Reflections of new parents
Another weekend with the Lumix 20mm f1.7, and still waiting for demonstration units of the Olympus OMD EM5 to get to Courts for me to try out.=) I think I’ve found the lens’ sweet spot for center sharpness – and it’s at f2.8 for me. The top two were taken yesterday morning just after lunch. She’s drinking from her favorite cup.=)
This picture below was taken a week ago just before we headed out of home on our workday morning. She has that meter long snake toy draped around her neck.=)
Hannah has been with her nursery school for a full one term of 10 weeks now. The both of us decided it was about time to speak to her teachers and see how she’s been in school. We do get the regular report cards, updates from her Nanny who picks her up after school everyday, but nothing beats talking to her teachers on-site.
We made the decision to drive her to school this very morning, and with the benefit of hindsight now, we might not want to do it again. Hannah bawled when we tried to leave her with her teachers. She normally has no difficulty arriving in school by her bus everyday, so it was just separation anxiety again on her part. Her wore her very swollen eyes from that wailing for the rest of the school morning, up till when we returned to pick her up and speak to both her teachers. From them: Hannah gets along very well with her classmates and seems quite well-adjusted and happy, and loves to sing. Then again, her teacher remarked that when Hannah cries, she takes forever to stop LOL.
I was also taken aside by her Chinese teacher too who’d noticed that Hannah seems rather disinterested when her class watches videos of Chinese songs to learn the language, and asked if we speak Mandarin at home. Whoops – the truth is out now.=(
Pictures. These were all taken after school when we picked her up.
And this was 2 hours after her arrival-in-school wailing. Eyes still real swollen! She's wearing Crocs too as Fridays are when she has her water activities at school.
Clinging onto Mommy. She barely whimpered her goodbyes to her teacher.
The toy-snake we bought her last weekend couldn't cheer her up either.
She finally cheered up a little over lunch at Toast Box. Shortly thereafter when we went to a store to look for a toy drum set (she'd been asking for it), she had a, well, bodily function accident.
It was a pretty tough day, if the number of times she bawled is any indication. She bawled in the morning at school, bawled at the store when she had that ‘accident’, bawled when she didn’t want to go to her Nanny’s in the afternoon, and bawled when she was put to bed.
A wrap up of several hundred pictures taken over the long weekend. These ones here were all on the Lumix 20mm f1.7. This prime lens remains fixed on my E-PL2 pretty much all the time, though now that I’ve used this lens for about 9 months now, I get much better results when in average lighting and better. I wonder if the pictures have hit the limit of what the relatively small sensors in the micro four-thirds standards can muster when in low light (the soon to be released Olympus OMD EM-5 supposedly improves on this though).
I’ve been keeping an eye on the Sony NEX 7, the Fujifilm X100 and X-Pro 1, but I’ve got issues with all three of them of one or another; horrendous pricing (X-Pro 1), not the focal length I most shoot at (X100), and lack of affordable fast primes (NEX 7). The funniest thing though is that Ling has already given me the ‘blessing’ to get the X100 after I took some lovely pictures of Hannah a few months ago using a loaned unit from my student. More on that in another post Iater.
In the mean time…
ISO640, f1.7, 1/500s at Hougang Mall's Fairprice. Weird that the camera chose a higher ISO but faster shutter speed. That hoodie she's wearing is cute, especially with the hood up.
ISO200, f2, 1/90s and at home with the early morning sun reaching through the living room windows.
ISO200, f2.8, 1/90s at Seletar Kopitiam @ Greenwich. The latter's apparently inspired by Holland Village, and has become one of our favorite brunch places. Parking is limited and pretty expensive though.
ISO1600, f2.8, 1/45s. She's got a new habit now - having her weekend afternoon naps on our bed. Ling was afraid that she'd roll off the bed, so we usually surround her with pillows.=)
We last visited the Jurong Bird Park in Oct 2009, and that was largely an inspired reaction to the amazing sights we saw at the Bali Bird Park. That was shortly after Hannah joined our family, so she didn’t join us as a newborn on that trip. We did the SIngapore Zoo family outing last June, so this holiday today, it was the Bird Park’s turn again.
The trip didn’t turn out very well though. Weather was all bad from mid-morning onwards, starting with a fierce overcast, then drizzles, and finally lightning warnings and park announcements asking for visitors to vacate the children’s park areas. Hannah was a little grouchy too (she was suffering from a slightly blocked nose); so we ended up just visiting a few attractions, the Lory Loft, and the Birds of Prey show.
This was also the Sigma 70-200mm f2.8’s second outing, and I’m pretty happy with the lens. Saw a lot of persons with Canon L and Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 lenses, so no I didn’t feel very special.=)
All with the D7000 + Sigma 70-200mm, excepting the last family picture. Hannah struggled with her smile in this one.=)
We went by the building site for The Minton to check out its progress. Our vantage point this time was back to Blk 142. Just to give us a perspective – this is what the progress looked like 4 months ago when we last checked out the sight from the 12th floor:
This is what it looked liked yesterday afternoon:
Yep – two blocks have almost just sprung themselves up! The block that’s right in the center of the picture, and towards the right too.
