Even if you’re the biggest Fung Wan fan on earth? Well, if you don’t mind forking out money to make yourself feel annoyed, please go ahead.

Here’s the long reason why:

My love for the comic series started in 1991 when I was walking home from school and a beautifully-drawn comic book cover caught my eye at a bookstand.

This is what it looked like:

It was issue 105 of Tin Ha (Tian Xia, 天下), and I was stunned by the quality of the collage. I’ve always been a fan of artists who pay attention to detailing and a closer look at the artwork that made up the character’s face made my jaw drop. Every piece of the image was pure artistic talent.

By the way, the character on the cover was Nameless (Wu Ming, 无名), one of the most powerful characters in the Tin Ha universe and obviously an archetype from the original The Chinese Hero (中华英雄) series which was hugely popular in the early 1980s.

The main storyline then was how two fellow martial arts warriors Cloud (云)and Wind (风) fought each other to the bitter end, this being the result of Wind going over to the dark side by practicing evil skills (魔道) and succumbing totally.

The following are the awesome covers that covered the conclusion of that particular story arc. (Few youngsters today have seen the quality of the early Tin Ha artwork and dismiss Chinese comics as being pulp fiction):

That’s how I got hooked on Tin Ha for the next four or five years until the storyline got really out of hand (key characters became so powerful and even immortal, it didn’t really matter who they were fighting anymore). I also purchased graphic compilations of the first 50 novels which covered their battle against Xiong Ba, their master and their destroyer. I re-read those books many times until I gave them away years ago.

When the Storm Riders movie came onto celluloid screens in the late 1990s, it was not perfect, but it was a work of love and retained the spirit of the Tin Ha comic books. In fact, it managed to squeeze a lot of Tin Ha canon into under two hours and covered the rise of Wind and Cloud till the end of Xiong Ba.

Also you couldn’t really go wrong with a cast of Anthony Wong, Ekin Cheng and Aaron Kwok. Plus sexpot Hsu Chi of course, even if she was the most irritating cast member with her whiny voice. The movie had some of the best CGI found in Chinese cinema in its day (which is primitive by today’s standard of course), and helped drive a short resurgence of wuxia movies until the Hong Kong film industry went into deep doldrums this century.

Then things went pretty much downhill with the Fung Wan television series:

To cut the long story short, the TV series featured cheap wigs, cheap props and two of the last people who should ever act as Wind and Cloud. Scrawny Peter Ho was supposed to be the beefy Cloud, and nostril-flaring Zhao Wen Zhuo looked horrendous in his long wig as Wind. In Season 2 (amazing that it even lasted that long), Zhao gave up on the wig and went with a crew-cut. I couldn’t decide if that was an absolute sacrilege to the source material or eye-relief for millions of TV viewers in Asia. 

So for many years, Fung Wan fans waited patiently for the next movie sequel, hoping for the sins of the TV series to be redeemed with modern filmmaking techniques. I should have suspected that something was wrong when I heard about The Storm Warriors early in 2009, saw screenshots, but it was announced that the movie would only be released at the end of the year. In the Asian film industry, films are usually rushed out as soon as possible.

Now having watched The Storm Warriors on the big screen, here is the lowdown.

Good bits:

- Aaron Kwok finally gets a proper wavy hair-do instead of the scary electric-blue curls in the last movie.

- Wind’s costume is pretty authentic looking. Both he and Aaron have hardly aged since the last movie.

- Simon Yam is a great Lord Godless – he’s old enough to carry off the role and has the right amount of villainy to be Japan’s most powerful warrior. His face also looks strangely unlined – it could be the massive samples of free SKII that his wife QiQi gets as an official SKII model.

Bad Bits:

The scriptwriting is amateurish at best, and confused at worst.

The movie starts off nicely with a showdown between Godless and Nameless, but doesn’t know what to do after that.

Firstly, the movie imagines China as a small province, since heroes and villains seem to travel to each new location within minutes. Perhaps they have a new subway system?

Despite the rich tapestry of the Tin Ha universe, there are only five major characters and about four locales featured in the entire 110min movie. Someone is always telling someone else: “This XXX is being attacked at YYY location! Go there now!” and everyone rushes off to the next location.

Lead characters spend a lot of time explaining what and why they’re learning specific martial arts skills, but there is zero explanation on more critical plot points.

For example, why is the dragon bone – that Godless seeks – the key to China’s survival? What happens if it leaves the Dragon Tomb? How did Wind survive a premature end to his training as an evil dude? How was it that Nameless, the most powerful guy in the Chinese wuxia scene, allowed himself to get poisoned by Godless?

Of course, if you’re a big Fung Wan fan, you can surmise the answers. But as someone who was trying to enjoy the movie as mindless entertainment, the movie had – as the Chinese would say it – no head nor tail.

Now for the first 20 min, it seemed like the movie was attempting to flesh out a storyline. Then it gave up and went into:

Endless, meaningless computer generated nonsense

Really, the whole movie is like some animator’s wet dream.

String together five or six fight sequences overlaid with massive CGI and people will love it! Never mind about interesting dialogue, subplots or hey, even a basic storyline!

