ISO VS Shutter Speed - Night at Kendari

This images were taken in the middle of the night, from the third floor of my aunt's house. All using ISO 100, F/8 to optimize sharpness, and 20-30 second of shutter release.

There are two things that I found that night:

1. Long shutter speed is much much better compare to high ISO when it comes to noise. see it for yourself.

2. when using tripod with long shutter release, turn of the IS (Image stabilization). the IS is kinda wobbly and will cause as if the picture were taken by hand held.

Dusk at Kendari

I'd taken some picture about a week earlier prior to the morning stroll. Those were taken when I accompanied my aunt to local evening fish market. As usual, around the sunset or sunrise, I was looking for the golden sunlight at the golden hour, but it was cloudy and the sky is dark blue everywhere. it is here that I realize that if I don't have a golden sunlight to utilize, I will always have the blue light to exploit. White balance is determined by temperatures, means if I can't find the warm light, it means there is a cool light. So I have to be creative, using everything that is provided to create a good image.

Other things that I discovered when editing my pictures is that even if I like high saturated colors, it is not wise to force it at the in-camera setting, because it will make your images prone to noise. So I find it that I will get a better result if I add some more saturation later from my laptop

Kendari's Trivial Things

Traffic:

1. Kendari's drivers and bikers are generally as assholes as Jakarta's, as noisy as Jakarta's, but at the same time are much more moronic than Jakarta's, and thus more annoying. but nevertheless, driving and biking in Kendari is still much enjoyable due to its very low traffic compare to Jakarta's - full hell unleashed - traffic especially around busy hours.

2. You'll find some community service billboard telling you to wear your seat belt, yet in Kendari wearing seat belt drivers is a very rare sight if not none at all. it doesn't matter if there is a police riding a bike right at your side or patrolling sideways. They won't do no shit about it.

3. I drove a pickup car yesterday with only one seat to spare at the front seat, yet I manage to stacked 3 other PTT doctors by my side (means there are four of us) and drove exactly side by side with a police motor bike. The police just stared once and didn't give a shit, literally at all.

4. So I concludes that the only punishable trespasses are:
- Crossing the red light
- Driving against the verboeden (only in main large streets)
- Not wearing helmet (for bikers), and
- Crash directly to a group of police I guess.

Food:

1. Generally there is nothing very delicious or unique in Kendari's culinary.

2. Food are generally expensive, fish are expensive, chickens are even worse. Pork?dream on, you won't find any, not even in restaurants. Well you'll find some if you have your dinner at some local Chinese families.

3. They have this strange love to "cassava" (singkong) and strangely named it "sweet potato" (ubi). For example, they have this menu called "sweet potato soup" (sop ubi) which is actually a chicken noodles with fried "cassava" (singkong), chopped and mixed altogether. Heck, they even got a "sweet potato rib soup" (sop konro ubi) - originally a Makassar's cuisine which use no ubi and should've called soop konro, but they add a cassava in it and hence the name "sweet potato rib soup" (sop konro ubi). Confused?me too.

4. They also have a love for peanut. They add it to their "grilled fish" chilly mixture - which is unusual because back in java, we mix peanut sauce only with satay or dumpling - and even to their "pisang ijo" - which is also unusual because originally pisang ijo is Makassar food, and use no peanut - but the later actually is quite tasty.

Large City Delicacy:

1. Kendari has one KFC. (THANK GOD!!)

2. One Gramedia. ( DOUBLE THANK YOU GOD!!)

3. One Matahari Department Store. (Humm...not bad)

4. One Paparon's Pizza. (Don't care, don't like it)

Internet Access:

1. You can find internet quite easily here. 4k an hour, cheaper if you prepaid the rent for two or three hours.

2. If you had a laptop with wireless modem on it, than internet is as cheap a 5k rupiahs cup of - not so delicious - coffee, or 8k rupiahs glass of juice, depends on your taste, for an unlimited time. a very good value for money compare to 150k rupiahs a month of painstakingly slow and 1 or 2 (I forgot) GB limited Telkomsel flash. But I heard that laptop is a trend here, and if you got one and hang around the cheap coffee shop to get that cheap but satisfyingly fast internet, then you are considered cool. Heck I don't care, just let me finish typing and publishing my post or uploading my pictures in peace.

My Chemical Romance - I'm Not Okay

Just an old music clip from My Chemical Romance that I like. It was named REVENGE!! haha..

Enjoy :D

Kendari Morning Stroll

At last, an entry from my laptop after a long hibernation, HURAAAAHH!!. I have just discovered that in Kendari, suppose that you have a laptop, then free internet is available everywhere, all it cost is a - mediocre not so tasty - cup of cheap coffee around 5K rupiahs, and you are set for an unlimited time, surely better then 4K an hour at warnet around here.

Okay, a little update about me. I am now at Kendari, jobless but not wage-less, don't blame me, blame the local health department for requesting medical professionals to national health department in Jakarta without carefully planning the public health centre where I'm supposed to work. Mine is suppose to be at the island of Wowoni, and happen to be still 80% finished, and believe me when I say that the process will take quite some time due to very limited access and complicated bureaucracy. So here I am, waiting aimlessly in Kendari.

Now back to business. Being jobless is not such a bad thing, especially in a place you've never been before. other than reading novels, browsing the net, and "thinking", I can doze off doing a tourist-like sight-seeing. Kendari has a - not so beautiful - beach, an MTQ monument, and a mosque like - they call it MTQ - building, and those will be my photography objectives. and here is the first project. I wake up early at 5:am to take a walk around Kendari Beach and bring with me my Canon 400D and EF-S 55-250 mm IS and take some photos.

Just one?Are you fucking kidding me?yes and no, this is only the first image uploaded. You can see the rest at this album. I've decided to stop uploading every single image that I shot here at blogger since my template only allow me to display pictures not wider then 400 pixel, and that sucks, so I just post one here along with the link to the album at facebook. There are 25 images uploaded, along with personal commentary from me.

Enjoy :D

PS: I just found out that if I uploaded the images somewhere else prior to put it on blogger, I have a better control to the images display size compare to if I uploaded it directly to blogger. but I'll leave this post just the way it is for now, and save it for the next post.

Desperate Attempt.

Yuhuuuuuuu...

Added: I MADE IT..I MADE IT..I MADE A POST WITH BLACKBERRY AND OPERA MINI BROWSER..WOHOOOOOO!!!!