Major Focker

so i ended up at funan during lunch break and got the micro 4/3 olympus E-PL1 with the kit zoom and another lens, the panasonic 20mm pancake. blew about US$1k but very happy with the form factor. took some pics to familiriaze myself with it. full-auto: couldn't get much depth out of my point&shoot so i went crazy with my new toy: also played around with the art filters. pinhole: soft-focus: pop-art: and my favorite, the diorama filter. makes the view outside my window look like model train scenery: lastly, tried to stress it with this handheld shot under dim incandescent lighting: i think the white balance compensation did a good job neutralizing the yellow light, but the focus could be sharper. and that was basically my only gripe with this camera, the autofocus was a tad slow and not always accurate. fortunately, it allowed for manual focus fine tuning. i've read that the panasonic GF1 focusing was much faster and very reliable. so if ever a GF2 comes out with in-camera stabilization i would probably grab one in a heartbeat, specially since the panasonic pancake i got is really turning out to be gem. i'll be keeping it on rather than the original kit zoom. aside from the excellent image quality, it makes the camera small enough to comfortably fit in my jacket pocket. perfect for travelling.

lynx, thanks for highlighting the considerations. after this holiday i hope to get more into the hobby and my main interests would be "long and wide (landscape, possibly architecture), short and narrow (macrophotography)", and the aforementioned night/lowlight shots. typically, i bring along during business trips one of those slim cybershots, and if i'm extending my stay for a quick holiday, a powershot s5. so indeed, portability and simplicity has been a consideration of mine, but i have so far not been fully satisfied by the picture quality i've been getting with these. not to say they're poor (they're mostly good actually), but every now and then there's a shot i hope to have captured better. and not to say success depends entirely on equipment, but that led me to thinking that perhaps a DSLR will afford me a better chance of capturing those moments. let me try to describe the shots i didn't quite "make" - semi-dark hallway inside angkor wat with light coming through some slats. wall patterns were hidden by shadows even after playing around with the contrast, and using flash totally killed the mood - sunlight breaking through clouds over the pampas. tried using different white balance presets but still the grass weren't green enough and the blue sky nowhere as deep - same color problem shooting inside the gaudi house which had lots of colorful glass on lamps and inset into the walls - rising incense smoke near temple window. didn't even register. - tulips in a marketplace and a row of traditional lanterns in a turkish pub. didn't quite get the depth of field i wanted. have to say i'm starting to lean towards the micro 4/3, either the panasonic GF1 or the olympus EP2 (or the E-PL1 but not sure if already available), because of their portability. but i just fear that they'll fall short on color reproduction and low light performance, so i'm willing to consider lugging around a "proper" DSLR. many thanks for the shop recommendations. i'll pass by funan in the next couple of days. just want to arm myself with some pros and cons before i hit the shops since i will most likely will have to buy on the spot because of my time constraint.

need some quick advise. have an impromptu holiday and since i've been meaning to move up to a DSLR, i thought i might as well buy one now. there is no budget per se, but i wouldn't want to buy something that will be overwhelming for a novice, or over-spec'd for my purposes (travel pics mostly, but should be good in low light since i like night scenes and inside churches/temples/bars). sometime ago i heard about the nikon D3000, but then someone pointed out it doesn't have liveview, which i don't know if it should be a deal breaker or not. also heard about the D90, but i haven't been keeping updated on cameras so don't know if it's still good in the context of more recent models. i see the EOS7D on TV which piqued my interest, but that's about all i know of new cameras. i also just picked up a camera mag and it seems there's this new fangled micro-4/3 system, and so i am now even more overwhelmed with choices. unfortunately i only have 3 days before i fly out to italy, so can't do proper research. appreciate any quick advise on camera choice, and for those who live in singapore, where the best place/s to buy are. thanks

ok, the million dollar question: does the cape come off?

not liking how they painted shery's face. looks bug-eyed. that and still no sign that the cape comes off, is making me seriously reconsider getting this

1/72?

just got mine. clearly more playable than the VF-25: much easier to tranform, yet locks nicely in fighter mode. not having super/armor packs that keep falling off definitely helps in that regard. so i'm wondering if bandai would consider releasing a super VF-25 with molded on packs. mine came with a few scratches and chips unfortunately. nothing big though, so can be passed off as "weathering" or mission damage. my only real complaint is that the wrist is too loose to support the BFG one-handed, in my case even if the gun was held vertical. hoping some nail polish would help. it would've been nice if there was a wrist lock of some sort, like a small tab sliding from the arm and into the "gloves"/back of the hand. or perhaps if the rifle butt could somehow be locked into arm, like in the DX Quarter. overall, still happy with it. i leave nearly all of my valks in fighter mode, but this one just looks awesome in battroid.

