Wednesday, October 03, 2018

Stationary bike

20 min for today. Can feel that my left to was coming into the painful region. 

Thursday, September 13, 2018

Still on today

Had about 4 slices of tempeh. Fried. And drank soya bean. Still drinking. Can't finish.

Still today.

Had half a plate for fried rice. Fried with extra egg. Down that with a glass of mango flavoured water. Trying to finish this big glass of soya bean.

Today, mid day

Had a glass of chocolate milk. Sunny side up egg with half a slice of bread. Going to get soya bean drink and soya bean curd next.

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Today...


Had a half boiled egg for bfast, and glass of chocolate milk. That's 2 protein exchanges... This is more difficult that I thought.

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

What I had for today.

Finished 640ml of plain water while driving for 2-3 hours. Then I had one half boiled eggs with soya sauce and 2 slices of bread with sides cut off with Kaya.

Monday, August 20, 2018

Exchange

8 protein exchange done for today and it's only the afternoon. No makan until settle at least 8 protein liquid intake. Amin.

Thursday, August 16, 2018

Steam chicken

Half a steam, skinless chicken breast for my 2 hour lunch. Delicious!

Tuesday, August 07, 2018

Yesterday 06083018

Woke up late so did not have anything in the am. But did take in something for the rest of the day.
1 x emborg yoghurt
1 x optifast
1 x coffee with equal and propass
2 x cup of soya bean
1 x bottle (500ml?) of water

Sunday, August 05, 2018

End of the day.

I end my day today with half a blue cup of soya bean, unsweetened. That was followed by a small bowl of vegetable soup with cream (delish!) And a full satcher of optifast which took me from 5 to 8 pm to finish. Oh well. I got a water bottle of water next to my bed. Going to sip on that until I fall asleep

This morning.

This morning wifey bought for me a large cup of soya bean milk with less (she said) or no (that's what it taste like) sugar. Took me the whole morning to finish it. But I like it because the drink was hot and it comes from the heart (wife's not the aunty who sells the soya bean drink).
Tried to down a glass of coffee with propass but it became an emulsion. Quite unlike the coffee I had yesterday, also with propass.


0508

Yesterday pm meal consist of 1 satchet of optifast and half a medim bowl of vegetable soup with cream. Also included is coffee with 1 table spoon of propast (not recommended at night... Caffeine)

Saturday, August 04, 2018

0308 afternoon

Yesterday afternoon meal consist of
1 x bowl of vegetable soup (cream)
1 x emborg protein
1 x 3 table spoon of spinach soup (salty...yucks)
1 x cup of soya bean milk

Thursday, August 02, 2018

Dinner.

1 x emborg yoghurt smoothie
1 x bowl of Campbell soup
1 x bowl of hello
Still sipping a bottle of water.

Lunch

Had a bowl of soup and orange juice. Still sipping water.





Bp

Bp today is 144/85. 1 hour after taking meds.

02082018

Morning.
2 portion on optifast
1 cup of coffee with evaporated milk
1 cup of plain yogurt
Constant sipping of water

Thursday, July 26, 2018

Zooms. The best of the worse?

Have been shooting with primes for the past year or two, I regret to say that my zooms have been in neglect. That is, not since yesterday when I read on one of the Facebook group about the Minolta 24-50 and the Minolta 24-35 zooms in MD mounts. That got me excited and I started reading up on them. It seems the Minolta 35-70 3.5 with macro comes up very often on the net. Granted some post can me many years ago but they got me excited nevertheless.

I went in deep looking for my 35-70. I knew I have yet to really shoot with this lens so I wanted to see what the hype was. I must say that I have to manage my expectations when I saw the images. Primes are much better. And if this zoom is one of the best in the rokkor range I wonder how would the rest do? As fast as as zooms go, this one does not disappoint in several ways. The ways it does disappoint is because of it's sheer design. For example it's biggest aperture is 3.5 and stopping down to 5.6 shows a stark, better difference in image quality. Compare this with a night fifty of 1.4... the dof or the shallow dof pales in comparison.

But one has to call a spade a spade. As far as zooms go, it does give good images. Coupled that with the convenience of carrying just one lens, this 35-70 is one of the best.

Not surprisingly I went to eBay and ordered a 24-35. I hope if the quality of the images produced is on par with the 35-70 then I might have the perfect kit for my holidays this coming December.











