Makan Time

It was not a planned trip. The original idea was to pick Idlan up from Langkawi on Sunday after his trip with friends. He would be flying there on Thursday, and we would pick him up after three nights.

Anita booked a room at a hotel near the bungalow he and his friends booked. It would also be a break for us after the month-long exams for the boys.

It turned out that Idlan coped well with the journey and appeared to be having a great time. So, we decided to take a break in Penang at our favourite hotel instead. As usual, that would mean food and plenty of them!

After the early dinner, we took a beca ride to Armenian Street. Before returning to the hotel, we took a stroll and had some drinks and dessert. But, the drama started the following day...

No Lightroom Gel

With almost everything in life, I believe at love at first sight. No, I wasn't talking about Anita here although truth be told it was like that. I was talking about my photography here.

I always had to try and use a camera before I buy it. And the same goes with my photography work post capture. I had been using Lightroom since version 1 but was never completely happy with it.

When Apple Aperture came into the picture, I gave that a go but in found the first iteration of that software very sluggish and almost unusable. I persevered Lightroom. Grudgingly.

Then came the later versions of Aperture and I never looked back. I loved the white balance control and the skin tones I was getting from it. I couldn't even replicate it consistently in Photoshop. And it was blazingly fast.

Imagine my disappointment when Apple decided to discontinue the development of Aperture and concentrate on a more consumer orientated product instead - Apple Photo. It hasn't have half the control of the old Aperture.

So, I had a choice to make. Shall I relearn and tolerate Lightroom. Or shall I cross my fingers and toes, stick to Aperture and pray that whatever support left that Apple put in on maintaining Aperture would carry me through. Or better still, Apple might change their minds and reinvest in what was otherwise a superb software.

In the meantime, I have decided to stick to Aperture. I had tried my level best in the last couple of weeks to tweak my workflow, but it looked that there was too much hassle for the change. Hopefully I would be able to get a third party RAW converted to my future cameras while I learn to use Lightroom. But that's not going to be any time soon.

Masjid India Bazaar

Anita was really excited when we arrived at the bazaar after the LRT trip. So much things to see and being early on Friday afternoon, the place was still relatively quiet. Try going there during weekends ...

It's coming into Syaban soon, which meant that Ramadhan would be next before Syawal. So, the selection for Eid was already available at the bazaar as well as Wisma Yakin next door. Anita had yet to select the colour for this year's theme, so we decided to just have a browse around. Convincing our boys to come along to check for sizes would be a challenge.

After Anita bought a few items, we then walked along further towards Jalan Bunus and Semua House. 

I will write more about Semua House later, but it seemed that the business had been usurped by the gigantic Jakel Mall only 100m away. 

We turned back and stopped at the stalls for some snack before heading back towards the Masjid Jamek LRT station to return home. It was a couple of hours well spent.

Back to the Cron

After taking the new zoom for a couple of spin, it became very clear that I should stick to primes for photowalks. Zooms were good for the family outings and general use, but for my own snaps, definitely prime lenses were the way forward.

I just was not impressed with the new zoom despite it being top of the line. And I don't think it was the fault of the lens per se. It was more of a personal choice and the fact that I had been spoilt by the quality of the Leica lens I had with me.

So, to prove the point that I still possess some photography mojo, I went for a quick walk around Bukit Bintang last Sunday. With me came the Sony Alpha 7 mark II with the Leica Summicron-M 50mm through an adaptor of course.

The result? Stunning photos. Definitely the lens - and the fact that the Sony was full-frame made a major difference. The colour rendition was a lot better and I don't mind the manual focusing. It took a bit longer to get the snaps, but I was a lot happier with the setup.

The main difference was the micro-contrast on the lens. The Leica had them in abundance. I would still use the zoom, but only when the need arise. For my usual walk-about, the Alpha 7 and Cron combination looked to be with me for a while. 

Free Flickr

There had been a few changes in Yahoo! since Marissa Meyer took over at the helm. The Yahoo! Mail had been upgraded. They still used Bing search, but at least they now realised the gem in their possession, Flickr! It could have been Instagram if Yahoo played their cards right five years ago. Certainly it needed fresh impetus and at least now Yahoo! is taking the brand more seriously.

I have had the Pro account for 4 years now at least. it forms one of my repositories - the main one was still SmugMug. It was kinda fun uploaded photos from my bobile on the go. It also had a very strong community driving it through. The fellow user were generally very supportive of each other, and often held meeting in real live. In fact, I had made plenty of friends through the local chapter, KLickr.

For Xmas - or possibly celebrating the apocalype - Yahoo! was offering its Pro users free 3-month extension to their subscription. All you had to do was sign in, look for the banner at the top of your home screen, and walla. After a couple of clicks, your account is extended. Enjoy!

That took some doing

After pondering about what to do with my photograph collection, I finally found the solution. As it is, I have my usual Flickr feed, my main blog at harisrahman.com, my photograph suppository at SmugMug with its mirror website, which was a pain to maintain. I really could to with a place where I just dump the photographs after it had been developed and hope that the system would do the rest.

With this current solution, it was not as straight forward as that, but close enough. I didn't have to think about resizing, one size fit all. It had the feed from my Flickr and Instagram built in, as well as some blog space for entries such as this, and other more pertinent to photography. 

I still use my main blog to post, and you would probably see some duplication going on here and there.

So, here we go, and wish me luck!

The First Post

​My regular blog entries would still be at harisrahman.com, but occasionally, especially if it is photography-related would likely appear up here.

So, for the first post, it would be about the recent trip to Frasers Hill. Unfortunately, I couldn't write much as I would be traveling to Penang a bit later.​ The trip this time also showcased my new gear, the Fujifilm X-Pro1, with the ultrasharp 35mm f1.4 lens. And the the photos I was getting were more than pleasing. Shame that the 35mm lens equate to 53 mm, hence it was a bit more tele than I wished for.