As part of the on going after sales support from Nikon Malaysia, I am proud to share with all of you that I am now one of the appointed Penang state liaisons for the official Nikon Club Malaysia.  Nikon Club Malaysia, or NCM will be introducing a series of workshops & activities exclusively for all Nikon users every month!

It is our great pleasure to invite all of you who love photography,  come and join us today!  Registration is very simple, what you’ll need is any serial number from a legitimate Nikon Malaysia’s product, it can be a coolpix, a DSLR or even a speedlight.

To jump start the club activities,  we had planned a series of workshops, get-together and walk-about activities for many states in the coming months.  Do check them out and feel free to join us!

If you need further help in this,  please feel free to drop me an email, or ask me in facebook.

& btw, check out the video promo shot and edited by Motion In Style crew on one of my previous workshop for Nikon D7000 & D90 held on June 2011.

& & btw, I will be sharing in a seminar in UTAR Setapak on 20th Aug 2011,  if you are interested to participate,  please check out the details here.

A simple but perfect celebration of love, this is a wedding held in Penang; Andy & An Sin is now happily married and officially stuck like glue!

This is the same day edit video highlight, broadcasted live during their wedding reception at E&O Hotel Penang. Shot entirely with two Nikon D7000 and some lenses. The video was arranged and edited in 4hours time.

I hope you enjoy the film and feel free to comment, stay tuned for more!

Song & Music by Michael Giacchino/Sugarland
Cinematographers – Albert Yap & Chin Siang
Editor – Albert Yap

Congratulation to Mr & Mrs Joseph Choo!  Joseph is a good friend of my since long time ago, and I am glad to be invited to his photographer for his ROM in Putra Jaya earlier this year.  We had a lot of fun shooting in Kuala Lumpur, and here are some of shots from the series!

These photos are mainly captured with Nikon D7000 & D700 with a few lenses.

Feel free to share this photos if you like them, or talk to me if you need someone to cover your big day!

I came to know this place, Wat Charok Padang from my buddy, Joo Liang.  It is an interesting place, a Buddhist temple built with a lot of glass bottles.  Located in Sik, Kedah, the temple is about 100km away from Penang Island, and is easily reachable using North-south Expressway.

It is frequently visited by many in the morning exspecially during Chinese New Year holidays.  As it was a casual family trip for me, I arrived very late in the afternoon and voila, an almost empty temple!  I did a few quick shots around the temple under the killing hot-sun before I continue my journey to Sg Petani to visit some relatives.

>> Click this to view more photos from the trip <<

The whole set of photos is taken with a Nikon D700 DSLR, my favourite 50mm f/1.4 and an ultra wide 18-35mm.

If you are interested to pay a visit to this temple,  the exact location for GPS is at 5°47.782N, 100°42.635E or view in google maps here.

As part of my new project in collaborating with CS Low for Motion In Style Cinematography.  I present to you, our 1st wedding coverage shot entirely on 2 unit of Nikon D7000!

Paired with various lenses like 50mm f/1.4, 35mm f/1.8, 70mm-200mm f/2.8, 10mm-24mm f/3.5-f/4.5 and many more.
Other gears includes the wonderful Z96 LED Light, affordable Zoom H1 Mic, custom-made dolly track & the Fly-cam 5000 system.

For better viewing experience, try download the full video before start viewing by pressing pause immediately after clicked the ‘Play’ option.

And finally, comments are welcomed and if you are interested with our wedding cinematic coverage services, feel free to talk to us at info@motioninstyle.com!

Finally I visited Hard Rock Hotel Penang for the 1st time last month!  We were asked to cover a small engagement party there at Pizzeria by the pool!

It was truly a fun experience working with a bunch of party peoples!  They have rented a few rooms with an attached balcony,  you were able to access to the pool directly from the room’s balcony!  When I was there, the weather was wonderful and the timing was right on for the sun to set!

We quickly take the chance to shoot a few shots for the host on the beach!

