This orchid emits a sweet fragrance. It is a species of Vanda orchid and searching the internet I found it to be Vanda Kultana Fragrance orchid. It is a rather hot days these few months and somehow most of my wife's orchid want to produce some flowers, maybe it is a reproduction time because I remember somebody once said to me that plants mostly will produce flowers to re-produce so when everything is A ok and enough water, sunshine and everything cozy it would definitely produce blooms after blooms.

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This is a beautiful tiger stripe orchid that never stop blooming. At first it would only produce one flower at a time but lately there would be at least three flowers all the time, when one faded away one would already blooming in its place.

If not mistaken this one is a wild one whereby it can be found by the road side if you are lucky, this particular plant originated from Borneo cannot remember whether from Sabah or Sarawak brought back by my sister from her trips there few year back.

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This orchid is one of the many beautiful orchid from the species of Phalaenopsis violacea. This one is a small orchid from one tip to other just barely 20 cm. This particular one is almost as if sitting on one of it's leaves as if taking a break from a hectic world of gardens.

This picture was taken when the sun just about setting so I have to use an external flash. The flash was held in one hand while the camera in the other. The flash was triggered using a wireless trigger connected to the camera.

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Jonker Walk holds a lot of treasures if one know where to look and I suppose need to go there again next time to really appreciate the time and space presented.

One can take a stroll along the many streets of the area or even take a Beca or tri-cycle with a fair fee to have a guide around the Walk and trough the many smaller street in the area.

It was fun, and I have this nagging feeling my wife would really love venturing from one shop to the other.


You can view the outing posting at photomalaysia.com : Here.

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On Saturday I managed to attend the 16th Ted Adnan Lighting Workshop at his Barebone studio at Kajang, Selangor. It was a new experience playing with an external lighting source, multiple strobe/flash units, and how to make use of your surrounding ambient light.. It was fun and I suppose needs lot of practice in order to really master the lights in photography and I suppose it would be the main ingredient in producing stunning photos.. know you light source.

I really like this photo but unfortunately it is rather so and not sharp.. due to camera shake and unsteady hand, really need a tripod taking photo without a flash to capture with only the available lights.

Catch the report on that workshop at Ted Adnan Blog

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PhotoMalaysia May 2008 Photo Competition

Theme:
Mother, Mak, Mama
...appreciation to all the mothers in the world...

Submission period:
Now - 31st May 2008

Voting period:
Early June 2008


All Entries MUST follow the following guidelines, if not the entry will be disqualified without notification.

Entries are NOT VISIBLE until the voting period.

Guidelines:

1. Image Size: 500-1000 pixels on the maximum side. No restriction on minimum side. (eg. 1000x400 or 400x1000 pixels)
2. File Size: Not more than 1MB.
3. Submit using the ATTACHMENT function in this thread. Hotlinked images will be disqualified. Post a reply to this thread with your entry and the number of the entry.
4. One photo per theme per member. You are not allowed to change your entries once submitted.
5. Do not include a watermark in your image, this is to ensure unbiased voting later on.
6. No borders/frames are allowed.
7. Any comments or unrelated posts will be deleted without warning.
8. Entrants must type “Agree to PhotoMalaysia Contest Terms and Conditions” when replying/uploading images to the contest. Without the above phrase, entries will be disqualified. Please read and understand the T&C.

FAQ:
Please click on the FAQ link for questions and answers -> FAQ.

Prizes:
1. Winning photo with the highest votes will be showcased on the front page of PhotoMalaysia and on a sticky thread on PhotoMalaysia's Best of the Year subforum.

2. Winner will also get a Canon Selphy ES-1 Printer, sponsored by Canon Malaysia!

3. Winning photo is entitled to enter year end vote for Best of Year 2007 to win the grand prize of Canon EOS 40D Digital SLR Camera + EF-S 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 IS Lens, sponsored by Canon Malaysia!

Original article : Click here.

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In todays world a good photography classes is almost as expensive as owning a good photography equipments but hope is not lost since there are many online communities that concentrate on photography and photography equipments if you know how to find them.

