Long's Blog

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Khmer New Year In Ratanakiri

Another Khmer New Year is upon us again. Time to get out of town and see something new. Here are some pics of Ratanakiri.

Old man in Kompong Cham where we stopped for breakfast.

The final stretch of dirt road to Banlung

Madge poolside

Just another sunset

Banlung at 6 in the morning

Donkey still knocked out

Dancer looking creepy

The market in Banlung

Yeak Loam lake. It's an old extinct volcano thats become a popular swimming hole

Red nose syndrome

Guess which one isn't a local

We walked a half a kilometer or maybe more to avoid this. It's an ass-load of people near the main entrance.

Some of the plants at Terres Rouge where we stayed

Avocado. Rare in these parts.

Local kids cruising the lakeside in the evening

Terres Rouge

Suave looking local man

One of the many waterfalls we visited

Rubber thieves

Agi bought some property.

Pics of an ethnic village

Richards new wife which he purchased for 2 cows and a half of chicken

The view from sunset hill near the entrance of town

Man with big ass knife

Agi with big ass knife

Monday, April 19, 2010

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Drinks with Jeff

Jeff myself and Victoria having some drinks at Chow on the river side.

Classic Victoria

Tequila

Jeff was kind enough to give me some rocket fuel. I won't feel a thing after this.

Did I ever say I love this camera? Well I do and it fits in my pocket. Big cargo pants pocket of course. It is so much easier to carry this instead of any of the crap below. Flip the dial to IA and shoot. Want video? Hit the small red button next to the shutter and you got video. A quadriplegic monkey could take great pics with this camera. This is still my favorite digital camera as of yet. LOT had them for sale at 850 USD with the 14-45 kit lens. I saw another GF1 kit in Sorya for 1199 with the 20mm f1.7 pancake lens. That's waaayyy too much. Better off buying it at LOT if the have it in stock.

Unlike the Olympus EP1 the GF1 has a built in flash. Good enough for fill and not much else.

See that button on the upper right?The little red one? Thats the dedicated video button for when stills just can't capture the moment quite right.

There's no built in IS in the body like the EP1. The GF1's stabilization is lens based. A pity. Hopefully they'll fix this in future releases.

Lenses

In Cambodia mostly everyone loves big ass cameras and big ass lenses. The thought is the bigger the better. Everyone assumes that a big ass camera will make better pictures. The truth is that's horse shit. You need to be a better photographer. It's not your equipment. Period. More stuff just makes makes it more complicated to take photos. Try carrying a 5 kilo camera all day. Think you'll want to take pics? It's more likely that your arm will fall off. Take only what you need and learn how to use it. Look at www.kenrockwell.com for more info on this. Love or hate him I completely agree with what he has to say. All the lenses below are light and easy to carry except for the 24-70 f2.8 which is a pro zoom lens and weighs a ton.

For wide shots. I had a 17-35 f2.8 but sold it in favor of this lighter, smaller 20mm f2.8. Primes are the way to go.

Here's a staple of low light photography. 50mm f1.4

I love this lens for portraits. 85mm f1.8

This is a decent walk-around prime. The 35mm f2.0

This is a beast and I hate carrying it around. This bastard will break your neck if you're not careful. I leave this at home unless I absolutely need it.

Here's my 105mm f2.8 micro/macro lens. all of these shots in this post were taken with this lens except for the picture of itself.

This is a telephoto I don't mind carrying at all. 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 Nowhere near as fast as any of these other lenses but it gets the job done and is light.