Search ShaShinKi.com for photography products – Cameras, Lenses, Accessories…
Testing to see if the codes will work or not.
Update: Yes, it works! 
I spent the last weekend in redesigning the product page at ShaShinKi.com, I am pretty happy and satisfied with the results…so here to share with you all my excitement.
I have always wanted to make the product page more user friendly, clearer and easier to browse. With my limited knowledge in php, I have to spend extra time to try and error.:P
Here’s the results:
What are the changes?
1. Product image has moved from right to left.
2. Bigger product image (250 x 250px) now, give clearly view of the product.
3. Clear listing of Brand, Category, Model #, Stock Status, Price and Quantity selection.
4. For product/s with Option, it will be shown below the Price before Quantity.
5. Boxed Picture. Personally I find this makes the image neater to show.
6. Brand name Clickable, to browse products under the same brand.
7. Added a title bar “Product” to the right column of the product page.
I hope this gives a better shopping experience to my customers at ShaShinKi.com. You can see the actual product page in action at:
http://shashinki.com/shop/nikon-full-frame-digital-12mp-live-view-9fps-p-1167.html
Happy shopping! 
After testing over hundreds of lenses…I have come out with a focus test method that I felt is most convincing to myself. I call it:
INDEPTH FOCUS TEST
There are many focus test chart flying around in the internet, I have printed out some and test them using my Nikon D200 DSLR. However, I found those test chart to be NOT ACCURATE, as it mainly influenced by the position and accuracy of the focus sensor of your DSLR. Some DSLR tends to focus on the subject that is of higher contrast or nearer to the sensor. Some differs.
In order to eliminate the camera focusing sensor position “error”, I developed the INDEPTH Focus Test method, there the camera focus sensor will have no problem in locking focus onto the target, and can give accurate focus photo for evaluation.
Below is how I tested lenses that I ordered for my customers at ShaShinKi.com.
Put two cards (with wordings, eg. namecard, so that you can check sharpness of the wordings later) on your table, one with a lens cap at the bottom so that it is around 1cm higher than the other. Focus on the lower card and take a shot (make sure your shutter speed is above 1/200s, or use flash to freeze motion). Take another shot with focus on the upper card.
Distance between card is around 5mm, separated by a lens cap.
When you focus on Card A, Card B should be blurred (out of focus).
When you focused on Card B, Card A should be blurred (out of focus).
Check the sharpness of both shots. It should show sharp on your focused card and blur on the opposite one. Same as the second shot.
Repeat the above test at different focal length if your lens is a zoom.
After the close distance test, try take a few shots at infinity or far distance. Again, choose a subject which have some clear wordings on it so that you can check the sharpness and clarity on your camera LCD screen later.
If your lens is good, all should be sharp. 
(Updated on 20th March 2008 with picture. A picture is worth a thousand words…)
I just did a new ads design for ShaShinKi.com.
230 x 260 pixels – 100kb
Yeah, it is a GIF animation ads. Linking to of course ShaShinKi.com.
I do hope to learn FLASH ads in future, but at the moment I have no idea of experience with FLASH…so can only stick to animated GIF or JPEG. 
Comments welcome for the improvement of the ads design.
Yes, finally…eventually…at last…
Tamron has release the SP 17-50mm F2.8 lens in Pentax K mount! Don’t believe it? Here’s the photos of the stock that I have already received!
There is a “for PENTAX” wording on the box. Click to view in larger size.
Can’t lie now… see the rear lens with Pentax design/pins on it.
I have just edited and uploaded a new ShaShinKi.com ads banner advertised at PhotoMalaysia.com.
I just love the red…very pleasing red to me…
Just a few more day…Malaysia will held its 12th general election on th 8th March 2008.
Too bad I am in Japan now…can’t vote. I did call to the embassy in Japan, the person in charge said that I need to register as oversea voter with them few months earlier before I can vote. Not sure how true it is…
To remind all my visitors and ShaShinKi.com customers, I have created a special banner/logo at ShaShinKi.com:
Vote for your country…vote wisely.
Yes…this might be the hottest news in the technology world recently. Toshiba has announced that they are officially quiting the HD-DVD format, leaving few others players behind.
In case you are wondering…this it the world for the next generation high storage DVD format, between HD DVD and Blu-Ray (Sony).
Toshiba’s HD DVD is backed by Paramount, Universal Pictures, Microsoft, Sanyo, and NEC.
Sony’s Blu-ray is backed by Disney, 20th Century Fox, MGM, Dell, Panasonic, and Philips.
In Japan, the TV news even conduct a very comprehensive war analysis between the two formats…but my memory not so good to remember all. In summary, Sony Blu-Ray seems to have more promising future, with HD DVD dying slowly. PlayStation 3 is definitely playing big help in promoting Blu-Ray format.
You can read CNN news on Toshiba quiting the HD DVD format at:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/02/19/toshiba.hdd/index.html
My sister’s friend, Louis, who happened to browse ShaShinKi.com few days ago only found out that I am the brother of his friend’s Adeline (my sister) last night. My sisters and nieces visited his house for CNY gathering.
