Street Photographing with Huawei P9

When I first discovered about this phone, I was reluctant to own one as my previous, Google Nexus 5 was only half the price tag and was working perfectly and in fact way better than many other. However after giving it a thorough comparison between the successor version, Nexus 6 and P9, I am in favour of the P9. Both are manufactured by Huawei and carries premium specifications with 1 or 2 items which I can criticize on.

Goodbye Google Nexus 5

Hello Huawei P9

Day 1 - Exhausting day to begin with

May and I traveled to Australia from 10 May to 24 May 2015. We are glad and grateful to have each others companies in this new world.

10 May - We have traveled for close to a day with a layover in Kuala Lumpur with AirAsia. Our flight was pretty smooth and the landing was perfect. We landed in Melbourne Tullamarine International Airport slightly close to 1 hour ahead of schedule. The airport was really busy with passages from multiple flight clearing the immigration together with us.

After we cleared off, we went straight to the Redspot pickup center situated right opposite the terminal. There was much surprise at the counter as we have already prebooked our car in advance with 0 liability insurance package.
After picking up our car, we decided to head straight to Great Ocean Road. We stopped by the Geelong and Great Ocean Road Visitor Information Center at Little River along Princess Highway as advised by the Redspot's staff and this was the beginning of our adventurous and fun trip.

Anglesea Golf Club along Noble Street, Anglesea - see kangaroos in the wild. We didn't know what to expect until we finally discovery a large mob of kangaroos. There were approximately 15 to 20 of them grazing grass in the club compound.

Online photo printing service by eoe Online : Part II

This is my follow up review for eoe Online photo printing service.

Software : After my last review I continued to explore on the other order method. Their Photo Express Software was great. The uploading feature was pretty similar to its online version but in a better manner. It did the printing size checking prior to upload. Alerting you on the poor quality prior to your upload and so you can avoid wasting time on those photos which you would end up not developing them. Besides, it was also cool to resize all the photos to the sufficient size prior to the upload. With this, you can actually save some time avoiding oversize image upload. As a whole this is a user friendly application, easy to install and simple to use. Score : 5/5 (*this scoring does not take the editing capability into consideration)

The assessment page prior to upload...all my downloaded photos from FB is red out ever for 4R. I am cool with the poor quality as I was only fond of the memories.

I received my 1st order and thanks eoe Online for the kind give away :D. Here is my after printing review.

Timely : I sent in my order on 23 Nov under their Blogger Review Program. The order was confirmed and processed on that very same day. My photos arrived on 25 Nov. That was very fast. Bravo to the proactive response team. Score: 5/5

Packaging : It was delivered on the SkyNet courier system. It arrived overnight. The packaging was handled with care with double seal plastic Skynet bags, no worries about damaged by water. The 4 R photos were nicely placed into the albums. I usually prefered the developer not to insert my photos into their albums as the glossy finish is very prone to fingerprints and smudges but they have managed this well. Perhaps they did the insertion with the help of photo cloth or some fine gloves. The 8R packaging was ok. They have placed the 2 photos into a big transparent bag with a hard paper board in between and finishing it with neatly taped side to keep the photo in place. Score: 4.5/5 (I suggest they offer an option to pack the large photo into a card folder for those who didn't intend to transfer them into albums. This give a more professional appearance compared to a plastic bag with a hardboard. Anyway this is an extra. If they are to offer that, then I will definitely say they are more than 5...perfetto!)

