Was doing a little scouting with cousin to see her wedding venue. It’s small and cozy, and I was a little uncomfortable with the close proximity of things but after a while I warmed towards some ideas on what I could take.

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I hardly use my big ass Nikon DSLR, but when I do, I realise how versatile it is in terms of quick adjustments and image quality. The weight is a plus and minus as it’s too heavy and bulky to carry discreetly and comfortably around. On the other hand, that hefty weight means I can jam it against my cheek bone and get sharp images as slow as 1/20s when I want to drag the shutter.

Have grown comfortable using flash in my photos, although these days I prefer to use it in manual mode, just because it gives more control. For events, I think exposure compensation is the best bet, unless it’s indoors and I’m not switching between drastically different lighting situations. Helped Vyanne take a passport photo this morning. Quickly put up the umbrella and took some sample photos of myself. There were some heavy shadows underneath my chin so I devised a quick lighting mod by getting some kitchen foil and asking her to hold it close to her just out of the frame. That helped soften the shadows a bit and the other unexpected plus was a little extra catch light in the eyes from the foil I discovered while post editing.

With learning stuff, sometimes you have to figure out the right questions to ask so that you can sort of resolve the puzzle to move on to the next level. I have some ideas on testing out lighting and I’ll probably need to try it soon to add to my arsenal of tricks.

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Been also testing out 5.1 surround sound at home after borrowing some speakers. The effects are awesome, but I probably need to let the receiver do some adjustments to get the best output from the speakers. I’m re-watching some movies and I pick up all these little details in sound that were not previously evident as they were very subtle. At times I hear things and turn around, as if I heard something else in the room before I realise it was a sound effect from the movie itself. Heh, it’s just so awe inspiring listening to a soundtrack the way it’s supposed to be heard in a movie theatre.

So I finally proposed, after almost a year of wanting to do it. Had some friends help out, with an indoor setting, a song and a four course meal. Had a number of ideas on how I’d propose, after failing to do so in Europe. Heh, in the end, I decided to use them together and having set a date and with friends helping out, I managed to push the intent of proposing all the way. So I’m glad.

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I have missed many friends’ weddings over the last few years because I’ve been away from Malaysia and strangely enough, I have a few lined up for the year. Will be attending some as a photographer, so I’m keen to get the experience of the event. Some will involve travelling overseas, and it’s time to invest in a laptop for editing on the road so that will come in as a business expense.

Laptops have dropped a lot in price over the last decade and my last one was a Dell XPS that was around the AUD$2k range. It was a laptop that was supposed to have enough grunt for gaming yet light enough to lug around easily. It was 2kg in weight and while it ran some games, it wasn’t really ideal for it. It’s gone through major surgery twice, with a defective motherboard and cracked screen replaced. Heh, that was another $650 to fix the issues mentioned.

The weight was clearly an issue for travelling as I started to stock up on camera gear and I could feel my aching shoulders hand carrying a laptop plus camera gear back from the US so at the end of 2008, I got myself an Eee PC at $600. That netbook has served me well for getting basic things done but the processor is so anaemic that any serious photo editing would have to wait until I got back from my trips. This is a problem at times as it takes a while to look through more than a thousand pictures.

I’ve been looking and the Lenovo X121e was decently sized but a little heavy at 1.56kg. The internal 2nd gen Core i3 is quite a bit faster than the Core Duo on my Dell laptop and the $660 price tag was intriguing, after including a 128GB SSD and putting in the occasional 15% discount. For an extra $600, you get a 11.6″ Macbook Air. It’s 1.08kg, or 60gm lighter than my Eee PC, but subjectively it could be 10x faster. I am personally quite interested to test out the Mac experience, with simple creative possibilities with the built in iLife suite of apps. The alternative would be the Lenovo X220 which is slightly heavier but much chunkier with slightly better specifications at a cheaper price.

There’s pros and cons looking at the different systems, and after a while, there’s only so much research and comparisons you can do. Then again, I might wait until the introduction of Ivy Bridge based laptops in April before buying anything, but that usually trickles down much later to Australia and I need to be familiar with my workflow on a laptop by July before travelling. Heh, so I have plenty of information now and it will depend on when I want to pull the trigger on getting a new laptop. For work purposes of course. Heh.