Photo Clash

Ok, so Aperture 1.1 didn’t work with my 12″ powerbook because of the minimum screen size limitation. Aperture requires a screen size at least 1280×780. So I decided to change my workflow application to Adobe Lightroom. Although still in beta 2, Lightroom shows much potential and I liked the way Adobe arranged the interface and menu customization. During the switch, I lost 1GB worth of images taken at the horse race! So I gotta go back there and shoot some more arrgg… I still feel that something is missing in this software, and the noise of images turns out real bad and theres too many parameter in the settings which can be quite complicated. The most annoying part is the zoom and full screen, I can only zoom at original size or zoom to fit display while I cannot zoom at a particular size, also the full screen isn’t really full screen, it still has the border where the menus are hidden. All in all the application was still at an acceptable rate. Until today, I found out that somebody has cracked the screen size here. Well here’s the summary just in case:

1, I’m assuming that you have Aperture 1.0 installed
2, Install 1.1 using Software Update
3, Make a backup copy of Aperture
4, Open Aperture.app/Contents/MacOS/Aperture in a hex editor.
5, Go to the following offsets (using search) : (format is offset: original –> hacked)
0×93b8: 40 9E 00 88 -> 48 00 00 88
0×9454: 40 9E 00 88 -> 48 00 00 88
0×94f0: 40 9E 00 E0 -> 48 00 00 E0

0×93b8 means when you must type 000093b8 in the search textbox. To replace values, please note that you must highlight 2 characters and start typing, for example to change 40 to 48, highlight the whole 40 and start typing 4 which will show 04 and type 8 which then will show 48 and do this to all the values which needs to be changed.
So here I am using Apple Aperture again. Well 1.1 is great, it has more features and was considered as a major update as it has better support in RAW. Hope this helps.

Yesterday my camera was sent back for repair due to a spot of dust in the penta-mirror (viewfinder). I don’t know how that happened as it is so tight and I couldn’t find any reason how this is possible but its there all right. I noticed it on my way back from Koh Samet. Well, instead of sending it to Nikon Service Center Thailand, I decided to send it back to the shop for cleaning and general check-up since they said that my camera is still covered by the warranty. They insisted that they are going to send it to the Service Center Thailand but I’m quite sure they are sending it back to Japan, but since its free I don’t really care, I just want my camera in perfect condition. They said its going to take 2-3 weeks. Oh well I’m already missing her… .

I Added a panoramic view of Pattaya in the Photo Clash Stockpile together with a Quicktime VR (Virtual Reality) file. Please check the video section for the VR here and the Panorama album for the photo here. Thanks.

I added the rest of the Koh Samet gallery to my new photo blog here. Also, I uploaded some of my shots at Pattaya yesterday on the way back from Koh Samet. I hope you enjoy it. I plan to put the rest of my images in multiply and put only the best ones here in Friendster in the future as multiply has upload limit up to 150 images compared to Friendster which has 50. But I keep in touch with my friends in Friendster so I think all technical posts about my photography experiences will still be here also, any update in the Photo Clash Stockpile will be announced here. Thanks for reading.

Visit the Photo Clash Stockpile.

Regards,
Aditya Pamungkas

As what I experienced, posting images inside blog posts will slow down loading time, to avoid this, I made a brief summary of the travel and let the images explain itself in the Koh Samet photo gallery, or view the rest of the gallery here and make sure you open the full size for the best quality.

Woke up at 7:45 am took a shower and prepared myself for the journey, at 8, the the travel to Koh Samet begun. 4 people, 1 destination. The weather was quite cloudy on the way. We had lunch at the motorway and continued our journey. At an area after Pattaya it stated raining heavily and we started worrying although it lasted for about 10 minutes and it suddenly stopped and the sun was shining. It was Songkran days in Thailand which usuallly is the peak of summer although the weather nowdays became quite unpredictable, but we expected it to be a hot summer vacation. On the way we saw people splashing each other wildly and most of them drunk, maybe this explains my short description in Songkran Day photo gallery. After we reached Rayong it was cloudy again. At around 2-3 pm we reached the pier, we immediately booked 2 hotel rooms for about 1200 per room not quite in front of the beach, maybe around 30 meters away, but that rate includes air conditioning which I had highly demand as I was expecting hot weather and will be needing of some sort of cooling down. The non air conditioned room costs around 800 baht for 2 people I think. We had to leave the car behind because bringing a car to the island is prohibited AFAIK, so we parked overnight there by paying 60 baht. We paid 100 baht for round trip to the island by boat.

