Sony AMC August Seminar

The excitement of waiting finally end. The Sony AMC August seminar was held today at Le Meridein Hotel. As usual, it's FREE for Sony Alpha user!! The event was posted at forum for pre-registration and all seats were reserved in just 3 days! What man! The funny thing is, no one knows the seminar details until last minute :)

As sneak preview by George, the Sony AMC person in charge (actually he is the product manager), there will be few important announcements during the seminar. All rumors and speculation link up with A900 full frame SLR launching or F58 flashgun release date. Hahaha.. It didn't happen here but what actual announced will benefit AMC most.

Let's see...

1. Every seminar participant will get a Alpha Survival Kit (retail price RM599) for FREE!!! Although it just some merchandises and accessories like bag, t-shirt, watch and etc. It show how sincere Sony to keep the user happy.

2. Aphanatics forum would be our new home and AMC.com.my is converting to knowledge database. This is a good move to open the forum to more user and expand our teriroty and poisons :) Same time new moderators were introduced to all. They are all AMC forum pioneers by the way. 100% support.

3. Sony will sponsor RM1000 monthly to Alphanatics as club fund. The best thing is we can snow ball it and decide what to do with the fund. Can I suggest to buy a white lense and loan to member??? (in my dream) Truly can't find anything like this in today world. This is not a hoax. Believe it.

4. The biggest surprise is - Malaysia will be the host of world 1st ever Alpha Convention!!!! And it happen in October!!! World class speakers are coming down to give free talk for 3 days!!! Who is reading this please go out and grab your alpha SLR now :)

I feel very energetic with the Sony AMC effort in expanding its market share and same time practicing good consumer service. The user is final winner. Although I am just a ordinary customer, but feel like doing MLM and want to recruit more member to join us :) Not to forget today seminar speaker were Ted Adnan and Darren Chang. Both are very experience in portraiture and automotive photography respectively. The talk covered basic to intermediate skill level, now everyone can shoot.

Tyre balancing and alignment

I always wondering what is tyre balancing and alignment. Then today happen to send my Savvy to tyre service shop for tuning. They dismantle my wheels and keep it roll on a machine. The computer will calculate how much variants and weight to add on. The mechanic stick the weight bar compensate the readings. Each weight bar is 5g. Wondering how the unbalanced wheel would affec the driving safety.

After balancing, they drive my car to a platform and lock up my front wheel. Then they select the computer reading for my car, but Savvy is not in the list (outdated program). We decide for the nearest match which is Renault Clio K4F. Then they based on the reading and adjust the front wheel to be in standard setting.

I feel smooth cornering after the fine tuning. Total cost me RM36. What a good business.

Spin the wheel to get the unbalance weight reading.

The weight bar.

Stick the weight bar on wheel.

The wheel lock for alignment measurement.

Computer showing unbalance alignment (2.2 and -1.9)

Sunset at LCCT

I was carrying camera for days to office. Finally today is clear sky and good sunset awaited. It was so peaceful at surrounding area juat a kilometres away from the LCCT complex. I use a long lens to zoom in to interesting subject - petrol silo and power plant. Not to forget the golden sunset. Have you enjoy sunset today?

AirAsia-British High Commisions Friendly Match

After survived from the Germany Leica camp, I get down to British High Commission front line to cover the battle against AirAsia Football Team. AirAsian play well in first half against the English. The multiple substitutes later has weakening the defense line and final score 6-1. As a celebration for this friendly match, we head down to Cobra Club for beers. It's was a good night where new friendship has began.

Tony and British High Commissioner officer.

He is fast and skillful.

Kick-off. AAX CEO's Azlan and Tony.

Header! But it didn't score for this.

Good dinner and new friendship.

A Day with Leica

Today I obey Sony Alpha and join Leica. The outing was organized by Photo Malaysia and Schmidt Marketing. Leica is the Rolls-Royce in camera industry. So the price and quality is all at premium level. There were two groups of user, black and white film and digital. I was in the digital group and given a Leica M8 loan unit. Even though it was 30 minutes of usage, it has proven I am a lousy photographer and M8 is a good camera. The specialty of M8,

1. It's a rangefinder. What you see from viewfinder is what you get, no darker nor brighter. Just it doesn't has DOF preview as SLR.

2. The viewfinder will display the gird/guide line for framing, thus different focal lens will have different square size. I always hard to frame (although just 30minutes of usage).

3. No autofocus. All focus done by my index finger. The middle view finder will display the split image, just match it at ur subject. The difficulty when focus subject is not in the middle. Bye bye multipoint auto focus.

4. The camera is light so hardly notice shaky hand. Also the mechanism is simple, just a nice 'qichak' buzz.

5. No funny stuff like vivid mode and stitch shot. All you have are Aperture or Manual (self define shutter speed and aperture). Thanks Leica there is continuous shutter and timer.

6. Aperture dial from lenses. The Manual mode will have metering info to tell you dial up or down. Cool! (because it make me feel like driving an antic Rolls Royce with Turbo)

7. No zoom lens. Save the zoom effects with SLR.

8. Small body size. Can shoot like lomography (shoot from hip).
9. THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT. VERY CLEAN AND CRISPY IMAGE. POISONEOS!!!

I am happy to be a 30 minutes Leica user. In the afternoon we back to Schmidt HQ to attend seminar. Sifu Teng Wei enlighten us with colour management stuff. It's technical as attend a degree course, but it does clear many doubts and mysteries happen in digital photography workflow. Finally we receive a Leica T-shirt (which wear by the Leica promoter) and two prints of best shot. Not a bad day since we paid registration fee. Ok, Sony AMC I am coming back now.

PC Fair 2008 (II)

The PC Fair is the biggest cash and carry IT expo in Malaysia. Many company like to push their products directly to consumer via this event. Hosted three times a year proven its popularity and acceptability. The name PC fair remain the same but more and more IT products were introduce in the fair. We have broadband package, mobile phone, digital camera and event credit card applications. Would money loaner join this event next year?





To me the fair basically a big sale market. There is lack of education approach on explaining technology wave changes. The salesmen will offer you Centrino 2 with freebies and no one further explain why we migrate to new platform? Just because the speed and I have to pay more? Or because the freebies make it a good deal? Malaysian need more knowledge, not just sales!!! Please invite some experts to give a forum and such. I prefer how MATTA educate the traveller. Since we can draw huge traffic to PC fair, why not a free seminar same time?