Sorry guys, all I saw was a lot of virtual black smoke, poor imitiations of Zack Synder’s 300 fight scenes (think high contrast images that constantly speed up and slow down to emphasize someone getting whacked stylistically), and WAY TOO MUCH posturing between all the male leads.

Seriously, every five minutes, either Simon Yam, Nicholas Tse, Aaron or Ekin would be glaring at someone else and looking pretty constipated before attempting to throw a kick or punch. It could be possible that it’s now easier to recreate constipated looks on the computer rather than to ask actors to strike that pose. 

After the first hour, I was just waiting for the movie to end because I couldn’t take anymore love-hate looks between Wind and Cloud, or the massive clouds of hot air (perhaps fart) that they kept generating and blowing at each other. There’s even a post-modern fight scene that fails utterly to impress in its self-righteous metaphorical approach.

Two seriously annoying female leads

My wife was saying Charlene Choi looks better these days after her Twins partner blew up her own career with the Edison Chen sex scandal. It doesn’t make Charlene a better actress though. As 2nd Dream, she spends the entire movie trying to look like a damsel in distress when she actually looks like she forgot her script.

The other actress Tang Yan replaced Hsu Chi in the role of Chu Chu. Oh man, she says the most annoying and obvious lines (“Why are you all injured?” she says, when it’s clear that everyone’s been beaten up by Wind) and I promise you’ll be happy when she gets her just deserts.

Overall, The Storm Warriors is just a poor excuse in movie making and is an embarrassment to the rich source material.

The directors (Pang Bros) have let the generous CGI budget go to their heads and forgotten that Fung Wan was always driven by a strong storyline. That each pugilist happened to be ridiculously powerful did not overcome the fact that they often kept their powers in check, or because they had serious personality flaws which they struggled with. The movie showcased so much CGI firepower it soon became boring to watch these guys unleash atomic-powered punches at each other. Less is more!!!

Also, in this movie, Wind and Cloud have somewhat less character than a Ken Doll, and seem more like colleagues rather than fighters who grew up feeling angsty about each other, only to reconcile for humanity’s sake. There was no effort to set the stage for these two characters, or even explain the motivations of any lead character.

The ending of the movie is rather faithful to the comic, BUT they didn’t even bother to do a post-credits scene to set up the next story arc.

If the movie was an excuse for selling figurines and toys like GI Joe or Transformers, I would have been more forgiving. But the merchandising is non-existent at normal retail. For the budget that these guys had, they really let the money flow away into a pool of mediocrity and wasted everyone’s time at the cinema.

Movie rating: 3/10. An exercise in computer graphics and post-production work, and little else. It could have reignited the wuxia movie genre, but basically reminded us that some franchises are best left alone to our fond memories.

PS: I thought the best bit about the movie was getting Kenny Ho, who acted as Hua Ying Xiong (The Chinese Hero/Bloodsword) on TV, to act as Nameless. Both Ying Xiong and Nameless share similar looks, character and wuxia reputation.

Kenny Ho as Nameless (无名)

Kenny Ho as Hua Ying Xiong

Related posts:

1. The worst Chinese movie ever made
2. Alpine W502/W505 iPod Head Unit Review
3. The failure of Narnia

Anyway, today was a good opportunity to put it through its paces again. We were hanging out with the rest of the family at Botanic Gardens and I must say the skin tones on the Oly were near perfect, even under cloudy weather. All photos taken with the kit pancake 17mm f2.8 lens. Must really get the 25mm f2.8 lens soon – I’m really a normal lens kinda guy

Related posts:

1. Olympus Zuiko 25mm!
2. Olympus Pen E-P1 review Part 1
3. Olympus Pen E-P1 Review Part 2

ISO 500, f2.8, 1/250, 17mm lens

I alternated the day between doing housework, kicking the kids around the house, and doing more test shots along the way. The Olympus Pen camera, the E-P1, makes a powerful first impression (see Part 1 of the review), and of course, I expected the negative bits to crop up during the second day of testing.

WHAT’S NOT SO GREAT ABOUT THE PEN

Complex User Interface

I think first off, this camera has an incredibly deep but unnecessarily complex user interface. Where the camera excels in image quality, it could really do better in trying not to satisfy gadget heads and pixel peepers.

In terms of physical buttons, it’s fine and dandy, but Olympus allows a bit more customization that I thought was good for the serious photographer who will not change settings as frequently as he focuses on getting the right angle and exposure. Choice is good, but having three or four different ways to activate one feature (eg. see how to set White Balance below from the manual) can lead to user confusion.

One can argue that this allows the user to customize the camera according to his shooting style, but can you imagine if a less experienced or less tech-savvy photographer were to pick up the camera for the first time? It’s clear Olympus is trying to target digicam upgraders, but this bit seems to shut them off in favor of geeky (and not necessarily good) photographers. For professionals used to the deep menus of dSLRs, it may not be an issue, but imagine my surprise when I accidentally pressed the “Info” button while exiting the replay screen and it suddenly jumped to a zoomed-in manual magnification mode. Where did that come from?!?

It’s also necessary to take a good read through the manual, even for experienced shooters, because otherwise, you wouldn’t even know you can set custom functions like remapping the dials or selecting HDMI video output resolution. The custom menu is made unavailable by default. Perhaps Oly engineers suspected that the basic menus alone were getting too complex?

