DRIFT!!

DRIFT, I believe this word does sound very familiar to all of us, well, most of us I guess. Anyway, if you don't know about drift, you will be able to understand it after you watch Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift, it is an action-packed movie and also that movie do brings the world of drifting into its' peak.

Many people will think that Drifting is illegal under the eye of the law, well, it can be legal if you're doing at the right time, right place and right skill. One advise here before I proceed, Do Not Try This At Home Or Any Place, it is ILLEGAL if you ever try this on the road. Drifters need months and years of training to be familiar with the skill of drifting, apart from that, they need to fine-tune their car, customise their car so that drifting can be done under a bright or dark sky and to guarantee that you will be able to step out of the car safe and sound after drifting, instead of crawling out of the car.

We are happy to see that the government is actually helping up with this group of drifters and actually make it as a hobby for the teenagers, of course, you need to do it in a legal manners. The Burnout 360 Sabah Drift Challenge which was held at the Sabah Port on 29 May 2010 was co-organised by the local and federal authority and I believe it marks a new era for this hobby to be popular among the Sabahan or even in Malaysia now.

I came over this event on that particular day and luckily am able to attend the event for a photo-shooting session. When I was there around 2p.m., it happens that the morning till evening session was just warm-up and other sub event. The real challenge happens to be at evening time. Anyway, I do some shooting during the warm-up session, by the way, this is my first time ever in my life trying to do panning shot, well, it came out that quite a lot of the subject was blur. Luckily, I was still able to get some shot. The evening shooting turns up to be a nightmare for me. Why is it? The lighting was bad. How bad is it? Only a few functional spot light was on and the spotlight which should be lighting up the the subject was out of order, making the subject, which is the car, became so dark when they are performing the drifting. It became worse that I didn't bring my Nikon SB-900 with me by the time, but was able to lend a Nikon SB-600 from my friend on the spot, luckily the Nikon SB-600 does help up with the lighting a bit.

Anyway, struggling with the lighting and boosting my Nikon D3S ISO up to ISO-8,000, it truly put my Nikon D3S to its' test and turns up with the Nikon D3S exceptional performance, I was able to get some shot. This is my first time taking the car drifting shot and definitely it won't be the last. I am looking forward for another drift event to further enhance my shooting skill in the drifting event.

Lastly, with the combination of pictures and video taken with my Nikon D3S and Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII from my friend, I came out with the simple short clip below, the clip was finished on the same day and I only used half an hour to finish the clip, so pardon me for any imperfection. The short clip turns up to be muted due to some copyright issues, for the unmuted version, check my facebook. Cheers!

2/5/2010 Lok Kawi Zoo Wildlife Shooting

Always desperate to shoot wildlife as I think wildlife always give a natural look because they don't know how to pose, unless you get them trained to listen to human instruction. As I am yet to have the chance to expose to the real wildlife which is in the wild, I can only take the pictures of the wildlife inside the zoo. Some will say: “That’s easy!” Well, I can tell you, it’s not easy to take the portrait of the wildlife inside the zoo.

This is my second trip to Lok Kawi Zoo, but this time I went with a gang and with my new gear Nikon D3S and Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII, which I borrow from my friend. Still, I manage to capture some nice “pose” by the animals. Among all the animals there, I prefer the Orang Utan, Elephant, Tiger and the Monkey (sorry, can’t remember what species is that). The monkeys were not caged so we have quite a clear shot of the monkeys apart from those trees and bushes. It’s quite far for my lens, Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII, but with the quality of the Nikkor lens and Nikon camera, I manage to crop the picture to almost 15%-20% of its original picture and all the details still remain intact.

This trip really is a fruitful trip as I got a lot of nice and amazing shots, not only the tiger, but also the eagle, bird, Orang Utan and the elephants. Here I would like to share the photos.

All pictures taken with Nikon D3S and Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8, VRII

First, the elephants:



I personally like a close-up shots of the elephant featuring their eyes. The eye of the elephant seems a bit scary if you would just stare right into its eye.

But, when you look from afar,

she is just one calm and peaceful looking animal.


Personally, I like this moment, it seems like a precious moment between the mother and son.

Never seen an elephant feet? Here it is,


Next, the parrot, have been expecting this kind of shots a long long time and I finally get at least two of it.






Follow by that, is the eagle:


and a closer shot,


imagine these claws are on your hand..


Next up, will be a deer, I like the lighting at where the deer take its rest. Sorry for the disturbance in front as I need to shoot through the green wire fence.


and the sun bear,



showing off its teeth and the trademark in front of its chest



coming up, the Orang Utan in action






monkey in action, also, I like the lighting at the right moment,


last, but not least, the tiger




Didn't manage the get a few shots on my favourite subject, the tiger, but ends up with several nice collection. Hope everyone enjoy viewing the pictures. Cheers.

1/5/2010 Orphanage visitation at Tambunan

Labour Day, usually this is the day where people take their rest, as for us, we took a long trip to Tambunan visiting an orphanage. There were around 67 children living in that orphanage, their age range from 5 to 17 years old. This is an orphanage under Catholic cares.

We arrived at the orphanage at around 10a.m. then the day start with a handicraft session with the children, teaching them how to make 2 kinds of bookmark, one is the typical bookmark and the other type is made with clothing design on an ice-cream stick. I believe all of them enjoy doing it, not only girls but also the boys there. After the handicraft session, we were seated together with other visitors of the day. From there onwards, we enjoyed all the sharing sessions and performance presented by the children. Undeniably, they are so talented and I believe all of us enjoyed the performance with cheers and unbelievable look on our face.
After the visitation, we had a short trip to one of the resort nearby for river crossing and fish feeding. The day ends with another long trip back to Kota Kinabalu under the watering sky. We are blessed that it’s not raining in the afternoon. Thank God for the arrangement and blessings.

The short movie clip will explain what we saw over there. I never think of doing video-shooting but last minute decision on the spot led me to do some video-shooting. Sorry for the video shaking as I didn’t bring any monopod to do the video-shooting with Nikon D3S and Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII. It is really a heavy combination if you want to take video with that combination without any monopod or tripod support.

All pictures and videos were taken using Nikon D3S and Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII

25/4/2010 Penampang Song En Methodist Youth Fellowship Sunday 兵南邦颂恩堂青年主日

This is an yearly event for all Fellowship under Christ for Methodist and ours was held on the 25/4/2010. After months of preparation and practices, the day has finally come. All though there were some technical problems in the middle of the service but thank God, all things went on smoothly. We were happy that there were new friends to be present with us on that day. I was stationed as a photographer for the day together with another friend. This is the first time I use my Nikon D3S with a combination of Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII and Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 without the help of my Nikon SB-900, which means that some of the photos use up to ISO-2500.

After giving a careful thought, I decided to share the photos using short movie mode so that everyone can actually see all the photos instead of just a few shots. All photos were taken using the combination as mentioned earlier except the last group photo, which is taken by my friend using his Nikon DSLR. Anyway, it's still Nikon.