Value for money : You don't have to wait till 31st of every month or specific time of the year for such a promo price. In fact they are one of the lowest I can get in town and best that you don't have to run to the stall twice to get them develop. Score : 5/5

Printing quality : I was a little disappointing with some of the printings. It seemed like they did some contrast adjustment to my photos. Those lovely outdoor photos turned out worse of the whole album. The bright blue sky looked like overexposed white while the earth tone skin was nearer to overshadowed spot. I strongly suggest them to give an option to user on whether auto colour adjustment are needed or not on their photos. I understand that general user need to have their photo to be fine tuned to look more appealing but it is definitely not for photography lover. Please make an option for this. Make it default in your application to auto adjustment and I believe many photo lover out there like myself will know to disable it by our own choice and this will save your time too. Score : 3.5/5

some photos look ok...this is one of the best due to the original colour contrast was not so much different. Tuning the contrast would not give such a huge impact. They did change the WB a bit and it turned out fine. I didn't mind having the original colour too as it tells my story...the sun just set and it will be dark in minutes

this is the worse. It was very lively but turned out that I was like in a bush with some dying roses...so dead! The bright green and striking yellow turned out to be in dirty green and brownish yellow

thanks to the contrast adjustment, my skin was full of blemishes. The earth brown barrel turned out to be plain brown. The blue scarf under lime light became very white.

I love the photo but not the print. The green early summer leaves appeared to be early autumn and worse that I lost all the blue sky and cloud details.

I am upset with this. I love this very much which is why I got this printed out in 8R. I hate the print out. First is that they cropped my photo and second was the auto contrast. Needless to comment more :S

Conclusion : I will give them 4/5. They are good for general use. To tackle my photo kakis, they need to enable the non auto adjustment for us.

I still have 183 more photos in my folder waiting to be printed and I am looking forward to their non auto adjustment option before I proceed. I will just drop them my suggestion and hope that I do not offend them...this is nothing personal.

Online photo printing service by eoe Online

My friend has introduced me to eoe Online for quite sometime but I have not tried this out just because I have the wrong perception of how troublesome it can be. I was obviously wrong till the moment I decided to get a sponsor for my digital prints and hence giving this provider a try.

Here are the steps that I have gone through to place my order.

1. Registration

Registration was pretty simple but please read the terms and conditions. There were 2 clauses which made me uneasy.

Security risks
Please note that transmissions to and from this website may be intercepted and modified by third parties. Files obtained from or through this website may contain computer viruses or other defects.


No liability
In no event shall eoe Online, its employees or associates be liable for loss or damage that may arise from the use of this website or information available at this website. Nor does eoe Online take any responsibility for the information contained in eoe Online’s website. Any advice is to be used at your discretion.

I have concern about my personal information leak as well as my IPs. I did not understand the need of IC No during registration and strongly suggest that the service provider to remove this field from their registration form. Why bother to keep an information which has no use and may cause so much heboh later? DOB matching is a good enough method to validate individual identity.

In terms of monetary, I didn't have confidence over their credit card payment as it was done through a local company name Commerce Payment Sdn Bhd. Reputable provider like the PayPal and SecurePay are always my preferred choices. Anyway the best choice for me at the moment was the bank in option.

2. Made printing order

There are 2 ways of uploading your photos to be developed. Option 1 would be using the no install option, the Easy Upload Online tool. I will review on the option 2, installation required option, Photo Express Software later.

The Easy Upload Online uses simple activeX upload photo widget.

My average upload speed was 42KB/s. Hence averagely time needed for me to upload a 1MB photo was less than a minute.

I was not even bothered to resize my photo. However if your line was not as broad as mine, you may want to opt to resize to ~0.5MB (600 x 800 dpi) for a 4R print. You may need larger resolution for larger printing. The online too does provide a check on the end of the order to ensure the printing quality but it is best if you can resize up front and not waste your time uploading on your narrowline. I think this feature is good to serve as a reminder.

Upon upload completion, you will have to choose the printing size. The printing size can be made applicable to all photos or you may update 1 by 1. I prefer to apply all the default before I specifically modified few to certain size of my choice.

3. Payment

Next up was the payment page, as mentioned earlier in this post, I did a bank in payment and dropped them details of my payment and my order was complete. Now I will wait for few days before the printing reaches my hand.

Do come back to learn about the other order method and the printing quality!

