September 20, 2008 By Jaxon S Children of Borneo native crossing a wooden hanging bridge, some 18km from Kota Kinabalu, the capital city of Sabah, the Malaysian state on Borneo Island.
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September 20, 2008 By Jaxon S 
On August 26, I blogged about the new Olympus camera, the SP565-UZ and listed several features I wanted to see in a digital point-and-shoot camera.
I blogged that on the surface the SP565-UZ seemed to be the perfect company for my old Canon PowerShot G6. I ended the blog hoping that two of my favourite brands, Canon and Nikon, would somehow come up with their own long-zoom camera to equal SP565-UZ’s 20x optical zoom.
I’ve said that, “The SP-565UZ does look like an ideal companion for the G6 but there is still no proof yet of its image quality.
“If it is good, then I might as well go for it. That is, if either Canon or Nikon is not already thinking of outdoing Olympus in the 20x wide-angle to ultra telephoto zoom segment. What say you Canon or Nikon? Are you already working on something or are you still reinventing the super zoom wheel?”
Well, guess what. Canon has answered my prayer and come up with its own 20x wide angle-to-telephoto zoom camera or 28mm-520mm equivalent, with 30fps high definition 1080 video capture to boot.
There are two models, the PowerShot SX1 IS and the SX10 IS but looking at the features, it is obvious that the SX1 IS is the better of the two.
And best of all, the SX1 IS has 4fps continuous shot until memory card is full, exceeding the 3fps I wanted to see in a point-and-click camera. The only thing lacking is the ability to shoot in RAW. However, I seldom shot in RAW mode with the G6. So the feature won’t be missed much in the SX1 IS.
And then there’s the super macro mode with the focusing distance of 0mm.
The SX10 IS, the cheaper of the two, will be available in October while the SX1 IS, in December. I’m seriously considering to buy the SX1 IS as the companion for my old but trusted PowerShot G6.
Posted in Camera Raves and Rants No Comments »
September 14, 2008 By Jaxon S One of the things I hate about point-and-shoot cameras — especially those with limited zoom range — is that you can’t really depend on it to take pictures in a “challenging” photo-taking situation.
Here in this photo, a lot more could have been done — like zooming in on the mother hen feeding one of the chicks. In an extremely blurred background — making the hen and the chick stand out within the frame — the result can be quite dramatic.
Posted in Animal Macro, Camera Raves and Rants 2 Comments »
September 9, 2008 By Jaxon S There used to be hordes of buffalo — hundreds of them — back in my village on Borneo island; that was until in the late 80’s when villagers started to open up their land for large scale paddy plantation.
In the old days, buffaloes were a measure of one’s wealth. If you own over 50 buffaloes you were considered rich because every time you needed the money, you could just catch one or two of the beasts and sell them at the market.
Owning fifty buffaloes seemed to the critical mass that one needed to achieve.
Once you reach that number, your wealth would grow — to borrow the phrase often used by Internet marketers — on an autopilot.
This was more so if the herd consisted of mostly female, which often was the case because they normally sell the male buffaloes off due to their high price. Having mostly female in the herd would enable it to multiply in just a matter of a few years.
My family once owned nearly fifty of them; so we were almost rich by my village’s standard!
However, the villagers soon realised that they could not depend on the buffaloes for long, partly because the beasts needed a huge space to live and also because they could die in great number in the event of an epidemic.
So the villagers turned to large-scale agriculture and started to fence up their land and sold off their buffaloes.
Now there are only dozens of the animals left in my village trying to live in whatever open space left for them to roam.
Thankfully, there are still the riparian river reserves that serve as corridors for the buffalo to move about.
Posted in Macro Rambling, Odds and Ends Macro 1 Comment »
September 6, 2008 By Jaxon S The tree is dead but the deader the tree, the more life it supports; get your macro lens ready as they might just creep away.
Posted in Creepy Crawlies Macro 1 Comment »
September 2, 2008 By Jaxon S It’s not that I’m buying a DSLR camera anytime soon. It’s just that I think that the 3-frame-per-second (fps) continuous shot should be made an industry standard in the entry-level DSLR and any camera maker that is unable to make the camera achieve the standard, should stop manufacturing them.
I don’t understand why manufacturers keep on dishing out new cameras with below 3fps continuous shots, even at ridiculous 2.5fps. Come on, even 3fps is seems ancient nowadays.
I mean, the entry level DSLR is no longer at its infancy. It has several years of history already. Surely we can get past the 3fps standard by now.
And another thing, the 3fps drive mode should be able to capture at least 10 frames in RAW and unlimited until memory card is full in JPEG mode.
Posted in Camera Raves and Rants No Comments »
September 1, 2008 By Jaxon S 
A small light on the ground illuminates the leaf of a wild yam or scientifically known as Alocasia macrorrhiza.
This species of yam or known as “Taro” among the Hawaiians is not edible but you can use the leaves to wrap food or as “umbrella” during rain… under my umbrella, ella ella eh eh eh!
On a serious note, you’ve got to be careful not to come in contact with the sap or latex as your skin can get real itchy due to the sap’s chemical content. If that happens, you won’t be having fun singing under the umbrella no more…
Posted in Macro Composition No Comments »
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