Perfect Video Frame Grab With JVC GC-PX10

Last February I wrote about the Power Of Video Frame Grab, I showed you how it was done and you have seen some delightful video stills of beautiful Zhang Lei performing a Guzheng recital.

Stolen Camera Finder Redux

In April this year I wrote about this interesting site.

This programmer by the name of Matt Burns has written a search engine that lets people find their stolen camera by submitting an unedited photo taken by the lost camera!  It's magic ;)

After giving it a go, I was impressed by what Matt is trying to do! But I did have a few concerns.

Well, I received a response from Matt himself yesterday!

eCosway Come To Wellington!

Saturday, September 3 - Wellington

The direct selling phenomena eCosway spread it's tentacles to our Coolest Little Capital today!

According to their "About" link:
"You're in business for yourself, but not by yourself, because you're backed by a giant proven company with an incredible track record.
eCosway (launched in 2002) is a rapidly growing international company with headquarters in the prestigious golden triangle of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It has thousands of sales centres located throughout the world.
It is a subsidiary of Cosway Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. which is wholly owned by Cosway Corporation Limited, a company listed in Hong Kong (stock code 0288), a member of the Berjaya Group - a top conglomerate in Asia.
eCosway has been awarded the coveted "MSC Status" by the Malaysian government for its outstanding contribution to the growth and development of information technology."

First Wellington shop...

The first eCosway shop at the Johnsonville Mall, Johnsonville.

JPEGmini - photos on diet?

As long as I can remember, we have been trying to make digital photos smaller for faster on line uploading or when emailing them to friends.

For a long long time, JPEG is the default format that everyone use.

According to Wikipedia:

In computing, JPEG ( /ˈdʒeɪpɛɡ/ jay-peg) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital photography (image). The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality.

I remember fondly, in the early days of internet; the fastest way to break a friendship was to email them a 2 to 3 MB picture ;) A sure way to stuff up their email "in box" too!

Now a day you can easily re-size your photos by compressing them on line, the last time I Google "resize photos"; I got SIX MILLION hits!

There are literally hundreds of FREE sites that you can upload your pictures and get back a resized copy within seconds!

F2 Short Tele On E-P2

There are 3 short tele among my collection of manual focus prime lenses, all of them are from the F2.0 family of short tele; in the good old film-era, they were the perfect portraiture optics!

The three short tele lenses of F2 vintage, from top; the Nikon 135/2. On the left, the compact Nikon 85/2 and right, the Leica Summicron 90/2.

Diagram of decreasing apertures, that is, increasing f-numbers, in one-stop increments; each aperture has half the light gathering area of the previous one.

From the diagram I hope you realise an F2 (f/2) lens is a very bright, "large aperture" lens ;)

I had wanted to test these three primes on my E-P2 for portraits ages ago, but I cannot find a photogenic model who will pose for this cheap skate photographer F.O.C.! Ha ha ha...

Chef Wan Craze In Wellington!

Media Release way back on 20 June 2011...

Malaysian night market comes to Wellington
There’s good news in store for Kiwis who know and love the bright lights, smells and excitement of the night markets so familiar throughout Asia.

Malaysia Kitchen is bringing New Zealand’s capital city its very own Malaysian night market
as part of this year’s Visa Wellington On a Plate festivities.

The special Malaysia Kitchen Night Market is taking place on Sunday 21 August in Opera
House Lane.

With free entry and dishes priced from $5, visitors can experience the best of authentic
Malaysian street food produced by some of Wellington’s best-loved Malaysian restaurants.

Why Snow White, Not?

I remember fondly those younger days when I was the Manager for "Focus", which was at 3, Penang Road; Penang.

Focus was founded by the famous Penang lawyer, Lim Kean Siew.

Apart from our roaring duty free sales, Focus also operate the largest colour developing and printing (D&P) lab in North Malaysia. In the early 70s the lab monopolised nearly 80% of the colour prints business in Penang!

A very large percentage of our customers were Aussies from the RAAF base in Butterworth.

The shop was also a stone throw from E&O Hotel where we get plenty of urgent D&P work from the tourists.