camera

Grace Tan In For Photographers, Life, Musings

A Capoeira Experience: The Panasonic GH3 launch

Since our last Bloom Workshops with Panasonic as our main sponsor, we’ve been doing a few things together. I’ve conducted a portrait photography workshop for their Lumix users, and yesterday, I was involved in the launch of 5 of their latest Lumix cameras. Together with host Julie Woon and fellow photographer Szetoo Weiwen, we shared with the press our experience using their cameras, and for me specifically, it was the GH3. I had heard the GH series is great for videography, so I had to put it to the test. I contacted Johan one day, and asked him to arrange for a small capoeira outing. We had a blast that morning with Mia and San, who were awesome in front of the camera.

I shot the video mostly in full HD at 50p and did the slow motion in post production by tweaking the frame rate to 25 frames per second. It was shot on the Panasonic Lumix GH3 with only 2 lenses – the 7-14mm f4.0 and the new 35-100mm f2.8. I love the effect of the telephoto lens… very sharp with creamy bokeh (photographers would know what I mean!).

Julie was impressed when she found out that I shot this video while I was pregnant (I think I was into my 7th month then?), squatting on the ground etc…and all within 1.5 hours. My hope is that I’ll have an easy delivery, cause everyone tells me that you’ll have a good labour if you’ve been active through out your pregnancy! (fingers crossed)

Hope you’ll like the video (by the way, I was told that it’s never too late to learn capoeira! As for me, that’s one activity I think I’ll skip)

Music credits:

Song name : ‘Focas da Aguas’
Artist : Mestre Acordeon
Album : Capoeira Voices Vol.III

Grace Tan In Life, Musings

My first digital camera

Here’s some of the stacks and stacks of boxes we painstakingly handpacked! * iPhone photos

We rummaged through the cupboards, we packed our belongings into boxes and we taped them shut. Four years into marriage, our life as we knew, was changing radically. A new dawn peeks through the ominous clouds, as we prepare for the big move.

Some events in life are unforeseen. Some events are the catalyst for greater things. After marriage and renovating our current sanctuary, as we call it, Alex and I are moving to a larger space – one that will house a mini-theatre cum consultation space so that we can pamper our prospects and clients. But that is not the core reason for moving, it’s to provide shelter for my elderly parents in their twilight years.

My mum loves the mustard at Ikea, so we bring them there once in awhile as a “treat”! * mobile phone photo

In between boxes, Alex pulled out a relic from days gone by that triggered so many memories – from holidays on tropical islands to backpacking trips to fun outings with friends. We found our first digital camera! Not one, but two of them! Here’s the story.

Alex had been interested in photography and bought a Sony DSC-S75, based on the recommendation of a friend. It was only a 3MP camera, but it had fully manual functions and was very much an awesome piece of wizardry. On a seemingly pleasant day, after he discovered the joys of diving, he bought an underwater housing from eBay and hit the salty waters of Tioman Island with vigour. *cue horror music*

As you’re probably imagining by now, and are probably right, the housing failed to perform and it flooded. One thousand five hundred ringgit vanished, just like that. After giving him an earful (sorry darling!), we rushed out to buy… the exact same model! The camera was great and so were the photos. Squint a little at the photo and pick out the size of the ever so spacious memory card we had!

Grace Tan In For Photographers, International

Accidents while on shoot

I’m still traveling in India on this corporate shoot, but will be glad to return to the comforts of my own home (and a loving husband) soon. While at one of the many construction sites, the 3rd-party strap (but, but it was an uber comfortable neoprene padded one that was supposed to cushion the weight of the camera on my neck!) I was using came undone from the buckle, causing my precious 5D Mark2 to fall with a resounding thud.

I picture it in slow-motion over and over again, wondering if I could have dived in Matrix-style to save it before gravity got the better of the DSLR. What’s done is done, I guess and I’ve resolved to be very, very careful when buying camera accessories.

