e-m5 | Musings

Conversations with Hannah – 6

16. June 2013 by CY · Write a comment · Categories: All Posts, At Home, Baby Blues, Photography & Cameras · Tags: 17mm, e-m5

We’ve not gone by The Minton for our usual weekly visit. The weather here has been both humid and hazy, making for any trip outdoors a relatively unpleasant experience. We’ll try to squeeze in one last visit next week though, assuming if Ling hasn’t delivered yet.

The new 17mm f1.8 lens got a good run-in during the weekend morning, with a few hundred exposures taken during our usual Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf brunch at Greenwich. Like the other fast lens I’ve picked up for the m4/3s system, depth of field is very shallow when shooting wide-open. It’s not too much of a worry when I’m shooting either of the two girls straight face-on, but it can be a real challenge if I’m off-angle by any degree. Color rendition seems very slightly less warm than the 14mm f2.5G but Ling at least likes its very natural color representation.

Mommy and Hannah.

Her activity books are a wonderful means of occupying herself while the both of us have brunch.

More cute conversations with Hannah too. We were at Fairprice a few days ago when a middle-aged lady approached Ling at the sauces and condiments, asking “Auntie ar, can you tell me where the sesame oil is?”

Ling turned slightly off-color at being addressed ‘Auntie’ (for our Ang Mo bud, the term is usually used respectfully for someone who’s old) but nonetheless helped the lady. But Hannah picked that up and for the rest of our grocery trip at the store, went: “AUNTIE!!!” at Ling LOL.

And Hannah has been looking forward to her coming baby brother, due anytime from a week from now. When in the car, she had this to share when we asked how she was going to care for him.

H: “I will take care of 弟弟 (little brother). I will help put him to bed. I will help him go to the toilet. Yep. I will help him change change clothes. I will help him change diapers too. I will also buy him orange juice.”

We should have recorded those promises she made. With a big sister helper like this, why would we need parents.=)

Just after shower. The humid weather has caused her lips to cracked.

Olympus 17mm f1.8

13. June 2013 by CY · 2 comments · Categories: All Posts, Baby Blues, Photography & Cameras · Tags: 17mm, e-m5

The cheapo 14mm f2.5G lens I picked up earlier this year has become my current mainstay lens since purchase. It’s a delightful pancake kit, relatively sharp in the center and very quick to focus too. The one downer of this lens though is that it’s not really intended as an all-rounder. As with wide-angle lenses, the extreme sides of each frame can look somewhat distorted, which has meant that when I’m taking pictures of Hannah, I have to keep her right in the frame center. I already have the 25mm f1.4 lens of course too and that’s marvelous for portrait work, but it’s a little too long at the same time and not appropriate for half-body shots unless I have plenty of room to step back.

The fourth lens I’ve been keeping an eye on this year has been the 17mm f1.8, which offers a 34mm perspective with the m4/3s crop factor. It’s identical to the Fujifilm X100 I loaned from my student a year ago, and a wonderful compromise between the 14mm wide-angle and the 25mm normal perspective. The lens isn’t cheap at USD499 but I finally bit the bullet to pick it up yesterday afternoon after Ling’s pre-delivery EKG scan of our coming baby boy. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the lens’ price here approaches the US pricing.

The lens is made of metal and silver – not quite like the other black-painted m4/3s lens I have.

First initial pictures using the new lens:

Yum.

Yes the price hurts, but with pictures like this, it’s worth it!

Work-in-Progress – Part 19

08. June 2013 by CY · Write a comment · Categories: All Posts, Baby Blues, New Home · Tags: e-m5, olympus 75-300

Another weekly update on the ongoing construction of The Minton. This might be one of our last visits before the project reaches technical completion next month or so – on account that our baby boy is due very soon. And when that happens, it’s very unlikely we’d be able to find time to go by to check this out. Still, the most visible signs of development since the last week lie again in the project’s signature recreational areas, and less so in the apartment blocks themselves.

Winding pathway at Tranquil World.

The cobblestone paving along Tranquil World is about half-done, with more crates of stones waiting placement.

The outdoor dining pavilion taking shape, with stone floor tiles placed.

According to the project layout map, the Dining Cabana – I think – whatever that is!

Water playground @ Fun World.

Significantly more planted greenery @ Tranquil World.

