HDR - High Dynamic Range

So I just did this like a few minutes ago. Again it's a shot of the inside of my house. And ran thru photomatix. All of each are from 5 exposures.

My shoes got wet :(

Went to music class today. It was pushed to earlier today instead of the usual thursday. And I'm still having some trouble getting the new lessons thru my head. Oh well, I'll figure it out soon. Anyways, I got my shoes wet no thanks to the sudden change of earlier tonight. My favorite pair of jalan-jalan shoes too. Dang it.

On another note. I've got the manual focusing down to science. Yeps. No more blurred shots. Weee!! I always believed that I can do anything if I put my mind to it and practice it with repetition. Sounds like OCD to me. :P

Even my new star wars shirt my cuz brought back from dublin as a souvenir got wet as well. Sheeett.

My baju raya now all in the washing machine. :O Time to sleep now. Good nite. :P

Of Mosquitoes and Kings

I just woke up and I still feel tired. I woke up earlier today at around 2am after a weird dream i just had. So it went like this.

I was suddenly woken up for no apparent reason, and I looked around. "
Hmm.. why the hell did I woke up?", I thought to myself.

Then figuring that it must've been nothing, I went back to sleep. A few moments later, or at least I thought it was cuz I didn't have a clock or my phone to check the time with at the time, I was awoken again. This time I was starting to get annoyed. So I went to bathroom, washed my face and did my little business. Wiped my face with a towel and still frustrated, went back to my bed and tried to fall asleep again.

And this time all hell broke loose in my head. I had a dream which started the same way as before. I woke up suddenly just like what happened the first few times but this time my brother Alif was in the room on the computer. Being in a dream the part of my brain which controls logic and reason is still sleeping. So because of that, I didn't notice anything wrong with the picture.

And as I was getting out of bed, a tranny came into my room. He/she was wearing one of those things like the girls in Lady Marmalade's song. And this time I was thinking, in the dream, "What the fuck!? Where'd this freak come from?".

And I walked up to my brother at the computer. He was just sitting there staring at the monitor screen. When I tried to talk to him, a fat kid appeared out of nowhere who looks exactly like the kid of one of my parent's friends that I went to for their open house yesterday. And this time I was thinking to myself "Okay, first a tranny and now this fat kid? What the hell is going on here?"

So feeling rather weird, I decided to ask the kid where the hell did he come from. And he just replied "situ" pointing at a small hole which used to be where my my tempat cucuk plug was. Sorry I don't know what it's called. haha!!

Now I know that there's definitely something really weird going on but it didn't hit me that I was in a dream. haha!! So I decided to go downstairs and a kitten popped in to my room. Now that I think of it, I was playing with a kitten at the open house I went too. Hmmm... but it still doesn't explain where the tranny came from.

Okay so this kitty in the dream was a demon cat!! argghhh!! and I was the only one who could see the damn cat. It threatened to do stuff to my family which I can't remember the details and I ended up killing the kitty after it bit and scratched me on my left shoulder. I threw him down the stairs in which he land smoothly and went after my mum who was downstairs. I was so pissed and the bitch went after my mum!! So I went after it and strangled it to death......

And then I woke up, for real this time. That was a pretty weird dream... It made me feel uneasy, but I was still tired and sleepy. But I wasn't keen on going back to sleep again. It didn't work the first 2 times and the 3rd time led me into a messed up dream I wasn't keen to get back into again.

I walked around the room cuz I still wasn't feeling right. And I heard some noise coming from the door. Being on the edge after a freaky dream I decided to go downstairs and make sure everything's alright. :D I do that a lot. I dunno, I just think that my family's safety is my top priority. And if anything were to happen to them I'd do everything I can. It's just one of those things you know? I've been training hard so this is one of those situations where I really believe where I can put my training to good use. So anyway, I went downstairs, and when I turned on the lights I heard a noise in the kitchen!!

Which turned out to be my cat chicken ball. Ceh! bikin saspens je. haha!! checked all the doors and windows. Everything was where it was supposed to be. With a sigh of relief and contempt. I sat at the dining table with my cat and then went back up. I went online for a bit but the internet was slow. So I decided to edit a coupla photos to keep me awake long enough till Subuh Prayer.

And here they are. A mosquitoe coil and The King!! :P



So that's about it. Just another situation where the brain goes crazy. I wonder if those physchopaths I see on the news and documentaries sees things as though they were in a dream where all their rationale and logic side of the brain is turned off. Just a thought.