The buffet dinner started with a touching vows from the host!  As I mentioned, the host and guests were a group of care-free peoples!  There’s non stop jokes and laughter everywhere!

And if you noticed, this was the biggest ‘diamond’ ring I ever shot till date!   Everyone went crazy and laugh non-stop when the groom proposed and shown it to his wife-to-be! While the host were kissing in the background, there’s something going on…

The buddy of the groom suddenly proposed to his girl-friend!  It was a surprise proposal plan that were carried out secretly within the band of brothers and no doubt it was a great success!  We have the second lovely couple in one party!

The wedding rings of the soon-to-be married couple!

Not forgetting the largest ‘diamond’ I ever shot!

They have also ordered a lot of funny cupcakes that features topless girl figurine and willies!  And everyone went crazy again when the host distribute the cakes to them!  Next they were having fun playing some games prepared by the emcee of the night.

And the losers get free drinks…!

Right when everyone taught the party was almost finish… there is the another surprise of the party!

The emcee was having his birthday on the next day, and they decided to do it earlier!  Look at how surprise the emcee was when the cake was brought out and shown to him!

and before we call it a day, we did a few of a informal group shots around hotel swimming pool…

I hope you enjoy these photos and if you would like to view more, I have selected and compiled them into a slideshow,

>> Click here to view the slideshow <<

The cinematic video taken by my partner will be ready soon and feel free to comments and share this to your friends on Facebook and twitter!

This is one of my commercial photography assignment done earlier for ATI College Penang, With only 1 and 1/2 day time slot for the assignment, I managed to cover the main campus, Penang International Airport and a few of Penang’s tourism hot spot.  It was truly a unique experience for me, as I get to shoot difference subjects in such a short time!

The above shots was done very quickly as everyone is complaining about the hot baking sun, the shot was shot right in front of the college main entrance!

A few shots from the kitchen, where the future chefs learned their basic here…

A few shots for student’s activities in campus.

The last shooting ground was a real life heavy traffic International Airport Penang,  as we only have permission for a really short session there, I quickly executed a few shots inside the airport with the helps of Air Asia Crews (former students of ATIC) and a shot on Firefly Air Plane just happen to land at the time.

I hope you enjoy these photos and do write me a comment!

For Penangnites,  if you pass by Burmah road from Komtar,  look to the right and you should be able to see the new campus for ATIC, they have printed some banners with my photos. 

If you are interested, here’s the ATIC’s corporate video done by a friend of mine.  The video was shot with mainly a D90 and a slider.

You can also get more info on what courses are available from ATIC by visiting their official website or facebook page.

I took a short 2D1N trip to Cameron Highland with family last weekend.  As titled, I had a ‘bowlful’ of strawberries there!   Sadly though it was raining cats & dogs over there, so I din’t get the chance to go capture some regular tea-farm scenic; instead, I visited a few indoor farms and had fun shooting/eating/hanging there!

We stayed at Titiwangsa Hotel,  a twin king-sized bed at a super duper low price of RM 218 a night!  And best of all, the price includes a buffet breakfast & a steamboat dinner for everyone!  A step into the room, we were amazed by how spacious it is for such a good deal!  Will I be visiting the same hotel again?  Definitely yes!

A look of the delicious steamboat!  A treat for the freezing night!  After the great meal, we went for a traditional body massage right at the main entrance of the hotel for a cost of RM 60 an hour.  The massage was so-so and you can forget about it if you wish.

I’ve selected 80photos to share with you, for your convenience, the exposure info is included this round so that you have a rough idea on how I captured those.
Please feel free to comments and ask if you need further details!

>> Please click here for the flash album <<

For your info, the photos were captured with a Nikon D700, I swap between a 18-35 ultra wide angle, a 50mm, and a 135mm short tele lens.  The photos were then edited with Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta.

I received quite a lot of inquiries on how to create the above photo montage.  The original idea came from another article off the net, which I can’t remember which one to credit to at the moment. So, I’ve created my version on how to create this montage in a few minutes time with minimum efforts.