Minor Exposure and Autofocus Issues

Auto-exposure worked great here despite strong backlighting. ISO 200, f5.6, 1/60 sec, 17mm

Centre-weighted metering seems to work better for most situations. ISO 400, f2.8, 1/320sec, 17mm

The auto-exposures on this camera can be a bit too conservative at times, leading to 1/3 stop to 2/3 stop underexposure when I took the kids to the playground. The blue and orange floor, cum the yellow slide (see above), tended to underexpose so I just went fully manual here. Now I’m used to going manual exposure indoors, but outdoors demands for more auto-exposures due to rapidly changing lighting conditions. Still, the good news is I probably faced underexposure less than 10% of the 300+ shots I took today. The rest of the photos were often perfectly exposed (ie. little auto-levelling required in PS).

I learnt the autofocus quirks of the Pen when I asked the kids to help me with this panning shot. ISO 200, f7.1, 1/25sec, 17mm

Single-AF on the 17mm works great most of the time – snappy and absolute, but the continuous AF doesn’t work very well. For example, when doing a panning shot as above, I have no issues using Continuous AF + Sequential Shooting on Canon dSLRs. My EOS 5D shoots 3 frames a second during panning sessions, same as the Pen, but the Pen pauses and insists on locking AF properly before the shutter would release.

This meant that I only managed to fire off one shot on the Pen over the 10m distance the kids ran back and forth over. To fix that, I had to use Single AF when panning. It could be also due to the image stabilization being switched on, so I’ll try that another day. I suspect, and I can’t confirm till I try with more lenses, that the Pen may not be suitable for action shots. Not a big issue to me anyway – that’s what the Canon EOS system is for.

Some TLC needed

I was right – the white color of the Pen is groovy and beautiful but can get dirty easily if you like to shoot in rough conditions. It’s a bit like the Paris Hilton of cameras and needs a good cleaning cloth to maintain like a nice white car. 

Another quirks of the Pen include the missing battery bar (it appears on the LCD when it feels like it).

BACK TO THE GOOD STUFF

Square format!!!

I nearly got giddy when I browsed through the menu and found that I could do a square aspect ratio (6:6) instead of the usual 4:3, 16:9, 3:2 ratios. Most of the younger photographers today have never used a medium format camera that took square frames, but I did and having to frame in a square is part of the joy of photography. You are forced to compose differently given the reduced space and your sense of composition is tested with every image.

At the Lavender Hakka Niang Tou Fu corner coffee shop. ISO 1000, f2.8, 1/20sec

Film-like color renditon

Everyone’s raving about the Art Filters (eg. Soft Focus, Grainy BnW) but those are gimmicky at best to the serious photographer.

Early in the morning. ISO 800, f4, 1/80sec

What really counts is the default colour rendition and that’s where the Pen continues the tradition of the E-series with its slightly warm tones. More Kodak than Fujicolor. I’ve been a little annoyed with the cold Fujicolor tones of the Panasonic LX3 and it’s great to see warm tones here again. Flesh tones are also done very well, but you have to watch the exposure carefully in case of slight underexposure as mentioned above.

Excellent HD videos

Now I’m a bit lazy to post a sample video here, and might do so later (putting a 318MB video on YouTube can take some time you know). But just know that the color rendition and sharpness of the HD videos are excellent. It won’t replace my Sony HD camcorder as the continuous AF on the Pen’s video mode doesn’t work as well in tracking subjects as you walk around, but if you aren’t too picky, yes, it’ll make a good video companion

VERDICT SO FAR

The Oly Pen continues to impress me despite its quirks and fallibilities. But the pros far outweigh the cons for my needs. I know the Pen’s heritage and technology is derived from the E-series dSLRs, but I prefer to think of this camera as a seriously good compact digicam with great color rendition and low noise levels.

What the Pen really lacks now is a good range of fast prime lenses, or even fast zooms – once that happens, the entire S$700-S$1000 category of prosumer digicams might die overnight.

A S$500-S$700 digicam today, like a high-end Ixus or the Panasonic LX-3 is maxing out what digicams are capable of. Yet you still see a Canon Powershot G10, priced at S$800+, trying to entice the market into thinking more buttons are better. A G10 cannot take better pictures indoors than the LX3 simply because the former uses a slow zoom lens. And if you want to talk about outdoor shots, all digicams are more or less on equal footing here.

If you’re from Canon or Nikon reading this, you’d probably know you cannot hold out on a Pen-like prosumer camera any longer.  The technology has always been there to create a sensor between digicam and dSLR sizes, and it doesn’t take rocket science to create lenses and bodies to work with those sensors.

For years, we have clamoured for the Big Two to give us just that, and you can see why the Pen is taking off like a rocket. It’s only natural for companies not to listen to the professional/hardcore market, but to internal marketing folks who get stuck in a rut, and Olympus has the opportunity to own the $1000-$1500 prosumer segment if it doesn’t mess things up from here.

In fact, I’ve always believed that a S$1000 dSLR (like the entry level Canons, Nikons and Sonys) is not a sustainable business in the long run. I suspect most of the people who buy a cheap dSLR will get tired of the bulkiness, and these are the people who will never invest in additional lenses or accessories. Imagine, I used to shoot for a living, carry a 15kg bag everywhere full of lenses and films and today I’m already tired of a dSLR’s bulk!!

