DR KOH KHO KING

This simple non-scientific test is just to give roughly an idea of how good or bad Nikon D200 is in NOISE CONTROL for different ISO shots. All shots are done handheld, hence focus might not be that accurate. No sharpening was applied, no correction in what so ever. All shots on Jpeg directly from D200, cropped to 100% to 700×700 pixels.

Lens used is Nikon Nikkor AIS 50mm F1.4.

Here’s the full view of the overall shot (ISO 100):

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I entered PhotoMalaysia May’s photo competition (Theme = RED) with the following photo. However, after discussion with Staffs, we have generally decided that Admins should not participate in the competitions, as it would look bad if by chance any Admins won the contest and the prize.

So, still need to give some light to the photo that I like…I show it here.

Autumn in Japan!

Today PhotoMalaysia has achieved a new milestone, by having Canon Malaysia as Sponsor to our monthly Photo Contest (year 2007)!

Thanks to one of our staff, Steven Leong, who has managed to contact Canon Malaysia and successfully convinced Canon Malaysia in sponsoring our monthly Photo Contest.

Here’s the prizes:

• 8 units of Canon Selphy CP-720 printer for May~Dec 2007 monthly photo contest.
• One unit of Canon PowerShot G7 as Grand prize for best of year 2007 selected from monthly photo contest winners.

Prize is one thing, but the main achievement is PhotoMalaysia is getting recognition from big company like Canon Malaysia in supporting our activities.

Thank you, Canon Malaysia!

Today’s biggest news in the photography world: Amazon.com acquires dpreview.com!

I was quite surprised when I visited dpreview.com today and saw that headline news! Wow…how much did Amazon paid to Phil Askey? With millions of visitors and registered members, dpreview.com definitely worth a few million dollars! Very envy…

Here’s the official press release (I posted this at PentaxWorld.com as well):

AMAZON.COM ACQUIRES DPREVIEW.COM –
THE LEADING ONLINE DESTINATION FOR REVIEWS
AND INFORMATION ABOUT DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

(BUSINESS WIRE) SEATTLE, WA—May 14, 2007—Leading online retailer Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced it has acquired www.dpreview.com, the web’s most comprehensive site for digital camera information and reviews. Founded in 1998 by Phil Askey, dpreview.com provides unbiased reviews and original content regarding the latest in digital cameras, and offers a host of features and forums designed to make it easy for consumers to find the camera that’s right for them. With its unique voice and in-depth technical reviews, dpreview.com draws millions of unique visitors each month.

“Dpreview.com is by far the most authoritative source anywhere for straight talk about new digital cameras,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “We at Amazon.com have been their fans for a long time, and we extend a big welcome to the dpreview.com team.”

“One of the difficulties of operating dpreview.com independently has been the balance between producing content and delivering new site features,” said Phil Askey, founder of dpreview.com. “Now, with the support of Amazon, I’ll be able to devote more of my time to expanding and improving our features – such as product reviews and discussion forums while still delivering the high-quality content that our readers have come to expect.”

Dpreview.com offers in-depth reviews of the latest digital cameras and accessories, active discussion forums, digital photography and imaging news, sample images, a dynamic digital camera buyers’ guide, side-by-side comparisons of the most popular models, and the web’s most comprehensive database of digital camera features and specifications.

Dpreview.com will continue to function as a stand-alone operation based in London.

I read an interesting news at lowyat.net:

http://www.lowyat.net/v2/latest/is-yahoo-worth-us-50-billion-2.html

Microsoft set into motion the next step of their plan in which they hope to eventually dominate the search and advertising by first making an offer to with Yahoo for a possible acquisition that could be worth $50 billion, according to a report from Forbes. This move is possibly a reaction to the increasing pressure Microsoft is facing to effectively compete in the online advertising space, even more so after the largely publicized bidding war recently between Microsoft and Google for DoubleClick, one of the internet advertising giants of today. Eventually, Google won and settled with DoubleClick for roughly $3.1 billion. What’s more, Yahoo had recently announced its acquisition of online advertising firm Right Media for $680 million.While US$680 Million is chump change compared to the US$3.1 Billion Google spent on DoubleClick, the move showed that Yahoo was willing to invest in becoming, and in fact already is a significant presence in online advertising. Of course, there’s also the issue of the market in the search industry. With Microsoft currently sitting in third place behind Yahoo and Google, the successful acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft would give Google the first really significant threat in a long time.