After we arrived, we had to pay another 20 baht for the island tax (it’s all about the money isn’t it?) anyway, the weather didn’t improve at all, so I took several pictures on the way, the lighting condition was bad. We went snorkeling and had great fun, I saw the beauty of the underwater world for the first time with a cheap snorkel kit bought in Big C for less than 300 baht and had to cope up with the water leakage from the end of the snorkel by taking it off after less than half a minute. I went back with an injured foot because of the sharp rocks on the surface.

I planned to shoot pictures of stars during the night because as I have learned, usually during the night in the beach, stars has great visibility. Unexpectedly, there was a storm while we were having dinner. Not finding any indoor restaurants, even if it exists, it would probably be too far from our hotel anyway, so we had to eat while raining (think rain water mixed with rice and barbequed fish) nice… . We decided to sleep early that night because of the terrible weather. I slept for awhile but woke up at midnight as I am not accustomed to sleep before midnight, and heard the rain stopped so I went out hoping for a clear sky with lots of stars. Nada, nothing, just a deep black sky which is clouds of course.

The next day, we went out trekking to discover the island, there were great panoramas. I took hundreds of pictures during the way but unfortunately, during the previous night I was showing the difference between high and low ISO speed and explaining the difference. High ISO speed means more sensitive sensor, more light, but more grain as well, lower ISO speed means high quality image with no noise but lack of light. I showed the high ISO speed last and I set the ISO speed to 400 and forgot to return it to ISO 200 which is the lowest ISO speed on my camera. So there goes, hundreds of grainy shots damn… . The gallery might not show the grain but the full sized image shows it although its not that bad, but I hate imperfections. Check out the Exposure/Camera settings on the gallery and if the ISO Equivalent says 400, those are the ones. On the way, we went to a clearer beach and went snorkeling again. Again, I had my other foot injured.

At 12, we arrived back in our rooms, took a shower and prepared the journey back. We stopped by at Pattaya and had lunch and took several panorama shots at a hill I forgot its name. I arrived back at around 8 pm. It was quite an experience, quite a disappointment but lots of fun. Thanks for reading, don’t forget to view the gallery here.

Regards,
Aditya Pamungkas

Introduction
Welcome to my photography weblog(blog). If you aren’t interested in the background of my photography hobby, please stop reading now. otherwise, if you follow, this is the place where I share my thoughts and experience also images from the beginning of my road to photography. The reason I used friendster as my media is simply because it works, first reason is almost most of my friends are here in friendster network so they can get update notification though their first page when they login and second, the images I post are arranged nicely and exif data are presented nicely reading from the jpeg file. Exif data is the exposure information of each pictures taken such as shutter speed, aperture, exposure program etc. which is embedded in the image files, in this case JPEG format and friendster retrieves this data and presents it nicely. The reason why exif data is important here is that it shows how I took the shots technically, as it will be a reference for me and maybe others who might be interested and maybe someone would be nice enough to tell me what i’m doing wrong and where by giving comments. Third, this blog is free, although ok, it has advertisements and such, but as long as these advertisements are displayed at an acceptable rate, I will continue using this unless I can get a better offer because i’m too cheap to pay for those pay hosts. Oh, and I do all this to relieve my stress here.