The only reason why normal consumers will bother about dSLRs is the great image quality and today, the Pen provides more than adequate quality for the masses with a far smaller form factor. If my train of thought comes true, you might not see any entry-level dSLRs in a few years time as prosumers migrate en masse to a Pen-like camera system. What will accelerate it are cheaper but fast zooms (at least f4 please) for the Micro Four Thirds system.

WHO SHOULD BUY THE PEN?

At this point, apart from photo enthusiasts who’d buy anything, I’d highly recommend the Pen E-P1 to parents who’ve been frustrated with the poor indoor performance of their digicams, and to business travelers who don’t want to lug around a dSLR but want to take great overseas snaps.

Caveat: The one thing you’d need to really learn well is what makes a proper exposure. With the Pen, a slight 1/3 stop overexposure helps to reduce noise very well and adds more punch to the images. A 1/3 stop underexposure leads to slightly muted images and a visible increase in noise. Sure, you can rely on auto exposures most of the time, but the Pen demands a higher level of skill for more consistent outstanding performance. (I’m thinking to myself here: Doesn’t every camera demand that? But there are many photographers who have never learnt that the camera is not supposed to do the thinking for them. The geeky interface of the Pen can lull you into thinking the camera is smarter than you, which is obviously rubbish).

Of course, for pros, it’s a no-brainer purchase once you know what the Pen’s quirks and workarounds are.

Updated 5 July 2009: I’ve been posting additional pictures to my Facebook account and those pix are automatically imported into this blog. Please click here to see them (no full-sized images though, since FB resizes everything). No, you don’t need to be my Facebook friend to see these pictures ;D

Related posts:

1. Olympus Pen E-P1 review Part 1
2. “Which camera should I buy?”
3. Panasonic LX3 review

To begin with, this Olympus Pen E-P1 camera review is not for the casual Joe.

Some background: From 1999-2003, I was a press photographer in Singapore and later a technology editor who happened to review cameras and give photography workshops with Canon. I started my photography career in film and was involved in the early transition of Singapore Press Holding’s move from analogue to digital. I happen to be very traditional in my approach to shooting (my technique was built on the principles of Renaissance painters)  and I usually shoot with prime lenses on my faithful Canon 5D even though I own f2.8 zooms.

So this review is meant for fellow peers who understand everything about F-stops and apertures, proper colour balance, primes vs zooms, depth of field etc etc…because I’m not here to explain them. I’m here to tell my fellow photog buddies what they’re dying to know since I took the plunge first.

At the same time, I’m a father of two kids who has been looking in vain for the perfect alternative to my heavy dSLR system for casual and travel use. For years, I’ve waited and waited for Canon (or shudder, Nikon) to produce the perfect prosumer camera. They kept producing prosumer digicams that didn’t meet my desires, and to my utter surprise, it was the underdog Olympus who suddenly took up the mantle. I love Canon gear but my first camera was actually an Olympus 35mm f2.8 Mju film compact which actually survived my Nepal trek and produced great film images.

Today marks the local availability of the Olympus E-P1 (a Micro Four Thirds system), and no matter what you’ve read so far, I personally believe this camera marks the milestone in digital photography by upsetting the balance of power in the industry and aggressively revitalizes the prosumer space which had hit a wall and not progressed for years.

I’ve always known a prosumer camera shouldn’t be just some spec-ed out digicam. It needed…

• A big image sensor for low noise and smooth color rendition. Not one the size of your pinky like those found in all compact digicams today.
• A size between digicam and the smallest dSLR.
• Top-notch manual controls, because serious photography is about the mastery of exposure and angles.
• The perfect backup camera for pros using dSLRs, just large enough to stuff into the side pocket of a Domke bag. 

And the Oly Pen ticks off those personal requirements with absolute flair. This camera gives Oly a real chance at finally cracking the market share of the Big Two (Canon and Nikon), after years of futile trying with its E-series dSLRs. Proof? It’s selling out like mad right now.

This review is going to be split into several parts over this weekend because I just got my Pen camera today and am just beginning to put it through its paces.

If you want a quick answer whether you, an experienced photographer or advanced amateur, should buy it, my current answer is an immediate “YES”. (I don’t expect to change this view anytime soon!). Your biggest headache will really be which color edition (futuristic chrome/black or retro white/tan beige) is best for you. Personally, I’m still anguished that I can’t afford both colors and am suffering from severe post-purchase dissonance on the color front. Should I have gotten the chrome version?!?

HANDLING AND FEEL

I shan’t repeat the obvious – the camera is a work of art. But what really impresses is the build quality. No matter which color you get, the body is constructed like a tank and is actually pretty heavy too (330g) thanks to the extensive use of metal throughout. It screams first-class workmanship and I haven’t touched a camera like this for a long time (since my office Nikon F4, a clunky film SLR cum murder weapon where I honed my press photography skills as an intern).

It gets better – it’s slightly larger than my Panasonic LX-3 and that it’s large enough to grip firmly with two hands and feel confident about slow shutter speed shots (1/15sec and slower). Never mind that the camera also has sensor-based image stabilization!

