GX GARNERINGS

  (Sony A55) So long, 2011. 

(Ricoh GX200) I am quite satisfied with this philosophic scene.  As I am typing this, my gaze has kept fixed and re-fixed on the image.  My eyes stay much longer on this shot than my general shots.  It manages to capture my mind probably for the simple repetitive patterns in the image and the unique postures of the sitters.  Taken together, the image draws the viewer's attention to the four human subjects and what is going on in their heads.

  "Colour not bad!" the Grandpa continues, "And the bokeh is, well, nice." The girl replies, "The camera sports a fast lens at f1.8 and an extraordinarily large sensor.  It surely takes better pictures.  No doubt." The narrator: Great image quality, XZ-1, Olympus. Lies: 1) The colour of an image cannot be judged on the LCD display; 2) The colour of an image can depend on what mode it is on and the character to the taste of the viewers; 3) The camera is fitted with a tiny sensor, much smaller than the APS-C one.  The truth is that its sensor is not extraordinarily diminutive like that in a point-and-shoot;  4) Unless in macro mode, such a small sensor cannot afford the photographer images with bokeh even at f1.8, which is instead made to allow shooting at lower ISO values to maximize image quality in a dimly lit environment; and 5) No camera can take better pictures if the photographer sucks. In a nutshe...

(Ricoh GX200) A household name for Hakka cuisine in Hong Kong, Tsui King Lau is now on its 51st years of business springing across the burgeoning years of Hong Kong's economy and its many economic and political fructuations in the last fifty decades.  Hakka is one of the two major Han (Chinese) clans in Hong Kong, the other being Chiuchow.  The very mention of Hakka food brings to mind heavily flavoured dishes.  A must-try is "mui choi kou yuk", marinated meat with pickled vegetable (shown in the rightmost picture on the banner).  Tsui King Lau has several branches throughout the territory.  The one in today's shot is situated in a side street right opposite the entrance of Easton Hotel on Nathan Road in Jordan.

(Sony A55) This is the last day of the Christmas holiday in Hong Kong. There are still lots of free performances in town, hence lots of photography opportunities for faces and facial expressions of the spectators.  The author has have the honour to do such shooting occasionally on public talks by some big wigs including the former government Chief Secretary Anson Chan and also on performances at, e.g., the side stage. With what may be limited experience in this respect, the tips to be offered are to be on the scene early, scout around for the best shooting spots and observe and select the targeted spectators before the show starts.  Then anticipate the coming intense or amusing moments (watching the show/ rehearsals  beforehand will certainly help) so that you can capture the right feel in the shots.  Of course, it takes a photographer's instinct and trained eye to do the job well.  A zoom lens at least to 300mm is a must.  If you have a camera with a le...

(Ricoh GX200) Water (in Cantonese, "sui" literally meaning "water" refers to money) has been extravagantly spent in the holiday.  What are left may be only the some amount of coins, like these water droplets? Or are they your teardrops of regret? This is the Boxing Day after all.  So maybe put the sorrow behind and open the presents for a moment of joy.

(Sony A55) "Smile, Merry Christmas!"

(Ricoh GX200 with 19mm converter) Today is the day of peace.  Find a way to bring yourself a peace of mind.

(Ricoh GX200) Christmas is a beautiful time for, to most, spending and shopping.  But apart from shopping, there are other good deeds to do in Christmas. You may not necessarily do something brilliantly generous.  How about helping in or joining a community service? There is a publicity event entitled "Balloons are for parties, Pets are for life" organised by Animal Earth and Animal-Friendly Alliance along Sai Yeung Choi Street (pedestrian precinct) in Mongkok, Hong Kong tonight (23rd).  The event is to educate people to think twice before getting a pet as their Christmas presents.  There will be models, Ms Macau, some celebrities and an orchestra playing, as well as caroling.  If you're in town tonight, come join us.

It gave me a déjà vu kind of feeling when preparing this virtual Christmas card for it seemed that the previous one was made just a few weeks ago. As the cliché goes, time flies.  This year, GXG hasn't done as much camera reviews.  At the beginning of the year, the GF2 was reviewed.  At the tail end of 2011, it was the much loved GXR M-mount with the Nokton 35mm f1.2 lens which got reviewed.  Again, GXG is indebted to Shun Hing and Laikok for lending us the cameras and lenses for testing. But the blog posts of this year are as usual full of ideas and topics about photography and Hong Kong. A special mention is the Ricoh HK Meetup held in November.  The latest special news is my winning a Leica X1 – I am yet to receive and test it. So thank you for visiting over the past 12 months. Wish you a Merry Christmas and the best of luck in 2012!

with this taken with the Ricoh GX200: for the grand prize in a photo contest organised by the Swire Hotels on the theme of Hong Kong Views From the Top. I got the call from a lady with a sweet voice this afternoon.  She is the messenger of good luck; that's sweet enough anyway. The grand prize is a Leica X1.  What a surprise for a Christmas prize! And supposedly, given the photo from the hotel's fb page, it is an all black version! The shot was a fifth one taken at the same spot which is a footbridge overlooking the scene below.  I passed by the spot with a camera, as I have one with me all the time, and the view below presented itself to me -- with the photographer's instinct I knew it would make some intriguing photo.  The right catch was done after the previous four shots in about 10 minutes.  As the AF lages behind the moment of capture for half a second, I had to anticipate the final image before pressing the shutter release.  It took a bit of luck...