I’ve marked out our unit with a red arrow too. You can see that our block is nearly done now too. Another view of our block below, but taken on the ground level of Block 142:
And a final picture. Hannah’s hair is in a bit of a mess as we’d decided to go by for this visit at the last minute. Our girl had just woken up from her afternoon nap, so her hair was only kept in place with that haphazardly-worn hairband. A Ixora flower had dropped onto the flower bed, and it became a teaching moment for Mommy to Hannah.=)
5 Feb 2012: Decided to append more notes (it’s at the end of my post here) rather than write a new one. Original 2 Feb post starts below.=)
No it’s not my camera. I can only dream!
One costs ~SGD1560, the other ~SGD750. Guess which!
That student blog-stalker just picked up a Fujifilm X100, and knowing my interest in photographic toys, asked me to take it home for over the weekend to try it out (and most likely for me to salivate over too). So I gamely took up the offer, with his expectation that I’d blog about it right here. And to get it out of the way: this is a very amateur review.
The X100, pictured on the above next to my puny E-PL2, is a technological marvel. It combines very high build quality, rangefinder styling, and a comparatively large sensor to produce images that review sites all over have called superb. This post isn’t a review of the X100 of course since I’m not nearly ‘pro’ enough to write one. But it’s still some observations and notes on my experience handling it for the next couple of days and what I think at the end of it!
The red beetle sitting on top of the shutter release button does not come with the X100.
From picking-up the camera, there’s no mistaking the feeling that you’re not handling a piece of cheap plastic jammed with bargain bin electronics inside and Made in China. You’re handling a finely and lovingly crafted art piece, made with magnesium alloy, what seems like other assorted metals (the ISO and exposure compensation dials on top), with some inevitable plastic (e.g. the dials and buttons at the back of the camera). And Made in Japan even, as the serial plate at the bottom of the camera proudly states.
The X100 takes every opportunity to remind you it's Not Made in China.
The optical viewfinder is a real pleasure to use too. It’s not through-the-lens (like a DSLR), and it – cutely – even shows the edge of the lens when you look through it! The frame outline, aperture, shuttle-speed and ISO are superimposed into your view too and it looks super high-tech.
Funnily though; the viewfinder doesn’t black out when the camera’s in OFF position nor if you’ve got the lens cap still on. And being the new user to the camera as I am, there were a couple of times while learning the device when I composed through the viewfinder, hit the shuttle release, and nothing happened – and only because the camera wasn’t switched on or that the front lens cap hadn’t been removed LOL.
I’ve only take a few pictures of Hannah the first evening, since we got home late all feeling rather sick (family virus) and didn’t have much time after dinner before we had to get started on her winding-down routine. So, after spending time figuring out how to even take a picture with the X100 – no taking pictures with the X100 isn’t so simple of just switching it ON, setting it to ‘Auto’ and then firing away – I only had time left for a few pictures. And here’s one:
Hannah approves!
And that’s a JPG straight out of the camera! No sharpening, no color correction etc. Just some very minor cropping (a small part of my foot was accidentally in it) and resizing to fit the blog post. And shot at f2, 1/60s, 2500 ISO. And the flash fired even straight ahead, but you couldn’t tell unless you stare longer than a few seconds. Long story short; image out of the box, noise control and center sharpness wise, it seems better than what my E-PL2/20mm f1.7 can muster.
More notes to come soon once I’ve had more time to tinker with it.=)
Update: Now that I’ve played with the X100 for a bit, I’ve come to my summary comment: it’s a great tool that produces stunning images, but for me to use it means I’ll have to make adjustments on the kind of photography I do these days. Spot focusing on the X100 is a little slow. And while it’s still faster than the rather slow AF on the Panasonic 20mm f1.7, the kit lens off the E-PL2 is a speed demon compared to this. This simply won’t do when I’m going to take pictures of a 2.5 year old girl who doesn’t remain still!
More seriously though is the minimum focusing distance of 80cm compared to the 20cm of the 20mm f1.7. The workaround, according to user forums, is to use macro mode – but I didn’t get round to trying that out.
The online forums and reviews have also pointed out a severe design issue with the rear command dial, and I couldn’t agree more. Specifically, the button depress of the dial’s OK button is so low that three quarters of the times the upwards arrow gets pressed instead of the OK button. It’s bad.
While our girl on the whole is still quite well-behaved e.g. never goes into public tantrums, she still hasn’t outgrown the habit of talking to herself, and also in third-person. We’re pretty certain it’s just a growing-up phase, but we’re also getting a little nervous that at past 2.5 years old, she’s still yet to pick up on our reminders to refer to herself as ‘me’ rather than ‘Hannah’.
