Things to do this weekend

If you are looking for something to do in the more on the aesthetic, and specifically the photography related then you might want to grab your camera and head to the Daegu International Bodypainting Festival at Apsan Park.

I went last year and I took some pretty nice photos away. Of course, there will also be half naked Korean girls there, but we don’t care about that, do we? Nothing much will be worth seeing before about 11am and only by about 1pm did things start getting really interesting. By about 3pm the Face Painting and Costume Design section, my favourite section, should be heading to the stage and the body painting will have about 2 hours to go. If you decide to go then I hope that gives you something to work with.

If you are not in the mood to go to Daegu (I understand that most people are to lazy to leave their immediate 30 minute radius) then don’t fret because there is always something happening in Seoul. Few photographers have never heard of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Dude is one of the gods of photography. Some don’t like him and they have good reason not to, but that is no reason not to see works of one of the be best known photographers ever. Henri Cartier-Bresson: Speaking through Pictures will be held in Gwanghwamun and finishes this weekend.

Last is something much smaller but much more personal. Mannam Photography will have a small exhibit by its members with the theme “World Piece”. It will be held at The Alley in Itaewon and if I knew how I would have included a link to a Naver Map. However, if you just go to maps.naver.com and type “The Alley” in to the search box you will see where it is.

Hope everyone has a fun and productive weekend.

.

Jelly, Jelly, just keep Jelly.

Jellyfish, or as I like to call them, Jellies, might just be my all-time favourite things at aquarium. Sure, they come in the big scary, and often deadly varieties as well, but in COEX Aquarium in particular they come in the cute, small, interestingly displayed varieties. Just look at these things. They are so darn cute. Don’t you just want to hug them and squeeze them and call them Georgeseses? Jellies are found in all the world’s oceans and there are even a few fresh water varieties. The jellies close the coastlines are particular colourful. They have no brains, or any sort of central nervous system. Instead they have a oose network of nerve cells that assist them in their daily drifting around. Some jellies had light sensitive cells that assist them in determining up and down. There are so many other interesting things that could be said about them, but I am not interested in writing another Wikipedia page. I shot these at the COEX Aquarium. We arrived pretty later and by the time we got to these the staff was already starting to shuffle people along for closing time. I wish I had time to stand at the tanks and take 200 photos. As it were I had about 10 seconds per tank, shooting and hoping for the best.

Wednesday Korean

My Korean for this week.
Shall we…? (-ㄹ/을까요?)

“Shall we have coffee?”
“커피를 한잔할까요?”
(lit. “Coffee one cup do, shall we?”)

I asked and was told that we can say “커피를 한잔 마실까요?” as well. I suppose context and habit will decide which and knowing that will come with time.

While asking around to check if I was doing it right I was told that some people prefer to use –ㄹ/을래요 instead.

Camera Shopping Help

* Prices here are in USD and from the manufacturer sites. I am planning to go look for actual prices in stores the first weekend in September. I will update the prices to Won then.
* There are other brands out there, but I did not intend this to be an exhaustive list. I would like to get more up to speed on this format and will eventually do a post including other brands.
* If you just want my final recommendation, go straight to the end of this post.

 

With a member of Mannam Photoclub and two people I know saying they want to buy cameras but don’t know what to buy, I thought I would look at what is available out there at the moment.

As it happens I was listening to a podcast about a week ago where a professional photographer said that with the quality of Micro Four Thirds where it is at the moment, he would buy one as a main camera. Only think holding him back was that other photographers would laugh at him for not having a “proper camera”. This makes me rather confident when I advise new buyers to consider these smaller lighter cameras.

As is stand now it seems that Olympus and Panasonic, the creators of this format of camera, are still leading the way. Think of them as the Canon and Nikon of the DSLR world, except that here Olympus seems to be just that tiny bit better.

So, where to start? Because this is still a rather new format, the improvements between models can be quite big, meaning you should consider buying the newest models, rather than priced down or second hand older models. When it comes to lenses it would seem like buying the lenses made by the manufacturers of the camera bodies would be the best way to go.