As a professional, I always carry a backup camera body and for good reason. I would feel a whole lot worse if I let my clients down because I was not well prepared enough. As the scouts would chant, “Be Prepared!”.

Canon, pretty, pretty please get this fixed quickly when I get back, and I hope it won’t burn too big a hole in my pocket.

Grace Tan In For Photographers, Life, Musings, News

Moving on to HD!

It’s a momentous event for Wedding Story. This year, we are making the move to offer HD video to our clients for all wedding film packages. The past few years we have been honing our skills and building our brand. In 2009, we started to expand our wings internationally and we believe that there is more to come in the future! Today, the 4 of us – Kee Sitt, Sharon Koo, Ian and myself will be flying over to Bangladesh to shoot Ali and Farhat’s wedding. Do keep in touch with our travels as we plan to blog frequently while we are there. It will be a week long celebration in the town of Chittagong. Apparently this is where the longest beach in the world is found! Wow!

20090331-hmc_camera_purchase_trip-002

The trip to get our new Panasonic AG-HMC 152 cameras is in itself an adventure. Alex and I booked our flight to Singapore on Monday, and on Tuesday evening, we flew over on Tiger Airways to Changi airport. What a coincidence as we bumped into people we knew on the flight! Chris Cheong from Berjaya Hotels and Michael Tang from Concorde were on their way to Singapore for a conference and coincidentally, they sat in front of us on the flight.

20090331-hmc_camera_purchase_trip-008

20090331-hmc_camera_purchase_trip-019

We arrived at 5.30pm on Tuesday, and took the MRT to City Hall where I met Sherine in Starbucks. She wrote to us to enquire about our services, and so we had a short consultation in Singapore that evening. The world is getting smaller!

Then Wang from Sensys came to meet us at the same Starbucks. It looked rather odd to do a transaction in the middle of a busy coffee place!

20090331-hmc_camera_purchase_trip-026

20090331-hmc_camera_purchase_trip-030

Our photo with Wang.

20090331-hmc_camera_purchase_trip-039

By 8pm we met a few friends for dinner.

And then by 10.30pm, Ian Chong came to pick us up to go over to his place to stay the night. I forgot to take a nice photo of him and his wife! :(But here are a few pictures of our new camera, fresh out of the box!

20090331-hmc_camera_purchase_trip-044

20090331-hmc_camera_purchase_trip-048

20090331-hmc_camera_purchase_trip-046

The next morning at 6am, we were already at the airport, to fly back to KL. And what a coincidence, we bumped into another friend Jerrica who was on the same flight! I was also supposed to meet her for a consultation this week in KL. What an exciting 14 hours.

Grace Tan In Life, Musings

A new addition to the family: The 5D Mark2

About 2 weeks ago, I celebrated my 30th birthday. Wow, I feel really old now! My cousin told me that 30 is the new 20, but I know that it’s not entirely true! The occasional backaches I get proves it wrong! Haha.. Well, I had a little party at my sister’s home to celebrate the dawn of a new era. It was nice and personal, with close friends attending the party. Towards the end of the night, I opened all the lovely presents that were given to me, and what a surprise I got when Alex presented me with a 5D Mark 2 in a Nikon coolpix box! :)

20090307_grace_30th_bday_0065

20090307_grace_30th_bday_0080

20090307_grace_30th_bday_0078

20090307_grace_30th_bday_0073

Alex says I have been hounding him for the new 5D for the past few weeks. Eat sleep, talk 5DM2. Do I really do that? *bats eyelashes*. Well I must say that I have an awesome husband, not just for getting the camera, but in everything he does. He is so supportive of me in everything, especially in my business, providing emotional and mental support all the time. I would not be where I am if it weren’t for him.

In Wedding Story, we have a few camps… the Nikon vs Canon camp. :) Not everyone uses the same system, and though it would probably save us a lot of money when we share equipment, it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. What matters are the shots that come out and the final look of it. Looking forward to all the shoots coming up soon!