(Ricoh GX200) Enjoy your day!

(Ricoh GX200) Bloody Genocide. The murderer is gone.  A coincidence to mark the day.  Oh, haven't you watched the news today?

(Ricoh GX200) No time to comb my hair.  This is Sunday.  Un-occupy yourself.

(Ricoh GX200) This is supposedly what most people around the world will do on Saturday.

(GXR M-mount with Nokton 35mm F1.2 ASPHII) Kaifong is a colloquial way of saying neighbours in Cantonese.  It is a noun and as a general rule, Chinese nouns are neutral in countability, i.e. neither countable nor uncountable.  The countability is denoted by means of the article-signifiers. Kaifong literally means "street (kai)" and "lane (fong)", which gives some insight into the local view of who neighbours are: people living along the street and lane are neighbours, not just those living next door.  Some old neighbourhood associations are still known as kaifong associations.  When the British was on the helm in Hong Kong, kai fong is a commonly used "English" term to refer to the locals living in the community.

(GXR M-mount with Nokton 35mm F1.2 ASPH II) This is another old-style hand-written signboard which is rarely seen these days in Hong Kong.  Here it was seen in a makeshift neighbourhood feifaat po (for "po" see the post Potautsai ) in an alley.  Feifaat in Cantonese means hair-cutting.  So, fetfaat po is a hair-dresser shop.  There are lots of interesting stuff to see in an old fetfaat po, which was discussed here and here .  For the shot of today, one cultural thing worth mentioning is the second last item on the signboard. It says, Hair-cutting for Old Lady.  The special mention of Old Lady is probably because in the old days (the barber of this feifaat po is an old-timer), not every hair-dresser shop was catered for service for women.  The ladies had to trip to those which did serve them to have a hair cut.  Why old ladies?  That is easy.  The feifaat po is situated in a very old neighbourhood.

(GXR M-mount with Nokton 35mm F1.2 ASPH II) The display of roasted poultry meat in this fashion is a draw to tourists coming from the western countries.   In their hometowns, the unwritten rule is not to remind the patrons of where the meat comes from.  That is to say, one should not display the carcasses in the same way as when the original life forms were alive.   Here in the Chinese world, such a reminder is taken to prove that the meat is fresh enough to be consumed. In the shot, there are the roasted pork, pork in BBQ style, roasted geese, whole chicken marinated with soy sauce and whole soft boiled chicken.  Collectively, these are known as siu mei, with siu meaning grilled or roasted and mei meaning taste.    

(GXR M-mount with Nokton 35mm F1.2 ASPH II) This is a rarely seen signboard.  There is almost no where to see in Hong Kong.  It was sheer luck that the author came across one.  In the old Hong Kong, such domestically-made, hand-painted signboards were ubiquitous.   Those which used them were mostly small neighbourhood stores, or "potautsai" in Cantonese.  "Potau" means store while "tsai" is a prefix used to refer to smallness.  Nowadays, with the chain stores getting a lion's share of the market, the neighbourhood stores are close to distinction.

(GXR M-mount with Nokton 35mm F1.2 ASPH II) Sawlo is a derogatory term in Cantonese to mean stupid man. "Saw" is stupid while "lo" is man.  For that matter, you may say "sawpo" with "po" meaning woman. Although the term is derogatory, it is widely used planking with one's friends in a harmless fashion.  With reference to the shot of today, the locals usually use "sawlo" or "sawpo" to pass their judgment to such persons doing extraordinarily silly things to make a scene of themselves to achieve nothing, if there is anything to achieve at all. The man in the shot is protesting against something probably not understandable to all.

(Sony A55) This is Sunday.  Dream some dreams. Have a nice day.

  (Ricoh GX200) Fact is, he is the security personnel, using a pair of sunglasses to cover up his dozing off.

(Ricoh GX200with TC-1 135mm equiv. converter) Friday.  Rest.  What else can be better?

(Ricoh GX200with TC-1 135mm equiv. converter) In the eye of the passers-by, I was like a fool pointing the camera aimlessly to the middle of nowhere. After a photographer, I have simply trained myself to see the world like through a viewfinder.  Maybe intuitive it has become. For the generations shooting not through a viewfinder, can they manage to acquire the same intuition? I wonder.

