Lonely

We were doing another job at one of the prominent buildings in the Golden Triangle. Since my techs are busy pulling cables. I wandered to find the MDF room as this will be the place all Telekom cables would originate from. And someone has accidentally left the door unlocked. I peeped in and lo and behold, the scene presented me was awesome. Its like you opening a door and for the first time, get to see a something amazing.

After standing there fore a few seconds, the scene begs to be recorded. And on the very first shot, I managed (I think) to capture the mood in that room.

This is an MDF room. In its heyday, its a very important
and expensive room. No one could ever get in unless they
are meant to be there, which is very rare. Now, its just
empty, and dark. Very old but still doing its job

Broken UV Lens filter

I did not notice it until when I decided to look for any
smears on the lens. That's when I saw it. Apparently,
the glass had chipped inside the lens and is now in the
kit lens outer assembly. Must be from the knock I did
when I was moving too fast. But then, I remembered
its a very soft knock. Haih. Must get some sticky tapes
to pick up the minute glass pieces. Thank goodness its
on the edges and not in the middle or else it'll cost me

I saw my future self!!!

So, I got the D50, I got the camera bag. I have an infra-red remote shutter release. What else do I need? I already have a tri-pod which I always forget to bring long with me. What else do I need?

Why am I always thinking about my D50? Is it a sin not to take at least a few pictures a day?

And then, I saw it. I was driving the along Jalan Bkt Bintang, stuck in the traffic jam just in front ot the Pavillion. With no cars moving, and my nose's clean of booger, I had to amuse myself.

I looked out of the window.

And I saw my future self, or rather, whom I will be in a few years time. It was a shock

There I was, in my sling bag, holding a DSLR with some fancy lens hood and all looking serious. I have some other serious friends with me as well and we're all shooting around the Pavillion. Each of us took some shots and then grouped together to view the results. And continued shooting. We even tried with low angles and weird stances.

Oh my God. Will this be me in the future?

Da speling in tat buk bai mi tech

No, no. Crimp the cable. C-R-I-M-P

Not cream. I don't want you to kill it

@#&*! Nightshots

Note to myself: Bring the fucking Tripod! (No, no the one in front of your legs!)

I have to be ready at all times when I go out now, especially when it involves going out of town where I could be coming back at night or staying in a Hotel there. Just like yesterday, when I was in the East Coast. And there was a nice full moon. The timing was right too; I was passing through Terengganu at night and more specifically, in Kertih. And later on, at the coastal roads and also Gebeng Industrial area. Which was a great opportunity for me to try taking photos in the dark!And herein lies the problem.

Everything is dark.

How can I take these low-light photos properly? I can turn the D50's EV levels all the way up and to compensate my nervous hands, I had to use the maximum ISO of 1600. Then I settled for a few seconds exposure and so on. Trial and error. But in the end, all I get would be very grainy and slightly blurred pictures. I mean, you can only stay still for so long. Yeah, its all my fault for not getting the tripod. Putting the camera on the van is a good idea but its not easy when you need to use the eyepiece to manual focus. It does not even help when the vehicles passing by rocks the van. And in places, you can't even drive the van there. So, a tripod definitely/really/should be/always helps.

Get a RED Flashlight!

Yeah, I should have made one too. RED is ok and won't blind you unlike White/Yellowish lights. I suppose that's why Astronomers and/or stargazers use them. The eyes can recover faster in the dark after exposed to red The D50 does not have any lights at all on its LCD status screen. And on that night, I needed to use other light source to read the white balance settings on the screen. Well, I could try taking photos, review it on the LCD screen and then set it from there. But the LCD screen blinded me most of the time. And while I'm at it, I should consider getting those fancy wancy eye-pieces for the D50. Or a magnifying glass. Try focusing manually in the dark and you'll understand the frustrations. I don't want to waste too much time in case a Guard comes out from nowhere and starts running towards you!

This is in Kertih, Petronas Area.and its a bit funny looking for the correct WB
setting in the dark. This is even weird when I had to stop the van every few
feet to get the good position. And I had to wait for the clouds to pass by so
that it can partially mask the Moon's brightness

Still the same area but on the opposite side. I wanted to capture the long
steam trails and also the bright structure on the right. I do not want to
cross the road to take a better picture in case I do get chased.

Here are more steam trails....... And I wished I got the
right WB setting. Haih

Then I noticed what I missed in my old FujiFilm s5500
There is no zoom lens in the D50 so now, I cannot get
to the flames as close as I can.

This is not a lightning bolt but I does reminds me of Frank Miller's
Graphic Novel cover of Batman Returns. In the dark, I think I set
the exposure to 'bulb' and I had to tilt the camera upwards to see
the LCD wondering what was wrong when the shutter mirror did
not return to its poistion. This was taken at the Beach rest stop in
Kemasik, I think

This is my favourite shot for the night. I wanted to capture the Moon
and also the calm sea with the two islands. Took me quite a bit and I
had to compromise a lot of settings such as the EZV and ISO. In the
end, the picture is very grany but at least I got the shot. More or less

Gebeng Industrial Area. The steam coming out was niiiiiiiiice.......!