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 ...

Photography: 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.

Photography: Jom Scouting @ Pasar Pagi

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.

Photography: Nikon Show @ Midvalley

This is one of the long overdue post. I'm walking around the Midvalley looking for a good deal in either the 50mm lens or flash unit, and came across Nikon Road Show. Remember that my friend told me there is a free sensor cleaning services, I take a peek at the booth. Too bad, it's close for the day, but Nikon Model Shootout is starting. Immediately I grab my D90 and start shooting.




All models on stage, total 11 of them.

A word of warning though, this post is long and loads of photos! So might take a while to load up. Thanks for seeing =) and comment much appreciated!

Loi Fatt Claypot Yee Mee @ Ipoh

Got lots of long overdue post that's hanging in my draft box, too busy to complete it. Anyway, I went back to hometown last weekend and my dad told me there is this BEST Claypot Yee Mee in town, saying I must try. I love yee mee since I'm in high school and am always in search for the better one wherever I go. So off we go to try it out at Loi Fatt Restaurant in Ipoh for breakfast.


Loi Fatt Restaurant is fully packed when we got there. 90% of the crowd is consuming Claypot Yee Mee, what a sight.