Blocks 10.

Fun World.

Many clusters of potted plants line the compound and getting ready for replanting into the many lawns.

The Treehouse playground has the foundational guard railing now too.

If you look hard enough, you’d see a new activity not originally specified in the brochure – rope swing between top floors of Block 14 and 12C. Not for the faint-of-heart LOL.

From this perspective, the place looks almost ready for moving in!

Work-in-Progress – Part 18

02. June 2013 by CY · Write a comment · Categories: All Posts, At Home · Tags: 14mm, e-m5, minton, olympus 75-300

Another weekly update on the ongoing construction of The Minton. There’s a couple of other very non-new home posts that we’re planning to do too – including our girl’s recent birthday celebration in school, and also a new baking machine that I bought for Ling – so for those of us who’re more interested in the regular programming in our blog, hang on.=)

Given that Ling’s now pretty heavy with our coming baby boy, it’s been pretty tiring for her to run around the very large compound to take videos (we still take a lot; just that they haven’t been posted here on our blog ). The Olympus 75-300mm lens has been real instrumental allowing us a view of little details of the work going on from a distance away, though a lot of times, the both of us are routinely guessing what exactly is a new structure under construction really supposed to be.

Blocks 8 and 8A against the a sunny Saturday morning.

Blocks 8 and 8A against a sunny Saturday morning.

These should be the barbeque pits at Tranquil World.

The compound map notes this to be the rock n’ log outdoor chess set. As to what that is, I haven’t a clue.

Blocks 14 and 14A. There’s a lovely reflective sheen coming off the glass windows against the morning light.

The water playground area. Hannah is going to love this later!

I couldn’t figure out what this one was, but someone in the FB page pointed out that this will be the treehouse playarea.

Totally no idea for this one!

Tree planting going on in-front of Block 12C.

Tree saplings are grown off-compound and transplanted over.

The Retail Outlets block has gotten a new coat of paint.

Something a little disconcerting too. We encountered Aedes mosquitoes around the compound. Ling with her trained eyes spotted them easily. Those of us who’d been reading the local news will be aware that the first death this year from Dengue fever has just occurred. I sure hope that residents in our new home will be civic-minded enough to be watchful of the common breeding grounds of these pests.

Oh yes. A visitor to our blog commented recently too that our blog is currently the top and first hit when one Googles for construction of The Minton. Curious, I checked it out, and he was right LOL:

Back to our regular programming next.=)

Work-in-Progress – Part 17

26. May 2013 by CY · 4 comments · Categories: All Posts, New Home · Tags: 14mm, e-m5, minton

Our once a month visit to the nearing completed Minton apartment has changed to fortnightly and now weekly visits. We normally visit in the mid-mornings and where possible only when I’m certain of getting reasonably decent lighting for pictures. Just for a change, we went by on the Vesak pubic holiday evening to check out what our new home looks like at evenings.

I’m not sure if there’s still construction on normal week day evenings, but all was quiet at least on the holiday evening, with just a couple of foreign workers relaxing in the compound chatting among themselves or calling loved ones back home. Not an easy shoot at all then, given the very small time window where there’s still sufficient light for exposure to near total darkness as the construction floodlights were all switched off. All the pictures were taken on the 14mm f2.5.

The last light of the day reflecting against the mostly glass front facade.

Several of the later pictures in the shoot were taken at 1/4s shutter speed and handheld. This exposure speed was only possible with the very unique 5-axis optical stabilization on the E-M5.

Exposure curves were tweaked quite a bit; there was a lot less light than this actually.

Pleasing spectrum of colors in this picture.

Once the apartment blocks are completed and residents move in, the only time when we’ll see our home like this is when there’s a blackout.

Staircase lighting for a couple of blocks are switched on though.

No, none of the residents have moved in yet. The lights are probably from some of the workers in the unit there.

Some homeowners were remarking that the much-discussed projected completion date of end-June will likely be a partial one too – i.e. the apartment units would be ready for residents to move in or begin their renovation work, but the facilities would still be undergoing final construction. Oh well; not as though we’re in a hurry to move in by mid-year anyway.=)

Work-in-Progress – Part 16

19. May 2013 by CY · 5 comments · Categories: All Posts, New Home · Tags: e-m5, lx7, minton, olympus 75-300

Yeah it’s been just 2 weeks from our last visit, but with many residents keeping their fingers cross (or hopes high) that completion is just a month away now, I decided to really pick up the pace of our visits. It’ll be real fun in the years to come later to look at these old pictures of our new home while it was still in construction!