Rear view showing the upper right scroll and below that, the circular scroll wheel. Official Olympus image.

The vertical scroll button and the circular scroll button work perfectly together for manual exposures. They have the right “clickiness” to measure f-stop increments instantly. Of all the non-dSLRs I’ve handled, this is the best manual handling ever.

dSLR purists might be annoyed by the multiple capabilities afforded by say the “Info” button. On Manual mode, it allows you to go to different modes like a huge crosshair (for aligning to straight line horizons), a live RGB exposure indicator, and even a mode where it is purely for moving the AF square around the LCD. I got confused here a bit initially and didn’t know which button was causing all this, but didn’t take me long to figure it out and see the design rationale. For portrait shots, the “move AF around mode” is excellent”. (At this point, I haven’t bothered with the auto modes yet.)

THE 17MM F2.8 PANCAKE LENS

Today, only two m-Zuiko official lenses have been produced for the Pen – the 17mm (equivalent to 34mm on 35mm film cameras) f2.8 pancake lens and the kit zoom 14-42mm (28-84mm) f3.5-f5.6 zoom lens. So far, nearly all the online reviews I’ve read to date have focused on using the latter, which states the state of photography reviews today – written by non-pros for non-pros.

Look, there’s nothing wrong with that. The majority of people who buy an entry dSLR today will never take off their slow kit zoom lens off the camera body. What upsets me is that many techie reviewers don’t realize the sheer quality and low-light capabilities of prime lenses, and some even wonder why the 17mm kit is more expensive than the zoom kit. Some forum post even claimed that’s because the prime lens is more complex to build than the zoom. (Strangle myself).

I wouldn’t recommend the kit zoom lens to anyone who wants to extract the best image quality and shoot under all lighting conditions with this camera. The aperture range itself stops me from even bothering.

And at this point, I can’t really comment on the quality/sharpness of the 17mm. I’ve only shot at ISO 1250 so far. But I like the flat shape and the manual focusing ring has the right level of resistance. You probably won’t do much manual focusing on the Pen anyway. By the way, in MF mode, the screen will zoom in to let you focus, then quickly zoom out to let you frame the shot – very snappy.

Now 17mm is arguably the best walkaround focal length for this camera. I’ve gone on full trips with just a 35mm f2.0 on my 5D and it’s a good semi-wide length for 90% of the time. Just don’t go too close to people for portraits ok? I hope they come up with m-Zuiko 12mm and 25mm (equivalent to 24mm and 50mm) primes soon. That’s really all I need.

HIGH ISO NOISE AND COLOR RENDITION (SO FAR)

It doesn’t mean that if your camera can go ISO 6400, you should. Even with my 5D, I never go beyond ISO 1600 unless I can’t help it. One should always strive for the lowest noise levels at all costs.

So when I finished charging the battery and fired up the camera, it was already night time and the kids were fooling around under florescent light. I pushed the camera to ISO 1250 (though I’d preferred 800), set aperture to f2.8 and my jaw dropped. The level of noise was really low for the 12 megapixel sensor. Sure, it won’t beat my 5D, but it is many many times better than my LX-3. I can’t wait to do ISO 200 shots tomorrow and see how the color rendition improves.

This is what a prosumer camera is about! Here are some full-sized non-edited images for you to ponder. All ISO 1250, f2.8 and 1/25 sec 1/30 sec shutter speeds with image stabilization switched on and on default image/color modes. Please note I didn’t adjust the colors or contrast at all, and the camera does an impressive job of auto-white balance under my home’s daylight florescent lights.

Very natural tones under artificial light and non-disruptive noise levels. The images are a bit soft, but that’s fully acceptable give the ISO level and can be easily sharpened in Photoshop. Thanks Isabel, for being my ever-reliable muse and creating all these spontaneous nutty poses!

Come back for more thoughts and daylight samples from my Pen camera over the weekend.

Updated 5 July 2009: I’ve been posting additional pictures to my Facebook account and those pix are automatically imported into this blog. Please click here to see them (no full-sized images though, since FB resizes everything). No, you don’t need to be my Facebook friend to see these pictures ;D

Related posts:

1. Olympus Pen At the Botanics
2. Olympus Pen E-P1 Review Part 2
3. Olympus Zuiko 25mm!

Jazz Stand from RAT Stands

$220 for a music stand? I thought the guy at the music shop was kidding me. I’ve been looking for a decent music stand for years, as the foldable metal ones at home drive me crazy – they either come loose at the screws or wobble with the slightest breath. Well, this funky plastic/metal Jazz Stand has no screws, never wobbles and is built solid as a rock. AND it folds to the size of the backing board itself! My violin actually sounds better now because I’m no longer frustrated with the music stand! Rating: 9/10.

iPod Touch 32GB

Yes I finally bought an iPod Touch. This is my fourth iPod and I’ve been holding out forever because I’ve been waiting for the 64GB version (my song collection is huge). But the price was S$488 in Korea due to the weak won (vs S$649 in Singapore) and I gave up resisting. You iPod users all know what this baby is about, but its greatest unsung feature is the ability to buy stuff from the iTunes Store directly over WiFi. I was stunned at the speed of purchases and how well it integrates advertising and fulfillment all at once. It’s really a cash register in your pocket! Now if only I could switch off the annoying gyroscope and it really ought to come with its own casing. Rating 8/10

The AB Guide To Music Theory

It’s boring to death, but well, essential reading for a music neophyte like me. Rating: 6/10 (largely because it makes me feel like I’m in school again, poring over mouldy textbooks). But yeah, it’s useful lah. Now I can use terms like enharmonic on less cultured people HAHA!

