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  • Tasmania, April 2018

    Tasmania, April 2018

    146 words

    I knew nothing about Tasmania before setting off; not even that it’s a whole separate island from mainland Australia. My schedule leading up to the trip was too busy for me to even think about it, let alone look it up on a map. Because everything had been planned by my in-laws, I just had to show up. All I knew was that I’d probably get a few good landscape photos out of it, and be horrified by the lack of fast internet access.

    On the first point, it turned out to be quite a beautiful place indeed, if not very convenient to get around. You’re in for hours of driving between small towns if you want to visit the main attractions, and some of the windy roads literally border on death traps—you can slip down the side of a mountain with a swerve.

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  • 27 words

    Finally seeing the new Avengers film tonight, some two weeks later than intended. Surprised at how good everyone in the universe has been about not spoiling it.

  • 34 words

    I’ve been back in town for a week and have only just encountered a merchant I needed to pay with cash, not Apple Pay. Went to my wallet and it only had Australian notes.

  • 50 words

    At the end of most holidays comes a moment where you fantasize about staying on and missing your flight. We finally did it, but not in a fun way. We’re still in Australia 2 days past time, wracked with phlegmy coughs and clammy foreheads. And oh hey I have a microblog!

  • Toilet day vlog — April 14 2018

    73 words

    We went to Ferrara Homestyling to pick out some toilets and sinks. Beer and burgers were the reward.

    Shot these clips in Instagram for some reason and assembled them in Quik. Also cut them up for sharing on Instagram Stories. I don’t know if I’ll make vlogging a regular habit, but I’d love to? Just can’t see portrait video being the way to go. Might switch to landscape for the next one.

  • Should I really have bought a new camera?

    Should I really have bought a new camera?

    426 words

    You never use the cameras you have as much as you do when there’s a new one ordered and on the way. I’ve just bought a Panasonic LX10 online to take the place of my 6(!) year old Sony RX100mk1—a compact travel camera with a big-enough 1″ sensor and useful 3x-ish zoom range.

    Below: a recent shot from my RX100.

    • Raindrops shot with a Sony RX100

    That the LX10 has been on the market for 2 years says something about my changing habits. Buying last year’s model used to be unthinkable, and I’d pay a premium for buying that way. But the industry has changed and now hardware updates come every few years instead of annually, and the average price has gone over the $1000 mark to compensate for the drop in sales. Buying late nets you a nice discount back to pre-smartphone prices.

    Anyway, while waiting for that camera to come and prove wrong my fears that I’ve given my money to a scammy HK website, I’ve been using my iPhone X and RX100 a bit around the neighborhood and workplace.

    I can’t stress enough how much the Halide camera app + Adobe’s new and improved Lightroom Mobile have changed the way I shoot and edit RAW images on iPhone. (I still love and use Darkroom too, it just doesn’t do RAW as well as Lightroom anymore.)

    Shooting koi in a rippling pool with an iPhone requires you to go full manual, and while the thought of fiddling with shutter speeds and ISO and manual focus on a touchscreen used to make me shudder, it’s actually doable with Halide’s well-considered control layout and gestures. I just wish you could lock focus peaking to always-on.

    Honestly, I had no idea you could get this kind of sharpness and microcontrast out of an iPhone. I’ll be saving JPEGs and Live Photos for quick grab shots and moving scenes from now on. Given that I’ve taken a few holidays with just my iPhone, this is all making me wonder if I should have bought a new dedicated camera at all.

    Okay okay, while shooting in RAW preserves highlights and deals with tricky lighting such as the above shot in the late afternoon, I’ll admit to enhancing that flare with Lens Distortions. It’s all about creating the scene you saw with your eyes, right??

    Assuming the camera comes on time, I’ll probably bring it with me to Tasmania when I go in a few weeks. Seems like a landscape kinda place, so I have doubts about bringing my other cameras: a Ricoh GR (28mm) and Fujifilm X100T (35mm). 🤔

  • Autumn in Japan, and some observations

    Autumn in Japan, and some observations

    246 words

    We paid Tokyo and Osaka a visit last fall, following up on my life’s goal of visiting Japan at least once every two years, and nothing disappointed — not the food, people, weather, galleries, nor multi-storey complexes designed to make me buy media and electronics. As Craig Mod alluded to recently on Twitter, Tokyo is a place that fulfills the city’s promise as a tool for human life.

    https://twitter.com/craigmod/status/951372392986681344

    The thing I love about its density and intensity is how that translates into support for all manner of subcultures and obscure hobbies. Today, you can barely find a functioning and interesting bookstore in Singapore, while in Tokyo it’s not just bookstores that thrive. One can wander into massive stores selling model train and forest diorama-building supplies, or records curated from a specific period, or vintage camera parts emporiums. We’re not large enough to incubate that kind of diversity, and the city dweller’s life suffers for it.

    The retail industry in Singapore is in decline, or so the news outlets tell us every day. I wonder if they ring the same alarm bells in Japan. Online shopping and its infinite inventory can fill the gap a brick & mortar apocalypse would leave behind, but digital ~~replaces~~ overwrites our collective memory of browsing and inspecting these items in a physical space. I think it’s really important we don’t lose that, because, as one of my company’s founders is fond of saying, technology might change fast but people fundamentally don’t.

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  • 2017 Japan Snack Reports

    2017 Japan Snack Reports

    68 words

    Continuing a Japan holiday tradition… making videos of my daily konbini snack raids.

    Recently a few colleagues found these on my YouTube and thought it’d be funny to put them up on the giant Microsoft Surface Hub we have. I don’t know why I found that a problem, when I’m uploading them onto my own public website. I suppose because probably no one sees these?