The first one I will mention here comes from Olympus. This one headlines their brand with the gorgeously retro looking OM-D E-M5. It was designed to be a full replacement for a DSLR and at that price it had better be. It will set you back about $1000 and give you a 16.1 mega pixel sensor with a whopping ISO 200-25600. My brand new DLSR only goes to 12800, so I don’t see how you will get quality images on a smaller sensor at an ISO higher than that. Another sometimes useful feature is the tilting screen. Unfortunately it does not swivel like the Panasonic I will talk about later, but you will still be able to get interesting angles.

The Olympus E-P3 will cost a little less, but bit it seems to be a smaller version of the OM-D E-M5. For $900, depending on the lens you choose, you will be provided with a 12,3 megapixel sensor and an ISO range of 200-12800. For a sensor of this size it seems like a much more reasonable range. In terms of looks it is still rather retro looking, but much more minimalistic and less “pro” looking.

Olympus’s E-PM1 was designed to be the Mini version of the E-P3. It looks very similar with just a few line changes and offers most of the same features, but in a much lighter cheaper package ($400). Unfortunately most of the great Retro look is lost in this model and it is said to have a rather plastic feel to it. If you don’t have the extra money to spend, then don’t shy away from buying cheaper camera like this. In the end the lenses and photographer make great photo. The camera body just helps. Use the money you save to get that special lens you would rather be using.

Panasonic leads their brand with the Lumix G5, which looks like a mini version of a larger DSR. It is rather cute and tidy in my opinion. It comes in at either $700 or $900, depending on the kit lens you choose. Feature wise it compares well with the Olympus OM-D E-M5 with a 16 mega pixel sensor with an ISO of 160 – 12800. Its screen has full swivel to get you in to really strange shooting angles. A big selling point for this one is that it is quite a bit cheaper than the high end Olympus.

The last camera I will talk about is the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF5. It is far cheaper of the two Panasonics and also a bit smaller. For your $450 you will get a 12.1 mega pixel sensor with ISO 160-12800. Unlike the Olympus option at this price, this camera looks more like something a pro will keep handy. No girly lines here.

None of these cameras are bad, some are just a bit better. If you have the money to spend, get one of the big buys, and if you and something smaller, get the medium priced Olympus. If you are looking at Micro Four Thirds because you have a budget, then get one of the smaller cameras. I’d suggest Panasonic as it is supposed to be more user friendly at the moment. If you want full reviews, try reading more at sites like dpreview.com or photographyblog.com

Lastly I should mention lenses. Kit lenses are usually not that bad, but if you are like me they are not what you are looking for so, you might want to consider getting extra lenses. If you are looking to keep it as small as possible Pancake Lens will be what you are after. They will most likely be wide angle lenses at around 14mm focal length. If you want something more serious that will give you great artistic options, go for a 25mm(50mm equivalent) prime lens. If you need a good all round lens then get the kit lens, usually 12-44mm or a 12-35mm lens. The 12-35mm is equivalent to a full camera’s 24-70mm, a lens many pros like to walk around with.

Lenses are one of those things I can’t really give you specifics for. You should get the best you can afford, without going overboard, and be sure you will use what you buy. I have met many people, who, like me, spend 95% of their shooting time with a 30mm (50mm equivalent) lens. There is no zoom, you get great quality and the focal length is about the same as what the human eye sees.

*****

With all of this I will give my personal recommendation. If I was to buy a camera now I would get a Panasonic DMC-GF5. It is small, stylish, and cheap. It is also said to be great for both beginners and advanced users.

Because I love the natural view of a 50mm equivalent lens, and because I love the artistic capabilities that a fast, big aperture gives me, I will go straight for the LEICA DG SUMMILUX 25mm / F1.4 ASPH ($600, Ouch! But oh-so-sweet photography.). If you want to keep your camera in your handbag and want a very small lens that is very close to this, go for the LUMIX G 20mm / F1.7 ASPH instead.

Lastly you will need an all-round lens for when you travel, a lens that will let you zoom out from a wide angle to a nice close view. For this you could take LUMIX G X VARIO 12-35mm / F2.8 ASPH. / POWER O.I.S ($1000. Yikes! Stay with the kit lens, children)

(Last update 28.8.2012)

Mannam Photography Exhibition

Mannam Photography will be having a small exhibition for the Mannam Photography Club. Initially I was not going to contribute, but they were in serious need of photos, so I decided to add three photos to the mix. What do I have to lose by helping. The exhibit is related to Mannam's Word Peace Initiative activities. I though this photo from my “100 Favs” collection (work in progress) would be relevant. The small exhibition will be held at Cafe Gallery Golmok in Itaewon From 27 August to 1 September. (Facebook even here)

A tank on an military base near the North South Korean border.

