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I have taken a few pictures which are basicly the opposite of having a shallow depth of field where the focus is on something near and everything further than the focused object will be blurred. All things sharp on the other hand is as it is - all things sharp, from foreground to background. This is the most basic style where you basicly just use the camera as it usually is - unzoomed. The settings would be the opposite of the shallow depth of field which I have posted previously. Here are some sample pictures of what I believe is all things sharp.

Hey you!

I’m going to share today a few pictures that I had taken the past few weeks. This is my take on pattern, texture and shape. I’m more aware of the capabilities and limits of this camera now that I have actually played around and take pictures instead of just reading and looking at pictures. Nevertheless, looking at pictures by other people does open my mind and give me ideas. So keep looking at pictures with an analytical mind and take pictures yourself at the same time.

This is my idea of pattern. The individual pieces of rattan make a beautiful pattern when woven together. It can also give a hint as to how the texture of the furniture is like.

It is interesting how everyday things can make patterns if you look for it. This is a shot of roof tiles. The way they are placed makes a nice pattern. The texture of the tiles also give an idea as to how the texture is. Although maybe a different shot needs to be taken to emphasize on the texture.

A picture showing a relationship of shapes. Even though not an exact item but similar in shape. This shot could be better if I had removed some of the disturbance. After looking back at the picture, I can see some unwanted details at certain places in the picture. However, the background has been unfocused so it is not that obvious. It would have been better if the subject was more focused and the background even further unfocused. But that is the limit of my knowledge to manipulate the lens on my beloved G9. Maybe if I have some extra money I might be able to buy a converter lens to add other kind of lenses.

This is all for now. I will further explore on the usage of the G9 and have fun at the same time. This is a learning experience for me and I hope that you would have benefited from my experience. If you did like it please just take a look at the details by google on the page. I would much appreciate it as it would make me able to better run the site.

Thanks for reading!

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After a week or so of playing around with my camera, it seems obvious that I need some sort of training that will guide me into taking better photographs. There aren’t any photographs that are good enough to be posted yet at the moment. Maybe when there are some, I will. Most probably in the next post.

I have been looking for a book that will help me in my self-learning journey to taking better photographs. There is one book that has caught my eye. It is “Langford’s Starting Photography : The guide to great images with digital or film”. This seems good to me because it teaches the basics and also provides ideas of projects to help get a better understanding of each chapter. I am hoping to try at least a few of these projects and see what I come up with. As I have learned, it takes a lot of practice. Reading alone doesn’t really help me in gaining the skills. It just gives me a rough idea. Although it is a totally different story when actually shooting pictures. Definitely not as easy as it seems!

From what I have tried, I have found that getting clear pictures is not a problem mostly because the G9 itself is a good camera. The problems I have is having an eye for a good subject to take pictures of. When I do see something that I think might be interesting to take pictures, I seem to not know the best way to take it. Sometimes it could be the fact that there are so many distractions in the background. This poses a problem to me because I don’t know how to isolate the subject from the background. When this situation arises I try to make the background out of focus with respect to the subject but I just can’t seem to get the technique right. According to what I have learned from before, aperture plays an important role in showing field of depth. However, when playing around with the functions I still seem to be getting a clear picture of everything. It is only easy when I want to make a close-up shot and there is the macro function. So this is one area where I need to put my focus on. I hope that as I go along with the help of this new book that I have, I will be getting the results that I want.

Thank you for reading. If you like my post please check out the pages of sponsors(in the Google ads). It will help me on my subcompact journey.

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I have always been fascinated by photography as long as I could remember. Even so, I have never pursued it as a hobby because of budget constraint. However, I do read up on photography whenever I get the chance to. I usually read up on photography techniques, learning about composition, aperture, shutter speed etc. It’s amazing how one can make a photo look so good just by tweaking around with all this details. From what I have read, it doesn’t really matter what type of camera one uses as long as one has the right techniques, it will come out good. I’m hoping to be able to take good pictures in the future. Just not too far in the future I hope.

One day I just decided to do something about my interest in photography. I thought to myself,

“If I don’t start now, will I ever do it later?”.

So the next thing I knew I was saving money while I waited for the next coming sale. The time came and the sale was held last weekend. It was the PIKOM PC Fair 2008. In Malaysia it is a very big sale and don’t let the word PC fool you into thinking it’s only for the sale of PCs. It’s far from that. There’s a lot of other ‘techno gadgets’ as they call these new devices nowadays, such as GPS receivers for cars, PDAs and yes, cameras. Oh wait, I also forgot to mention theres one booth that I saw selling water filters. I think I saw one booth selling water filters at the last fair too.

Lets first talk about the fair. As I said before, here in Malaysia this fair is something that Malaysians generally look up to. It is where they can get the best bargain. Price wise you can get similar prices throughout the year at certain places such as Low Yat Plaza, Sg Wang Plaza etc. It is more of the extra goodies that you can get. Moving on, it was held at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, besides Kuala Lumpur City Centre(KLCC). KLCC is always crowded with people - shoppers and loiterers. It’s just such a strategic place. It is easy to reach using public transportation - Putra LRT system. It also has a nice park where people can just sit and relax. So you can imagine how the extra attraction of the fair will do to the amount of crowd. The fair was held during the weekend, and the crowd was just enormous. I went there on Saturday and boy was it packed! I thought to myself that this was exactly how I would imagine a pilgrimage would be like. I’m sure the number of people were in the millions. As I could remember, just in KLCC, there were at least 5 people in a 1m radius around me at anytime. Once I reached the fair, there was at least 20 people in a 1m radius around me at any time. It actually sucked the joy of window shopping out of me. Made me just want to go and look for what I had in mind and just get out of there. So I did exactly that.

I had camera brand that I had in mind at that time - Canon. My friends had told me that the brand has good quality cameras that print out great pictures. Once I reached a booth selling Canon products I just looked at available models and taking mental notes of the price and features. One model instantaneously caught my attention with its features. It is a subcompact camera that is an in-between of a compact camera and a professional SLR camera - Canon G9. It is also known as a semi-professional camera. The good thing about this camera for me is that it has features of an SLR camera that I need and also the compactness of a compact camera such that it is easy for me to bring around instead of me leaving it around to collect dust. After trying the camera at the booth I was really keen on buying it. However, I could not get it straight away as I had not bring money on the first trip just yet. I had to return on the next day. I never rush to buy things so that I can take some time to think about the pros and cons because the RM1559 tag that came with the camera is not a small amount for me. I am after all just a student with limited resources.

The next day came and after much consideration I decided to buy the camera. My hesitance was based on the price. As I said, I’m a person with limited resources. What made me buy it was the fact that camera prices don’ fall as fast as other gadgets like handphones etc. Buying the camera now while I had a discounted price would be the same as me buying it later on when it is cheaper but without discount. Besides, if I kept on delaying my purchase, I would never buy it and I am not getting younger and I might be too busy to enjoy it once I’m older.

Here is a picture of the camera I have taken using my Nokia 3230. It might not be so clear because of the 1.3Megapixel camera is not really good.

Here are some pictures of the things that I got together with the purchase. These I took using the G9(as I fondly call it now). Forgive me if they are not that aesthetically pleasing as I am still learning ways to take great photographs.