“Your style is so not enharmonic to mine.”

Corolla Altis 2008 model

If you go online and read Singapore car forums, you’ll read alot of people slamming the latest Altis. It’s confounding, because I think it’s a perfectly good car after having driven it for several weeks. Sure, it’s not going to blast off when you floor the accelerator, but that’s because it’s not designed to, you ignorant people. As a family car, it’s stylish enough not to look stuffy, has huge amount of boot and seat space, and the drive is smooth, thanks to good integration between the engine and gear box. This is the third Altis I’m driving this decade, and I can tell you it’s still far better value than most cars out there today. Especially since I got it cheap and brand new at $49k (average pricing now is $54k). The only significant, but still minor downside is that the chassis is not designed to hug to wheels closely, so changing my rims didn’t make it look that much sportier. Rating: 8/10.

Epson V500 Scanner

I never thought I would buy another dedicated flatbed scanner (I’ve owned a Microtek and Epson in the past), but the growing mould on my wedding photo negatives pushed me into this purchase. In short, it scans 35mm and medium format film negatives, as well as slides, in what appears to be nearly the quality of the obsolete film scanners of the past. The scans print out very well on a color inkjet. The professional scanning mode is great for me, and the basic mode is great for the rest of the family. It scans normal documents very quickly, but negatives can take up to ten minutes per frame. Epson has always made some of the best consumer scanners around and the V500 will pay for itself very quickly if you need to digitize alot of negatives. Just wish it could go faster though – took me a month of nightly scanning to clear my wedding pix! Rating: 8/10

Transformers Universe Deluxe Figure – Cyclonus

Amazing as it sounds, I’ve never owned a Transformers toy my entire life. My mum never got me one no matter how crazy I was about the cartoon. Well, lucky Isaac got one for his birthday this year – Cyclonus from the original 1985 movie. It wasn’t in the same shade of purple as the original toy, but I was thoroughly impressed with the level of articulation and how the complicated the transformation was in order to differentiate between fighter craft and robot. Unfortunately, it’s a bit tough for Isaac, so I usually have to help him transform ole Cyclonus. And only about SGD25 if I remember correctly. Rating : 7/10

Related posts:

1. A short Alpine 9857 review
2. Alpine W502/W505 iPod Head Unit Review
3. A decade in review – Part 1

Honestly, that gadget wasn’t very good – the reception was worse than analog tuners and the sound quality was so-so. But hot damned! It was a DIGITAL tuner and that was all that mattered to a student who couldn’t afford a full-blown Sony Walkman with digital tuners. I plugged into it every time I got onto a bus and it provided my life’s soundtrack as I know it today.

Fastforward 20 years, and I’ve almost stopped listening to radio when I’m travelling. There’s really no reason to, apart from the traffic updates. Where DJs used to have power over the masses in the form of their vast library of songs, consumers have turned the tables because we now own our own libraries, which can be several magnitudes larger than what a radio station traditionally holds on to.

But large libraries require equally adept MP3 players to manage the song lists and the iPod led the way in easy navigation of thousands of songs. Car solutions for iPod players have been around for a few years, and I’ve personally used two Alpine 1-DIN head units with iPod compatibility. But I was never satisfied with them because they didn’t replicate the full navigational ease of the iPods. The last one I used was the Alpine CDA-9857 below:

With the demise of Doracar, I let the 9857 get scrapped with the car and finally got my hands on the double-DIN, full-touchscreen Alpine W502 (below) which I have been eyeing for nearly two years since it was announced. I haven’t been able to find a decent review of the product, and after a week of using it, here’s my quick assessment : Yes, you should get it if you drive, own an iPod, and have thousands of songs.

It’s known as the W505 in the US and most parts of the world, but it’s the W502 here. Check out the specs page here.

And here are pix of it installed in my new Altis.

Displaying the “complex” menu mode which allows you to see the next 5 songs to be played from your iPod. 

The standard “simple” display mode which most people will stick with.

Quick smackdown on the W502

PROS – Really intuitive iPod controls!

1. Very responsive display that doesn’t reset itself if you don’t touch it after a few seconds. This means that you can spend a few seconds looking for a song at a red light, then continue driving, and return to looking for your song at the next stop. There’s always an ESC button if you want to return to the Home Screen.

2. After your song starts playing and you decide that you want to relook into the same playlist, just press and hold the “Files” button to go one step back. You’d be surprised how other iPod-compatible head units don’t do this simple thing. It’s analogous to the Menu button on the iPod.

3. Intuitive random play modes. After using for a few days, you’ll quickly get used to switching from ALL RANDOM modes to isolating the album that you want. This bit will sound Greek to everyone save us veteran Alpine owners.

4. Of course, it plays movie DVDs, CDs and radio stations with finesse and no fuss at all. But that’s the least one would expect from such a car audio solution. The WVGA (height 480px) screen is tack sharp!