The weather here has been quite humid and unpleasantly hot, but at least the bright sunny blue skies did make for nicely contrasting colors in the pictures. Most of the changes since the last visit were in the many tree and plant saplings that have sprouted up, removal of work fences in several areas giving us the first good solid look of the place from the front and at ground level, and also internal furnishings.

The 50m lap pool, one of three pools in the project.

The 20m heated pool. Not sure how useful that’s going to be in this kind of tropic weather.

Newly planted tree saplings near the Contemporary Bridge.

Straight lines against a blue morning sky.

Blocks 2 and 6 from Hougang Street 11.

Blocks 2 and 6 as seen along the pedestrian pavement at Lorong Ah Soo.

Where we’re at; Block 10. Tranquil World, the large landscape portion in front of the block still seems very much in-progress.

Several residents are already starting to talk to Interior Designers to propose plans for their dream home.

I wonder what the residents think of our monthly visits and going all photo-paparazzi at our home from their block!

Any one knows any good interior designers? =)

Hannah @ 14mm – Part 5

06. May 2013 by CY · 1 comment · Categories: All Posts, At Home, Baby Blues · Tags: 14mm, e-m5

Hannah added a new plush toy to her Mickey Mouse Clubhouse collection over the weekend, and this time round, it was the titular character to match her earlier Minnie Mouse acquisition from several weeks ago. There were several available sizes for Mickey at the same store again, and our girl took a while to decide (scary thought – what if she picks up Ling’s habit of taking her time to choose things?!). The 14mm was on photographic duties again for the weekend.

Just check out how happy she was on our way home. She spent the ride home adjusting (and readjusting) the two toys beside her.=)

She’s very aware how many more toys there are left to complete her Clubhouse collection now.

Fortunately, all’s not lost. Ling already has an idea what to get her for her fourth birthday next month. It certainly won’t be another character toy from the series.=)

Work-in-Progress – Part 15

05. May 2013 by CY · Write a comment · Categories: All Posts, New Home · Tags: e-m5, lx7, minton, olympus 75-300

There’s been lots of excited discussion in our new home’s FB group about when the project will complete. A couple of residents are confident it’d be done by June, though every time we go by for a photo-visit, the project still seems at least several more months before it’d be ready for us to begin interior renovation work. Either way, it’s highly likely we’ll be moving by the end of the year, so we’ll be increasing just slightly our frequency of visits.

There are lots of condominium apartment projects everywhere we look right now, with at least 4-5 in the immediate vicinity of our home already. Funnily, it seems from our casual observations that the building pace of those projects are a lot quicker than The Minton. Then again, while our forthcoming new home is solidly a ‘mass-market’ project, there are benefits to the sheer number of resident units and size of the project. What one loses in exclusivity, one gets lots of nice amenities that aren’t typical of projects with this level of cost per square feet: an air-conditioned badminton dome, several swimming pools, a sizable landscape garden, spa facilities – not that we’d likely ever going to use a lot of these facilities anyway though.

Our usual selection of pictures below, with the E-M5 + Olympus 75-300mm and LX7 pulling photographic duties.

Condo tree saplings starting to bloom flowers.

A worker aligning the plastic sheets covering the badminton dome.

A fellow resident remarked that the workers are testing the air conditioning unit’s compressor for gas pressure,

Workers at the Tiger Orchid Pavilion @ Tranquil World.

The plastic tiling half done for the Badminton Dome at this point.

Crates of cobblestone ready to line the driveway.

Block 14 and 14A. The sidelining plants and bushes are growing along nicely now.

Blocks 8, 6 and 2.

Blocks 14 and 12.

Blocks 10, 10A and 10B from mid-floor.

Tranquil World as seen from about the top-floor from an opposite block. Had to stick my hand with the LX7 out of a small slit to take this pictue.

The Contemporary Bridge.

The Grand Clubhouse.

Hannah having the run of the sidewalk adjacent to the project.

Honestly, it really doesn’t look like it’ll be done in June. We’re keeping an eye for September.

