Danga Bay @ Johor Bahru - 2nd attempt

Professional always advise amateur photographer to continuously perfecting their skills by learning at the street. Visiting the same places over and over again to find faults during review time. I went for my 2nd attempt in JB's favourite hang-out place, Danga Bay, again to test my skills.

Is there any improvements? Please comment so I can learn. Thanks.


An intro of my photography location.

Soon Soon Lye Salmon Fish Head Restaurant

Ok, more food to introduce. My wife and me are fish lover, we have fish almost every meal and we love it. Partly because my mum's family is fishermen generation, we have fish everyday. And of course, it's healthy food that all girls will like. My wife found a place to eat fish head noodle at Bandar Puteri Puchong, but not normal fish head. It's Cod Fish Head Noodle! First time I heard of it in my life. Worse that when I reached there, I saw below.


Not only Cod Fish Head, but Salmon Fish Head! Introducing the Soon Soon Lye Salmon Fish Head Restaurant.

Go up to the internal decoration, it's quite a typical chinese eating outlet where it's neat and also practical to fit as much table as possible. It's very windy and they do switch on the air-cond even it's open space. Nice touch, but meaning more expensive meal. No doubt.


The place is clean, spacious and empty when we got there. It's almost 2.30pm on Friday, probably all went back to work already. Nice, so I can get a clear shot.

Happy Birthday

A bit late, but taking the space to wish my wife, Happy Birthday =)


A special gift for her =)

The purpose

I've totally forgotten about the purpose that I've set to create this blog, To Share Life & Joy. I've learned a lot throughout my life and I'm a deep observer of surroundings, especially human emotions. We are shaped by the community and most of the times, we forgot how to live our life and missed seeing the purpose of living. It saddens me whenever I see people working their hardest to earn a living and missed living their life. Life can have lots of definition to individual, but I defined it as anything that will make you happy. What else can it be?

The truth is reveal whenever I post my favourite ultimate question, if you have a million dollars income every year, what will you do now? The answer will reveal what you will want in your real life. We are trapped by the money paper that human created to value life and success. Money do give you what you want, but it cannot buy happiness. It's actually only a piece of useless paper, and the true value is only when you exchange it for something you wanted. That create the value and bring it into your life.

I have lots to share but always do not have enough time to do so. I critic on things that I do not understand and I'm also been judged for doing so. Sorry to my friends that I might have offended, but I'm just caring and hoping for others to see the light. Maybe only my definition of light, stay around if you agree, I will try my best to share more in coming future.

DIY - Best Budget Full White PC Setup

My sister is looking for a desktop for her work and asked my help. Girl taste, so she requested particular all white setup for her desktop set like MAC. I did some search and come out with the following.

Asus P5KPL-AM G41 (RM174)
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2.8GHz 775BC 1066FSB 3MB L2 (RM364)
Kingston PC800 DDR2 2GB x 2 (RM159x2=RM318)
Western Digital 500GB 7200rpm 32MB SATA (RM169)
XFX 8400GS 512MB DDR2 64bit (RM118)
22" Fujitsu LM2230WB 2ms (RM639)
Liteon 24X SATA DVD-RW Combo (RM79)
Powerlogic White Mac Casing (RM75)
PSU Normal 450W (RM35)
Powerlogic Keyboard & Mouse (RM74)
Sonic Gear Ego 3nity White (RM59)
D-Link WIFI-150 N USB Adapter DWA-125 (RM66)

Total cost? RM2,104 only and the result is spectacular.


Photo captured with my Dopod D810 at 1600x1200 Super Fine setting.

I think this specification setup shall serve as a good guideline of a decent 22" LCD PC for a family that don't do much gaming. It's definitely pack more punch than doing some excel or watching TVB series. Hope it help, Cheers.

Danga Bay @ Johor Bahru

I've been running around "scouting" for places to photograph and of course I will never miss the famous Danga Bay at Johor Bahru. This place is one of the most famous place for couples and families. I took my loyal D90 together and start snapping.



I'm disappointed with the results but I still post some of the "best" shots here to remind myself of my naive thinking that I will get good shots with a good camera. The photographer skills are still very important. I strive to improve myself and this will be as a reminder of my bad technique!

100dC Steamboat, Teppanyaki & BBQ Restaurant

My wife tried out a new steamboat shop in Kuchai Lama and she wanted to bring me over. It's called 100 degree Celcius Steamboat, Teppanyaki & BBQ Restaurant (100dC), funny name but I suppose it means water boiled at 100dC. People are queuing around the shop and we are lucky to get a table for two immediately.

