Snaps: Macro Photography with the Olympus OM-D E-M10

Macro shooting was something that I stumbled upon on and somehow, my interest was piqued. But as interested as I was, I never did made it a priority for me to shoot macro. Instead macro photography was something I'd do whenever convenient. By convenient, I'd mean whenever one of the guys from Shutter Therapists suggested to do some macro photography. This is more often than not, Robin's suggestion.

 I don't remember when my last macro shoot was. Chances are that it was at least 3 months or more since I last I took macro shots. But the funny thing is I do actually have the macro lens and it's actually the lens which I use the least. This I felt was such a waste sometimes, especially given how amazing the Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 60mm f/2.8 Macro Lens is. But there comes occasion like this when I get a chance to shoot macro with that precious lens of mine.

There are many other forms of photography that I dabble with, like street, food and sometimes landscape but for me, macro photography is one of the more technically demanding type of photography. In terms of macro shooting, you'll need an external flash with a diffuser. I would usually trigger the flash remotely, allowing me to direct the light to where I want it to be. So if you can imagine it, I'll be holding the flash with my left hand and my right would have the camera.

To top things off, my camera is set to manual focus which mean that I usually have to set the minimum focusing distance to my subject before shooting. Once that is done, it would meant that I have to move back and forth adjusting the focus physically. Which is actually physically demanding as well, since I would need to stabilise myself and the camera while juggling the flash on the other hand as well.

Thankfully this time around I was shooting with the Olympus OM-D E-M10 which came with in-built electronic viewfinder and has a 3-Axis stabilization which compensate 3 types of movements (yaw/pitch/roll movements). These two features were extremely crucial in helping me capture sharp crisp pictures. The axis stabilization is important for me as I was only shooting single handed since my other hand was occupied with handling the external flash. On the other hand, the viewfinder helped to effectively reduce the distraction around me since my field of vision is limited to the area that I'm shooting.

All in all, macro photography is both technically demanding as it tests your your knowledge of photography to capture the image you would like. It also is physically demanding having to handle the camera and the external flash as well. However having said that all, I would do it again and again because there is nothing that feels as good as the satisfaction you get from nailing that shot!

 

As you can see I didn’t get that many shots, but I’m happy with the photos that I have taken this time around under the time constraints. Shooting macro also requires fair bit of patience and some luck. On good days, you’ll find tonnes of interesting subjects to shoot. On not-so-good days, you’ll probably end up spending more time looking for the subjects instead of actually shooting. To be honest, I think I came a long way since I first started shooting macro photography. Here are some of the links to my other photographs (I just realised that I blog about macro photography on an annual basis) ;

• http://www.carmenhong.com/2013/09/walk-in-park-butterfly-park-kuala-lumpur.html – Shot way back in the year 2013
• http://www.carmenhong.com/2014/03/snaps-macro-shooting-at-butterfly-park.html – Shot in the prior year, year 2014

Till next time,

xoxo

Eat: Ri-Yakitori, St. Giles The Gardens Hotel

Japanese cuisines have and will always be one of my favourite cuisine, from the sashimi to the udon and ramen. I have mad love for them all. :) But there is one type of Japanese food which I rarely been able to try which is the kushiyaki or may be more famously known as the yakitori. Here’s what the Wikipedia said about it.

The term "yakitori" can also refer to skewered food in general. Kushiyaki (skewer grilled), is a formal term that encompasses both poultry and non-poultry items, skewered and grilled. Both yakitori and kushiyaki are used interchangeably in Japanese society to refer to skewered meat collectively; however, when referring to a specific item, yakitori will not be used unless the primary meat is chicken. – as per Wikipedia

The reason why I don’t have yakitori often enough is probably because I don’t know of many Japanese restaurants that serves them delicious and yummy. Well that was only until I discovered Ri-Yakitori which is conveniently located at St. Giles, The Gardens Hotel. The restaurant is specialised in serving mainly grilled skewered meats cooked using charcoal!

Here are some pictures of the food that I had that night, which ranged from a few different types of yakitori and some other delicious yummy Japanese food.

