An interesting box made by some kids…

Darling habour

Water feature

Went to Sydney Habour where the Sydney habour bridge and the famous opera house are. We call it ‘Circular Quay’ cos it’s a ferry terminal.

 The above lights look similar, but they are actually different. (See the inside)

Circular Quay is full of fancy pubs and restaurants. It’s too early to have people there though…

This is the Cruise Terminal… International Cruise

Hyatts

This is not the best hotel in the city, but many Hollywood Movie Stars stay here when they are here. See ‘Why’ in the reflection…

See the white stuff on on top the pole? They are not Seagull drops. They are actually the remaining paint of some kind that are suppose to protect the top…

You see, the shadow on the opera house is the habour bridge.

Well, I didn’t adjust the ‘white balance’, but it is closer to what I saw.

Fashion in movement.

As of 2 Aug 2010, these two blu-ray 3D movie discs are the only two in the world that a 3D LED TV user can get. In fact the one on the Left is not available for retail, it only comes with the purchase of a 3D Samsung LED TV. The one on the right is the world’s first blu-ray 3D disc for retail. People who check illustrated 3D movie list may say this is not true, there are other 3 3D movie discs. However, 1 is using old 3D technology, the other 2 disc are not released yet. At least they will not be available for retail for quick some time.

So which one I like better? The one on the left that comes with a Samsung LED 3D TV, it gives more 3D experience. While the one on the right seems to have more complication in terms of story and modeling. And it is nicely packaged, it costs AUD$39 in JB Hi-Fi in Sydney.

This is Samsung 3D LED TV series 8 46″. In Australia it is called UA46C8000. The other model in 8 series is 55″ one UA55C8000. It is the same TV with bigger size screen. Technology wise, there is also 9 series with 1 55″ model. But the model is not available in the store yet. The Samsung website doesn’t even have a RRP for it yet. The 3D blu-ray player is Samsung BDP C6900.

The good thing about 8 series compare to 7 is that it has better black (called accurate dimming), and it doesn’t have halo effect in the screen, plus it process better movement. That’s good, as I like Black & White movies. I watched ‘Roman Holiday’ and ‘Sunset Boulevard’ with up-scaling, at least ‘Sunset Boulevard’ is surprisingly good in details. I haven’t try all my other Black and White movie DVDs.

In Australia, the TV is 5 stars (out of 6) for energy efficiency. Well, not surprised, cos it is a LED.

Beautiful TV stand and metal frame. (especially compare to the new 9 series.)

The TV itself comes with a free 3D starter kit, which includes the 3D blu-ray movie disc and not 1 but 2 battery powered 3D glasses. However, I still ordered a USB chargable glasses shown above. It is said that this glasses is better, although not clear how? I haven’t compare the two yet. The batteries glasses has been put away for guest use.

“Kung Fu Panda” a must have, amazing in blu-ray; “Into the blue”, not worth it, It was on sale. I bought it because I have a DVD version. So just want to compare the blu-ray version and the DVD up-scaling (up-converting) playback. The difference is smaller than I expected. I don’t know, but I am suspecting this blu-ray version didn’t do a good job. Especially if you compare it to ‘Kung Fu Panda’. And the strange thing is the blu-ray version is not as good as the DVD version in color.

I doubt they will, but if they release ‘Kung Fu Panda’ in 3D, I will buy it.

This is taken in Sydney ‘the Taste of Shanghai’ restaurant.

More in a previous post

Link

I have been using GGS screen protector for my Nikon D90 here; Naturally I ordered a GGS for his little friend - Olympus E-PL1. Check online or in Ebay ‘GGS’ and find out why it is one of the best solution.

You may have seen this photo before. Yes, I take this photo each time I want to test some new photographic gear. In this case my new Olympus E-PL1 + Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens. You might seen many familiar frames in this post. Yes I have taken most of them before.

Starting from the Art Gallery of NSW.

This is the same spot, taken with the E-PL1’s built-in art filter - “Soft Focus”.

In this kind of normal shooting condition photos, at least, E-PL1 is every bit as good as Nikon D90 with Nikon prime lens in IQ.

There is some reflection on the glass board in from the the object.

I have never taken a photo of the lobby before. This is a very difficult shooting condition. It is better taken with tripods and with ‘auto bracketing’.