The shop is spacious, clean and stylish. Immediately I scouted around the menu and start ordering, we are starving. The first page explains the restaurant concept, but I got no time to read! I need food ...



Being a special steamboat shop, it offers a total of 9 type of soup base for you to choose, including Original Soup, Tom Yam Soup, Curry Soup, Fish Head Soup, Porridge Soup, Golden Porridge Soup, Herb Soup, Bak Kut Teh Soup, and Thai Sour & Spicy Soup. Phew, long list, but good to know =) Not sure if I missed out anything here ... hehe ...

The Heart of Alfa Romeo 147

Been quite boring recently, so I took out my tripod & flashlite, pop-up my hood and start shooting. Now I know that taking photograph isn't easy! I snapped lots of photo, and finally manage to capture 2 ok view. Enjoy the heart of my Alfa Romeo 147 ...


1st Shot - I detached the flashlite and setup my tripod right at the front of the engine bay. I placed my flash on the left side handheld. Side flash effect, but need improvement over the flashlite intensity.


2nd Shot - This time, I setup the camera lower, closer to the body and placed the flashlite up right to give the engine cover a lift. Somehow, I cant control the intensity and only noticed the burst after loaded to the comp.

Not satisfy, so I photoshop a little and result as following:


This is the effect that I'm looking for on the 2nd attempt. I darken the entire photo to reduce the burst light and create dark background to avoid distraction. Nice?

After 1 hour of shooting in the dark, I"m a satisfied photographer and Alfa owner =) Shall try it some other day for other part of the Alfa to show its beauty.

Random Shots - Pasar

Walking the Pasar with my mum, so took the chance to snap some shots. Enjoy.







Love the sunlight.



I'm using 50mm prime lens for all the shots, and it came off pretty well. Don't dare to snap too many photos, later shoo shoo by the owner saying I disturb their bussiness =P

What JPEG quality to use?

There is a never ending debate over the RAW vs JPEG in the web. For myself, I'm very lazy and always opt for the smallest file size to give biggest wow factor, so I always opt for the JPEG basic. Sometimes I will ask myself if I'm really taking up the correct JPEG quality setting, because professional always said, if you spent few thousands to buy the gear, why sacrifice the quality by choosing the lower quality photo?

Yeah, that confused me. But still, I'm very lazy and I hate managing too many photos that take me forever to sort out. Instead of listening to them, I did some test myself. Lets see.


Photo taken with Canon A570IS at 3072x2304 (Large) JPEG Fine and file size is 2,290KB. I cropped 100% and posted it here.


Photo taken with Canon A570IS at 3072x2304 (large) JPEG Basic and file size is 505KB. I cropped 100% and posted it here.

Can you see any difference? No? There is actually a major difference, which is the file size! If there is no difference in quality, then why bother taking JPEG in Fine format. Only wasting the file size, and I prefer to let my Canon A570IS or more intelligent Nikon D90 to compress it for me. The result is still satisfying. Sorry, testing it in the office, so only can do with A570IS.

I heard the difference will be more significant if shot is taken at night. Shall try again and post for your viewing. For now, I will stick to JPEG basic, maybe will try out RAW later when I have the free time to play with photoshop. Cheers.


Post Notes: Opps, forgotten to include the explanation on D90 settings. D90 photos quality basically divided into 2 category, as following:

Large (4288x2848)
Medium (3216x2136)
Small (2144x1424)

RAW (1:1 No compression)
Fine (1:4 compression)
Normal (1:8 compression)
Basic (1:16 compression)

In any circumstances, size shall not be sacrifice. The 12.3megapixels that is fitted onto CMOS sensor of D90 is incredible and everyone should make full use of every pixel. Each pixel is built-in with light sensor that detect primary colour of RGB, and the final result of the colour for that pixel is pick-up and recorded. By effectively reducing the size, the light sensor is shut-off to reduce the pixels count, why you would want that?

While jpeg compression is another story. By fully utilising the 12.3megapixels, the processor record every details but later it is converted into jpeg and apply compression accordingly. The compression process is similar to zip file, mp3 file or the TVB drama video compression that we watched. It effectively reduces the non-significant details that's not detectable by human eyes. If you are really picky, then you might be able to find some difference, but printing it out in 4"x3" photo frame, you will never notice the different. With example above, why bother doing fine?

I got a cheap computer and the processing of large amount of files is killing me. My joy still coming from shooting, viewing and sharing the photos in shortest time. So I am happy with the testing and will continue to stick to JPEG Large Basic setting for current time, until I'm ready to take up Photoshop for RAW.