Hybrid HDD hiccup in MacBook Pro!

On February 17 I wrote about "A Hybrid HDD for my MacBook Pro", I was happy because now I have a 500 GB drive instead of only 160 GB of the OEM!

Now I am able to dedicate a 30 GB Scratch Partition just for Photoshop!

The main reason I pick this Seagate drive was the incredible review done by benchmarkreviews.com !

According to their review and I quote...

Key Features and Benefits

• Boots 40 percent faster than traditional 7200-RPM drives (for overall system performance, that's within 1% of an SSD*)
• Cuts costs by 75 percent compared to SSDs by combining solid state and hard drive technologies
• Delivers the perfect balance of speed and capacity
• Uses Adaptive Memory technology to optimize performance in real time by storing frequently used files and data on the solid state drive component
• Ensures compatibility with any operating system or application with a standard 9.5mm notebook drive form factor and the characteristics of a traditional 7200RPM drive
• Offers all the benefits of SSD performance with the high capacity, storage, battery life, power consumption and heat generation of a traditional hard drive

A PAPARAZZI TALE

I was accused of many things in my 30 years working in various newspapers as Picture Editor and News Photographer, there was but one time I was called a Paparazzi!

If you pride yourself as a photojournalist, being called a paparazzi is not a good thing!

According to Wikipedia:

Paparazzi (singular: (m) Paparazzo or (f) Paparazza) is an Italian term used to refer to photojournalists who specialize in candid photography of celebrities, politicians, and other prominent people. Paparazzi tend to be independent contractors, unaffiliated with a mainstream media organization.

By the late 1960s the word, usually in the Italian plural form paparazzi, had entered English as a generic term for intrusive photographers.

That's not moi!!!

In my working life as a news photographer I sometime got myself in really sticky situation!

Like taking a decisive shot of Reuters photographer Goh Chai Hin being man handle by the men-in-blue at the Penang High Court.

My Leica E-P2, and Summilux-M

While carrying out the Leica E-P2 Landscape test on Saturday, I discovered I FORGOT to bring with me the BRIGHTEST and TINIEST Leica M lens! Early Alzheimer warning? Oh dear ;)

The lens that I forgot was of course the Leica 35/1.4 Summilux-M!

Small wonder... ultra bright for a small glass!

My Leica E-P2 Do Landscape

My most popular post "My Leica E-P2" attracted to date, 1,493 Page views. Strangely, no one made any comment on this post; until, I commented myself...

"This is the post with the HIGHEST (1,223 to date) page view, yet NO ONE make any comment! What's the matter with all this people? ;)

Let me point out here, once and for all that I DO NOT receive any money or reward for spending umpteen hours of my OWN TIME writing this blog entries!

I did it for the love and passion of doing it and hope what I wrote will benefit some young photographer somewhere.

And if you people DO NOT comment, I DO NOT KNOW if what I post is of ANY USE to anyone! I cannot improve on it because NO ONE tell me anything!

Ok... enough of my rant! I did get two comments after my outburst and that is constructive!

A Hybrid HDD For My MacBook Pro

In 1994, while working for the Singapore Press Holdings; I discovered the versatility of the Apple Macintosh computer.

My wife thought I had gone loco because I took a S$8,400-00 loan from the company and bought myself a Quadra 840 AV!

Mind you, the 840AV was the FASTEST Apple Macintosh you can buy and it came with 4MB of RAM!

CNY Festival celebrates 10 years in Wellington!

中国春节庆祝惠灵顿10年！

Shame on me that I did not realise our Chinese New Year Festival has been with us for TEN years!

At the excellent web site http://www.chinesenewyear.co.nz, I learn that...

In 2005 and 2007, the Chinese New Year Festival organising body, Asian Events Trust (AET), was the proud recipient of Arts and Culture awards. AET was recognised as a voluntary organisation whose event makes the city a better place and strengthened the community.

They are resposible in organising our Chinese New Year celebration program.

