Singapore: Here I Come!

This year I'll be counting down for 2009 at Singapore. I'd made 6 trips to Singapore this year and this will be my 7th trip. Previous trips were just day trips, done over the weekend, alone (yes, pathetic), while I was working in JB for a project. Singapore is considered extremely small compared to Malaysia, but I find that I like that place very much. Every corner of the country is safe, clean and organized. Public infrastructure is first class, and I can get most of the things there, especially photography stuffs.

For the upcoming trip, I've decided to put in some extra effort of carrying my tripod there. Besides that, I will be bringing my EOS5D, EF24-105mm F/4L IS USM and EF70-200mm F/4L IS USM, packed inside a Lowepro Flipside 400AW. Hopefully it's a fruitful trip for me.

Here is the shot I took in February, handheld and thanks to IS.

24mm, F/4, 1/15s, ISO1600

KLCC

My buddy finally got influenced by me to purchase the value-for-money EF85mm F/1.8 USM. This lens will be coupled with his EOS400D as a portrait lens. The Canon shop in KLCC has 5 units of it in stock, so we headed there in the evening. I brought my tripod along to perform some simple AF test, just to make sure the lens is not having the front/backfocusing issue which we faced it 2 weeks ago at another shop. The EOS400D body had been calibrated at Canon due to slight front focusing but it's working perfectly now. When you perform an AF test on the lens, it's important that your camera body is focusing accurately, or vice versa.

Lucky enough, the lens' AF nailed on each test shot. After testing for almost 20 minutes, my friend was fully satisfied and we left the shop with the lens. While it was still early, we went to the KLCC Park to wait for the magical hour. With the tripod, we can afford to use the lowest ISO setting at 100, F-number of 11 and as long as 6s of shutter speed. After waiting for almost 30 minutes, this is what we captured with a EF-S 17-85mm F/4-5.6 IS USM at 27mm (35mm equiv).

My Birthday Present

EOS5D, EF50mm F/1.4 USM (F/2, 1/125s, ISO100)

The parcel has finally arrived my house today, from Amazon.com. Usually it takes more than a month to reach but this round is truly fast - exactly 2 weeks from the day of ordering. Out of the four books, one of them was bought at Kinokuniya today. The other three books were paid by my father as my birthday present. What a lucky son! It's time to get serious with my CCIE studies. :)

Woei Chuan & Pauline (AD)