This is the shot that they took last night.
I can see ShaShinKi.com on the monitor screen. Thanks Louis for emailing me this photo.
(Sis, you seems pretty tired…please take care of yourself. May God bless you and protect you, and give you peace. In Jesus name I prayed. Amen.)
What I have for dinner tonight…
1. Fried fish
2. Tauhu
3. Chicken soup
4. Tauke
Did not take photo of 3 and 4…already too late as they are now in my stomach…
Happy Valentine!
This is my dinner tonight…Yummy!
Side view…
Not clear enough? How about a top closeup?
Trust me…it is DELICIOUS!
(my wife said don’t post online…nanti paiseh people said she showed off…but still I think it is good to blog about something my wife did for me everyday… )
Today is the new opening of a new corner at my blog…
Foong Can Cook
Cooking is my wife’s favorite…or strength. So I thought why not create a special category so that she can share her cooking in the blog?!
Hope will benefit some…but of course…don’t get envy…because all the food you saw in this FCC are in my stomach by the time you read this…
Here’s one that I enjoy just now for my dinner…
What is it? It probably has become shit now …but let me tell you…it is delicious sweet and sour fried bone meat. There are some potato wedges in the sweat and sour sos, very delicious. We did not mix the meat with the sos, as it will kill the crispiness of the meat. When serving, dip the meat into the sos and consume it. Yummy!
I will let my wife explain more in future…now need to go do some “business”…
(Text below are typed by KhoKing…but are from the bottom of Lydia’s heart…)
This is my hubby…I love him very much…he is very handsome…see my baby agree also…
My wife uploaded the photos of Megumi in the Chinese New Year shirt today, so I must blog about it a little and let them see the light!
My wife said the shirt is so nice…so must show more.
My wife is wearing her Chinese *New* Year cloth too…
I installed WordPress.com Stats few weeks ago, it is an official blog statistics software by WordPress, which I find it easy to install and use.
It is good to know how busy or popular your blog is, by studying the statistics.
Here’s the statistic of my blog for the last one week…average around 100 visitors per day…hmm…quite low. Anyway, that’s not my purpose of blogging (just want to have a place to release some of my thought from the little brain).
I got quite addicted to blog recently…thinking of starting a forum to discuss about blog (installing, features sharing, promoting…etc.). However, no time for it at the moment…and the burden is going to be quite a lot maintaining a site…so let’s keep it aside first.
(Got another project in mind at the moment…)
Just did some update to BlogMalaysia.com.
There are around 0~3 new bloggers sign up to BlogMalaysia.com daily. Yeah, sometimes it is 0…
I noticed that some bloggers are using reciprocal link of BlogMalaysia.com at their website, which is good. However, the previous reciprocal link is just text of BlogMalaysia.com, which is hard to notice…not so presentable…so I did some modification and added the below codes today:
The above codes will show the reciprocal link and picture below:
So…what do you think? Better huh?
My brother in law asked about this shoe today…I thought it is kinda interesting and nice. Seems pretty cheap at ebay, less thanUS$100, while it is selling at over US$300 in Japan!
Descriptions
Nike celebrates Finish Line’s 25th Anniversary with an exclusive collection like no other. Inspired by athletic achivement and iconic moments of the last few decades, they’ve blended performance with style, unique materials and color together with stories that have shaped both companies times. Each shoe in this exclusive collection is about dreams becoming reality and athletes becoming heroes. Charles Barkley and his team dominated the court in Nike Air Force 180 shoes to become legends. Draped in red, white, blue and gold, this premium hoops shoe is about to conquer the court fo a second time.
Shipping from USA to Japan is a hefty US$40 charged by the ebay seller…more than 50% of the selling price…hmm…total will be around US$120…hmm…I don’t wear sport shoe actually. Need to think again…and again…and again…
My wife cook this today…my favorite food! Curry Fish Head!
Not just any curry fish head…but a very delicious curry fish head!
Not so easy to cook one that is tasty and delicious…me as a curry fish head lover…I must say that the one cook by my wife is better than most restaurant and is definitely among the best curry fish head in Malaysia…or even the world!
Don’t believe me? Nevermind…I can let your eyes taste it first…
I have been using Paint Shop Pro program since version 4…that was more than 7 years ago…and I just love this program.
Why not photoshop? One of the main reason for me to go for Paint Shop Pro during the early days is because it is a FREEWARE. Yes, free to download and use on your computer. That was in version 4 and version 5. Version 9 and later is a paid software, but later Corel bought JASC and the last version from JASC was version 10. Version 9 was later given as a free software together with Lexar professional memory card, which is definitely a very very good value!
How is Paint Shop Pro as compared to Adobe Photoshop? For me, it does everything I needed in photo editing. Curve, contrast, brightness, unsharp mask, crop, border, layers, etc. It also is much easier to use and less resource hungry like photoshop. I can start and use my PSP within 5 seconds after launching, but for PS, I have to wait for 10s or more. Of course, if you have very fast PC, you might not notice the difference.
