Rambling on…

Kechara Soup Kitchen feeds the homeless and urban poor on the streets in KL. I didn’t know such a charity existed in Malaysia. I only knew because they had a booth set up in 1 Utama.

It’s gratifying to know that Malaysia as a whole is moving in the right direction, albeit slowly. Any pace is better than not moving at all I guess.

I was over at Bukit Jalil doing some photography (okay, okay… it was more like drooling) for the Xtreme Nights car show. As it was night event, the lighting conditions weren’t ideal. At one point, it was even threatening to rain, but thankfully, it stayed dry while I was there (apart from the puddles of saliva). Anyway, back to the point of this post, I realised a couple of things about the behaviour of my Nikon D70s while taking the pictures. Two things are particularly interesting for me:

1. Exposure Bias (EV) does affect Manual (M) mode

I always thought EV doesn’t affect the manual meter, afterall, you’re in FULL control. You decide what you want the camera to do, and you look at the exposure meter to decide how you want to expose the image. But actually, it does. Setting an exposure of -0.7EV and dialling in the controls for shutter speed (assuming the aperture is not changed), the shutter speed will be higher if you’re bringing the exposure meter to 0EV. This is confirmed in page 86 of the user manual.

2. Slow/Rear Flash Sync doesn’t limit your shutter speed

I always had the problem of the D70s hitting the 1/60s shutter limit set in the menu (in Aperture priority mode) when lighting conditions were difficult and a flash had to be used. This meant that the flash was always going to be the sole light source and that the resulting image wouldn’t be natural in its lighting. Setting the flash to either Slow sync or Rear sync solves this problem. Although now you’re faced with a longer shutter speed and steady hands (or a tripod) would be required.

Although I’ve used this camera for almost 2 years now, I’m still getting to grips with it. And I still love it to bits!

p/s: Yeah.. the pics will be coming soon.. once I get round to processing them. I went with tango, so go here for his shots…

Post-Hungary and Lewis is already saying that Alonso has not spoken to him since Saturday’s qualifying.

Well that’s what you get when you have two competitive drivers and no real team orders to speak of. At least at Ferrari during the Schumacher era, you didn’t have that kind of problem. But then again, with Schumacher around, you know he’d dominate either on the track or back at the factory (with his superhuman work ethic).

How often do you see Alonso giving high-fives and back slapping his mechanics? Not very often. You see that alot with Lewis. So who’s the rookie? Even if Lewis wasn’t a Brit, I think he’d still manage to rally his McLaren mechanics around him.

As for the qualifying on Saturday, who was wrong? Well.. all of this wouldn’t have happened if Hamilton moved over like the team asked. But he’s not one to just move over right?

So, Lewis Hamilton, Formula 1 rookie with 11 races under his belt. But driving like a seasoned and hardened veteran. We’re in for a good few years of racing to come!