Canon VS Nikon
Before I purchased my Nikon D70s kit camera, I was quite in a dilemma between Nikon and Canon, I mean who hasn’t? They both provide great and quality cameras. According to my budget at that time and my knowledge of the prices, I had to choose between NIkon D50 and Canon 350D. I was more interested in Canon 350D by its features mostly because my dad has a 300D which I could then share lens with him, the 8 megapixel over 6 megapixel, the minimum ISO speed of Canon which was 100 and was smaller than Nikon which was 200(note that smaller ISO speed has higher image quality and detail) and finally, the Digic II processor that the Canon 350D used which is also used on the most expensive professional SLR camera, the Canon 1Ds Mark II. But after a recent discovery, I learned about the Nikon D70s which is more advanced than the Nikon D50 and costs slightly higher.

I began my research on comparing between Canon 350D and Nikon D70s. I started reading reviews and such until I remembered a friend, Mas Sigit, who once asked me about SLR cameras although that time I wasn’t interested at all. So, I waited him to get online then I started asking questions about these two to him and he immediately replied “Nikon!” and I immediately knew that he has a Nikon system. So I explained my situation especially about my dad’s system and I was still in favor of the 8 megapixel of Canon compared the 6 megapixel of Nikon. He told that the megapixel didn’t matter, the difference between ISOs doesn’t matter etc etc but then he told me to get the Canon 350D because my dad uses the Canon system. So here I was more confused as the gap between the two got thinner. He referred me to Ken Rockwell’s site and some other sites which I don’t remember well.

After reading Ken’s website, I was quite influenced by his writing and was a little in favor on Nikon as he explained in his site very detail about the difference between the two which mainly to me was ISO speed and the megapixel make almost no difference at all. Also, Ken was a little in favor of the Nikon. In his site, you will read good things about Nikon, although Canon too, but Nikon better, err… you’ll know what I mean when you read it. So finally I took my role as other’s have kept telling me “the choice is up to you, whichever system you choose, they are good”. I took a sample of Canon 350D and Nikon D70s, uploaded to my powerbook and used aperture to compare. I looked at the bokeh(bokeh means blur in Japanese, which is the blurness of the unfocused area) of both image, using the similar lens(my samples were taken using 50mm f1,4 lenses from Nikon and Canon) from the resized image(on my 1024 x 768 pixel screen) it looks exactly the same, the sharpness, tone, quality although the Nikon was using ISO 200 and the canon was using ISO 100 so I agreed that ISO speed and the megapixel isn’t an issue. But then I zoomed the samples again to about 400% and noticed the uneven and inconsistant pixel on the Canon, while Nikon pixel’s are even and consistent. I still wasn’t convinced and tried to compare the consistency of the pixel using the Canon 1Ds Mark II and surprisingly, its uneven and inconsistent. Ok, actually its not big of a deal to most people as viewing 100%-200% size of the image, they both were almost identical, but for me, as its not a small amount of money i’m investing on I simply want the best so that I won’t regret it in the future. My heart says “go to the heart of the image (Nikon);P” but my logic says “Canon is your family system” but I remembered one thing: lens compatibility. As far as I know(AFAIK), Nikon uses its prominent F mount system, used since the 50’s up to now and the far future(their lens catalog mentioned it anyway), while Canon had made 2 major changes in their mount system, please correct me if i’m wrong(CMIIW). I remembered well how my dad was disappointed that his old Canon lens didn’t work on his EOS 300D. So I figured, SLR cameras are about lens, I will definitely start buying lenses and lenses lasts forever although your camera body won’t, you will get a new body and use your existing lenses. I know I can’t risk it, I definitely couldn’t afford another lens mount change, and purchasing a used Nikon lens would surely won’t be as complicated as purchasing used Canon lens. So I finally made my decision and purchased my Nikon D70s Kit which includes Nikon Nikkor 18-70mm f3,5-4,5 AF-S DX ED IF for 37,000 baht on February 25th, 2006. Up to now, I still don’t know about the Canon lens mount, I heard that the Canon 350D lens kit, the 18-55mm will not work on any other body.

So that’s how my journey begun, I hope this brief story be beneficial to you readers, especially the ones that has the same problem I had, to choose between Nikon and Canon, you know what to choose;)

Regards,
Aditya Pamungkas

I found a way to make images appear larger when uploading to Friendster. Usually, when I upload images, the images are automatically resized to 500 x 330 pixels. The solution is easy, I just batch resize my images before uploading to 25% of its original size and all vertical shots appear 499 x756 pixels. Pity, as I usually take horizontal shots but its good to know its there. Haven’t experienced that much as Friendster Blogs limits uploading images to 50 images per month regardless deletion or re-upload, so once you uploaded an image, it counts as 1 even though you delete it later.