For more info about eoe Online, please visit http://www.eoe.com.my/en/

16 May: Surprisingly cold

I did a lot of research about California prior to my visit. However weather is just beyond my control...I only brought along a jacket, a shawl and 3 scarves. These were not enough to keep me warm.


We started our day quite late. Worse was we were stuck in the middle of the city due to the road closure for the Bay To Breakers and the Hertz Never Lost system was not helpful at all in this case. We were on the 49-Mile Scenic Drive. We took approximately 1 and a half hours to reach the Palace of Fine Art/Exploratorium.


I really felt in love with the magnificent Roman Greek architecture, Palace of Fine Art. Behind the palace was the Exploratorium. I was as excited as the children here. This place really explained why American kids were so smart. There were a lot of answers to answer to their curiosity. Parents educate their children unlike back at home, Malaysians teach their children and mostly in the copy exactly practice.


We also dropped by golden gate viewing point, Fort Point and the Presidio point. The weather was extreme for late spring. It was so cold at the Fort Point and the viewing point. The Pacific Ocean breeze was super chill.


We were cold and hungry. No decent place for us to fill our stomach. So the best we got were a cold pasta. Another round of meal at Burger King....really a huge burger :P


I was checked into room 313 at Hilton Garden Inn Folsom. This soom has the same setting as the one in SF. I enjoyed the soft bed.

Uncle Kit's Wedding

the wheel of the day...nicely decorated
Uncle Kit and auntie with his bestman having difficult time identifying his love
sweet drink...tian tian mi mi
marking territory...hahaha
ginger, longan, dates...very common wedding gift...symbolize Prosperity in the family
For more photos from the wedding, click here.

Photo from holiday on the other coast

This was from my last holiday on the East coast of Peninsular Malaysia. This was a trip which I didn't really enjoyed much about.

Day 1, it was a long ride to Kota Bharu. We took North South Highway and turned into Butterworth Kulim Expressway at Seberang Jaya. Then into the and Grik Highway en route Baling, Grik, Jeli, Rantau Panjang, Pasir Mas and finally into Kota Bharu. Luckily it was a sunny day and the green scenic on the Titiwangsa mountains were breath taking. Our first meal in Kelantan was great too. I love the nasi kerabu and ayam percik served by the Yati Ayam Percik stall at Jalan Long Yunus.

Day 2...my mouth wide open looking at how our public officers were working. We were rushing here an there through out the hold day and yet nothing done (Read my experience here).

I was rotting with the orchids in their office

Our eating out plan wasn't good either. We tried the recommended pulut tapai at Selera CPT along Jalan Long Yunus. None like the tapai and the cendol base was tasteless.

The chinese food at Medan Selera Kebun Sultan was rather poor. After meal desserts in the TeaTalk Kopitiam on the opposite road were less satisfying. And the cough mixture like coffee drink at Hayaki sucked!

Day 3 Most accomplished in a day. Sunrise at Pantai Cahaya Bulan, yummy nasi dagang at Kwang Ling and temples visit in Tumpat. Kelantan has nothing better than the not so well maintained Buddhist temples.
After long hours under the hot sun, we headed back to town for some cool air. So we visited the KB mall, in which my driving skill was put to test...2 turns to get to the car park on the 5th floor. No wonder, the car park attendant stopped me before I got up and asked, "Boleh naik?". I was puzzled. Anyway I answered "boleh" and then only to discover that I signed up for the roller coaster ride. What made the situation worse was we witnessed a MPV on the opposite direction got itself scratch against the wall...ziiiingggggg. Kelantan architect really boleh and the officers lagi boleh. Such a crazy plan can be approved and built to reality.

We didn't stayed long in the mall. My mum was worry all the time we were in the mall. She was worried of how I could drive down later. So to calm her, we left early and hit the car park again and left after another round of roller coaster ride.