Cabbage Salad | Complimentary

Fried Garlic Mussel with Steamed Sake | RM 29

Yakitori Moriawase (Assorted Grilled Chicken) | RM 38

Yakiniku Wagyu Beef On Skewer | RM 41

Tempura Moriawase | RM 58

Shake Ochazuke | RM 17

Shake Ochazuke | RM 17

Kamo Nabe | Enquire the price with the restaurant

Mochi With Green Tea Ice Cream | RM 20

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My favourite dishes for the night was the Yakitori Moriawase, which allowed me to sample the different varieties of chicken yakitori parts. Really loved the wings of everything else on that platter. My next best one would be ahh, the Wagyu Beef on Skewer. The beef was tender and very well marinated, almost melting in your mouth. Oh so lovely! Another dish I loved would be the Tempura Moriwase. I’m usually not a fan of tempura because of the thick batter used, but at Ri-Yakitori, the batter used was light, fluffy and crispy! Dipped together with the dipping sauce, yums!

All in all, I had a wonderful experience dining at Ri-Yakitori. It was one of the best Japanese meals especially the yakitori, that I have had. The ambiance there is cosy and it’s a suitable place to unwind after work. Or you can bring your partner here for a date night too. It’s located on the 7th floor of Gardens Hotel and there is an option to be seated by the window. You’ll be treated then to a view of the Mid Valley city and also a glimpse of Bangsar, I think.

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// Ri-Yakitori Bar //  

The Gardens Hotel
Level 7, Mid Valley City
Lingkaran Syed Putra

03-2268 1188 ext. 6323

Open from Monday to Saturday – 5PM to 1AM

Out & About: Maybank GO Ahead. Challenge 2015

Already in its fourth year running, the Maybank GO Ahead. Challenge 2015 is a multi-disciplinary talent recruitment competition, with participants coming from up to 14 different countries including Malaysia. This year saw more than 23,000 applications received from various participating countries. Campus level competitions were held at 27 Universities across the region, with over 1,700 Challengers in total! If I was still studying in my campus, I would have taken the opportunity to participate in this challenge. :)

Similarly in every year’s competition, there would be a final challenge to be completed. For this year’s edition, 60 finalists from all across the world battled it out in Bukit Bintang where they were tasked to sell ‘happiness’ to members of the public – with each team designing and creating their business strategy for success. The teams are judged on how much money they manage to raise, which will then be donated to a charity of their choice. Hence it was only apt that the final challenge was called the Seasons of Smiles.

For the final challenge, the teams each set up a booth around Bukit Bintang, and ‘sold’ various activities and products to members of the public, with the theme being ‘happiness’. With offerings ranging from makeover sessions to personalised magazine cover photoshoots, each team attempted to make their customers days a little happier while raising money for a good cause.

Here are some of the pictures I taken at the Seasons of Smiles campaign, where I managed to try out some of the activities held by each respective teams in the booths.

Of all the booths I visited, I really liked this one booth which got the theme supermarket for their case study and they came up with the game concept of shopping by estimating the groceries items be within a certain amount.

It was rather hilarious because  Fish and I spent quite some time trying to estimate how much each item was. The price range we were given was within RM49 to RM51. This experience gave us a glimpse of how we both would have been next time when we turn into aunties doing their grocery shopping. I'm amazed with the Challenger who had to put up with us both, it was hilarious!

Another interesting booth was this booth which had an automatic hot-dog vending machine. Since I have mad love for sausages, I decided to give this a try. It was an interesting experience, although I suspect there was someone behind the machine dispensing the hot dogs.

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Just as previous years, the Maybank GO Ahead. Challenge 2015 ended with the Global Finals Gala Dinner held in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel where the finalists were celebrated and the winners of the Maybank GO Ahead. Challenge 2015 were crowned. 

Compiling all the scores in the end, Team Star Wars  won the USD40,000 Grand Prize! Followed by Team Terminator, the first runner up which won USD 20,000 and the third runner up was Team X-Men which took back USD 10,000. Team X-Men also won the People's Favourite Team award.