In the meantime, I will bring the lens outside and hopefully be able to catch more interesting shoots.





Thursday, July 19, 2018

Using the nikkor H.C 50mm f2.0

Made in Japan

I just received this lens for about 3 days already. Normally I would have lots of pictures taken. But literally I could not. I hurt both my shoulders and I find it even difficult to bring the viewfinder to my eyes. But I tried, using many things as support. 


Nikon Nikkor

First impressions: Very nice.
Besides being very affordable, its also very compact. Minimum focussing distance is less than 0.6m. The focussing ring stand out because, its of a bigger diameter than the rest of the lens, while everything else is where it should. Mine is from the older generations where I think its not even Ai-S. But that does not matter me as I used it on my xe2.
Handling, its ok. Normal for a normal 50mm lens. Sometimes I fiddle with the aperture ring because the butterfly catch may be a bit intrusive. 

Contrast.
Using a manual lens for manual focus, you need to rely on contrast to help you to nail that focus. The nikkor level of contrast is better than average. Thus providing images with better than adequate contrast, but not too much that will give a jarring difference between the highlights and the shadows. Thus, the images, from my eyes and my opinion as well, are very pleasant allowing lots of details to be seen even in normal jpegs.


Picture quality.
As for the famed sharpness of this lens, I really can’t tell and conclude that its the sharpest 50mm nikon ever created.I simply do not have the resources to compare it to all the 50mm Nikon has ever built. But is it sharp? Of course. Its a 50mm lens. Does it glow? No. Does it have character? All lenses have character of their own, even different lenses from the same make and brand and focal length. It produces very clean images. The out of focus areas are not distracting and it makes the subject stand out very well, even at f2.8. However, I don’t think the image can be said to be as organic as the ones from the Contax 50mm. Clinical and dependable would be those words I would use to describe the final images.



Did I regret getting this lens, of course not! For less than $100, I was excited. But I regret not knowing about it sooner. To summarise, if you love the type of images produced by a Nikon, get this cheap nifty fifty. On the xe2, it will give a 75mm-ish fov. My kind of focal length.

Pictures of the lens and camera are taken using the Em5 and the olympus 45mm 1.8



Some pictures.

Here are some pictures. Mostly SOOC after imported and exported from LR. Except the ones with the yellow stripes, I had to decrease the exposure and increase the blackness as mainly black road, came out grey. LOL.

Rear View Mirror

Dinner table.

After School

I am a washing machine




 Thank you for reading.

Stripes
As and when I use the lens to take pictures, I will post it up at my flickr account.






Monday, July 16, 2018

Pain in my left shoulder.

Been in pain for a good three or four days. Could not even lift up my left hand to take pictures with the camera. But I thought I gave it a try today and my 50mm f2.0 Nikkor hc arrives. Reviews said it's the sharpest 50mm ever build by Nikon. I don't know. As it is almost all 50mm lenses are sharp. Here are some pictures I took of Idris this afternoon.


At f2.




At 2.8




Thursday, July 12, 2018

Gifts from shah Alam.

Mother in law came back from visiting relatives in shah Alam and she brought gifts! Took these pictures of my son with the cap with the Carl Zeiss 85mm 1.4 planar. Xe2. Love the 3d-ness of the results.









Sunday, July 08, 2018

Zeiss planar.

As far as lenses go, Zeiss lenses are quite coveted. I for one an am Zeiss advocate and are now completing my Zeiss collection. There are so many.
As far as Zeiss goes, my vanilla plain 85mm 1.4 may not be as kick ass as the newer planar. Try googling for milvus etc..

Anyway bought my planar for about $700. And that's in Singapore dollars. I won't believe touching the top range planars anytime soon.

So, from today I decided to stick one lens per week on my xe2. Hoping I would get now airtime for each and every one of them. I hope.
Mine is the Nikon mount, attached to my xe2 via a dumb adapter. Here are some pictures for today. Jpegs, sooc.



























Saturday, July 07, 2018

Canon 50mm 1.4 ltm

I think I have found my almost perfect lens. Its sharp wide open and its a joy to use on my xe2. Almost... its because it juts out a little. Other than that focussing is smooth and the aperture ring is firm and clicks nicely. The aperture is in front of the focussing ring though and that takes some getting used to. Luckily I have experience in such lenses, such as the helios and the pentacons.