In the evening, with the GPS leading our way, we manage to find our way to the best Siamese restaurant in Kelantan. It took us approximately half an hour to Chiang Mai Restaurant at Tumpat. It was worth the drive for the prawn doughnuts and the spicy sour fish...yummy!
We left Chiang Mai minutes after the rain started pouring heavily. Scary moment to be in such an alien place with wild grown one meter tall grass on both side of the narrow path. The raining cats and dogs when we finally passed the clogged bridge linking Tumpat to KB...the bridge seemed flooded. If bridges could be flooded, more over the low lands. No wonder flood was such a big issue to Kelantan. Blamed it on their architects and officers at JKR and pejabat tanah.

Not even half way through the bridge, the KB city in front of us just went black off. No street lights or anything other than the vehicles lamps. This was just a super bad bad for me and my fellow Kelantanese. Wonder how could they stand such a disastrous day? According to the locals, it was normal for the whole or half the city to go back off.

in the world of darkness...in our hotel room

Day 4 My sis learned that her posting would be out today so we were in the pharmacist dept in Pengkalan Chempa early but nothing changed. She got posted to Hospital Daerah Machang. We rushed to the Bangunan Persekutuan for another round of waiting and finally headed to Machang.

Machang was a small town...way smaller than Sungai Bakap.

Day 5...We were back to civilization. I love Penang and am grateful to be a Penangite. Got Haagen Daz buffet treat from sis as my holiday compensation.

For more photos, please visit my facebook album.

Another RM370 gone

First RM2180 gone. Now another RM370.

So up to this moment I have spent a total of RM2550.

• Canon EOS 1000D + Canon EF-S 18-55/3.5-5.6 IS Lens + Toshiba 8GB HSD + Canon LP-E5 battery pack (additional)+ Canon DSLR bag + Hoya 58mm UV filter + Air blower + cleaning solution = RM2180
• Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens + Hoya 52mm UV filter + 3rd party hood for 18-55 = RM370

Oh ya...I got my camera at the cheapest price one could get at KOMTAR area. I highly recomment Mega Star Photo to everyone. Btw...I was upset to learn the price from Click 'n' Snap. Everyone seemed to be recommending their prices and services here but personally it think they slacked badly after all those recommendation and being so ego and unfriendly.

My 1st DSLR

Finally after long craving for one, I got myself a DSLR....my Canon EOS 1000D with 18 - 55 mm kit len.

So my first photographing event was on last Saturday. Got a few shots from Yeap Yau's house warming and hundreds from Bon Odori 2009 at Esplanade.

Please enjoy my productions from Bon Odori.

I think they are Malaysians....I love their summer kimonos...
she is our best model...many diff face expression and not much movement...good for me to train my portrait shooting skill

she has to face more than 20 cameramen at a time and for quite some time

the central stage

sis and a beautiful girl

paper doll for sale

Japanese hand painted vase and jars

Japanese dolls up for sale

colourful water balloon up for 'fished'

the most crowded stalls...fishing the baloon and fish up the gold fish '捞金鱼'

this little boy tried his luck for few rounds...finally managed to get 2

mummy hepling the model daughterat the fishing water balloons stall

金鱼佬 at the 金鱼挡

trying her luck...she managed to fish 5 to 6 with 1 paper net

these were the young drummers of the night

Dr Lim G E graced the festival

one of the many food stalls around...roasted chicken by xxx hotel...can't recall which hotel was that from

my sis enjoying the takoyaki

the takoyaki...octopus balls

the japanese pan cake...taste so so

the takoyaki...can get better ones at Jusco QB

pan fried

performers from Perlis and Kedah

they can really dance very well

this was their 3 continous dance...yet they could still be so lively

from the MJA and PJLC...demostrating the BonOdori dance

The rasa sayang moves were very beautiful...very graceful

Malaysians too could look very beautiful in Kimono

one of the best performance I managed to catch on the day

I like this girl very much....very lively move

with the ghost like mask

with the mask

the trainer...she was very lively...very energetic

great performers and great performance

for more photos, please refer to http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=92520&l=028d6a033e&id=533382630