Went to Puchong today to meet someone, and on the way, just stop by at the newly open Giant Kinrara, Puchong. As always, when visiting hypermarket like this, I really love to visit the electrical department. Not sure why. I live browsing through electrical and electronic appliances very much.

There is something that interest me on display today. From far, it looks like a tripod. What I said to myself is – well, it’s good also to see whether they have a good tripod here or not. But as I get closer, it is not a tripod, but actually, it’s an astronomical telescope. The price tag (which is RM138) really tempts me, and at the end, I got one myself.

As always, I’m really excited doing the unboxing. Below are the boxes of the parts out of the main box.

And below are the parts of out the box. Let the assembly begins.

Phew. Assembiling this is quite confusing I have to say. But the booklet does give a very clear instructions as well as a very helpful diagram to help us with the assembling process.

And below how the finished product looks like. You know that I turned off all the lights in my living room, and the photo below just lit by my television screen – I love my 50mm f/1.4 lens.

Why turned off all the lights? Well. I don’t want people to see I’m having this in front of my window. They will think that I want to peep them. Many of the neighboring units are occupied by female. Don’t really want to think something bad about me ;)

So, what’s next? I will bring this out to my balcony one day to look at the full moon. And I also found this cool video on YouTube about Astro-photography.

I really want to try this one day. Just not sure whether the T-Mount that is mentioned in the video is something that can be easily found here.

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I received a message from my long lost friend on Facebook. Actually, he is my housemate when I was in Kolej Mara Banting, doing International Baccalaureate. Man. It’s been 12 years since the day that we graduated. I really love this Facebook, and now kinda meeting more of other long lost friends.

I remember when I was in Form 2, one of my teacher said – when you grow up, and started to work, that time you will miss your school years very much. Yes, that’s what Cikgu Siti Jamilah (still remember her name) teaching Kemahiran Hidup told me, and I couldn’t agree more. And I really miss those time.

I don’t have much memories of those years documented anywhere. Below is my university card when I was doing my degree 10 years ago. I better blog this before this gone forever.

Come to think of it, how lucky those people nowadays. Handphone with camera is available everywhere. Digital camera is something that anyone can afford now. Friendster, Myspace, Facebook, blog – there are so many mediums that they can documented their live.

Back then, point and shoot film camera is still something quite expensive for a student to get. Handphone? It’s a luxury item and no camera available yet. Internet? What is that? I happened to first use internet only in the year of 1999. Still blog and all those networking website is not yet available.

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Since I first started my aquarium hobby (here), I was getting more and more equipments/accessories for it (here, here, here, here, here and here. Same goes when I had my first cat (here), and 3 more cats (here and here), I started to buy more and more things for my cats (here, here, here and here).

Now it’s time for my new camera. The first thing that I get is this Hoya UV Filter for the lens. It is said that UV rays make outdoor photography hazy and indistinct. But I don’t see much effect of it yet when I tested it last time. Anyway, I buy it is for something else – as a permanent protector for my lens.

This is how it looks out of the box. This is the multi-coated one, and is a bit more expensive than the normal one. Comparing the clarity of the image that I see through the filter makes me buy the multi-coated one. If you see with naked eyes, it seems that there is nothing inside the rig of the filter (i.e the glass is so clear).

I don’t really feel that the kit lens that comes with my camera is good enough. It is good for everyday use with the range of focal length of 18-55mm. But I need something more.

Been reading on the net that prime lens (i.e lens with a fixed focal length) is better than the normal zoom lens. And the 50mm one in particular, has received quite a good review almost everywhere. There is also one person in his blog, saying that if you use DSLR, this is the lens that is a must to get, and your DSLR really deserved this lens. The person even said that go out and buy this, and you will never regret.

Poisoned with what that person said, I went to Sungai Wang plaza yesterday to shop around for 50mm lens. You know what, I was thinking of getting Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM one. But after looking at the price, f****g hell. It costs more than my EOS 40D itself.

So I get the next best one in line, which is Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM.

And this is the lens out of the box.

So let test the lens now. This lens has the smallest F-number of 1.4. If you are reading about options, the smaller the F-number, the larger the aperture, the shallower the depth of field is.

This is the first photo that I shoot. Since the lens is set at f/1.4, meaning the lens is fast, i.e letting lots of light to enter, with a very dimmed light from my computer desk’s lamp, I’m able to take this photo without problem with no flash used. But this photo doesn’t really show much about the effect of depth of field. Oh by the way, this is the lens that I got as a kit with my EOS 40D camera.

This is another photo that I take with this new lens. This is Oyen sitting on my bed. At f/1.4, the effect of depth of field is brilliant. Just look at how the background is blurred so much, that makes the subject (i.e Oyen) stand out without distracting background.

And this is another shoot with Ebot as the subject, taken in my living room, just using the rooms light. I really like to softness that this lens gives.

Yes I know. I should clean both Oyen’s and Ebot’s eyes first before doing this photo-shoot. Hehe.

Final test for tonight, I’m taking the landscape photo with this lens. The shopper at where I bought this told me I shouldn’t use f/1.4 that much since it will give strain on the lens. Why arr. So I use f/1.8 for this one.

I’ve talked fish, I’ve talked cat, and now I’m talking photography.

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Huarrgghh.. I feel so sleepy at the moment on unproductive weekend like this. My cats are long in deep sleep already. All four of them kept showing variety of sleeping habit. And below is their latest favourite sleeping spot (where Oyen and Ebot still keep the same favourite spot as last time).

Can’t find all 4 of them? Click the photo to access the larger version.

Well, I’m off got a short nap now. Taadaa….

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