do we react to reading about someone in trouble? How do we respond to a random shout out to the dark? How do we reach out to someone in pain?
Do we even respond? Or do we assume that there's someone else who has answered? Or worse, do we simply dismiss his/her words as the norm in the sea of complaints/sorrow being aired on the www for everyone to see.
Our society and technology are changing, always have been, and if we fail to remember the past and how things should and can be, we will slowly find ourselves just being eroded away with the currents and fads.
In the past, our parents/grandparents used to write personalised hand-written letters with fragrances. Those were the times of no handphones and better timings, where an appointment had to be honored because we couldn't simply call to say we're going to be late. Those were the times of heart-to-heart talks over drinks where a hearty laughter didn't mean "LOL" or "ROFL". Those were the times when people found it easier to talk to a loved one face-to-face than over the phone, or over the internet....
Those were the times.....and to me, just remembering them isn't enough.
With that, I have made my resolutions for 2009=) Happy new year everybody!
Decided to take some shots out in the dark courtyard with the backdrop of the school as a background. Taken with an off-shoe Sb-900, placed on the floor at my (photographer's POV) 10 o'clock.
Wanted to create some shadows/direction, but being in a totally dark place, I was seriously wishing I had another flash with me for fill-in.
On a side note...which is better? 17-55 or the 24-70?
I have been saving for a good lens, and my next investment is a choice between these two. If anyone has any opinion or owns any of these 2 lenses, please please share your thoughts with me? I'm swaying more towards the 24-70 lens for now because of the fact tt it's a full frame lens which means that if i ever do upgrade next time, the lens will be compatible. The 17-55 on the other hand is a DX lens. Both are fantastic lenses, but according to reviews the 24-70 outdoes the 17-55 slightly. But all these are just technicalities.=P
Met up with everyone after a looong loong break. Here we are at Timbre @ Old School. It was a very quaint place, celebrating our dear Sabrina's and Qiantai's Birthdays=)
Happy Birthday to the 2 of you!=)
It was a nice, cooling (temp) and warm (atmosphere) night. It was nice seeing everyone after a long time and being able to relax and take our time.
Here are some photos...=)
All shots were taken with Sigma 30mm, with SB-900 fired. The place was wonderful for night photography! The lighting and surroundings were extremely conducive for separating the subject from the background. Controlling the lighting levels for the foreground and the background was a pleasure. Went full manual as expected. Just to explain how the "set-up" was.....We were under a white canvas tent, while the surrounding was a colonial-themed school compound that was fully lit and decorated. The white canopy offered an ideal bounce surface while the background had some very nice lights and details, that could be picked up pretty nicely by controlling the shutter.
Happy Birthday Qiantai and Sabrina!
This was a very nice capture by Sabrina=) I really love it.
Well, we tried watching a movie, but turns out no more movies were being screened on that wed night....so we just stoned around and chatted. (And took a lot of photos)
Thanks Jianping for opening your house and organising such a nice get-together. You're honestly a really good host. I felt very bad when u kept apologising about the food---when it was already free!=)
This place should be very familiar to every single med student=P. It's the sheltered walkway linking CRC and NUH. I have walked through this pathway countless of times these past few days--- to 7-11, Mr bean and Kopitiam. Always found myself mumbling to myself how it would make a pretty nice night shot, with the lights and all. So I decided to lug my camera along one of these days and shoot it.
Somehow, after taking up photography, (I think most photographers [regardless of camera level or make] will agree) as cliched as it sounds, the world looks much better/less crappy. Even in the shittiest or most cluttered of environments, the eyes are somehow able to pick up the beauty in the surroundings and isolate it. You literally frame the place into a memory "shot".
I also find myself appreciating the smaller details and ignoring the "distractions"/nonsense around. Whether photography has made me appreciate life more, or whether it conditions me to frame things, or whether it's just a brain-rewiring effect, it has definitely opened my eyes to a lot of things that would have otherwise faded into the background or been taken for granted. Plus it's a satisfying, simple and gratifying escape.
This first shot was taken on my way to NUH. Took a few shots to get this....but somehow still felt that something was missing? It needed a subject? Was hoping for someone to walk by, but it was dead quiet, except for this smoker sitting next to the dustbin. And he was definitely not going to move. He was contented sitting next to the dustbin, along the border of 2 non-smoking zones---the school and the hospital, breathing in the cool evening air through his tobacco filter.=P
On my way back, I was luckier. This time, there was this lone guy and a group of people walking along. I overtook the group and quickly snapped a few shots of the lone guy. Fortunately, my camera was already set....
Shall delay my new year post, but here are some photos from the night of new year's eve. Studied in school til abut 10. Drove down to marina bay--traffic was surprisingly very quiet. I even managed to park inside the marina square carpark even though it said full (albeit through the secret carpark entrance). Found a lot inside the carpark within seconds, bought some dinner and found a nice grass patch in front of this family (who was kind enough to make space for us though they had been waiting for more than 4 hours.)
It was very crowded.
2008 has been a packed year, filled with all sorts of emotions, events and thoughts. Let's hope the next year will be a great one and all the best to us for our finals in 1 weeks time.
Happy 2009 everyone!
The view from where we were seated...
And everyone waits together for the new year to dawn (supposedly one second later. Apparently, the world's timekeepers were told to slow down time by one second for the arrival of 2009. If I'm not wrong it's something to do with the world's spin. Some random trivia. But seriously, one second??=P)
