Wishlist for the Big Three-Oh

I'm not sure why I avoided making a birthday wishlist this year. Maybe it's that small desire for little surprises here and there, which would be of much delight for someone like me.

But then again, a wishlist would simplify things, and is more practical and useful. Plus my sister requested it. So here goes:

1. A 13" MacBook Pro --- probably not gonna happen. But a 30-year-old man can only wish.
   
   

   

   Image from technologytattle.blogspot.com

   
   
2. A better smartphone --- the one I currently use is a Samsung Galaxy Mini, which has horrible internal memory, I can't do most of the stuff I wanted to do with it. I can't have Facebook installed without the internal memory running out. The same goes with Twitter and Instagram. It used to work well with those apps, but the current updated versions of those important apps freeze the phone and eat up all the internal memory, so I had no other choice but to uninstall all those apps in order to keep the phone working. Now it's only good for calling, and text messaging. In terms of a smartphone: useless.
   
   

   

   My almost useless smartphone, the (old) Galaxy Mini. Image courtesy of theunlockr.com

   
   
3. A speedlight flash that works off-camera with the Nikon D60 --- examples are the Nissin Di622 and the Nikon SB-700. Of course, the Nikon would be the best choice for me. The ability to do off-camera flash photography is very important for my photographic explorations, so this is why it's in the top 3 of my wishlist this year.
   
   

   

   Nikon SB-700 photo courtesy of kenrockwell.com

   
   

   

   Nissin Di622 photo courtesy of amazon.com

   
   
4. Custom-made dress shoes ---  I have abnormally wide feet, so most of my office/dress shoes are too long at the toes, and I often bang them or trip on them while walking up stairs.

   

   Shoes like this one would wear at the tip in no time. Photo from slaters.co.uk

   
   
5. A manual transmission gear knob --- something that fits in the color scheme of the interior of my current car (silver or dark grey). The current gear knob in my car is standard Proton issue... the rubber parts are breaking down due to the intense heat I suppose.
   

   

   An example of a gear knob for those of you who might not know. Image from rimmerbros.co.uk

   
   
6. A better (more updated) DSLR --- like the Nikon D7000. Not so high in the list because my D60 still works fine, but I could really use the better low-light performance and the bigger resolution.
   

   

   This camera would work with non AF-S lenses too. Image from mynikonlife.com.au

   
   
7. Anything that would help with my doing my job as a lecturer. Examples:
   - A batch of red pens
   - A presentation slide remote control
   - A small but durable pendrive
   - An iPad (yeah right!)
   
8. Equipment for working out at the gym, especially those that help prevent injuries, like:
   - weightlifting gloves with wrist support
   - ankle and/or knee supports
   
   Prior injuries in my left ankle and my right wrist have made weight-training and running on treadmills almost unbearably painful, which in turn causes me to dread going to the gym even though I really need to work out.
   
9. A nice dinner out with good company --- yeah, I'm running short on those.

Or anything nice, simple and thoughtful.

Here's to a hopeful thirtieth year.

-IHSAN KHAIRIR-
16 Feb 2013

Blogging Milestone --- 100,000 hits!

Folks, I just realized that my blog just reached 100,000 pageviews today!

credit: icannotdraw.thecomicseries.com

This is a huge milestone for a smalltime blogger like me whose posts are sporadically distributed within long periods of time with minor hiatuses in between.

It took about six years of intermittent blogging to get to 100,000 pageviews, and I hope it won't take that long to reach 200,000 --- my next blogging milestone.

credit: the-nri.com

Thank you all for stopping by this site and I hope to see more of you here!

Night Panoramic Long Exposure of Putrajaya [Photography]

Last weekend I attended and shot several photos of my cousin at her wedding reception in Putrajaya, and as I was driving home from Putrajaya Lake Club, I decided to stop by at Seri Wawasan Bridge and shoot the cityscape of Putrajaya as seen from the bridge. The result of many 30-second exposure shots stitched together can be seen below.

I had several problems with the panorama that I shot. I wanted to keep the Millennium Monument and the Iron Mosque in the center of the panorama, but as you can see, about half of the panorama is dark and featureless, and so the photo looks imbalanced and heavy on one side.

The original file is about 15Mb large, not appropriate for display on blogs, so I did not upload the original image file here. You can try to see the image at the highest resolution possible on flickr by going here.

Below are some cropped version of the above image, focusing on some parts of the more featured side of the panorama.

Click on the photo for a larger version

The interesting part of this photo are the sparkling lights. You can capture light sparkles like this when you do long exposure at night of stationary light sources. You also must keep your aperture at a small enough opening --- f/11 or f/16 would be good enough to produce the sparkles in your photo. Remember to keep the ISO setting at a minimum (100 or 200) especially when you set your exposure time to be beyond 10 seconds.

Click on the photo for a larger version

This would be one of the motivations for long exposure --- to smooth or soften out the ripples in the lake so that you get a nice reflection of the lights above, especially those illuminating interesting architecture such as the Iron Mosque and the Seri Saujana Bridge. This crop would already be a great photo if the Millennium Monument wasn't exactly in front of the mosque, but from the vantage point of my shot, there was no way I could get the monument to be out of the shot of the mosque. Next time, I am going to focus more on shooting the Iron Mosque, probably from a vantage point on the Seri Saujana Bridge where the view of the mosque would be not be obstructed by any tall structure.

Click on the photo for a larger version

Here's a closer crop on the Seri Wawasan Bridge. Actually the bridge is illuminated by lights that continuously change color, so I half-expected it to come out as white. I think the end result is more bluish because the light colors they use for the bridge are mostly bluish in hue, and the reds and greens have less share of the time.

My next Putrajaya night outing will probably feature the Iron Mosque itself, so be on the lookout for that!

Oh and by the way, comments and criticism on my works are very much welcome and appreciated!