Kermitfm

ATR 42 Prop

Posted by Kermitfm On 11 Jan, 2016 27 Mar, 2016 Filed under Photography, Single Shot No Comments

Single Shot #2

The second image I chose for this series is this propeller which belongs to the starboard turbo-prop engine of an ATR 42. The ATR42 is a 50 seat, short-haul twin-turboprop airliner built in France by Avions de Transport Régional. ATR is a joint partnership between the Airbus Group and the Italian company Alenia Aermacchi.

The plane belongs to FireFly, a wholly owned subsidiary of Malaysian Airlines. It is headquarted in Malaysia and flies to destination in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. It is the one of the very few airlines that operates out of Subang Airport, also known as Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport. This airport is much nearer to Kuala Lumpur than the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) at Sepang.

Firefly airline has since upgraded their ATR42 fleet to ATR72’s.

Photo Technical Data:

Canon 7D, EF 70-300mm at 130 mm. 1/400 sec @ f/7.1. ISO 100

Link to the first Single Shot #1

Super Star Virgo

Posted by Kermitfm On 4 Jan, 2016 27 Mar, 2016 Filed under Photography, Single Shot No Comments

Single Shot #1

This series will feature a single image from my collection with an accompanying snippet of information. I will be posting an image a week, or as frequently as I can manage, so do come back if you like what you see.

This is Star Cruise SuperStar Virgo, one of their largest cruise liner. The photo was taken on Nov 2011 at Harbourfront Cruise Centre, Singapore. Click on the image for a larger view.

This photo was taken when I was still shooting in jpg format. I couldn’t recover some of the blown highlights. Shooting in raw format would have given me more dynamic range. We do learn from our mistakes, don’t we?

Photo Technical Data:

Canon 7D, EF 70-300mm at 110mm.13 sec @ f/8.0. ISO 100

Some ship facts:

Launched : 23 Dec 1998	Gross Tonnage : 75,338 grt
Length : 268 m	Number of cabins : 935
Beam : 32 m	Passenger capacity : 1,870

Travelling with an UWA

Posted by Kermitfm On 20 Dec, 2015 22 Dec, 2015 Filed under Photography, Travel No Comments

I normally bring only one lens for my travel and my go-to lens for travel is the trusty 24-105 mm f/4 IS. It covers all the useful focal length and the short telephoto allows me to capture far away actions when the need arise. While going through my recent portfolios, I noticed that I tend to shoot more at the wide angle range and sometimes, I wish I could go wider. So in my recent trip to Penang, I decided to switch to the 16 – 35 mm f/4 IS to see how it would be like to do travel photography with just an ultra wide angle zoom. I was not disappointed.

One of the advantage I found was that with a wide angle, you can approach the subject as close as possible and avoid the clutter that are in front of it. It is great for narrow streets and indoor shot.

The 16mm allows me to avoid the motor cycle which was parked right in front of the wall.

“Love Me Like Your Fortune Cat” along Gat Lebuh Armenian (16 mm, f/5.0, 1/1600 sec,)

You may have get up real close to human subjects to fill the frame. One way to do so is to move in really close and take a few shots and wait until they are comfortable with you in standing that close. Take a few shots first and you may be able capture a candid moment once they have gotten use to you standing there.

Apom Chooi, Burmah Road (16mm, f/7.1, 1/50 sec,)

Shooting at a more ‘normal’ focal length of 35 mm gives less distortion as seen in the photo below. Here’s the cook frying a batch of Char Kway Teow over charcoal fire. This stall is located in Siam Road. Be ready for a long wait. We were there at the peak and has to wait for more than an hour! The queue in this photo were take-away customers. The bulk of the eat-in customers were waiting in a coffee shop across the road shown in the following photo.

Wide angle lens are perfectly suitable for landscape. Just make sure there are some foreground object to give a sense of scale to the scene.

I will let the photos do the talking in the following images of Penang.

Cheong Fatt Tze mansion aka Blue Mansion, Jalan Cheong Fatt Tze.

Padang Brown Hawker Centre – you can get excellent popiah here.