they're selling a stand for the DX VF-27? or is that for a smaller VF-27 that comes with a stand? anyway, here's the link to grace's bird: http://p-bandai.jp/tamashiiwebshouten/chog...tem-1000004910/

googled around for details on WINHTT and Scrapbook but have some questions still: - can WINHTT follow links to other websites and download them as well? eg. forum thread has links to external image hosting site like photobucket - is it possible to download just a forum thread instead of the whole website? - after Scrapbooks saves the website to the harddrive, can it be moved to a different machine? can it be viewed with Internet Explorer? - anyone know of a program that saves websites into hyperlinked PDF? heard Adobe Acrobat does it, but it's not free thanks

even with the pink hair, i'm not recognizing sheryl here, and it's not because the figure is modestly clothed. the face seems rather generic. anyway, still no dark bunny pre-orders from the usual suspects?

DIY low-vis!

amazing work! consider me a repeat costumer. this time though, please use stiffer cardboard backing when shipping the PE sheets. looking forward to when they become available.

that brought back memories of carefree days: "By nature's hand, by craft, by art, what once was one now fly apart!" "Three suns aligned pour forth their light, and fill the archer's bow with might!" or the even more epic tagalog dubs: "Humanay ang tatlong araw, nagsabog ng kanilang ilaw,at pinuno ng lakas ang PANA!"

long time Bladerunner fan so that was top of my mind. the more i think about it though, i have to say its GATTACA. but yeah, i'm in love with leeloo multipass. borrowing a line from the movie "Anybody else want to negotiate?"

IIRC Gundamhead sold the masters to SSM. presumably new molds were made as the ones produced recently have bigger diameter copper rods to counter sagging. the one doing the casting for SSM is also a member here, i think it's Valkyrie. i was fortunate to get a couple when SSM released it, but had to stalk that site on an almost daily basis for nearly two years

not in any particular order: - Homeworld series (PC) - epic story, amazing presentation. HW2 graphics still hold up well 7yrs after release - Freespace 2 (PC) - the last of the great space sims in the 90's. game of the year, and still unequalled today. - Zone of the Enders 2 (PS2) - mecha action at its finest. this screams for a sequel - Starcraft series (PC) - 'nuff said - Minesweeper (PC) - who hasn't wasted hours on the job with this game?

thanks, that was a very pleasant surprise. i shop a lot on amazon but it never occured to me to look for anime figures there. unfortunately, it's not the kureha version i'm after, so any other store recommendations would be welcome. however, i did find some of the figures i was looking for.

i'm hunting down some OOP figures, one of them the Max Factory Kureha. can anyone recommend online stores aside from ebay, hlj, amiami, hobbysearch? thanks

finally got my MQ this morning. it was at the post office since last week, but for some reason the postman didn't bother leaving any notice or perhaps they didn't even try to deliver. fortunately i had a tracking number and was able to get them to deliver it. used to think singapore post was uber efficient but this is now the second time this has happened. anyway, it's a nice toy. very pleased the color is nowhere near as light as i feared, even in daylight. under room lighting the colors are nicely subdued, even the greens on the flight deck. still, if a darker recolor comes out, i'll pick up another one to keep in cruiser mode. no bent deck guns or antennas. only the little vajra's cannon was slightly deformed but that's forgivable. the shoulders are very tight; definitely not for the weak-willed. in contrast, the hip/leg joints are just the right tightness; easy to pose but stiff enough to hold the pose despite the weight of the legs, even if dangling from the stand. wish it was the same for the alto ex-gear. opening up the gun was tricky at first. i thought it was unnecessarily tight but then realized that i was actually holding down the gun parts that i was trying to open. suggest to hold the gun at the very back end and opening it shouldn't be a problem. the macross attack gimmick was cool too, as were the articulated hands. i'm wondering though why i got 2 sets of articulated hands. i imagine one set should've been fixed posed. definitely glad i didn't cancel this pre-order.

still can't find any pre-orders for the sheryl bunny with the usual websites nor ebay. anyone got links for japan yahoo auctions? don't know japanese so can't do the search myself. thanks

i like it. simple. will get one for sure. when is it out?

just found out about Phantom- Requiem of Phantom. anyone found this worthwhile?

yup, many thanks. now got it as a gif file.

that looks great! can you attach the animated one as a downloadable gif? thanks

pre-ordered this from way back, but now i'm hesitating. it really looks nice, but i find the color a tad too light and more toy-like. is there anything to suggest Bandai will pull a Wave and release a darker version later? not familiar with the non-macross DX line so not sure if there were precedents. i'm wondering how many people are on the fence as i am.