A former student of mine doing the peace sign.

My all time favourite photo. A girl singing in the shadows for money, badly, I'm sorry to say, while a mother with children sits happily oblivious in the sun pouring through the window.

Shall we play a game?

Me: (Showing the lesson to my Co) This was planned for the English room, where we have space. In the class room we don’t have space to do the game, so we will just have to go to every student and ask then some questions to practice speaking.

Her: (Pointing the big numbers I was going to use for the game) What is this?

Me: Those are for the game, but we can’t do it because we are not in the English Room.

Her: How does it work?

Me: Explain the game, a few times, even with pictures. The game we are not going to do.

Her: We can’t do that. The classroom is too small.

Me: I know. I planned that for the English Room. We didn’t have the lesson last week because I hoped to have the English Room back this week.

Her: But we can’t use the English room. It is very dirty.

Me: I know. We are not doing the game so it doesn’t matter.

Her: We can’t do it in the classroom. There is not space.

Me: I know we can’t do it there. That is my point.

Her: We can’t use the English room. The Vice Principle says it is not safe until they have fixed the air conditioning.

Me: I know. We are not doing that game because we can’t use that room.

(One or two more circles)

Her: So what are we going to do?

Me: What I suggested in the beginning. Speak to each student individually to give them practice.

Her: What about the game?

Me: We are not doing the game.

Her: We are not doing the game?!

3 minutes to explain a game that we are not even doing and 4 minutes to repeatedly say that we are not doing the game.

Joy to the world.

For the Alliance

I’ll try to keep this short…
Just before going to bed last night I logged into Word of Warcraft (WoW) to do some house keeping in other words, make some in game money. I logged on to my banker to check and repost my auctions then logged on to my Alchemist to transmutation something and then fly to another zone. While flying I noticed people talking in one of the general chat channels. They seemed all excited about badmouthing the other faction and this inevitably turned to going in to the other faction’s main city and killing their leader.

“What, what, what?” I hear you say (and if you are not saying that, then I’m pretending that you are actually interested.) In The WoW there are two factions. A character can belong to only one. Each faction has a selection of races, some of which have their own home cities. In each of these cities there is a leader. If you kill all four you get a nice Battle Bear to ride on.

One big problem is that when we attack, players from the opposing faction are allowed to join in and protect their leader, by killing you. For Horde, in the main city called Orgrimar, they are very likely to join in, since a large part of the players will be right there seeing us pour in to kill their leader. In Stormwind, the main city of my faction, the leader is stashed away where no one can see him being attacked.

Aaaaaanyway, the guys in the chat channel reasoned that since WoW is so quiet at the moment, and since it was midnight, we would be able to kill Garosh Hellscream with little interference from other players. I thought about it and despite thinking it would fail, I swapped characters and announced that I was available for an invitation.

We met up on a peak overlooking Orgrimar, all 26 of us. For the people who know what I’m talking about, you never go without at least one full team of 40 people, yet, there we were, all psyched up and well short on numbers. Fully expecting us to fail and thus getting to bed sooner rather than later I followed all the other people in the flying dragons, hippogriffs and what have you in to the city.

Only about three people came in to tried and stop us. That was far fewer than was needed. I stood in amazement (healing here and there) while the health bar of the Horde leader crept lower and lower. We were actually going to do this, with only 26 people, and after I failed in so many attempts in better setup groups.

15 minutes or so of whacking away at leader he keeled over and my achievement notice popped on screen to show that I had finally done it. I was in a group that killed the most difficult of all the leaders in the game. Running on happy juice, most of us stood around killing some of the in game characters in the city and generally just annoying the other faction, while one or two players went to the next city. With this attack having gone so well l we thought we should just go do all the other cities.
Long story short, I was able to see some places I have never seen before, kill the remaining leaders one by one, allowing me to and return to my mail box to find a shiny new mount and a letter from the Kind of Stormwind himself. Two in the morning and with a smile on my face, I was reminded of one of the reasons online games like these can be so addictive. These achievements which, in reality are completely useless, turns in to mindless fun when done with a group of crazy gamers.

.