Front gate statue - female.

Front gate statue - male

Near St. Mary’s Cathedral.

Inside Kinokuniya bookstore downtown CBD, Sydney

The best Laksa in Sydney. just downstairs on Ground level of Victoria Gallery, where Kinoyunia bookstore is (one level 2).

This is the name of the restaurant.

QVB, beautiful in the dusk.

Qipao, penciled eyebrows, elegant mannerism, that’s Old Shanghai Style.

Those have been more or less “officially” documented in the old Shanghai advertisement drawing like the one above. The famous ones of these drawings were made by one artist call - Zhiying Hang. 杭zhi英，the character of ‘zhi’ is so complicated, it cannot even be found in the input system I have in my Mac. He painted the following watercolor masterpiece - 霸王别姬 Farewell My Concubine：

The lady roles in those paintings are mostly somewhat based on the movie stars of that time (1930’s-1940’s) in Shanghai. Like the following one:

This is a very famous female movie star of the time in Shanghai called Shangguan Yunzu - 上官云珠, which means ‘Pearl in the crown’. She was known to play ’second wife’ or someone who is making trouble of other people’s marriage. You can have a glimpse of her in the following video clip starting from 1:17.

As you can imagine, after the founding of the P R China, she has no role to play anymore in a communist Shanghai at that time of China. She didn’t give up, she waited and finally played some roles. One of the role was a Communist party guerrilla leader who lead her team fighting the Japanese invaders in the Hainan Island of South China. The Chinese audiences were shocked at her performing ability. If only Chinese actresses were allowed to contest in Cann or Oscar back then.

Unfortunately, she had a very sad and tragic ending.

She suicide during Cultural Revolution in 70’s. She was forced to report in detail what exactly happened during a meeting with Chairman Mao when he was visiting Shanghai on 1960’s. Some believes this was Mao’s wife Jian Qin’s doing. On the 3rd night, she was beaten up, and before she went out of the investigation room, she was slapped on her faces and kicked from behind out of that room. And she was told if she still not cooperating, then starting from tomorrow she will be responsible for whatever that will be happening to her and her life. She jumped out of the window of her room the following morning losing all hope…

The above image is Tokina 80-400mm + Kenko 1.4x teleconverter + Nikon Lens adapter to micro 4/3 mount + Olympus E-PL1

400mm x 1.4 x 2 = 1120mm (35mm camera equivalent)

(2 is 4/3 form factor; E-PL1 has in-camera image stabilizer)

This is Tokina at 80mm end without 1.4x teleconverter.

This is at 80mm end with 1.4x teleconverter

This is Tokina at 400mm end without 1.4x teleconverter

This is Tokina at 400mm end with 1.4x teleconverter.

I have done Tokina 80-400mm testing on Nikon D90 and lens testing on the same physical spot in this following post, so you can go and look how Sydney AMP tower looks at all different mm’s.

http://www.huatongoversea.com/blog/?p=450

The noise in the image is due to the fact that it is getting dark, and that the test is all done hand held, therefore the very high ISO…

If on tripods, you can have ISO 200 quality and better focusing of course.

I am still wondering whether this teleport setup can be of any use, giving that, all manual focusing and manual exposing… etc.

Can any experienced one suggesting some potential and possible use of this?

E-PL1 doesn’t have the in-camera IS though, that’s 1 thing.

BTW, 1120mm is the longest so far for any kinds of consumer photography, right? Please C&C and correct… Thanks

Some people report the low dynamic range issue of E-PL1. Yesterday was a over cast, I took a steel root statue in front of the MCA museum of Sydney. It really seems there is dynamic range issue.

See the shadowed are all burnt black. There is very less middle tone. And this is after I have already run through one in-camera ’shadow fix’ in the E-PL1. I don’t know. This is dynamic range issue, right? Please correct and C&C.

So I did some fix and PP in Camera Raw in Adobe CS5. Some called it single frame HDR. This is the result.

The photo was shot in ISO 200, 1/400, 22mm (44mm for 35mm equivalent)

There are better middle tone and shadow details, but there seems to be many color noise in the shadow. Can some experience photographers give us some guide and comment on this issue?

I am a Nikon D90 user, I love E-PL1, because I don’t know to take D90 with me in informal and chilling out time.