GX GARNERINGS

^A shot which testifies to the ability of CX1's Marco ability.  The focusing is swift.  The mantis kept fighting the lens with his powerful forelimbs. A day without the hustle in the office is best for reflections in private.  As a photographer, I have just come up with some questions which could bug us like forever: 1) Just bought the dream camera only to find that the rumour has been circulating about the new version which is to be released in a month or two. 2) Got the camera but the battery is dead. 3) The battery is not dead but remained in the charger and you've got the camera at the shooting scene. 4) The shuttle is released bu the memory card is full and it is just 11 in the morning. 5) Your friend help you take the photo of you but he or she presses a fingerpringt on the lens/ sneezes at the camera/ somehow makes it malfunction/ drop it and you still say, "Don't worry, it's okay" ^The kids went after the mantis, which was soon to be pic

^The Senado Square is in a trianglar layout typical to the time-honoured western culture as can be seen in the ancient Greek and Roman city sites. There was a religious purpose in making the piazza triangular in layout because in the old western culture, triangles were taken to be a device which stored mystical powers. Here the photo expresses the curves and patterns of the piazza instead. The oldness of Macau is best epitomised by its heritage sites. If you are new to this series of posts, Macau is a small town once a Portuguese colony and now a special administrative region of China's sovereignty. It is situated at the estuary of the Pearl River south of China, and is just some 45 minutes ride on a catamaran from Hong Kong. ^The Ruins of St. Paul's in the background is ubiquituous on postcards about Macau's places. The ruins compose of the facade of what was originally the Church of Mater Dei built in 1602 - 1640, destroyed by fire in 1835, and the ruins of St. Paul

Ricoh's GRDIII is to be launched in Hong Kong on 21 August 2009, just the right time before the school summer holiday ends and most people gradually return to the normal busy life with the appetite for spending suppressed.

^The intriguing combination of colours of the facade of this rundown firecracker workshop and the street furniture was what caught my eye for this shot. The best about Macau is its oldness, the essence I look for around the city which I travel to. The three old thing about Macau which spring to mind are firecrackers, fishermen and circus (actually the Chinese wedding ceremony) Unlike Hong Kong where firecrackers was banned since the colonial era, Macau citizens are still free to enjoy firecraker fun in the Chinese New Year. In the old days, the lighting of firecrackers was almost all year round. It is no wonder that Macau had a quite history in producing firecrakers. ^A model setting which shows the yard of a firecracker workshop in Macau. The lighting of firecrackers was not restricted to Chinese New ear. Whenever a new shop or business opened, the front of the building was decorated with bamboo scaffolding covered in paper flowers and characters propitiating good fortune. Long s

A piece of unconfirmed news from Japanese sites has it that the GF1 will be released on 1 September. The price is still yet to be released. From the silhouette we can safely say that the camera looks quite the same as what has been circulating on the Internet about it.

      ^Largo do Senado (Senado Square), the unmistakable landmark of Macau, has been the town's urban centre for centuries. The square is surrounded by neo-classical buildings in pastel colour, giving the place a consistent and harmonious Mediterranean character We got a glimpse of Macau yesterday. The town is worthy of introducing to our readers, through words and most importantly some more photos by, this time, a GX100. Macau to Hong Kong is like what Hawaii to US or the less populated cities to UK where people go there on vacation. It is located some 45 minutes ride on a catamaran from Hong Kong and has been a quieter small town until recent years when the gambling industry there is picking up and overtkaing the scale of Las Vegas   ^A woman walking up the stairs to the second floor of the Edificio do Leal Senado (Leal Senado building) smacked of a very Portuguese taste Fishermen from the China costal town Fujian and Guangdong were the first known settlers in Ma

^Grand Prize: Fifteen of August Street Prize: Ricoh GRDII and a trophy Hong Kong's official dealer for Ricoh, Laikok, has given out the final verdict on the winning entries of its 2nd Ricoh Photo Contest Hong Kong/ Macau. This year the contest was themed on the new faces of Macau. ^First Runner-up: New Face of an Old City through the Lens Prize: Ricoh CX1 and a trophy Sometimes, probably much like me, you may wonder in what way the winners manage to win with their photos. Here I have quite a lot of question marks. ^Second Runner-up: Evolution Prize: Ricoh R10 and a trophy The clue, comparable to a debate competition, lies in the adjudicators. A local professor who have trained up the debate teams of different universities to win in a matter of consecutive years confided to the audience on a talk that he taught the team members to study the background of the adjudicators and debate in a way relevant to them. Some Recommendable Honourable Mentions

^This photo was taken with a favorite composition of mine by using the foreground and background to sandwich the primary subject, highlighting it. With much ado about the gossips over the past week surrounding the E-P2, GZ-1 and Pany's GF-1 , I've still got the deja vu feelings of the April Fools’ Day. These wolf-crying-style calculated leakages by the manufacturers could lose its appeal when running to the excess. Or could they? The most traffic you can see on almost any photographic sites and blogs is on the days when a leakage is cooked up or a new camera review is made. Yes, we photographers, mostly men, are overly obsessed about every single new camera, much like most women are excited at the sight of a new handbag or high heels even though there are already dozens of them in the shoe cabinets at home. Some months ago, a poll was put up in this blog gauging the number of cameras most readers have. The result was 6 cameras on average. 6 cameras! What are we going to do wit

While considering to burn some more money to further my GX200 system built-up in addition to the VF-1, I was shown a new reason to buy the wide-angel converter. But the converter has got to give a fish-eye verison in this case: If you haven't come across these photos before, they are ads produced by Publicis India for Omax, which appeal to the photographers for neither the lens' optical quality nor lightness.  But this could be effective. Absolutely not for this new reason, I am close to a deal for the converter. This is Sunday.  Have a nice day.