Day Trip to Nottingham

Attended a company training course in the hometown of Robin Hood - Nottingham on Thursday. Passed by two football stadiums in the city - Nottingham Forest and Notts County on the way to the training centre.

After the day training I only had an hour to walk around the city centre before catching the evening train back to London. Time was too short to visit the Sherwood Forest to see the Major Oak tree.

Sight by the River Leen. All pictures are taken using Tamron 17-50mm/2.8 in RAW and processed in HDR.

Nottingham train Station.

Towards the city centre, there's a 'Nottingham Eye' at the far sight.

Statue of Sir John Betjamen at the new St Pancras Railway Station, London where I took the 2 hours train to Nottingham which cost me £118 for the return tickets on company expenses. Travel cost in the UK is absolutely ridiculous.

A never ending hug at The Meeting Place in the station.

M42 Photography

DSLR photography can be an expensive hobby. Once you get a DSLR body, you'll start looking at the lens for different range and purpose, which can be even more expensive than the body. I found the cheap option - the M42 lens mount which is also known as Praktica or Pentax thread mount. These lens can be found cheap on eBay or second hand shop.

You have to get one of these M42 adapter specially made for different mounts. For my understanding, it works well on Sony/Minolta and Canon but not on Nikon as it can't focus to infinity. I got one for my A mount from eBay for USD$10. Btw don't get it from the China seller, 3 weeks delivery in the modern world just doesn't make sense!

Got my first M42 lens from eBay for £11 + pp - a Japanese made Helios 135mm F2.8 (I thought it's Russian made initially)

I guess this lens is older than me, should be 30 to 40 years old.

Brought it for a test near Tower Bridge overlooking River Thames and the surrounding.

Photo taken at F16, shutter speed unrecorded. For such a cheap lens, the performance is quite acceptable. Anyway I was struggling with the manual focus but I do enjoy the challenge.

Shooting the Gherkin at an angle I never thought of before with a tele lens. In fact I never really thought of taking landscape pictures with a tele lens. My favourite shot of the day.

Stalking people on the bridge at F2.8

It works well on portraiture.

An useful M42 database website - M42 artlimited.

Too many lenses in my camera bag and dry box now and I don't know which lens to bring every time I'm out taking pictures. Perhaps I should get the A200 as second body? (stop thinking about that!!!) And... I just won my second M42 lens on eBay, a Russian made Jupiter 9 85mm F2.0, can't wait for its arrival!

Cyril Takayama

Watch some street magic performed by Cyril Takayama.


Playing with alligator in a Lacoste store.


Sero jisan switching a ballon with bowling ball.


Cyril's famous head trick.

He is absolutely brilliant!

The Casino @ The Empire

Chinese New Year 2008 used to be the gambling season back home. I haven't really been gambling since moving to the UK, except betting small monies during the World Cup 2006.

Joined Roger and Alex to The Casino at The Empire at Leicester Square yesterday, with initial plan to watch the Champions League actually as there's a nice bar area in the casino with a big projector screen.

You have to become a member to enter any casino at the West End.

"A touch of Vegas", I never been to Vegas before but this is a small 2 levels casino with a stylish restaurant and a nice bar. Only like maybe 5% of the size of Genting Highlands' casino with limited choice of games: banker player, poker, 3 cards poker, blackjack, roulette and some gambling machines.

Finally get to play a few rounds of blackjack finally this CNY in the casino and won small sum of money enough for a meal then ciao. I'm too timid to bet the hard earned money on the gambling table.

Portobello Revisited

Looked out from the window on Saturday and there was rare lovely sunshine so I decided to visit Portobello Market to try my luck in hunting some used M42 lens. All pictures were taken with the Helios 135mm F2.8.

A candid shot taken near Liverpool Street Station. It wasn't that impressive before post processing. Picture desaturated with high contrast. I quite like the 135mm (200mm on APS-C sensor) range for candid, portraiture and landscape.

I didn't check the weather forecast and it was freezing!

Same old place.

Same old stuff.

The popular destination for Londoners and tourists.

As the Helios is a manual lens on the M42 adaptor, no EXIF data for aperture used were recorded. I guess this was taken at F3.5.

Vernon Yard.

A street performer who perform on the divider on the middle of the road.

Didn't manage to find any lens and it was too cold so I decided to call it a day at this point. Lesson learnt - check the weather forecast and wear proper clothes before going out.

CNN Interview with Abdullah

Parliament has been dissolved and the election is coming in March. Watch CNN's interview with Malaysia Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi:

Everytime I watch Malaysian leaders interviewed by the international media I feel embarrassed as a Malaysian. Pak Lah's answers were leading no way and confusing as always.

A response from blogger Din Merican:


Lim Kit Siang speaking at the press:


Obviously the whole world knows that why is the reason the election date is fixed earlier than it supposed to be - to keep former deputy PM Anwar Ibrahim out of the race, just a month before he's eligible for the election after a ban expires. Pak Lah said it's not his concern and I think that's an ultimate bullshit!

"No eye see"

AND1

Since there are more and more people playing basketball in the gym regularly these day, it's time to get a pair of proper basketball shoes. Being the only representative from the Malaysia I have to look better if not play better.

I saw this pair of AND1 Open Run Mid in two sports shops at Oxford Street but all running out of my size. I didn't give up and finally found the last pair at Lilywhites Picadilly Circus at 50% discount, for only £27. After long consideration I choose the AND1 over the Adidas A3 Artillery (with a high tech look sole for a very good bargain price too at £30) because it feels really comfy and lightweight. The Adidas feels a bit clumsy to me.

Unlike other brands, AND1 is specialising in basketball shoes and apparel and actively promoting street basketball.


A video on AND1 Mixtape tour. Anyway it seems that the rules deviate from the standard one which players are allowed to carry the ball above the shoulder and there's no traveling and double dribbling violation??

Always look on the bright side of life

Just watched the '50 most shocking comedy moments' on Channel 5 and found this comedy by Monty Python a real classic.

Scene from the 1979 film 'Life of Brian'


'Life's a piece of shit, when you look at it'. The controversial comedy was banned for few years in several countries as it's making fun of religious issues.



I think I will have to catch up the Monty Python 'Spamalot' (spam a lot!) musical theater in the West End before it ends this March.

Photo Session @ Kudos

It's day 4 of Chinese New Year, suppose to meet up with the boys for dim sum lunch at Chinatown but turn up late hence meeting them at the Kudos Cafe Bar at Charing Cross instead.

It's quite a nice place and they have picked a nice corner which is a perfect set up for indoor shooting.

Taken with Tamron 17-50mm at F2.8, ISO800, the dark wall at the back matched well with the good lighting.

Michael, who said he has not got any decent pictures in recent years for his gaydar profile should be happy with this.

This is for Ivan. He has got a big acne mark on his face so I have to photoshop for him in every single picture.

Tried using the bounce flash but it doesn't works well here. Probably I should get the Stofen Omni-Bounce Diffuser soon (I have to keep telling myself stop buying, buying and buying...)

For the straight guy Marco.

Different quality from different hands and obviously the camera wasn't in my hands.

Euro Millions

Last week was full of dreams at work, not because of Chinese New Year but the Euro Millions jackpot which hit a whooping £96,000,000. Bought few tickets with colleague Roger, discussing what should we do on coming Monday after we won the jackpot.


Just imagine that, equaling more than RM600,000,000, say 3% interest rate p.a., that's RM1.5 million on interest earning itself, or RM50,000 pocket money a day.

Sometimes it's good to spend a little money and keep a dream.