Vonderful Visit!

We touched down on a Saturday morning via MH 0005 Frankfurt am Main to KL still relishing in our minds the wonderful memory of spending a week in the German city of Frankfurt Main. Lots of frankfurters and beers were consumed during this trip... check out the gut in the photo :-) for evidence. We also walked and travelled quite a bit during this short but interesting trip. The first 3 days were spent mainly in Frankfurt Main city itself. Our hotel is located about 10mins walk from the city area. Just minutes from Maritim hotel (a business one), one arrives at the Festhalle Frankfurt, the city's concert and exhibition hall. On the 25th, George Michael performed there and all of us in our hotel rooms could hear his display of vocal prowess (actually very pleased with the free concert :-)). The main attraction to our trip was a visit to the Leica camera factory in Solms. We accessed Solms via the Giessen town passing by Wetzlar and finally to the quiet town of Solms. All this by magnetic levitated trains. What more can we say: very pleased indeed with all the historical cameras in the factory. What an experience to behold. Also we witnessed the production of lenses, polishing processes, adhesion processes, and of course, the assemblying of the the new M8 digital camera. Our tour of the factory ended 2 hours later and we roamed further the town of Solms before departing back to Frankfurt. Danke Frankfurt!

Mini Photokina in Kuala Lumpur

So, I've finally held it, admired it, and fiddled with it. The new Leica M8 digital rangefinder is a marvel: everything an M shooter expects from this camera is well presented. Like many has said, truly a Leica M it is. The quality of the physical camera is good and there's a touch of classic Leica workmanship on this latest offering.

That said, I am pretty disappointed not being able to test out the actual shoot with my current lenses (21/35asph/90). And the lame excuse was ' no battery.' Darn! What a hiccup! A mini photokina without batteries for the M8??? Really a disappointment. Either that or there was indeed a problem with the sample M8 they had there and was hiding the fact by blaming it on the batteries.

Summing up, despite the disappointment, I was throughly pleased though with Schmidt Scientific, the local distributor who organised the elegant event in Boulevard Hotel. The Leica product manager who presented the new digital was also quite fluid in his presentation flow i.e.: not being too technical the least.. Tasty refreshments and a not too crowded model photo shoot after also enlightened the event. Mingling with fellow photographers was also nice, especially with Raymond and Torben...

So, the million dollar question is again........... 'Are you gonna spend RM19k for this M8???' Answer: 'I probably would.... '

Mac ed

Apple Macintosh has always been special in my heart although mostly I've been a PC user since my school days. So when I finally could afford a sleek and sharp looking white Macbook last month, I jumped at that opportunity. So, fast forwarding... what do you think, many of you may ask. Simplicity and iconic are my 2 cents on this Intel duo core powered machine. The Tiger O/S is simply, simple and easy to comprehend. I probably only went thru the online Mac help once or twice considering I've been a life long Windows user. Aperture, on the other hand is Apple's answer to Adobe's Photoshop software. For RAW shooters and editors, this has got to be the most useful software as it allows RAW file editing without sacrificing the original RAW data. And with its extensive library function, the revolution of Aperture is likely to overcome that of Photoshop given a few more years to come.

Eric Clapton Live In Singapore, 13th January 2007

The real deal! Think it's a good idea to get some Clapton records / guitars / memorabilias off to Singapore for autographing? Errrrr..... I doubt I could be within 10m off Eric...

Dream A Little Dream Of Me...

The past few weeks have been pleasant for me. Managed to book online tickets to Slowhand's concert in Singapore next year. Yeah, next year you ask... I'm not gonna take risk of missing what may be Clapton's last concert in this region. He's 60+ for heaven's sake. I'm so thoroughly excited I'm looking at the tickets everyday! :-)) Really looking forward to his classic material. Wish to listen for myself what 'woman tone' is 'live'. I shall be posting on that come January'07. Keep you guys updated. Cheers,