Below are the images taken vertically and shown full resolution at 25% of its original size:

Purchased Nikon Zoom-Nikkor AF 70-210mm f4-5,6 on march 22, 2006 for 2,500 baht. The lens was in mint condition as it has been used twice and kept in the box. The lens has 2 few fungus, visible if the aperture was wide open due to overlong storage at an uncontrolled humidity. However, if the aperture is closed by 1 steps, the lens is clear. Physical condition was perfect, no scratch, looks new. Found out that cleaning the lens costs 3,000 baht in Nikon Service Center (Although I had a very bad experience) but I asked Nikon Service Center in Jakarta, Indonesia, they will charge Rp. 385.000,00 which is around 2,000 baht which is not bad, I haven’t asked at local unofficial services which supposedly to be cheaper. As for now, I’m loving this lens regardless the fungus, it still looks sharp in everyway. The shortest focal was 70mm which is quite tele as I can’t really get any panorama at all and I can’t focus anything closer than 1 meter. I think I have to learn more about using this lens. Bokeh was great at all focals, so its pretty great using this lens for close-ups.

Below are the images taken with this lens at its maximum focal range:

Indonesia’s Nikon Service Center is much better than Thailand’s. To find out why, click here. For the e-mail from Nikon Indonesia:

Dh,

Pernyataan tersebut masih berlaku Pak ! tentunya dengan syarat yang telah saya sampaikan.

Salam
NikonCS

—– Original Message —– From: “Aditya Pamungkas”
To: “Budi Dwi Putranto”
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 12:06 PM
Subject: Re: Pembersihan CCD

Kepada Yth,

“kami dapat bantu membersihkan CCD tersebut free
dengan syarat kotoran yang terdapat di CCD anda tidak parah dan
menempel” Setelah saya pelajari kartu garansi saya, ternyata garansi
tersebut hanya berlaku di Jepang, garansi worldwide hanyalah pada
lensa, apakah pernyataan anda di atas masih berlaku? Saat ini saya
berada di Bangkok, mereka menolak untuk memberi servis gratis untuk
pembersihan CCD karena garansi tersebut tapi menawarkan pembersihan
dengan charge 1000 baht yang kurang lebih Rp.250.000,- terima kasih
atas informasinya.

Aditya Pamungkas

On 3/22/06, Budi Dwi Putranto wrote:
DH,

Ada dua pilihan untuk anda, kami dapat bantu membersihkan CCD tersebut free
dengan syarat kotoran yang terdapat di CCD anda tidak parah dan menempel,
apabila sulit dibersihkan kami akan bongkar kamera anda dan ada biaya CCD
cleaning dan general service sebesar Rp 825.000,-

Demikian informasi dari kami.
NikonCS

PUSAT INFORMASI DAN SERVIS NIKON
Komp. Mangga Dua Square Blok H No.1 dan 2
Jl. Gunung Sahari Raya , Jakarta 10730
Telp. 6231-2600

Ok, my photo upload has reached its limits by 50 images per month. The ugly thing is, even if I deleted an image, the upload will still increment without subtracting the amount I deleted ugh… . Oh well, i’m too cheap to upgrade my account soi’ll just leave it as is. If you can suggest me a good free place to upload my images please feel free to contact me here or just send me comments in this blog. I liked the idea of this friendster which allows me to upload images and it automatically extracts the EXIF data (see the explanation below the image containing shutter speed, aperture, etc) from the images. Also, the design of the templates are good, I like black background, it makes my images standout in most cases. Although the image size is automatically reduced to 500×330 regardless the size I uploaded, the quality remains as is without reduction in quality of the jpeg compression. I tried yahoo and msn, both reduces the image size together with the quality of the jpeg compression arg… there is no way I’m going to use either of them.