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Showing posts from November 27, 2011

Life is a Combination of Chances

(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.

Free Stuff

(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.

Links to GXR M-mount Module Field Test (with Voigtländer Nokton 35mm F1.2 ASPH II)

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)

Who Cares?

(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.

GXR M-mount Field Test: Conclusive Remarks

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

Veins

(GXR M-mount with Voigtländer Nokton 35mm F1.2 ASPH II) A walk with the camera in the park leads one to discover the world around from a different perspective.

GXR M-mount Field Test: Voigtländer Nokton 35mm F1.2 ASPH II Lens

The M module may better be described as a far-flung cousin to rather than an immediate member of the GXR family. When look closer, you may see that the whole point of the M module is not about a new GXR-system module – fact is, the concept of lens-sensor combination is completely forsaken here. It is more about taking advantage of the wide choice of high quality M mount lenses. In this post, we will look at the lens on loan to us: the Voigtländer Nokton 35mm F1.2 ASPH II. Although Leica M-mount lenses are the best choice for optical performance, they are not just everyone’s option pricewise. With a lower price tag and great optical performance, Voigtländer lenses are sensible substitutes. Hong Kong’s sole dealer of Ricoh cameras, Laikok, is also the distributor of Voigtländer lenses (manufactured by Cosina of Japan) in Hong Kong. For information about the Voigtländer lenses available from Laikok, check this out .  You may also check out Cosina’s Voigtländer webpage . With the

Mermaid On Land

(Ricoh GX200) Was she successful in her appeal? Yes, at least to whom she was looking at: a bunch of Ah Suk (Cantonese: uncles) doing fishing along the waterfront. She was such a distraction there. This is Sunday. Distract yourself from your usual work.