Weekend Mornings @ The Bean @ 14mm – Part 4

29. April 2013 by CY · 2 comments · Categories: All Posts, Baby Blues, Dining, Photography & Cameras · Tags: 14mm, e-m5

During our paktology days – that’s ‘dating’ for our Ang Mo friend – Ling would often muse aloud about finding some nice coffee joint and stoning (i.e. vegetating) around a couple of beverages. Problem was that I wasn’t a coffee person then, so our dating places were usually anywhere but. That was of course a while ago. Since returning to full-time work 7 years ago, I’ve gained a new appreciation for hot beverages. I can’t today for instance get through a morning without my usual caffeine kick.

Over the last week and possibly because we were slowly exhausting our weekend morning brunch places, we ventured into a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf joint at TampinesOne just to try something different for breakfast, and we were pretty impressed. The food itself was alright but it was possibly the laid back ambiance and decor that the both of us determined to start hitting beverage cafes as an alternative to the usual breakfast places we hit over weekends. Best of all, Hannah loves the new environments, and has taken to bringing either books or even worksheets to occupy herself with.

Thing is though is that location is everything. Not all these cafes are as equivalently conducive to stoning for an hour before we have to go about our business for the rest of the day, and the ones which are centrally located are also frequently descended upon quickly by hordes of JC and University students who’d buy a single beverage take-out and stretch their stay for the rest of the day.

Coffee Bean/Tea Leaf @ Tampines 1.

The same joint but at Greenwich the next weekend.

Practising her Chinese character strokes while waiting for our breakfasts to be served. She plows through those workbooks.

Photos taken again using the 14mm f2.5. The colors were pleasingly warm, which is a bit of an odd contrast against the somewhat cooler color rendition off the 20mm f1.7 which I sold away earlier this year.

Hannah @ 14mm – Part 3

16. April 2013 by CY · 1 comment · Categories: All Posts, At Home, Baby Blues, Photography & Cameras · Tags: 14mm, e-m5

We had a rather eventul last week, starting off when our girl accidentally left behind her Pluto – yep the orange plush toy you see in many pictures here on our blog – at a toy store in Compass Point, only realizing it when we were on our way home. As soon as that happened, she bawled loud enough for the whole Sengkang to hear. Except that it was confined to the car – you can imagine what a din that was!

It was a teachable moment for us as parents. We impressed upon her that it was her responsibility to take care of her toys, and that we’d only get her a new Pluto if she showed to us over the next few days she was able to do this. I secretly went by the store nonetheless the next day to pick it up after Ling called the night before to report its loss.

Thing is though; those lessons will take a while to stick. Just over this weekend, Ling took me aside and asked that I withhold several of Hannah’s entertainment privileges as she’d been misbehaving. E.g. talking back to Mommy and leaving her toys on the floor. And I obliged, though that’d mean I now have to log into Hannah’s Hello Kitty Town on her behalf and to keep up her town and crops there LOL.

On the overall, Hannah’s still very well-behaved though, and she at least is responsive to the both of us when we have to discipline her. She’s not into tantrums (yet?), and seems to genuinely show remorse when we take her aside and educate her on responsible and proper behavior. Interestingly too, while she enjoys her entertainment privileges, e.g. Mickey Mouse Cluhouse, Angry Birds (!), and Hello Kitty Town, she doesn’t pine for them too much when they’re taken away from her. She instead goes about occupying herself with books, more plush toys, and builds and stacks things up, like this:

A Facebook friend who saw the picture immediately guess that she got inspired by Angry Birds Rio.=)

A Facebook friend who saw the picture immediately guessed that she got inspired by Angry Birds Rio.=)

Oh yes; all the pictures here were taken again on the 14mm. The next two turned out very well, especially the latter with a mix of strong primary colors.=)

Having a cup of warm milo during weekend brunch with grandparents.

Munching on strawberries.

Musings

Conversations with Hannah – 6

Olympus 17mm f1.8

Work-in-Progress – Part 19

Work-in-Progress – Part 18

Work-in-Progress – Part 17

Work-in-Progress – Part 16

Hannah @ 14mm – Part 5

Work-in-Progress – Part 15

Weekend Mornings @ The Bean @ 14mm – Part 4

Hannah @ 14mm – Part 3

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