5. Coupled with a good amp and subwoofer, the sound you’ll get out of your iPod or CDs is rocking solid. Clean and powerful audio, dudes.

CONS

1. It doesn’t display Chinese text. This means I’ve had to add Hanyu Pinyin to the artist names or my favourite Chinese songs in order for the info to show up on the screen. According to the grapevine, only one iPod model does so, and it’s 1-DIN and only shows simplified Chinese.

2. Poor skinning capability. Actually, you can “skin” the background with Alpine wallpapers and 3rd party mods, but it’s really not worth the effort. It’s not a full theme changer and the wallpapers can only be seen if you select an esoteric visual mode. And the existing look is okay but will not set your heart pounding anytime soon.

3. It lacks a text search capability. Meaning I can’t type in words like I would in a GPS unit and wait for song results to pop up. Instead, I have to either create playlists, or be patient as I jump to an alphabet that I want, then scroll down to find the exact song I want.

4. At S$1500, it’s not exactly affordable. You could buy three or more iPods with that kind of moolah.

Bottomline:

It’s not perfect, but I’m glad to see Alpine continually improving their iPod head units over the years. I considered other models from Pioneer but still settled back on the Alpine because it’s really the superior solution for iPod users today. I just wish more people would learn that upgrading their car audio offers better ROI than most leisure activities. If you want a near-perfect solution to listening to your iPod on the highway, the W502 should be on the top of your list.

Rating: 8/10

PS: If you’re still using those crappy iPod FM transmitters, stop wasting your time! The best way to listen to your iPod is through the line-out connection, and such head-units will charge your player all the time. Such dedicated units are also superior to AUX-IN solutions provided by factory-installed head units in new cars these days, because you’d never have to unplug your iPod to get it charged.

Related posts:

1. A short Alpine 9857 review
2. Oh no, Alpine, not again
3. iPod dummy

Roger Ebert didn’t fancy the latest Bond movie, Quantum of Solace:

OK, I’ll say it. Never again. Don’t ever let this happen again to James Bond. "Quantum of Solace" is his 22nd film and he will survive it, but for the 23rd it is necessary to go back to the drawing board and redesign from the ground up. Please understand: James Bond is not an action hero! He is too good for that. He is an attitude. Violence for him is an annoyance. He exists for the foreplay and the cigarette. He rarely encounters a truly evil villain. More often a comic opera buffoon with hired goons in matching jump suits.

Read his review here

You know, I understand how Ebert feels. After watching it with Goy last night, I was a bit miffed that there was no Q (John Cleese), no cool gadgets apart from a Sony Ericsson handphone and a huge table inspired by Minority Report and Microsoft Surface computing, no sexual chemistry between Bond and anyone, and not enough hot cars.

But still, I really did enjoy the movie and the sheer presence of Daniel Craig. It may not have been right to reboot Bond as a modern action hero, but also realise that this is 2008, and Bond has been spoofed thrice by Austin Powers already. Many young audiences today probably don’t appreciate the humor behind Austin Powers and Zoolander as much as they should, because they lack the cultural knowledge of the baby boomers. The old Bond, as personified by Connery and Moore, has become as obsolete as a Sega Megadrive and beehive hairdos.

This begs the question – how much should a fictional character retain what made it popular in another era? I appreciate the old Bond movies because they represented the zeitgeist of the 1960s and 70s (and I really hated the Timothy Dalton era because it represented nothing). Alot of the innocence of that era has long dissolved in today’s cynical and electronic culture, and people are just less likely to embrace an outlandish character like Goldfinger.

Batman was rebooted in the 1970s by DC Comics to become a real vigilante and dark kinda character. That hasn’t really changed as that Batman remains relevant today as it did then. Hence the success of the Dark Knight Returns comics in the late 80s and the recent Dark Knight movie. So in Bruce Wayne’s case, there wasn’t much need for a character revision in today’s scenario.

On the other extreme are characters like Rambo and Rocky. Man, Stallone really shouldn’t have revived them in the past few years. They represented their era so solidly, they became a joke when transplanted to the 21st century.

It’ll be interesting to see Craig’s third Bond movie. Will he be more Bourne, or more old Bond?  

Related posts:

1. Iron Fist is my fave superhero
2. Tsui Hark’s my hero
3. A loving tribute

It always comes as a surprise to my current colleagues at Microsoft to find out that I used to be a pro photog. Sometimes, I forget that too.

That’s because I don’t shoot as often I used to, even though working at The New Paper imparted to me an incredible wealth of skill and experience. Perhaps one reason is that as I grow older (and flabbier), I have less tolerance for carrying a heavy dSLR around – yep, even if it’s my lovely EOS 5D with its own zero tolerance for lousy lenses or lousy skills.

Anyway, we’re preparing for the first family trip overseas to Taiwan next week, and I swore I wasn’t going to let the dSLR weigh me down when the two brats will be giving us all sorts of issues. At the same time, I’ve been seeing all these rave reviews about the Panasonic LX-3. In the past, as a tech reviewer, I had access to nearly anything on the market, but today, I have to read reviews and try to read between the lines.