If you are into vintage lens and you really want to feel the vintage experience, than this is the lens to get. On my Fuji its about 75mm which is the focal length that I really like to work with. Here are some potraits shots using the lens. I'll post more of the wider shots soon I hope.

Having brunch.

Trying out a turban.

Saturday.

It's a depressing Saturday. I have to be on my liquid diet while the rest are enjoying Mac and cheese. Haizz.

It's the afternoon already. And I am so bored. It's humid and hot.

Getting old and grumpy easily nowadays. The liquid diet is keeping me full. But hey, who does not like Mac and cheese.

Been two days since I have started to play with those dumbells. Might as well.

Old is gold they say, but I say older is better. Pictures are from my Canon 50mm 1.4 ltm. I finally found my m to Fuji adapter and the lens has been on my xe2 since this morning. Quite easy to focus as the contrast level is fantastic even from the LCD screen. Of course some sample shots from my ever willing model, my 5yo. It is sharp wide open but with almost lenses, vintage or not, one or two clicks to stop it down would be good for the final picture.














Friday, July 06, 2018

At the oval.

The oval is a cluster of old black and white bungalows. They were used to housed foreign troops pre-independece Singapore. Now its a cluster of restaurants and a big airport themed playground. I usually bring Idris here to burn off some steam, more like a morning exercise routine. All of these photos taken using the SMC Takumar 55mm 1.8 and the Xe2. Honestly, I would recommend people to come here. For the fun.

Idris and Wan.

Trying out a different position.

Came down the slide.

Sticking his tongue out.

Wan feeling giddy.

Su.

Having fun.



Missing the fun.

Heard on the radio about controlling children's usage of their mobile devices. I think the discussion was a bit off centered. I think its not the children who need to be taught on controlling the usage of their mobile devices, its EVERYBODY!

I took this on my xe2 and the smc takumar 55mm 1.8 Focus was off and I had to crop this picture. But clearly, they would have more fun without the mobile phone.

Missing the fun.

Thursday, July 05, 2018

Colonoscopy

Had one just now. Together with endoscopy. This is in preparation of the bariatic sleeve surgery that I am scheduled for on 30th July 2018.
I was awake for both procedures and it was interesting, painful at times.
Still on liquid diet. Some cheating took place  when my sister and her family came to dinner with us at the hospital. Mostly dinner there for me is just a cup of black kopi. Kosong.
Su drove me back. I wished I had taken some pictures because it was a lovely experience. And the sound system in my car rocks!







Wednesday, July 04, 2018

More pictures from the takumar.

Pictures of Idris. And the out of focus background. Enjoy.







This is sharp.

Without a doubt this lens is sharp. But most other 50mm lenses are sharp too. What makes it special is the total package it possesses. The out of focus background for example and how it makes the picture nicer. How the sharpness of the lenses does not necessarily means it has to be at the center.
All in all, it's what the lenses can produce that endear it to you.
But this takumar 55mm is sharp.





Takumar 55mm 1.8

After seeing what the contax 1.7 can do, I decided to try out my Tak 55mm 1.8. I can help feeling that I am missing something. Maybe I was not looking at the right place or direction.








Picture of the camera set was provided by the em5 and the Olympus 45mm 1.8.

Went to KKH

Sent Idris to KKH today for follow up. It seems he now has eczema on his skin. Due to the drying action of the medicine for his itchiness.

This is Idris before making our way to KKH. Taken using the Contax 50 1.7.
I am loving this lens more and more everyday. Its compact and feel simple enough to use. It is simple to use. Feels like the time I was using my Nikon FM2 and the nikkor lenses. Its shorter than the 50mm 1.4 by about a centimetre thus making it more compact than the 1.4.

Now I am wondering about the rokkors and the other 50mm 1.7 lenses that I am missing out because I want the widest apertures...
Got it for USD$110. I think that that is a good buy.

A smile for the day.

Tuesday, July 03, 2018

Another one.

My son's chair in his room. Beautifully rendered.
CY 50mm 1.7. xe2





Pictures from the contax 50mm 1.7 planar c/y

One of the first pictures that I took using my xe2. I have to say the focussing is much nicer than the 1.4





Ktph

It's was a gloomy morning today when I went there to see the dietician. I hope it's not a bad omen, as though I believe in them.

Part of khoo tech phuat hospital.
Redmi.