Beautiful light

I changed back my lighting modifiers, so I have a gridded white beauty dish over our dining table again. And with a silver reflector lying on the table, I profiled my setup:

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Then I asked Zuleikha if she would sit for me for a short moment (danke nochmal, Schätzchen!). Zuleikha has dark brown hair which wouldn’t contrast enough with a black background, so I added another studio strobe on lowest setting from a bit further away, just for a tiny bit of hair light. With these lights, I took her portrait:

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Zuleikha, November 2016

Thanks for viewing.

Some photos from film, and some of today

Got my colour negative film back from the lab, together with all images on a CD. Here are some of them:

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That last one is from after our holidays, when I wanted to test my 50mm/1.4 lens wide open. The earlier two are likely from spring this year.

Today we went to watch “Finding Dory” in our local 3D cinema. There I took this one with ISO 2500:

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And while setting up some lights and background for more photos, Tuna the cat jumped onto Zuleikha’s piano chair. So I photographed the cat with room light, also at ISO 2500:

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But I wanted to test some lighting setup – so here are some where I used 3 flashes / strobes. Edited only the Exif data, so the photos are like out of camera:

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Zuleikha, Hornist
November 2016

As always, thanks for viewing and reading.

Using my compact flash

It’s definitely getting dark earlier, and getting bright later already here in the Northern hemisphere. No wonder in the middle of autumn, and with winter approaching soon.

That leaves you with a problem when photographing indoors – either accept very bad light (and thus, quality) in your “available light” photos, or make some light when and where you need it.

Setting up the studio strobe(s) is quite a long process tho, and we don’t own any compact TTL flashes – only inexpensive but very nice and reliable Yongnuo YN460-II models. And because even measuring the light is an additional step which takes some time and action, I wanted to get used to guessing the right exposure again. Turns out that I’m not that bad, I’m usually correct within 1 stop or so.

To try it out, I took two:

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Tuna the cat, October 2016, bounced flash (f/2, flash on 1/8th power) and

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Remarkable – Zuleikha reading, October 2016 (f/2.2, flash on 1/4 power from across the room)

I’ll continue to do that, and maybe get some more of these flashes. The experience and the knowledge always pay off when using them somewhere else as well.

As always, thanks for reading/viewing.

My free week is half over…

I have a week off of work, but since we don’t visit anybody and the weather isn’t that nice, I spend most of it at home.

So since our last Sunday walk, most of the photos I took so far were also from our home. At least I used all of my cameras, several different lenses, and even the polarizer filter which you still can’t emulate after taking your pictures. Here are some taken since Sunday, just for the reference:

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You are next… (E-PL5 with the 14mm/2.5 lens)

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While photographing a plant, I was watched… (E-M10 with the 25mm/1.4 lens and a polarizer)

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Tuna the cat, looking out (E-M10 with the 25mm/1.4 lens and a polarizer)

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Pegs (Clothespins) – “shooting” the DSLR (E-520 with the 40-150mm/4-5.6 lens at 150mm, 1/40th of a second, hand-held)

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Occupation: box tester (E-M10 with the 25mm/1.4 lens)

I also filled the remaining few photos on an ISO200 colour negative film; a cheap one from the grocery, and I brought away that film for development already. With this I used my OM Zuiko 50mm/1.4 lens wide open for these last shots – I wanted to see its quality again. But as always when using film, that has to wait a bit. After I have these photos back, I’ll decide what to do with the three black & white Kodak 400TX (Tri-X) films which are still waiting to be used.

Anyway, thanks for reading/viewing, as always.

A short Sunday walk, and another self portrait

We’re using Google’s “Fit” on our smart phones, and today Zuleikha wanted to have a short walk to count her steps. So that is what we did, and while doing so, I took her picture using my Olympus E-PL5 camera with the 14-42mm “kit” lens:

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In the end, both Zuleikha and Mitchie went a bit further than me, they both had around 7,000 steps. I had a few less as you can see:

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And now that Zuleikha went to bed already, I took another “selfie” using the smart phone. As a trigger only, the E-M10 camera and the Panasonic 25mm/1.4 “Leica”-branded lens took the photo, with a little help of one of my studio strobes:

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As you can see, the small LED reading light behind me was switched on, so without that flash I would have been a dark silhouette only.

Thanks for reading.

Couchsurfing, or: of Lollipop, Marshmallow, and Nougat

Yesterday I was sitting on one of our sofas and asked Zuleikha if I could use her Nexus 10 tablet to look up something in the internet. And if you use such a device and make an own account for yourself, you have to identify yourself with Google (or in the case of something “i”, with Apple). Which is what I did, and after returning to my own machine later, I saw that I received an email from Google with a link to this (removed the IP address in this crop of a screenshot):

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After I acknowledged that yes, that was me, I saw a short list of recently used devices, like this:

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Cool stuff – they keep book about your account with them, and check if it’s really you or someone who saw you typing in a password and who was now trying to impersonate you.