As for the Ultimate Go Ahead Challenger #UGAC2015, the first place went to Ricky Low Yin Lee who won an internship in the Maybank office in New York, USA. The second places went to Phyllis Ng Hui Li & Chris Watkins who won an internship in the Maybank’s London and Hong Kong office.

To find out more about the Maybank GO Ahead. Challenge 2015, the Global Maybank Apprentice Programme, and this year’s Challengers, visit www.goaheadchallenge.com. Alternatively, you can check out this Facebook page for more information as well ; http://www.facebook.com/RoaringCareers.

Till next time,

xoxo

Snaps: Cameron + Ipoh Road Trip with Olympus M.Zuiko ED 8mm F1.8 Fisheye PRO

Somewhere along the years in my photography journey, I stumbled upon breath-taking pictures of milky way. I decided there and then, that it would be on my photography bucket list to shoot the milky way. I don’t know how and I don’t know when, but it was on my list and it stayed there for years on (collecting dust). I think it’s normal that that happens, just as how our dreams get forgotten as time passes by.

But thanks to Robin, I had my first opportunity of shooting milky way in Cameron Highlands. Together with my friends, Shutter Therapists (except for Jaslyn who couldn’t make it, else we will have full attendance!) we did a short road trip up to Cameron. I arrived much later at night at about 9PM. From the night drive up, I realised how windy the roads are (so we had to drive up slowly) and also how far the foot of the hill was from the top! It was close to 90 minutes drive up!

First stop was at the steamboat restaurant, where we tried the charcoal version of steamboat. It was comforting to have some warm food to fill our tummies before the midnight milk way shoot.

After dinner, we headed over to our apartment for us to drop our luggage and I managed a quick freezing cold shower (after not having shower for 16 hours, I had an early start because I was volunteering in Seremban earlier that day). We quickly grabbed our gears, then proceeded to the shoot location. When we arrived, I stepped down and looked up at the skies. For a minute or so, I was in awe by the sheer number of stars and the milky way. The view was breath-taking and coupled with the chilly weather, it was the best combination. All I wanted to do then was just lie down on the grass and marvel at the beauty of it.

But that didn’t happen because the mission that night was to shoot the milky way! Robin had helped me with the settings on my camera and also, created a cheat sheet for us all. It was super easy to pre-set the settings beforehand and assign a button to enable those settings on my Olympus PEN Lite E-PL7. And just a press of a button, I was able to shoot the milky way. For this shoot, I had the Olympus M.Zuiko ED 8mm F1.8 Fisheye PRO to use.

The fish eye perspective has never been my favourite one, because of the distortion but since we were shooting the milky way, it would be best to use the widest angle I could get my hands on and hence, 8mm F1.8 Fisheye PRO lens.

These two pictures are the best of the photographs that I have taken, which was not many to begin with. We only had a window of 2 hours before the clouds returned. Initially during the day, it was raining and I was afraid that we won’t be able to shoot the skies given the possible cloud cover. In the limited time that we had, temperature was dropping from 18 Celsius to 16 Celsius which caused the lens to fog up. I ended up having to constantly wipe the lens and ended up with more hazy shots. I was also shooting with Olympus M.Zuiko ED 8mm F1.8 Fisheye PRO which was little difficult to focus since there is no indicator to set the manual focus to infinity.

All in all, it was such a magical night being able to capture it all, I wish I had more time to explore other compositions. Here’s to many more milky way pictures in future! By the way, I would like to include the link which I referred to for my post processing of the milky way shots; http://petapixel.com/2015/08/13/how-to-post-process-a-milky-way-photo-in-lightroom/

The morning after, our alarms rang at 530AM and we headed out to catch the sunrise. But unfortunately we were only greeted with clouds instead of a glorious sunrise with the tea plantation in the photographs. It was disappointing to say the least, but these things happen and it’s way beyond our control.

Since I had the Olympus M.Zuiko ED 8mm F1.8 Fisheye PRO with me, I decided to try it to take selfies and some portraits with it. Here’s a selfie taken by Tian Chad together with the bunch of us who woke up for the sunrise shoot. Jackie and his girlfriend didn’t join us for this. Robin and Alex are behind me and Calvin is on my left.