Lane leading to Khoo Kongsi Building, Lebuh Cannon

Chew Jetty, Pengkalan Weld

Fishing boats on Sungei Pulau Betung, Balik Pulau

I found that the UWA did not limit me very much in the photos I captured. I just need to put more thought into the composition. Anyway, the primary objective of this trip was not photography. It was sampling the food treats. The first photo in this article is a pananorama of the Air Itam Dam. I will leave you with a scenary taken form the dam with George town in the background.

Black Knights – 8 August Perfomance

Posted by Kermitfm On 9 Aug, 2015 23 Dec, 2015 Filed under Events No Comments

Since my earlier post I got a 2 chances to see the Black Knight performance. One was on 7 August. Unfortunately, the day was wet with very low clouds. The performance was limited to formation fly pasts. The other was on the next day. The weather was good and I was at the coastal area beside Marina Barrage.

You can visit my Black Knights’ Gallery to see all the images.

The spectators waiting for the performance to start.

Also present at the site was the Republic of Singapore Navy Patrol Vessel, the RSS Fearless.

The Black Knights wowing the crowds doing the Mirror Pass.

The Mirror Pass

Mirror Pass

One of the high lights of the Display – the Dedication Pass

The Dedication Pass

See all the photos in the Black Knights’ gallery.

Black Knights – SG50 Preview Performance

Posted by Kermitfm On 4 Aug, 2015 4 Aug, 2015 Filed under Events, Photography No Comments

The Black Knights are the acrobatic team of the Republic of Singapore Airforce (RSAF). The team comprise 6 F-15C Fighting Falcons, painted with the red and white colours of the Singapore flag. The photos below were taken at the SG50 preview performance on 3 Aug 2015. The weather was overcast with a steady drizzle.

The first performance of the F-16C Black Knights was in 2008, although the F-16A were part of the acrobatic team since 2000 flying formation with the A-4SUs (Super Skyhawk).

The Black Knights are painted in the colour of the Singapore flag – red and white and features the national symbols of the crescent moon 5 stars.

The F-16Cs are not solely dedicated to acrobatic flying but are part of the active squadron of the RSAF. One of the manoeuvres is the Low-Slow Muscle Climb where the planes come in at it’s slowest speed and then pull up with full afterburners. The picture below shows them just before they punch the afterburners.

The Criss Cross manoeuvre showing 3 of the 4 Knights splitting after they converge at a central meeting point.

Here the Knights are performing the Dedication Pass. Four planes fly in a diamond formation while 2 planes spiral around the smoke trails.

Close formation flying.

Good bye and see you at the next performance

Equipment – Canon 6D, EFL 70-300mm f/4-5.6

The Canon APS IXUS

Posted by Kermitfm On 6 Mar, 2015 6 Mar, 2015 Filed under Photography No Comments

Mention the Canon IXUS and most photographers will think of their streamline compact series of digital cameras. However, do you know that the first IXUS were film based. Canon introduced the IXUS to use a new film format. The APS or Advance Photo System was introduced in 1996. It uses a smaller film cartridge than the standard 35mm which allows camera body to be designed smaller and slimmer. It is also easier to use as it is uses a drop in film catridge. Read more details of the APS film system in link below.

Comparison of APS and 35 mm film catridges

However, APS did not take on as the film were more expensive to buy and process. There were also a limited choice of cameras to choose from. The standard 35mm films based cameras were preferred by professionals because of the availablity of better quality films like slides, B&W and a wide range of ISOs types. Amateurs prefers the 35mm film because they have a large selection of low cost cameras to choose from, some of which were of better quality. The APS film cameras were finally overtaken by digital cameras at the turn of century. Kodak and Fuji Film were the last manufacturers of APS films and they discontinued production in 2011.

Although the APS film cameras were short-lived, the APS acronym is used now to describe cropped frame camera sensors- i.e. sensor size smaller than a 35mm film (also called full frame). The nearest equivalent is the APS-H sensors used in the Canon 1D (MK1 – Mk IV) models which have a cropped factor of 1.3. APS-C sensors of Canon and Nikons have a smaller area than the APS film.

The IXUS camera has a slim stainless steel alloy body. The lens is a 24-48mm f/4.5-6.2 lens. The power switch is at the front of the camera below the lens. You can see this in the picture. It also has an integrated pop up flash. This model has a design flaw where the flash does not close completely which you can see this in the photo. It was sent it for repairs once and but the problem returned after a few months of usage. Canon solved this with a fixed position flash in their subsequent models.