There are so many out there but below are the most photo communities that I visit regularly :

1. PhotoMalaysia.
- Malaysian based
- Language : English, Malay, mixed.
- Community chats, events and gathering.
- Monthly Photo contest, exhibition.

2. Shutterasia
- Malaysian based
- Language : English, Malay, mixed.
- Community chats, events and gathering.
- Good lists of local photo shops.

3. Velocity Forum
- Malaysian based
- Language : English, Malay, mixed.
- Community chats, events and gathering.
- Monthly photo contest, online and offline through locally distributed magazine.
- Great on the shelf Digital Camera Magazine (DCM) based on UK DCM.
- Preview of DCM May 2008 -> Preview.

4. Digital Photo Review (dpreview).
- International
- Language : English.
- Reviews of photo equipments.

5. Photo.net
- International
- Language : English.
- Question and Answer style.
- Reviews of photo equipments.
- Great articles, e.g Building a Digital SLR System

6. POTN (Photography-on-the-net)
- International
- Forum based communities exclusive for Canon photo equipments.
- Gallery, marketplace, etc.

And there are many more like the lensamalaysia.com, the Fotopages Malaysia Community (FDMC) and of course the very famous places like Flickr and Fotopages where you could find tonnes of information to sharpen your photographic skills.

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I bought my Digital Single-Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera last year with a lens kit of Canon 18-55mm IS. Canon EOS 40D is a great camera with various feature aiming for a serious hobbyist photographer, even though I am not that level yet I am trying hard to become one and maybe in the future might actually become a professional photographer.

When I got the camera, my first impression was that Canon EOS 40D is a rather bulky camera. Luckily my hand is big enough that the camera fits comfortably in my palm. The camera came with a kit lens Canon 18-55mm IS, a very light and wobbly lens but I think it suits perfectly with the camera and with me while I learn how to use my 40D.

I used to own SLR camera before but I but it was my brother's in which when he lost interest with it I took it from him. It was a Minolta X700 and I was very happy with it until it broke and cost of repair was the same as buying a new camera. But during that time I was very busy with work, so I simply forgotten about photography until my wife bought a Canon film, point and shoot camera. But then it is also the same time as the pixel world exploded where camera was getting cheaper and pixel kept getting higher, the need to own a digital camera made us bought a digital point and shoot camera, a Nikon Coolpix P1. It is a good point and shoot with a WiFi feature that can transfer photos without wire to any personal computers with WiFi built-in devices which most of the latest laptop is already equipped with.

Somehow or rather the interest came back and I started to learn back how to take photos and I suppose it is just like riding a bike, you can't really forget how, and not for long that I started feeling the limitation of point and shoot (PnS) so I started looking for a better camera. So after a few months of surveying, lurking from one photo forum to the other, reading reviews from one site to the other I finally get a hold of my first DSLR, a Canon EOS 40D. Now, the new camera already changes my life, and I hope for a long and beautiful friendship ahead..

About 2-3 months or so after that I bought a new lens Tamron Zoom Telephoto AF 70-300mm f4-5.6 Di LD Macro to get a feel of using a tele-zoom for some reach. It is a cheap lens in comparison to other lens just a couple hundred dollars. But my justification of buying this is that I want to get to know how to handle this range of reach using el'chepo first before committing to a more expensive one. A camera like Canon EOS 40D is a cropped camera which is 1.6 times. This means that if I got a lens of 70-300, the actual zoom reach would be times 1.6 that is 112-480mm so having 70-300mm lens is not bad at all using a cropped camera. So taking photos of birds are possible.

Most the photos found in this blog would be taken using the Canon EOS 40D and the Nikon Coolpix P1.

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I went by Danga Bay, Johor Baharu last Saturday and saw a group of people in the process of putting a large hot air balloon. It was my first time to be able to watch people setting up a hot air balloon like this.

Watch more of the photos -> My Flickr Gallery.

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One of the most well known old mosque in the state of Johor, Malaysia. It was said to be built in the late of 18th century under the direction of Sultan Abu Bakar of Johor. It was also said by many that the mosque was build without the use of any modern building material like cement and people are still debating on what or how the bricks are able to be placed firmly together and what exactly been used in place of cements, some legend said yolk were used, instead.

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