(Ricoh GX200with TC-1 135mm equiv. converter) Ghostly? Spiritual? Sci-fi-ish? Could it be the spirit of a woman? No matter what it is like, the important thing to a street photographer is to preserve the desired atmosphere at the opportune moment. A slight hesitation could ruin the original intention as the reflected spot may shift, the man may leave or unwanted subjects may appear in the scene. This is why a photographer should practise enough to be able to response at a split of a second.   

(Ricoh GX200) Hong Kong is blessed to have a harbour for it gives not only the highly congested city a much-needed breathing space but also photographers unlimited photography opportunities.  The harbour presents itself in different moods and colours as the weather, time of a day and seaons change.  It morphs into unique forms and appearances when looking from different angles and distances.  Admire it, enjoy it amd shoot it in any time, any way you like.

 (Ricoh GX200 with TC-1 135mm equiv. converter) Hong Kong is seen in its best sartorial elegance around this time every year.  If the building is not festooned with festive-colour light-bulbs of some sort and shape, it would be decorated with Christmas garlands in red, green or white of nature, plastic or metal. The whole town is at a riot of colours, mending its pace to farewell the year and celebrate the coolness which is to usher in another twelve months.  Then, when the new year has been coy enough about its coming and finally came with the encouragement of hurrahs at countdowns and booming fireworks, what lay before the eye will be a city dressed in Chinese celebratory red.  And you will know, the Chinese New Year in February is around the corner. Around this time every year, photographers who have made acute and clever observation on the minutiae of the going of the city and its people will end up with a good enough amount of keepers. Pick up your camera and...

(Ricoh GX200) But no one is watching. This is Sunday. Have a fun day!

Little Big City - Hong Kong Tilt Shift from Fershad Irani on Vimeo . Great fun! Enjoy the nicely done video by a Fershad Irani about Hong Kong scenes.

(GXR M-mount with Voigtländer Nokton 35mm F1.2 ASPH II) You may stand in the street and shoot pictures, and come across people who you will probably not see again in the rest of your life.  Here they are captured in the images.  You look at the images and wonder how unimportant their lives are to you, just in the same way as yours to them.  But with the same camera, you can do something that connects to them or strangers who you will come across, and leave a mark on their lives. There are many ways to achieve this: to tell stories of the underprivileged in images; to meet photographers with your cameras; to help out as a volunteer photographer; to give your old cameras to the opportunity shops; to organise free photography classes for the poor and get sponsors to supply free cameras.  You can combine the chances to make them meaningful, rather than letting the chances pass in your life.

(Ricoh GX200) If you are a Hong Kong or Macau citizen and have the talent and luck, you can get a GXR with A12 28mm module for free.  Or be the first or second runner-up and be disappointed with the Ricoh PX camera prize. Laikok is holding the forth Ricoh photo contest Hong Kong on the theme of Cheerful.  The contest closes at the end of December, and is open to Hong Kong and Macau residents only.

1) Selling Points 2) Manual Focusing and Others 3) Unique Features and High-ISO Performance 4) Voigtländer Nokton 35mm F1.2 ASPH II Lens 5) Conclusive Remarks (All photos in the test are copyrighted to Nevin; Kudos to Laikok for lending GX Garnerings the camera unit and the lens)

(GXR M-mount with Voigtländer Nokton 35mm F1.2 ASPH II) The saddening scene of the old woman caught the author’s attention to stop and take some shots. The considerations for taking this shot: 1) no flash because it would make a scene to attract people looking into the lens; 2) a shutter speed just enough to freeze the action with a slightly blurred effect; 3) a foreground should be included to give the image a spatial feel and better isolate the homeless woman. So 1) the flash was off; 2) in the case of fast-paced Hongkongers, the shutter speed was dragged to 1/25s; 3) moved back to allow passers-by walk into the scene between the camera and the homeless lady. If you're interested, GXG has an old post about doing flash photography tricks.

For two years or so, we have seen a flux of digital cameras ostensibly modelled after the vintage design. From Oly’s MFT series to Fujifilm’s X100, a new passion for vintage-camera lookalikes has been ushered in among photography enthusiasts. This is all well and good, but precisely because we are huge fans of such digital-and-vintage hybrids, it pains us to say that these models are felt as vintage cameras in appearance more than in spirit – factors contributing to this impression include the plastic feel of some flimsy camera bodies and lenses. We have no qualms with what all these commendable cameras can proudly do. But it is arguably that the GXR M-mount module brings users the real and rare choice to experience the fun of full manual functions with top quality manual lenses, most importantly without the prohibitively expensive outlay. Recently at the Ricoh Hong Kong Meetup, users shared with great gusto their experience in using on the GXR M-mount module a dozen of manual lens...