The IXUS use a Lithium CR2 3.0V battery cell. Composing is via an optical viewfinder. The switch on the right of the viewfinder lets you set the aspect ratio of the – C for Classic, H for HDTV and P for Panorama. At the top right of the rear of the camera are the zoom control. The layout is ergonomically friendly for a small camera.

The top plate has a small LCD screen which shows the frame counter and camera settings. The IXUS allows time stamping and predetermined captions. The shutter button is on the top right with pop up flash on the left.

Canon produced nearly 20 models of the APS in the IXUS/ELPH series. By then, digital compact cameras were gaining popularity. Canon introduced the Digital IXUS , a 2.11 MP in May 2000.The last model of the APS film series was the ELPH Z3, introduced in March 2002. Click on the link below for the complete range of Canon APS IXUS series of camera.

Shown below is how the APS IXUS size compares with a 35mm compact, the Olympus XA3 and the digital IXUS S400. Note that the Olympus does not have a built in flash.

Compared to the Digital IXUS S400 (2003)

References (This will open a new web page)

About the Advance Photo System (APS)
Canon APS Film IXUS/ELPH range

My First SLR

Posted by Kermitfm On 11 Feb, 2015 12 Feb, 2015 Filed under Photography No Comments

The first camera that I owned was a Kodak Instamatic. When my interest in photography grew, I wanted to have a SLR camera with interchangeable lens. I thought that this will enable me to shoot better pictures but I found out later that this was not the case. I bought my first SLR when I was training in Japan It was a Nikon FM, at that time, the ‘entry-level’ Nikon body. I coupled that with the lowest priced Nikkor zoom lens – the 43-86mm f/3.5. While I was not able to take great pictures, mainly because of the user and not the hardware, I was able to learn about the technical aspect of photography.

The Nikon FM is entirely a fully manual camera which means that no batteries are needed to operate the basic functions. It does have a light meter which uses button cells. The aperture and shutter speed is adjusted until a centre LED in the view finder is lit to show correct exposure. The maximum shutter speed is 1/1000th sec with a flash synch speed of 1/125 sec.

Over the years I purchased additional lenses. I added another low cost lens, albeit a Nikon one. This was the E-Series, 100mm f2.8. The E-Series lenses were produced for the Nikon budget SLRs – The EMs. With this lens, I learnt lessons in shutter speed and depth of field. Many of my photos were blurred due to the relative slow shutter speed used or when I shoot fully opened. Remember these were the days before VR and IS technology.

Two more lenses were added before I moved from the Nikon system. One was the 35mm f/2.8 which was the best Nikkor lens I owned. The other, bought at a bargain sale, was a Soligor 200mm f/3.5, which was the worst. Pictures taken with the Soligor were very soft and had very poor contrast. However, the mechanicals of the Soligor is good, because even to this day, the aperture and focus rings are still turning smoothly.

In the 80’s, electronic cameras with through-the lens (TTL) metering, and auto aperture, shutter and integrated motor drive were available at an affordable price. I then decided to purchase my next camera body. That’s a story for the next instalment.

To explore the Nikon FM furtehr, read the Nikon FM review at the Film Shooters Collective.

Visit to Siem Reap

Posted by Kermitfm On 9 Feb, 2015 9 Feb, 2015 Filed under Travel, Uncategorized No Comments

I visited Siem Reap in November 2014. I have thought that Siem Reap was a back water town and boy was I wrong. The city is the main gateway to Angkor which is a UNESCO Heritage Site. There are numerous archaeological sites scattered over an area of 400 km². The town is full of tourists and you will have no difficulties finding suitable accommodations to meet your budget.

Transportation was not a problem also as hired cars and Tuk-Tuks were readily available around the clock. As I stay right next to the old market and Pub Street, there was a wide selection of restaurants and food outlets to fill the stomach.

The sights were astounding. I will let the gallery show you some of the sights.

Visit my Siem Reap gallery

Camera: Canon 6D
Lens: EF 24-105mm f/4 L, EF 40mm f/2.8

Kermitfm, Page 6 Author

Single Shot #2

Single Shot #1