Today, I download the 30 days trial version of PSP from Corel website. I was already about to BUY already (already in the PayPal page, one click away from paying), but since there is a 30 days trial, I thought why not? I clicked the cancel order button and went back to download the software to try out first. The latest version is Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 and my experience with PSP is mainly based on version 6. I want to see how much improvement it has after Corel bought over JASC, and the US$89.99 is worth spending or not.
What I am expecting from the latest version which I think is lacking in the dated version 6:
Basically, that’s it. I don’t really need a software that has tones of features that I don’t use but burden down my computer.
Now…let’s see some examples that I run through PSPPX2 just now. The photos below are taken using Nikon D200 at IS3200, I set the camera at high ISO the night before and forgot to set it back to low ISO. My wife used the camera the next day to take Megumi’s photos… Originally posted at: 看我笑得见眼不见牙
(Take note that the before images are already of some processing previously…which used automatic batch process…hence the quality still not so good and some sharpness already lost)
Before
After PSP
Before
After PSP
You have to click the photo to appreciate the difference. There is a nice Skin Smoothing command in PSPPX2 which I find it delivers good results. The above is just a quick test…I will have to get some RAW files to test it further, but I think I am definitely going to buy one before the 30 days trial period ends up.
Casio G-SHOCK’s 25th anniversary – MR-G Type MRG-8000G Ultra Limited Edition (200pcs)
Price? EUR 3220 (RM15k). Rolex definitely has a better resale value than this Casio watch…and once you wear (scratched) it…say bye bye to at least half the $$$ of what you originally paid. Ok, I know you do not intend to buy and sell later…you are rich…
Good news? Yes, this watch is available worldwide, not just in Japan. So you can ask your local Casio distributor now if you intended to get one. 200pcs worldwide…hmm…
Dream again…yeah…
Today I managed to restore another photography forum of mine…CaptureSG.com. Since the server HDD failed on 21st Jan 2008, I was having problem in restoring CaptureSG.com from my backup, as the database tables were corrupted.
Today I learned a few things and managed to restore the database and manage to repair the corrupted tables and everything is back online.
Though CaptureSG.com is not a very active site and can’t be regarded a successful yet, but still there are some faithful members there that I owe to bring the site back.
I am glad that CaptureSG.com is back online now. Hope more will visit it especially photographers from Singapore.
Yes, Megumi has a very special new year shirt…we purposely bought this for her. We bought it few months before…and you can see it is a bit tight now for Megumi…hahaa…but it is all worth it.
Photo for remembrance, as I don’t think the shirt can fit her again next year…
Megumi:”Do I look like a mouse? Red Golden Mouse?”
“Papa…help!”
Actually Megumi fall sideway after I took the first photo above…she still can’t sit well especially on the soft bed.
In Chinese tradition, the day before Chinese New Year is a very important reunion for family members. Today, here in Japan my wife, Megumi and I have a good reunion here in our little home. Last year I was alone in Japan…
Chinese New Year 2008 – nien 30 on 6th Feb 2008.
My wife wake up early in the morning to prepare the food – big fest – for our little family.
Here’s some of the dishes…no, don’t ask me how to prepare…maybe Lydia can add that later…
While I was busy taking photos…my wife said…not yet lah…still got one…
(the soup in the middle…5 dishes one soup!)
Not forgetting my wife’s favorite…Coca-Cola…in “romantic” glass…
Finally…before we start enjoy our food (must pray and thank to God)…family photo first…
Notice our little ShaShinKi.com very own angpow? Megumi is hungry for it!
Happy Chinese New Year to all!
I feel really good today, because I have managed to install a modification to ShaShinKi.com/Shop.
~ Stock Status ~
Yeah…I have wanted to have stock status shown on the product page since day 1. I use to type this on every page…
Ready Stock! Next Day Delivery!
or
Special order item, allow 1~2 weeks for delivery.
Typing the above is easy, not difficult at all when I create a new product and copy and paste the sentence in my product page. However…the product arise when I started to keep stock of a certain hot selling products…this is the headache part as I have to open up every in stock product page and change the description, or when product sold out, I have to edit the description again (else will get fire by customer shouting why the product page say in stock but I do not have stock?).
I want a system that can show the Stock Status based on product stock quantity. In my store, changing quantity is easy as I can change them in batch. Yes, even 100 or 1000 products at one time.
Finally, I managed to install the Status Status modification! Yeah! I work till 4am last night…but the result is fruitful and I am quite satisfied with it. Here’s what you will see:
I guess I don’t have to explain any further…except “Special Order” means product will take 1~2 weeks for delivery in most cases.
So next time when you see the above sign/picture at ShaShinKi.com/Shop, remember that I work till 4am for you ya!
We had a lots of snow last week. Megumi’s daddy afraid Megumi has not experienced snow enough, so we went out to the balcony to take some pictures. Can you see the snow?
Megumi is 71/2 months “old” now. She can sit well and likes to laugh (not only smile, but laugh loudly) without the reason known by us sometimes. Really curious what she is thinking. We will do whatever that can make she laugh happily…
Some more photos to share…
