Zǒu Mǎ Kàn Huā @ Sydney & Brisbane - day 1

Zǒu Mǎ Kàn Huā  走马看花 [to gain a superficial understanding through cursory observation; given only a passing glance at things; giving a hurried and cursory glance]

I finally made up my mind to use up my accumulated Qantas Frequent Flyer points, after days of deliberations we decided to spend four nights in Sydney then hop over to Brisbane catching up with Boon and Jackie; the last time we stay with them in Brisbane was 8 years ago!

Somehow it seems a bit silly that even by using up my 72,000 points, each of us still have to fork out NZ$ 600.00 for the trip! "Severing" relationship with the flying kangaroos is not cheap ;)

So on the 22nd of March we were at the Wellington airport staring at Gollum chasing rainbow trouts :)

Shooting SQUARE!

I miss shooting square format! In the 70s, most of the colour assignments for the paper I worked for were shot with a Hasselblad 6X6 medium format camera.

Before mega pixel didital, quality of a 6x6negative or transparency is unbeatable, especially if you need to crop your image!

Of course you can crop a 35mm negative in the darkroom, but you will not be able to match the image quality of a medium format negative!

In this respect, the square format of cameras like Hasselblad; Zenza Bronica C and the Mamiya C220 are perfect.  They all used 120 roll films and produced a 6x6 image. In the 70s and 80s, I have use all of them ;)

Nikon COOLPIX A, the New KING of P&S!

 Exactly one year to the day after Canon show off the G1-X, their "King Of P&S", a compact with large 1.5" CMOS sensor; Nikon decided to join the fray and launched their NEW COOLPIX A.

Nikon went one step further by shoving a larger (than Canon) 16.2 MP DX-format CMOS sensor into the compact body.

This sensor is designed without an optical low-pass filter, it should achieves consistently high levels of sharpness and image quality than conventional compact cameras! A mini Nikon D7100? The "A" come in black and silver guises.

NZ Roads Hard On Performance Tyres!

I need two new tyres for my Lancer VRX Sportback AGAIN!!

My work colleague Nigel Roper took this picture of me and my "new" VRX the day I got it.  It was 21/12/2010 – 11:41 AM :)  The Lancer already clocked 10,050 Km when I bought it, because of that I got a whooping big discount for it ;)

My Kingston MobileLite G3

My new Kingston MobilLite G3 arrive this morning, this G3 is not a Mac; duh! It is a card reader!

 In April 2012 Kingston Digital, Inc., announced  it has released the third generation of its popular MobileLite portable card reader.

MobileLite G3 is a compact, multi-functional USB 3.0 card reader that lets users easily transfer digital data, photos, games, music and more stored on memory expansion cards between all kinds of digital devices.

MobileLite G3 meets the USB 3.0 specification and SDA 3.01 standard, and is backwards compatible with USB 2.0.

Shenzhen Song & Dance Ensemble in Wellington

According to China Culture Org - "The Shenzhen Song and Dance Ensemble was established in October 1987 under the Culture Bureau of Shenzhen. With 110 total staff members, the ensemble is composed of the Dance Troupe, Song Troupe, and Stage Engineering department."

The group from the Shenzhen Song and Dance Ensemble that perform at the last night of CNY in Wellington, New Zealand.

"As a cultural emissary of Shenzhen, the ensemble has paid touring performances to Germany, Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Luxemburg, Austria and Australia, receiving a warm welcome and applause from international friends and overseas Chinese."

Wellington Gangnam Last Day of CNY :)

Every year the Chinese communities of Wellington put on a show for Chinese New Year.

The ‘flagship’ of Wellington’s Chinese New Year Festival is Festival Day, with a programme that reflects all the traditional aspects of a Chinese New Year celebration, and is showcased as the finale of this Wellington event.

Last year we were not in Wellington because we went to Auckland to see their marvelous CNY Lantern Festival, this year since we are here we went to the festival, as usual at the Frank Kitts Park.

Every year, the celebration at the park is "same old, same old"; we went because Wellington is a small city and the festival is a good place to bump into friends you have not seen for a while ;)

As usual I shoot and post some photos of the stage performance at the park, this year I noticed there are three "characters" I have not seen before!