Calmness is Within

I like this pic.  It gives me some sense of calmness every time I look at it.

Apart from that, I can't find anything else to say about it :D

A good picture..

Ever wondered how and what a good picture is defined?
I ain't no professional photographer...but to me..



A good picture makes my heart skip a beat, just like this one =)

Mini Chocolate Mud Cake - LML's creation
Shot with Lumix LX3

And most of the time..I'd find a perfect quote to go with good pictures....

Fluke Shots

I do think these shots are quite breath taking.

Guess... where was I when I took these?

My car :D

And I was only using my basic MotoZine ^.^

http://quotegarden.com/nature.html:
Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars... and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful.  


Everything is simply happy.  Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance.  


Look at the flowers - for no reason.  It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.  ~Osho

LX3 @ KL Bird Park

Official Website :http://www.klbirdpark.com/
Map : http://www.klbirdpark.com/visitor.htm

Different Viewpoint

I saw this view while I was jogging by the lake yesterday, couldn't resist snapping a shot since I had my handphone with me.  Normally I don't carry the phone when I jog..I had to yesterday for some silly reason, one of those stupid things I do.

Anyway..evening views are always nice in this park.  One of the reason why I am growing to like evening jogs here. 

What do you see or rather..what are your thoughts when you see this?

To me..it's just a nice ....view.   Half complete building ..with it's own reflection on the water.  If I had the camera with me..the relection of the orangy sunlight will be even more visible on the water.  Ermm..that's about it. 

One person made a comment when I put this up on Facebook.  It says:
"beauty can emerge amidst a concrete jungle in the making. great job capturing it ".



So deep huh..took me a while to digest the sentence.  Or..was I slow?
I gotta improve my literacy skills?

....may be it's just that a different set of eyes...interpretes the scene differently? But then...the eye transmits the informtion to the brain and the brain processes the information accordingly.

Hmm...

lol.

Jogja at Random

Just realised I have not finished rambling about Jogja :-P

This willl be the last I promised and since I took the trouble to do this despite having no connection at home..you guys had better treasure this!

Sunset at Parangtritis Beach - my favourite shot from the entire trip :-)

Malioboro at daytime

Malioboro at night

Pasar Burung (Bird Market)

Colorful chicks!

How about waking up to a scene like this? We spend a nite at a small rest house called Rajasa Hotel near Borobudur

Can you spot the Sleeping Buddha face ?(hint : it's facing up)

Somehow I like this.

LX3 Optional Accesories

One word.
C O O L.

For more information click HERE

Look Up!

Most of the time we don't have to look very far for a good sight.

As the saying goes.."stop to smell the roses"

The clouds formation are beautiful these days..or had it been always beautiful?

Not too late to notice now.

I couldn't resist shooting these eventhough I only had the phone camera with me.

I had the lX3 on stand by on the following evening.   It was about 6.45pm.

This was my first attempt.

Not easy when driving on a busy road.  Think they will ban photo taking while driving..after reading this post.

Here's the 2nd attempt.  Could have done better if I had more time on the road and if the road wasn't so busy. hehe.

Close up of the same shot.

This was taken just now over dinner.  It's the 15th day of the Chinese calendar month.  There's always full moon on 1st and 15th day.

Hope to take better ones when I Look Up again :)

Collage Making Freeware

I've  been making collages manually using Microsoft Powerpoint and it is pretty painful having to insert, resize and arrange the photos manually.  Jenny and I was viewing some photo's in an FB album when it suddenly occured to us that there must be softwares for collages.  Hmm..were we slow or ignorant :D

Collages are good to have when we do not wish to end up with hundreds of pictures in an album. 
So..I've been googling for ...freeware of course.

Found one today from http://www.shapecollage.com/

It takes only about a few minutes to download and another few minutes to install.

It is also fairly easy to use but one will need some patience to understand and experiment with various functions options on the right column.

1st : Load all the photos that you want to include into the collage
2nd : Adjust shape, size, appearance, angle, etc to your liking. Eg. tilt degree of photos, border of photos, etc

3rd : Click preview to see how the photo arragement will look like based on your settings.  Each click generates different arrangement.  You can preview as many times as you wish ....till you find an arrangement that you like.

4th : Click CREATE once you are satisfied and your creation will be saved.

SIMPLE & FUN.


If you don't like it..do it again.

You can also create a larger collage by increasing the total # of photos even though you only have very few photos

Bored of rectangle collage? Opt for other shapes. HEART SHAPE anyone?

That's why the site is called SHAPECOLLAGE.COM    =))

LX3 was in PD

streamyx at home is down again. so frustrating. wonder when i wil get my life back
and i can't stand not updating this page for more than 48 hrs.  so..in case..i still don't get connection tonite..i hv to do something now!

Quick one..since i'm hvg luch at my desk.

Here are some pics i took in PD using the LX3.
Friends in FB would have seen these already.... thought I should have some here too..sometiems pic quality looks nicer here. :)

Hmm..they look kind of dark in this work PC of  mine.  What about yours?

The more i look at the pics..the more I liked them :D...self praising.

Anyway..I've only selected the following series.

They actually tell a 'story'...

man..alone..

man ..alone..with me..crouching closer at his back..without him knowing..

i think..the man turned and saw me..

some hot chick..walking up from the beach...

hot chick..bend down in front of man :D...man turned away..cos BF approachin from left

ha.ha.

Pandora Recovery Freeware

And I thought I can settle down to unwind after a long day out. Nope.
I just had some distressed hours desperately downloading & trying out various file softwares to recover photos I clumsily erased from the SD card.