Alrighty, that's all for now. Till later :D

Another piece of the puzzle

Yep I just got my 50mm just now. Even thought it's a 2nd hand lens it looks brand spanking new!! With unfilled warranty card summore. Awesome!! The guy was selling it for RM320 but somebody else beat me to the chase in the board. So I had to play a little dirty. I pm'ed the guy and offered a higher price then he was selling in hopes that the other dude would bail out. Actually I didn't really think that I'd get it this time either but for some reason the other dude did bail out and I dunno whether it was because of my cheap tactic or of something else.

Anyway, I went back home and tried the lens out. Still trying to get used to manual focusing. But I think I'll get the hang of it pretty soon. But the results were great. Focusing at f/1.8 is really a pain with my viewfinder. Kinda hard to see the details with that small a window. But it's nothing that I can't deal with. :D

Here are a coupla samples at f/1.8. I don't wanna post up the rest of the sample shots which have no artistic value whatsoever. haha!! All are straight from cam. Resized thru lightroom, capture nx and even View NX. lolz! Converted at different times. :P


Cool stuff. :D And now I'm gonna go back to playing Mercenaries 2 for a while :P Tomorrow. The shooting begins!

I trick again!

Yesh I went tricking for a bit at 15 today. backflips, punch and single leg sides and webbys. That's about all that I dare to do for now. Can't afford to bail at the moment. I'm still fragile. haha!! Here's to myself for a speedy recovery. :P

Picture was shot from inside Alamanda Putrajaya. :)

HDR practice

How long has it been since my last HDR? Can't really remember. The main reason, being that it's very susah and leceh to take bracket shots manually on my D40. Especially when taking more than 5 exposures. Yeppers, I don't go any lower than 5 folks. I found that 5 is the sweet spot. :P But the most that I ever did was 11 exposures!!! That one was one of my first HDR experiments too. It was a very interesting experience and it's what drove me to explore the world of post processing in the first place.

On another note. The Raya mood is fading away fast. For some reason, there're virtually no frickin open houses? woot??! I mean seriously. Where are the open houses? Where's the Hari Raya spirit? I want food dammit!! It's only once a year and I want to stuff myself full with kuihs and ketupat and lemang and rendang and lodeh and all that shit. :'( Open house please :'(

So far I only have one invite. Thanks Sya for inviting me. Although I don't really know how to get to your place tho. hmmm... that could be somewhat of a problem. But no matter. I'll figure it out when the time comes. :D

Another piece of news is the Hari Raya Parkour Jam!! I should make a poster or something. But I'm not good with Illustrator. I don't even have it in fact. lol! bummer. But nevertheless, it's been a while since we had a real jam session. Woohh!! photoshoot time. So here are the details:

Venue: Taman Tasik Titiwangsa
Date: 25th October 2008
Time: TBA

This will be a trial run for the actual event in November. So it should be fun and I hope more people will join in this time instead of just the regulars.

And that about covers it for today. And here's a photo for the night. An HDR I just finished fiddling with. Processed from 5 exposures. And no the teddy's not mine haha!!

Puasa = Hungry = Lazy = Sleep

Another day gone by, another day wasted without doing anything productive, or reproductive for that matter. haha! The fasting month is here and we're 4 days in, another 26 days to go. I don't know why but somehow I get hungry really quick nowadays. It was never as bad as this. And all I do is lepak at home.

Hari Raya this year should be a good opportunity for me to snap more photos of people. Candids. Gotta love 'em. :P

I've played through both of my cetak rompak games. Both are a bit disappointing. hmmm.. But Too Human is kinda addictive. I wanna get everything in the game cuz the items just get better and better and my Baldur continues to look cooler and cooler! aaaggghh!! Stop the addiction!!

On top of that, I spent about 10 minutes earlier yesterday out in the garden. The sun was low and the clouds were well out of the way and I got those very nice golden rays seeping through the trees from outside my house compound. I started by shooting plants, but then my cats caught my attention... as usual. :p I just can't help from snapping them whenever they're outside. Especially this one cat of mine called Dog. Haha! She likes getting her photo taken I guess. And she knows how to strike a pose too. A very good model.

My arm's almost back. I tried shifting gears and there's virtually no pain, only I just don't know how long my arm could hold out for a drove though. I lost most of my muscle mass when I had that stupid cast on. grrr!!!

It's almost 4am and I'm still awake. I can't sleep. Cuz I've been going through my earlier garden adventure photos. Edited a few, deleted a few and left most of them in my hard drive for later. Here are some of the best ones of the day.

Its raining but I'm not gloomy

So today, I don't really feel gloomy despite the weather being so. Took one shot of myself earlier today. The lighting was nice as I was sitting in front of the computer. So I took out my camera and remote, tested the light and it was great so I took a few and edited one that I thought was the best soon after. Looks like I won't be training today. Gotta catch up on my much needed rest.

So here is the finished product. :D

I haven't taken a shower yet. haha!! I should go take one now. XD