To do this, you will need the following items (Click on the name to download them respectively)

- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR2)
- Adobe Photoshop (PS)
- PanosFX.com Big Pictures action script plug-in (Free Edtion)
- AlbertYap.com Template for exporting original file in Lightroom 2

Notes:
I assumed you already know how to import action script for PS, and also template for LR2, if you do not know how to do this, please do a Google search or contact me.  You are also assumed to be able to understand PS & LR2 basics such as running an action, exporting picture in LR2 and etc.

Instructions:
1. Select and prepare 25 landscape photos in LR2, vertical oriented photos does not work very well in this montage.  Arrange them in the way you preferred after adjustments.

2. Once you have selected the 25 photos to be included in the final output, go to LR2’s Print module. As illustrated above, by using the attached template (Star 1). You get to preview the output similar to the above screenshot.  Here, you can click and move the small individual picture a little bit to the left or right for better composition.

3. When you are ready for the next step, click “Print To File” on bottom right (Star 2) and save the photo montage as a JPEG file.

4. You will then have a newly created JPEG file similar to the above, without my watermark of course, if you are not happy with the arrangement on the small pictures, you can always go back to step 2 and rearrange them in LR2.  When you are ready and happy with the result, proceed to close LR2, and execute PS for the final effects.

5. I am using Photoshop CS4 for this tutorial, so it might have a difference user interface as your Photoshop especially older versions.  Nonetheless, they are all the same, download the correct version of action scrip from PanosFX.com for your Photoshop and we are ready for the next step.

6. There are 2 actions included in the current edition from PanosFX.com, one is called “Big Picture flat actions”, and another one is “Big Picture curled actions”.  I am using “Big Picture curled actions” for this tutorial sample,  you can try either one of them as they work the same way, just produce difference results.

7. By executing the action, you will be requested to open up a landscape picture, if you already opened the file you saved earlier, just close the open dialog and it will then automatically proceed with plenty of recorded actions and once they are done, you will get a few results, pick one and save a copy and then your are done!

Thanks you for reading this tutorial and enjoy creating your very own photo montage!
Please do leave a comment if you find this tutorial useful and please share them with your friends.  I will be sharing more in the future and if you are interested, you are recommended to bookmark this blog and visit me regularly.

Let me kick start this blog with my 2009′s trip, It has been a long while since I last went for a break until last week on 6th Oct 2009,  I took Air Asia and flew to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah!

Kota Kinabalu Air Port New Terminal

Thanks to Aunt Teoh, I was allowed to stayed at one of the staff’s apartment of her company.  it was located at Beverly Hills, the Sabah’s version.

Beverly Hills Apartment

Along the trip, I’ve visited quite a number of places including KK’s town, Tip of Borneo – Kudat, Lok Kawi Wildlife Park, UMS’s Aquarium and many more.

Warisan Square, KK Town

Not to mention the foods I had here, most of them are awesome except the 1st night’s Bak Kut Teh at Beverly Hills

Su Tong Poh Pork Leg

Along the long list of foods I had ‘Tarap’ is one of the special local fruit, that smelly like oily-road-tar!

Malaysia Local Fruit - Tarap

I also manage to captured a few shots on the superb sunset in KK, here’s one of them.

KK Sunset

>> Like the photos?  Click here to view my album <<

Here’s some infomation for your references,

- I flew to KK directly via Air Asia, and returned with Mas to KL, then transit back to Penang.
- Fishes is cheap and available wherever and whenever in KK.
- It is easy to hitch a ride on public busses and travel around town.
- My photos were all taken with a Nikon DSLR D700, with 3 Nikon lenses including 18-35mm F3.5-F4.5, 50mm F1.4 and 135mm F2 DC.
- Most of the ultra wide photos were taken with a Hoya CPL.
- Most of the photos were taken with Nikon’s Vivid Mode with adjustments.

If you need further details, feel free to comment.  Thanks for reading my post.