"Celebrated worldwide on Thursday 3 February 2011, this is the first day of the Chinese New Year calendar. In Wellington, the Festival runs over two weekends, 5-13 February 2011, with a showcase of colour and vibrancy. So share in the magic, fun, fashion, fireworks and international entertainment – join in and enjoy this free event, because there’s something for everyone."

And I and Le General only went to the last day of the festival, the street parade! Tse, tse, tse ;)

On Sunday, we were at the street parade, it started spot on; 2 pm and 20 minutes later, it was all over! I remember the previous parade was much longer? Or was the WCC traffic control got more efficient?

The double dragon dance, always a crowd puller!

Pixel Peeping - E-P2 v G12

I am often amused by the "dirty look" I get from my photographer friends when I mention pixel peeping ;) What's wrong with wanting to pixel peep?

According to the Urban Dictionary, a pixel peeper is:

1) A digital photographer who magnifies photographs on the computer screen to critically evaluate image resolution at the pixel level. Commonly used as a derogatory remark to describe:

a) A photography n00b who erroneously believes that the quality of a digital camera is determined solely by the number of mega pixels.

b) Insecure troll who frequents digital camera forums to religiously proclaim how his/her camera pixel count is greater than yours.

c) Wanna be photographer who debates about pixel count all day but doesn't have the talent to take a half-decent photograph.

Talk about being nasty ;)

I for one, pixel peep all the time; not in the noob or troll way, before I archive my fresh shots, I always zoom in to 100% on screen on selected shots.

This is the only way I can be sure that the image is sharp and at the same time I look out for digital artifacts and blemishes.

What prompt me to do this test was after Chris Bing, a friend and Nikon die-hard; drop into my office yesterday.

A CNY Weekend in Wellington

It was a rather busy weekend in Wellington for a change!

We look forward to the NZMS (New Zealand Malaysian Society) CNY (Chinese New Year) dinner on Saturday (5th Feb) night at Regal Chinese Restaurant, we especially look forward catching up with friends whom we only meet once or twice a year!

Some complained that NZMS should have held the dinner on a later date because of the NZI Rugby Seven games which happened on the same day.

By 5 p.m. Saturday, all the road going in and out of Courtenay Place will be closed to traffic for the huge, after the game street party held inside.

For me though, Saturday is a plus; since I intended taking some pictures of the fun costumes young people put on just for the games :)

So on Saturday Le General and I landed on the 4th floor car park of Reading Cinemas where I parked my Lancer VRX Sportback for $8.00. That's a far cry from the $20.00 had we travel by bus from Karori!

We spent the next two hours sitting on a bench, at a bus stand; watching the merry makers going by ;)

A group of young bunnies heading for the games, the perfect outfit for the year of the rabbit!

Nikkor 300mm f/4.5 IF-ED Redux

Last week, one of my die-hard Nikon friend email me for advice in buying a pre-loved Nikkor 300mm f/4.5 IF-ED lens, when I found out the asking price was only Rm 300.00 (NZ$125.00); I told him to buy it!
To you my advice might be a bit rash, I am sure it is because I still own one of this excellent glass :)

According to my friend Leo Foo,

"The Nikkor 300mm f/4.5 IF-ED was introduced by Nikon in August, 1978.

It was seen as an direct lens upgrade from the earlier Nikkor 300mm f/4.5 ED.

The Nikkor 300mm f/4.5 has a longer development history than comparing optic which can traced back as early as mid '60.

It has evolved not less than a few rounds of known upgrades."
The Nikon 300/4.5 IF-ED is a very compact lens for it's 300 mm focal length.

It was very popular in the 1970 and 80's, I remember fondly that it was a standard issues to Reuters photographers.

While working in Singapore newspapers in 1994, I went to see a Mr. Lam at the Nikon outlet, in Center Point.

I was ecstatic that he kept a BRAND NEW IF-ED for me! Thank you Mr Lam!