Let me try a selfie! No make up face with only 3 hours of sleep.

Meet Calvin, my partner-in-crime!

Another wefie shot!

Tian Chad decided to do a time lapse with his camera. I can’t wait to see the outcome!

The last selfie at the tea plantation before we left :)

After the unsuccessful attempt of shooting sunrise, it was time for breakfast! And since I was the food blogger amongst my friends, I got to decide where we could head to for breakfast. I did a quick Google search and in some forums, there was mentions of a deaf couple who sold nice pancakes. I thought it would be a good idea to eat there. However Tian Chad did mention that it was just okay, in terms of taste. But since there was no other places Google can tell me of, so we decided on that.

With the Olympus M.Zuiko ED 8mm F1.8 Fisheye PRO, you can capture a lot more in your photograph. I find it extremely convenient how I managed to capture the name of the cafe I was at, coupled with the ambiance and the details of how the cafe actually looked like. Not to mention, my face in it as well since this is a selfie.

These were some of what we had for breakfast which to be honest was a rather huge let-down. Food was mediocre to say the least and it left me feeling rather incomplete. But to be honest, I didn’t know of any other locations for breakfasts and we were running out of time. So, we headed back to the apartment to get ready for check-out.

Initially we had plans to head to a strawberry farm and to visit a tea plantation. We didn’t because it was so jammed to get back up to the apartment. Instead, we ended up at a morning market in Brinchang because I wanted to get strawberries! And I bought two trays of strawberries for RM50. Unfortunately, because it was stuffed into the container, the strawberries were not able to be kept for days long after I returned from Cameron.

And yes, I bought sweet pearly corns at only RM15 for that one bag. Tian Chad and Robin got me some purple roses too, because I mentioned the day before that I wanted to get roses! Super duper sweet of them guys. :D The next time I’m in Cameron again, I’ll definitely going to buy more corns strawberries and even more vegetables!

Since breakfast was such a disappointment, I wasn’t going to head back home before feeding myself with delicious food. After all, we already drove this far. So, it was decided that we’ll head to Ipoh for yummy-licious food! I have been to Ipoh for foodtripping with my family, so I didn’t need to do any research on the places to eat. Plus, everything delicious is within close proximity from one another.

First stop was the famous Funny Mountain tau fu fah, which was extremely packed with people and there was a long queue. There was even a drive-through option. I took one scoop of the tau fu fah and to my surprise, the texture was not as smooth as the ones I have back home. Meh, that was rather disappointing. My favourite tau fu fah are the ones from OUG morning market where it’s so smooth, it can cause a car accident if you ever spill it on the road. That was what Calvin said, actually.

After Funny Mountain, we headed over to Pasir Pinji (which is still within Ipoh) for some yummy delicious yong tau foo, mua chee and rojak! The first time I was in Pasir Pinji, I tried the neighbouring yong tau foo stall and was severely let down by the mediocre food. The whole food court was filled to the brim, which let me to assume that the food must have been amazing. It was the exact opposite, so this time I tried the stall next door which was better! The laksa packed a punch and goes surprisingly well with the yong tau foo.

The mua chee was chewingly tasty, but was slightly overpriced at RM3 per plate. Put that in comparison with the plate of rojak for just only, RM5. The rojak will leave you craving for more with every bite, with hints of lingering spicyness. Having tasted the best rojak ever in my life here in Pasir Pinji, everything else falls flat. Thank you for graciously ‘ruining’ my taste buds.

And with that, it marks the end of my short but packed road trip with some of my lovely friends and photographers! As of the time of writing, we will be planning another trip to shoot the milky way and of course, I’ll make it a food-tripping journey along the way. Anyone who is up for that, do drop me a message and we’ll see how we can plan this!

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The pictures in this post above are solely taken with the Olympus PEN Lite E-PL7 and Olympus M.Zuiko ED 8mm F1.8 Fisheye PRO. No other cameras or lenses were used. :p Except the picture below, which was taken using Calvin’s camera.

Till next time,

xoxo