About the device itself: it’s the oldest of all Android devices we have, at least software-wise, and it still runs Android 5.1 “Lollipop”:

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You can read about this on the Android developers’ pages if you are interested.

The other devices we have – Mitchie’s Nexus 7 tablet and Nexus 5 phone – all run Android 6.0.1 “Marshmallow”. None of the devices will get “Nougat”, the newest version. And Zuleikha’s Nexus 10 won’t even update to Marshmallow.

What does that mean? Well for a tablet which you use at home (on your couch), not that much. You’re within your own wireless network, and the browser and other applications have all the latest security updates – you shouldn’t visit questionable sites and/or services anyway. Plus the Marshmallow version of Android will still receive security updates for at least another year, and for Lollipop you can download fixes if you want to – more on that later.

The problem is with phones – which is what more than 50% of all internet browsing devices are running on until now. For these, you’d better have the latest and greatest, which means: the latest OS and all patches (which come automatically when using Google’s own Nexus/Pixel or Apples “i” devices).

So I was thinking about a replacement for Mitchie’s phone which won’t get the upgrade to “Nougat”. The new Google phones named “Pixel” are nice, just like “i” phones, but they also cost that much. So the probably best replacement at this moment and in the same size and price range would be the Nexus 5X. Read more here in that 3-page review if you don’t know or think you’d need a Google device anyway – you probably do if you care for security. The reasoning starts towards the end of page 2, read on…

Oh, and if you wondered why you saw me connecting from the UK in one of those screenshots: that’s from work, where we’re routed out and connected to the interweb via some router which happens to be located there (so Google and its own Youtube and other sites detect me/us as UK residents, which I can live with). And the reason for connecting to Google from there was that I downloaded and installed their SDK. That also gives you emulators for their Nexus phones and tablets, so you can try out your own apps (if you write some) before rolling them out to the public. As just a phone or tablet emulator it’s probably a bit of overkill, tho these emulated devices sure look good:

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Which brings me back to the Nexus 5X. In my standard price comparison site, it’s the top 1 searched for article when looking for a phone:

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And that could have a reason. The Samsung devices tend to explode and burn (and made it to the no-fly list in the US because of that already), anything else isn’t that up-to-date and/or affordable.

So if you can afford it, the new “Pixel” is a sure recommendation – you can bet that all the Android devs will get them as soon as they’re out. For us mere mortals tho, these slightly older but still very nice ones would be the interim solution of choice – after all, in 2 years from now, even your latest & greatest “Pixel” (or “i”) phone will look a bit older – and will be a lot cheaper than right now.

Me? I still don’t own a mobile phone, and I’m not sure why I would need one. Sure, couch surfing is nice, but for that – or as a nice remote control for my OM-D E-M10 camera – any Android tablet would do. Even an older one.

Thanks for reading.

Happy birthday

Today is not only my sister Silvia’s birthday. It’s also Linux which was announced on a mailing list 25 years ago. And so, the “article of the day” on the German Wikipedia start page is about Linux:

Screenshot-Wikipedia – Die freie Enzyklopädie - Mozilla Firefox: IBM Edition

Screenshot-Linux – Wikipedia - Mozilla Firefox: IBM Edition

Working with and using it each day – so thanks, Linus (and Richard and all the others). And congrats again to my sister.

P.S.: Two links in German which show the importance of Linux today:
25 Jahre Linux: Das Jedermann-Betriebssystem and
25 Jahre Linux: vom Nerd-Spielzeug zum Allround-Betriebssystem

Malaysia, the last half week

After returning to paklong and maklong (my brother-in-law and his family) on Wednesday, the first thing I noticed was how fast these workers outside were building that new “Elmina Valley” – the first of the roofs were about to get ready:

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Our adik and family also joined us again, and together we visited iCity:

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Aqilah and her mum Zu on a train carousel:

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On Saturday, Mitchie was invited to visit some of her former classmates and alumni and friends/husbands, but I didn’t take the camera there. It was nonetheless very interesting, and for the second time in my life I also ate Durian, this time in form of a cake. Nice, but not that easy to digest.

In the evening, both our families brought us back to KLIA – the header image is from a short stop on the motorway, not too far off the airport. At 2am on Sunday morning, our plane was to leave, so we had to say goodbye and terima kasih (= thanks) at around 1 o’clock. It was great to see them all again, and 6 years in between was way too long – so we hope to meet them again soon. My joke from yesterday: for my next birthday I said I’d wish for nothing special – just a cake, like the one maklong had. Available at Secret Recipe (in Malaysia only) 😉

Other things to try, should you visit Malaysia: Nasi Lemak and/or Roti Canai for breakfast, and Laksa, like Zu made it. Delicious like the whole Malaysian cuisine. One request of my brother was to write down the recipe of my favourite dish there – we bought him a book instead…

Thanks for reading, and for viewing.

