Costus barbatus 'Red' (Costaceae) at Floria 2010 - Wordless Wednesday

“Costus barbatus 'Red' (Costaceae) at Floria 2010 - Wordless Wednesday”, a copyrighted post, was written for My Nice Garden blog by Autumn Belle @ http://www.mynicegarden.com/ on 3rd November, 2010.

Me, My Brother, Our Pomegranates and My New Camera

Recently, when I went back to Ipoh, I discovered that my brother's pomegranage tree has grown by leaps and bounds. It is full of flowers and pomegranate fruits at different stages of ripening.

Like many Chinese who believe in fengshui, my late father has placed the pot of pomegranate plant outside the house, just beside the entrance gate. As you can see, there is little land here but the height of the pomegranate has reached the top of the house. The seedlings for my brother and me were purchase at the same time and randomly selected by us. Even the flower pot is the same size as mine!

Why is his plant so much bigger and more productive than mine?

Height about 8 ft tall.
Productivity: 10 or more fruits, flowering throughout the year
Fertilizer : none, except for the occassional add-on soil taken from the rubbish dump nearby.
Soil: soil from the roadside
Watering: twice a day, directly spray from a hose
Gardener: my brother

This is my pomegranate plant, also grown from a flower pot.  For a few years, I had placed a dish below the pot to prevent roots from growing out. Now, I have taken out the dish so that its roots can grow deep into the ground. Hopefully the plant will grow bigger.

Height: about 5ft
Productivity: 1 - 3 fruits, flowers
Fertilizer: organic chicken manure pellets, liquid organic fertilizer
Soil: mix of organic compost and burnt clay soil
Watering: twice a day, use a watering can with sprinkler, water is declorinated.
Gardener: me

“Me, My Brother, Our Pomegranates and My New Camera”, a copyrighted post, was written for My Nice Garden blog by Autumn Belle @ http://www.mynicegarden.com/ on November 1st, 2010.

A macro shot of the pomegranate

Pomegranate seeds are used to make a dessert drink (tong shui). The ingredients used here are barley, green cendol, starch, fu-chok (soy bean skin), beaten egg and fresh pomegranate seeds. To know more about 'cendol', click on the link.

Starry, starry night!

Some night scene shots at i-City, Shah Alam.

For further details, i-city's official website is here and details at Tourism Malaysia, here.

Its a magical wonderland of colourful, glittering lights!

I went to i-City, Shah Alam to test out my Casio Exilim EX-Z16 camera for night scenes. These are artificial trees made from eco-friendly LED lights. This place with state of art technology is a tourist attraction among foreigners and locals. It is very popular for photography enthusiasts.

Autumn in Malaysia!

All the shots in this post are taken with the Casio Exilim EX-Z16 compact camera.

Good points: The auto focus is fast and sharp and the shutter speed is very fast, even for night shots. I do not use/need a tripod. It is also very user friendly. The battery is compatible with my old Olympus FE-4000 so I can use my spare batteries for both cameras. The macro shots and zoomed pictures are clear too.

I discovered that the offer price in Malaysia for Casio Exilim EX-16 camera is RM 399.00 or USD 89. Very good buy for entry level compact cameras. I like this camera very much.

Note: This review is purely personal and I am not paid anything for my views.



I have since change to a Panasonic Lumix DMC FH-1. The offer price of this Lumix DMC FH-1 camera in Malaysia now is RM 550.00

Reason: It is the same 12 mp with intelligence auto (iAuto) mode and stabilizer but the colours are more vibrant. The macro shots are clearer and can be taken at a nearer distance. The wide angle (28mm) is larger, zoom better (5X optical) and clearer. It has HD movie recording feature and uses Leica (German technology) lens, which My Dear has high regards for. The rechargeable Li-Ion battery can last about 200 photos. I first saw a higher end Panasonic Lumix FZ-100 camera that I like from Diana of Elephant Eye. Then I was very encourage with positive feedback by commenters of my previous post, e.g. Bom of Plant Chaser blog, my daughter and also a few anonymous blog readers who wrote to me.

My next target will be the Canon Powershot S95 or S90, a high performance compact camera. The Canon S90 price has dropped to about RM 1,200 with FOC extra battery and comes with 8G memory card, waranty 1+2 years (until 31 Oct 10) due to introduction of new model S95 at RM 1,500 but it has exceeded my current budget.

Thank you so much for your pointers and valuable feedback from real personal experiences.

I am joining Noel of A Planatic Blog on The Hot, The Loud and The Proud #8, the link is here.

Help! I'm Need a Good Camera

A few days after celebrating the 1st year anniversary of using this entry level point and shoot Olympus FE-4000 and taking more than 10,000 pictures, my faithful darling is showing signs of deteriorating health. The camera gets jammed after every few pictures. The focus is starting to falter, i.e. sometimes, I am unable to get a sharp focus for macro view.  This is my second Olympus camera. As I need to send it back for servicing, I shopped for a new camera.

Vital statistics: 12 megapixel, 4X wide optical zoom, 26mm wide angle, 2.7" LCD monitor with Face Recognition, Image Stabilizer and Magic Filter

My experience: It is terrific with macro shoots but NG for night scenes and scenery shots. As you can observe from my pictures,
(a) for scenery shots, the image is sharp and clear in front but too bright and blur behind.
(b) for night scenes, I do not have any good shots yet!

My daughter said that Panasonic gives very sharp photos in vibrant colours. So I started  to dream of Diana's Panasonic Lumix FZ-100 (Elephant's Eye post is here). Its recommended retail price in Malaysia is RM 1,999 (USD 640).

Another entry level point and shoot compact camera is all I can afford at the moment. So, this time I went out of my comfort zone to try this Casio Exilim EX-Z16 which was just launched on 20 Sep 2010. Mine has a metallic pink casing while this image is red. I was torn between 2 choices, this and the Olympus FE 4050.

Finally, I purchased the Casio Exilim EX-Z16 for RM 500 which is equivallent to USD 160 or  115 Euros. As I know, the launching price was USD 99.99 in USA.

Vital statistics: 12 megapixel, 3X wide optical zoom and 4X digital zoom, ???mm wide angle, 2.7" LCD monitor with Face Recognition, Image Stabilizer and Easy Mode, Wide Screen Recording and You-Tube Capture Mode. Anyway, I have never You-Tube anything yet.

The camera shops I visited were not keen to have me as a customer, sob. They are busy serving the customers who are looking for DSLRs.

Now, I wanna work towards my dream camera, a DSLR!

Can you please tell me what camera you are using to snap those gorgeous pictures?
What is your dream camera?

Cannon, Sony, Panasonic, Nikon, Olympus, Casio, Fuji ?????

Please let me know the brand and specifications because this will be my benchmark.

Note: Picture no. 2 is taken from DSLRphoto.com, the link is here.