Ling picked up a thick Usborne sticker book from Kinokuniya for Hannah’s Christmas present, and she’s been pretty hooked onto it. The book is actually low-priced in its original UK retail price of about 10£, but in local stores here it’s SGD25. Ugh. Opportune time to pick up a bundle of those books then. A couple of clicks later at the Book Depository and three books were ordered, arriving in two shipments earlier this week.
Hannah’s an even happier camper now. She goes about the house carrying all three and saying to herself “Hannah has so many sticker books!”
Evidence.
We swung by the construction site of our new place too at the Minton to check out the state of progress. Our third visit to the site, and this visit from the 11th floor of Block 158. Our block (the center one in the picture) has reached its highest floor.
It’s also impossible to tell from the small thumbnail picture below, but when blown up in its original size, we could see that window frames have been installed in the bedrooms.
Wonder if those workers get a CNY holiday too.
Ling’s thinking of visiting the showroom again. Apparently, they’ve finished the 2+1 bedroom mockup, and she wants to go in to get more ideas on how our new home in 2013-end should look like. There’s also another new condo project just down the road from The Rivervale with another one of those ridiculous but uniquely Singapore-sounding name – ‘Riversound’ – that she wants to check out too.
At the lift-lobby of Block 158.
It’s Chinese New Year tomorrow too, and opportunities for pictures, celebration and weight-gain. More posts to come. =)
The both of us took time out of work yesterday to accompany Hannah on her first day of school at pre-nursery. Ling’s probably more experienced in this sort of thing than I am, because it was a real eye-opener for me! Lots of kids, noise, parents all armed to the teeth with media recording devices all recording and documenting their children’s first days.
Hannah was very keen to try out her new uniform.
The uniform is a little large-size for her as the school didn't have stock for her correct size.
The both of us expected Hannah to experience separation anxiety, and we weren’t disappointed. Hannah bawled as she was getting up the school bus (but eventually got up anyway).
Funny incident to follow next: we went ahead in our own car as the bus continued making its rounds around the neighborhood. Upon arrival at the nursery, we heard loud wailings from inside and chuckled to ourselves that when Hannah arrives shortly, she’ll probably be joining the chorus. Little did we realize that the wailing we were hearing was from our girl! Apparently the bus got to the school even quicker than we did.
More pictures!
I videotaped Hannah getting up the bus and that sobbing thing she did. This picture was after we arrived in school and realized that the wails were coming from our own girl.=)
We had an opportunity to sit and calm her down while waiting for the rest of her class to arrive.
Hannah was more relaxed as her new classmates all arrived. We gradually moved away from her and made sure we weren't in her eye view.
At the end of her first day, and being led out by her teacher to the waiting area for their bus pick-up.
Sitting with her new friends and waiting for their pickup. I was hiding in the playground area and took this shot from afar.
Things still went pretty well, all things considered. Apart from her bit of bawling while getting up the bus and initially in school, Hannah seemed to adjust to her new surroundings reasonably quick. She was by no means the only child crying for certain. There was one boy who wailed buckets when we arrived, and was still at it when we left the school 30 minutes later for breakfast!=)
It’s actually quite easy to remember how old Hannah is at any given time and date. I just do a quick mental calculation of the current date versus her birthday, which is about right smack in the middle of a year, and first week of a month.
There’re going to be a few changes to our daily routine for the new 2012 year onwards, several of which I think Ling is going to be blogging about. Hannah’s going to start at a new nursery school this coming Thursday, Ling goes back to teaching full-time at a new school on Tues, and the first six months of this new year is going to be one of the busiest period I’m having – ever. The latter part of the year is also when the full force of our Minton home loan repayment installations really start kicking in too.
The above picture was taken after our morning brunch at Nex. The picture doesn’t show this, but Hannah’s actually a little plump. This should all be baby fat that goes away babies are maybe 4 years old, but even Ling is starting to agree with me when I chuckle and say that Hannah sometimes looks pregnant!
Hannah’s exactly 2.5 years old today!
While I’m uncertain too if Ling would agree with me on this – I think we’ve just recently passed the toughest stage of her ‘terrible two’ too. Over the last month, while she seems to have become a little more assertive and independent minded, she seems to have been able to comprehend her own emotions and less ready to breakout into tantrums.
It comes out of many simple things. Like for instance, not lying down on her stomach immediately after finishing dinner. I’ll tell her gently not to do that on the sofa and follow it through with an explanation on why it’s bad for digestion – and she’ll listen. Or understanding her the importance of her bed time routine and agreeing to stop watching her favorite A-B-C video (Ling made it specially for her last week) for the night. Little things like these.
OK photos though not from this evening but just two days ago over dinner.=)
Ling tried her hand at making her own fish fingers over the weekend. She didn't think it was a huge success, but Hannah and me gulped it all down nonetheless.
Right after dinner prayer and ready to tuck in!
Food's nearly all gone after half an hour. It's The West Wing playing in the background too BTW.=)
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