Malaysia, the second week (plus a few days)

On Monday, 25th of July, our abang gave us his Perodua Alza to visit my father-in-law’s. And one of the first photos I took there was this one of “Belang” (= striped):

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Suadi, my father-in-law, had hired some people to help him harvesting some of his palm oil, so this time my help wasn’t required, except to take some photos of it:

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Each of these fruits weighs approximately 20kg, so considered the Malaysian sun and temperatures, this is really hard work:

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Here’s another of Suadi’s cats, “Tompok” (= patches):

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Except cats, I mainly took portraits and snapshots of Mitchie’s greater family, often on request – Malaysians are mostly not camera shy, and willingly group and pose together as soon as they see a camera, or a smart phone (which everyone has). Here for instance are Comel (= cute) with her son and her husband:

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Her sister Siti is also married by now, but her husband was involved in an accident and broke his leg, so he couldn’t come. Here’s Siti with Zuleikha instead (both smiling for a smart phone beside me):

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Last not least, my father-in-law again, together with his wife Sakdiah:

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I have a lot more of these family snapshots and group photos, some of which Zuleikha took with my camera. To see some more, please check my “Malaysia 2016” album on Flickr.

During our time there, we’ve got both Suadi’s Honda EX5 and Skadiah’s Yamaha SS110 (formerly Mitchie’s) motorcycles repaired and maintained a bit. Here are Zuleikha and her atuk (= grandfather in Javanese) coming back from a short test ride (and another visit to some relatives):

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These motorcycles with 100 to about 150ccm are very popular in Malaysia, and make about 50% of all registered vehicles in the country. And for the kampungs (= villages) they are really all you’d need, and also really useful in denser areas with heavier traffic – our abang takes his 135cc Yamaha to work and back each day. Dangerous, yes, but also a lot faster than using the car and being stuck in those traffic jams. Means: while driving in Malaysia (and I drove at least 1.500 km again this time), be careful and very alert – these will overtake you on each side, no matter which lane you’re in.

Oh, some last ones for our dad’s neighbour. Here’s his youngest son Aimee:

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And that neighbour is also a smoker, and like me he rolls his own cigarettes. So he tried my tobacco, and I tried his local “Domingo” brand, available at the 7/11 shops which are around everywhere:

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Nice, tho only half as strong as mine. With about RM17 (= Ringgit, the current exchange rate is about 4.5/1), it’s not that much cheaper than what we have here.

After about 9 days, we had to go back North to Shah Alam. I’ll write about that next time.

Thanks for reading, and for viewing.

Malaysia, the first week

We’ve had 3 weeks in Malaysia this year, and we started on Sunday, July 17th with a route taking us from FRA (Frankfurt) over DXB (Dubai) to KUL (Kuala Lumpur), where we arrived late Monday evening. Our abang (the older one of my brothers-in-law) and his youngest daughter Aleesa picked us up and drove us all the way to their home at Bukit Subang, near Subang airport and Shah Alam, which is some 56km North-Northwest of KL International Airport, close to the capitol Kuala Lumpur:

And Aleesa was also amongst the first of whom I took a photograph on the following evening:

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Our adik (the younger one of my brothers-in-law) and his family also joined us the next day, and here’s a photo of his youngest daughter, Aqilah:

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I also tried one photo using my compact flash off-camera and bounced over the ceiling – so here’s the result, showing Aleesa and Zuleikha:

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Zuleikha told a joke, asking why a cow wants to cross a road (“Because she’s going to the mooohviiiees”), so that became one of the running gags – and the kids really wanted to go and see a film afterwards. So this is what we did, except Aqilah who stayed with us instead:

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She looked pretty cool even outside in the sun on her Mama’s arms:

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During the following days, we did a lot and also ate out, like at this restaurant on the sea. This is the Straits of Malacca, famous shipping route from Asia to Europe (and with pirates around as I’ve heard):

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For all you travellers who want to find that, it’s here:

After eating, the kids went to collect some sea shells, some of which they still have:

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Except Aqilah, here on the arms of her kakak (= older sister) Aisya, who is about Zuleikha’s age:

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We also visited Putrajaya, the seat of the government and also the king’s residence. Here’s a view from one of the bridges which lead there:

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Aiman and Aleesa on that same bridge:

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Except of the palaces and government buildings, Putrajaya looks like a giant amusement/recreational park, and you can do lots of stuff there – even try yourself on your cross-country motorcycle like this guy did:

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On Sunday, our adik and his family as well as our abang’s eldest son Fariz had to go back – there were no public school holidays in Malaysia during the time we were there. The plan was that we’d take one of our abang’s cars to visit my father-in-law for a bit over a week, and to come back and meet everyone again afterwards, so that is what we did. I’ll write about that next time.

Thanks for reading and viewing.