Friday, March 21, 2008

Sony PSP-2000 MG (PlayStation Portable Slim Mint Green) FTW!!!


Yeah baby! Just bought me self a PSP slim last week. As you can see from the pic, I bought the recently released Mint Green PSP. Sweet ain't it? >o< It has that 'minty' feel to it alright. Makes me wanna bite it like a chewing gum or something, lol.

The 'colour-ed' PSP is part of the aptly named 'BLUME' series introduced by Sony which consist of several soft pastel colour. These colour include 'Felicia Blue', 'Rose Pink', 'Lavender Purple' and also 'Mint Green'. I guess Sony is trying to project a 'flowery' feel to these PSPs coz BLUME somes same to BLOOM. You know, like flower blooming? Okay, nevermind =_=", so now instead of the 'Piano Black', 'Ceramic White' and 'Ice Silver', people have a wider choice. I guess if you have enough money, you can buy all colours and do match-n-mix with your clothes.


Sony's signature console buttons Triangle, Square, Circle and Cross are reincarnated on the PSP. The top L/R buttons are cool transparent!


Here you have your digital movement keys and the analog joystick. Oh, and notice the glittery-sparkly finishing.


Green body, green theme. (But can set to other colour also lah.)

Actually I was poisioned by Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core. It's a PSP game focusing on the prologue of the PS One Final Fantasy VII. But now, I'm playing Monster Hunter Freedom 2 more than FFVII:CC. Here is a pic of a in-game real-time cut scene of MHF2. I have to say, I am dam impressed that a small device like this can churn out real-time 3D graphics like that.

Now I bring this baby wherever I go. In my morning trips on the LRT, I'll be staring at the 480x272 wide screen slashing dinos and collecting ores. Dam, makes me miss checking-out the babes on the LRT, lol.









Gunung Angsi - One day hike


Well, as I've mentioned in my previous post, I planned to go into the mountains again. This time, me and my buddies are tackling Gunung Angsi, which is located in Negeri Sembilan. This mountain is 825 meters above sea level. Not very tall, but still provides some challenges.

Reaching there is rather simple. Just get into Seremban, then head to Kuala Pilah road. This will lead you to a winding road like Initial-D. Drive along the road and soon you will see Ulu Bendol. Ulu Bendol is one tourist location which consist of rivers and small water falls. I used to camp there when I was in the Scouts, ahh, memories.

Our journey begins from here. There is another route up to the summit though. It is a hidden track 3 to 4 kilometers before the main 'Ulu Bendol' entrance. We only found this out when we met a bunch of climbers at the summit who pointed it out. By the way, if you plan to ascend from Ulu Bendol, don't get duped by the lousy 'staff' at the offices there who claim a certain fee from you. Dam bastards probly used it to drink teh or eat nasi lemak.

Anyway, the climb is suitable for beginners or even intermediates. Since it's not very tall, one can tackle the summit and still have plenty of time to spare. We started our climb around 8 or 9am. And was just about 3 to 4pm when we reached back at the car park.

Expect the normal tropical forest foliage, monkey howls and small streams along the path. I still remembered when I was in the scouts the slopes seemed impossible for me. They are quite bearable now... maybe I've grown stronger, wahaha.


Holy mackerel! Saw these streams of ants along the path. I guess their 'nest' were blown down by the wind and they had to move or something. I had a few shots dam geli one. Macro pics of thse ants... which has big 'butts'. Haha, better not bah. I remember seeing some geli pics on the net... which stuck to my mind till now... curse those people who post those pics... =_="


Yup, I like the shade under the forest canopy. When the weather is good, being in the trees feel just so gud. Warmth from the sun is toned down from cool breeze; fresh air and bird chirps. Need I say moar? (Hah, of course when things go bad in the forest, it goes real bad).


My friend TeeHu saw this lil' critter worming around on the floor. Damn unique caterpillar! Little bugger kept wiggling around, so hard to shoot it. Doesn't it look like a tooth brush? Lol.


Woots, dam likes how the mountains fade away into the horizons. Reminds me of how my father used to teach me how to draw mountains - the colors get lighter as the mountains are further away.


This shot was taken on the summit of Angsi. TeeHu pointed out a red colored tree amongts the greeneries. Had to mess around with the tweaking... ended up with this... bleh...


JK ah... =P On the left is Tiong's wife, who joined us on several occasions on mountain hikes n stuff. Middle is Teehu and right is Tiong.


Shot courtesy of TeeHu. He was going for those 'Depth of Field' shots. Hah, S5 has limited DOF.


I mean it!


Forest + clear skies + forest ambient = win!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Canon S5 Reborned! Canon S5 IS + LAH-DC20 = FTW!!!!


"I should've bought this wayyy earlier!". That's what I told myself when I plugged in the Canon LA-DC58E lens adapter and Canon LH-DC40 lens hood. I don't know about you but DAM, my S5 IS just grew more fierce! That's Rawrrr for you!!

Why I dint get this baby earlier? That's cause I was waiting for my credit card to order this online: Lensmate METAL adapters. (btw, didn't know S5 had a silver colour...) Yeah, Lensmate adapters are metal while the Canon one is tadaaa - plastic. Ugh... what gadget still uses plastic nowadays?

But luckily it still looks dam yeng and dam cool. Lol. Check out the comparison pics below. Dam, I'm loving my Canon S5 IS even moar. *Hugzzz Canon S5 IS*

And why did I suddenly bought it? Coz I was goin into the mountains again, so wanted protection for the S5 prime lens. The adapter allows a filter to be applied, thus protecting the prime lens.

Oh and btw, I'm taking these shots using my Nokia 6260 VGA cam. =_=" So yeah lots of noise n stuff. LOLx! Unbearable photo quality!

 

It's all about the looks

Canon S5 IS before and after 'facelift'. Dam, I thought those were two DIFFERENT cameras, lol. Right pic... now that's what I call mean! Notice in the left pic, the prime lens is exposed COMPLETELY! No protection what so ever. But with the adapter, filter and hood, the prime lens is now under some pretty good defense.


Top view and side view. Haha, when I showed it to my friend TeeHu he thought it was a lens at first glance, then only he knew "it's just a piece of glass", Lol.


This is how the baby looks like mounted on a (cheapo) tripod. Quite yeng also.

 

Feel and function
Well, this is the overall look of the S5 on a tripod. The tripod seems to spoil the canggih-ness of the canon S5 now... let's see how it will look like once I get my hands on the Manfrotto Modo tripod. Hiaks hiaks.

Well, looks aside, the adapter do add quite a lot of 'functionality' to the S5. The first thing I noticed is that the grip is now wayyy better. The elongated nozzle now allows my left hand something to 'hold on' to while shooting. Really helps when I have a big hand.

Then of course there's the versatility of filter lenses to be used. All the UV, ND, Polarizing and what not. For me it's just a plain UV protective lens. May probably go into those other lenses in the future ;).

The S5 has become moar 'durable' and +50 confidence to the user while taking photos. Definitely a must-have for S5 users. ( Why am I writing like I'm doing a review? Wait... am I? ) We'll see how this gadget effects my shooting. Till next time, cheerio!


Hood skrews onto Filter> Filter Skrews onto Adapter> Adapter snaps onto body. Voila!