Personal Comments:

As an internet user, I use Google on my daily search nowadays. I use Gmail as my main email. I use Analytics for my website statistics. I use Products (previously Froogle) for my online store. I use Sitemap for google to take a more details look of my sites. I use Google Earth for searching of maps and location of a place.

I was an Adsense user, until they banned me… :’(

Google has dominated my internet life. Microsoft and Yahoo are both facing the pressure, they are loosing out market share daily…and Google stock has gone higher and higher.

Is Yahoo worth US$50 billions? Hmm…initially I thought that would be a bit cheap, as Yahoo is a company as of similar status as Google. The potential is huge.

However, on a second thought…do you need US$50 billions to setup another Google? If you have the idea, or use the US$50 billions investment, you might be able to create another Google…or you might not. I don’t think I am smart enough for that…

I just designed and setup a new “test store” at:

http://www.ecmalaysia.com/shops/fashion/index.php

Installation is just an ease within 10 minutes, but customizing take some times. I have to change the colours to red/pink style to match the lady feeling.

Also did some changes:

1. Added Currency Selector at the top, removed Language Selector as only English language is being used.

2. Added Search box at the lower left column.

Should I rent out the shop?

Received a call from Tamron Japan today.

I sent in a Tamron SP 17-50mm F2.8 lens (Canon mount) for repair two days ago, and they have received it and calling me to reconfirm the problem and inform me of an estimate repair duration. Due to the coming long holiday (first week of May) in Japan, it will take 2~3 weeks for me to get the lens back. The problem of the lens is ERR99 with Canon 350D DSLR.

I took the chance to ask them about the Made in Japan and Assembled in China variants of the lens. He checked with his manager and told me that Tamron Japan have moved the production of the SP 17-50mm lens back to Japan in March 2007. So, there might still be some assembled in China version floating in the market, but if you are getting the Made in Japan version now, then yours should be the latest batch.

Great customer service from Tamron Japan I would say, thumbs up! �

Went to a Toyota used car shop today. Saw two WISH there, one is year 2006 model� and the other is year 2003 model. The year 2006 model is going for 1.595 millions yens, while the 2003 model is around 1.45 millions yens. The 2006 model seems like a better option…but after adding in everything, the total amount for owning that car in Japan will be upto 1.785 millions yens, which is very much out of my initial budget of ¥1 mil.

The year 2006 model is quite nice, only 3000km mileage, and internal is pretty clean and new as well. Car is silver in colour and interior is black. However, there is no CD or Music player inside the car. According to the salesman, the original owner removed the navigator system (which is TV, Navi, CD, MD…etc. all in one player) while selling the car. A brand new Toyota navi system will cost ¥150,000 (yes we asked the salesman on the price).

A brand new Toyota WISH is less than ¥2mil, and this USED car doesn’t really seems like a good deal to me.

My wife isn’t very happy with the price as well, and we also found the car to be actually QUITE SMALL interior, especially for the back seaters.� I think we are changing our mind and target back to Honda Oddysey now, if I were to budget ¥1.7mil, maybe I can get the later model of Oddysey.

By the way…did I mention that my father actually has the latest Oddysey at home?

Brian has just informed me an hour ago that the SLOWness of PhotoMalaysia is due to SSH attack, some people were sending multiple access request via SSH to PhotoMalaysia server, making our server busy and slow in responding to the normal request in the site from members.

We have no prove of who is attacking us, but we wonder who want to attack PhotoMalaysia?!

We will be stronger and stronger each day…will not give up to those that envy us and wanna bring us down.

Below is what Brian posted (attack/requests in less than one second):

Invalid user test from ::ffff:64.46.67.248
input_userauth_request: invalid user test
Failed password for invalid user test from ::ffff:64.46.67.248 port
45239 ssh2
Failed password for invalid user test from ::ffff:64.46.67.248 port
45239 ssh2
Invalid user test from ::ffff:64.46.67.248
input_userauth_request: invalid user test
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