Guess what.

As of 12.43am just now..I had successfully recovered all my photos ^.^

Thanks to Google...it was fairly easy to locate several blogs and websites that touched on the subject matter. 

Thanks to this BLOG that recommended a few freewares.
It states:
Most people think that if you erase your memory card (accidentally or intentionally) that the pictures are gone forever. Most people couldn't be more wrong. Your erased pics are still there until you take more pics and overwrite them. You just can't see them, for now. Just remember not to take any more pics on that card just yet.


 

It was not an easy task.  I must have downloaded and tried out at least 4 different softwares.  Most worked excellently in recovering..it was amazing...but most also require a fee to purchase a code to do actual recovery.

Some did not work at all.

Turst me..it was a daunting process...downloading..and testing..time wasted in waiting for the software to search...one took as long as 2 hours..but in the end found out it's not free after all.

Persistent..pays well.
Alas..Panda Recovery did the job!  The download/ installation and recovery process was very simple too.
It took about 10 mins to search the card ..nest..all I had to do was to select the photos..and click the magic button :

RECOVER

I'm so so happy.

Now..I can show off my pictures :D

Now...I can have a peaceful sleep :)

Nite Nite.

Why did I choose Lumix Lx3?

Just realised that I haven't really mention what made me finally decided to get the LX3 instead of say the FZ35 or Canon's G11 or Sx20 or Nikon's P90...since I was initially more interested in style.  Well..I initially thought it's so much more stylo to hold a bigger bulkier gadget.  I was actually eyeing the FZ35 since I didn't quite like the others. However..as days goes by..the practicality issue struck me harder and harder.  And of coure..I've said many times....my liking towards LX3 grew by day.

Wait..I just saw the Panasonic recently released a GF1. Whoa...looks similar to LX3 ler. How come nobody recommended to me ler?  tsk tsk tsk. 

Just found this simple yet informative review by wirefresh.  According to the article, GF1 is like a grown up of LX3.  How cool.  It's a DSLR by the way.  No wonder no one recommended to me..I was only targeting a semi-pro. lol.  So...if you are looking for a less bulky DSLR....there's an option now..Lumix GF1!

That leads me back to why I chose LX3.  Yeah..because of convenience.  I cannot imagine myself carrying such a bulky gadget with me all the time.  Especially when I'm a so called blogger that love to take candid shots of food, people, places...imagine..in the midst of eating with  friends or family..and I whisk out this this bulky gadget to take a pic of the...food for example.  I just don't see myself doing that.  In fact I used to glare at Trish whenever she takes out her DSLR and forced us to pose for her!

Jenny who owns a G10 also confirmed that she only utilise her gadget when she is out travelling...not at social ocassion. 

There you go..how I decided to go compact instead of style & size.

Besides..as I mentioend numerous times here:

LX3 is cool.

LX3 is smart looking.

LX3 is good to be seen with.

Hmm....I should get Panasonic to pay me for all these free publicity.

Looks aside...the LX3 does have quite good specifications.  As you would have already noticed..I'm more a sucker for looks and style..less techy.  So..i won't try too hard to be techy here.

But over the few weeks, when I did little short read up, rersearches and window shopping on the few short listed models...comments and reviews about the offerings of  LX3 did leave me with more confidence.  Was told over and over again that it's aperture range of F2.0 to 2.8 is extraordinary and can't be found in most cameras.  This translates to better picture quality..especiall when shooting in darker surroundings.  Great isn't it.

Ok..I made my points ..I think. I won't bore you anymore with stories about LX3.  But..you will definitely see more pics ...hahah..until I get bored showing off. 

Leaving you here with a  little expriement I did today with the panaromic maker software.  Nice?

Finally Decided - Panasonic's Lumix LX3 it is!

La di da...it's finally here..with me..in my arms :-)

Deep inside I wanted it. It's just that I couldn't decide if I should have a 'gaya' (i.e. stylish) looking model like the FZ35 or a compact LX3 and the fact that EVERYONE's recommending Canon made it even more difficult for me to make a decision.

See for youselves.  Canon S90 on the right and Lumix LX3 on the left.  Do you see the vast difference?  My friend Jenny who has more experience with cameras preferred Canon after trying both.  The salesperson at the Canon booth was very convincing BUT I just couldn't get myself to own 'that thing'.  I'm not going to say more...don't want Canon to come after me ..hehe.  It's just personal..I don't like it.
 
So I was depressed.  that no one ..and nothing was convincing enough to push me to make the final decision.
 
Almost went home empty handed man..then..I told the gals to accompany me to Key Color ..a camera shop at the second floor in MV.
 
I was so happy ...I tell..you...when the guy confidently explained to us the key differences between the two models.  Don't care if he is bias or not (he's wearing a Lumix sponsored t-shirt)..though he claimed he is not from Lumix...don't care..but his explanation were clear and pretty fair for both models.
 
I just needed to hear something good for LX3 and it's MINE!
 
Some test pics I took over dinner at Spaghetti Grill.  We have re-named it to 'Chang Kam Tit"..apparently a spin-off from Chilli's..Chris who is a regular to Chilli's thinks that everything here is a 'little less nice' compared to Chilli's ..haha.
 
 

My verdict??

Salad's not bad ...

Pasta..not bad too..but Pizza..not very good..that's why no picture...even picture didn't look tasty :-D

So how..the pic quality ok or not?

Lot's more functions to learn.  I wonder if I will ever go through the manually thoroughly.

 
 
Guess what...so excited with my new toy..I forgot to take the meds -.- Only remembered to take a while ago...at 1am!