To cut the long story short, the reviews often fall short because the reviewers usually lack the maddening standards that pros set for themselves and their gear. I keep seeing apples vs oranges comparisons between the LX-3 and the current Canon G10 prosumer camera, and I just don’t have the energy to go point out that Canon lost the story on prosumer digicams quite a while ago. (Well, I just did, so there.)

Back in 2003, I bought a Canon G3 because it had a fantastic lens… it opened as wide as f2.0 to f3.0 through its zoom range! In plain English, that meant the camera could take sharp photos even under low light. Even back then, I knew the image sensor wasn’t fantastic (colors were a bit off) and the AF terribly slow, but the lens was worth the $1200+  I spent. I took thousands of photos of Isaac as a baby in the dimly-lit Clementi flat we stayed in then.

Recent iterations of the Canon G-series are looking really pretty, but they use a disappointing lens – f2.8 to f4.5. Canon’s focus on pure image quality and shooting flexibility resides mostly in its dSLR department these days. It simply refuses to put a larger sensor or faster (aperture-wise) lens into its prosumer models lest it eats into the entry-level EOSes.

And the 2003 Powershot Pro1 was to me a disaster as it had an L-lens but it was not as “fast” (f/2.4-3.5) as the original Gs, and mediocre image quality.

Hence, we photogs have been left without a good compact digicam backup like the trusty Olympus mjus of days gone by.

Until the LX-3 I guess.

Don’t ask me how they did it, but it sports a very wide 24mm-60mm Leica-branded lens with f2.0-2.8 capability. In short, the near-perfect travel camera for people who don’t use tele focus too much. Throw in a bit of retro-styling, extensive manual controls and you’ve got us photogs excited. Heck, it got the tech reviewers all excited.

So to cut my story again, here’s what I like and what I don’t.

Likes

• Fast lens = sharp pictures (no, I don’t rely on the image stabilizer) under nearly all conditions, and that’s not possible with probably every other compact digicam today.
• Impressive metering of complex scenes (see landscape shot of Bishan below) and good dynamic range to retain details in dark areas.
• Funky film modes – three modes for BnW and one really saturated color mode are my faves.
• Auto-exposure lock button for tough scenes.
• Relatively short shutter lag. Can take some action pix pretty well if you figure out the timing lag.
• Excellent price – $695 with 4GB card and retro casing from MS Color.
• 24mm at F2!!! Imagine using this for night market shots in Taipei!

Dislikes

• Honestly, there’s only so much a small digicam sensor can do. Panasonics are usually known for high image noise, and the good news is that the LX-3 has less noise than the usual Lumix. Still, at 100% magnification, I’m not entirely impressed with the picture quality. It’s good but it’s not going to blow me away anytime as it’s a little soft and details aren’t as crisp as I’d like.
• Why hide the ISO and white balance functions inside a menu? There should be dials or physical buttons for these two critical functions. Yes, you can customise one button for those functions, but we’re still missing one more.
• Mode dials ought to be stiffer, they often shift between modes when you remove the case cover.
• Existence of a physical lens cap. C’mon, that’s a bit dated and very cumbersome.
• Overall color rendition is good, but not as naturally warm as Canon’s. This is pretty subjective though. 

Overall rating – 7.5/10. Good, just short of great.

I’m very grateful for Panasonic in creating a camera that I have confidence to use for travel without missing my EOS 5D too much. It’s a wake-up call for the entire camera industry to stop pushing meaningless megapixels in digicams (for goodness sake, 6MP is enough for consumers), and go back to proper photography basics. If a lens cannot collect enough light, you can’t shoot a lot of things without bright lighting. As I learnt in my rookie days – no sharp photo, no publish. Stop letting the marketing people tell you how to sell prosumer cameras, ask the pros lah.

What could be improved are things like having a dedicated ISO dial (like the G10), a bigger sensor to capture more details and reduce noise levels further (I can accept a slightly bigger camera), and tighter color rendition.

The downsides are not deal-breakers for most people though, and this is one camera that really grows on you. And it’s my first non-Canon camera in over 10 years, so that speaks volumes I guess. I still love my Canon EOS gear to death, but something’s gotta give when you’ve got two kids to drag around town.

Anyway, some shots I took over the past week to run the LX-3 through its paces:

Daybreak in Bishan. f3.5, 1/50 sec, ISO 200.

Sulking before school. f2.1, 1/24 sec, ISO 400 BnW mode.

Isabel in action as usual. 

Isabel plucking flowers after church. f5.6, 1/1000 sec, ISO 400.

  Breakfast outside NTUC. f.25, 1/40 sec, ISO 400.

Dinner before Quantum of Solace. f2, 1/30 sec, ISO 125

Bryan Do in the office. BnW film scene mode (ultra grainy, as it defaults to ISO 1600), but’s the deliberate effect.

Update 26 Nov 2008: Dpreview confirmed my worst fears about the Canon G10 in its latest review. Actually, you don’t have to read reviews to know that the camera would be disappointing – the specs alone are a big warning sign. Of course, these are the same specs that drive many consumers wild with glee – those poor chaps.

Related posts:

1. Olympus Pen E-P1 review Part 1
2. Olympus Pen E-P1 Review Part 2
3. “Which camera should I buy?”