It’s time to have fun again, and that’s mean…
We are back to Marriott Phuket!
There are plenty of activities that can be done in the resort.
One of the activities is Water Zorbing!

Here is how it looks like…

First, the person enter this huge transparent plastic ball while air being pumped inside till it formed full solid sphere.

Then the sphere with the person inside slowly pushed to the swimming pool.

This is where the fun begin!

Balancing the position inside the Zorb Ball can be quite tricky, especially when it placed on the water surface.

So many of them fell head over heels trying. The key to maintain the posture is to spread your legs and arms wide while moving inside the ball (Water Zorbing).

As you can see, this game is not only for kids but can fit adult as well.

Looks like being adult has its advantage. They learnt faster and able to spread wider to maintain their balance.

These are the correct posture inside the Zorb ball.

At first I was tempted to try this as well, here are five top reason I am have not tried it:

1. I was alone.
2. I was with my monstrous camera (70-200mm f2.8 lens mind you). Leaving it unguarded would be unwise.
3. That made me the only photographer capable to capture this moment.
4. I can’t get rid the though of  how much similarity I will be inside the sphere compared to some rodent family inside the pet shop. (Ratty, this might be the answer for your water phobia )
5. I love you guys too much to missed a chance of sharing this awesome Zorb ball game. Would you agree with me? Please?

by flyingbeagle

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Continuing last week’s topic, I’m still a firm believer that ‘the best camera is the one that’s with you’. But there were cases where people start thinking “ah, my camera sucks, I wish i had a Digital-SLR camera with me”. They bought one, use it for couple of months, -in most cases without reading the manual first-, then disappointed that the results were not as spectacular as they had expected. Some even feel that the results from their DSLRs lack the punch and vividness of their previous compact cameras. Worst case is, they feel DSLRs turn out to be a burden to carry around. Especially if they just go hang out in a local restaurant, they’d think they look like tourists.

If that’s the case, prosumer- (a marketing jargon for professional consumer, to differentiate from ‘amateurs’)- level compact like the Panasonic Lumix LX3 might be an option. It’s small, lightweight, has large sensor (CCD) for details, also large aperture (f2.0) to make a nice bokeh (background blur), and manual control so you can be as creative as with a DSLR.

I had my hands on one LX3, thanks to a buddy of mine who’s kindly enough to let me try it out. And it did churned out great result. Here are some of the photos I took with the LX3. Click on it to enlarge and see it’s amazing detail. Except for the sunset shot, I changed the color tone in Apple’s Aperture for most of the picture. I prefer a bit less saturated colors then the originals. I took them in RAW format, one of prosumer level camera’s features. So any adjustment won’t ruin it, as you will in Jpeg format.

I tried the macro feature, on this 50th wedding anniversary event (not mine, I’m not that old ;P) with its f2.0 aperture. Real shallow Depth of Field. (click on image above to enlarge)

Even closer, and even shallower DOF

It’s Popeye the sailor girl. Click to enlarge, see in the eye-lash area, and I’d say it’s pretty detail for a compact.

Amazing color rendition. Tho not bad for a compact, compare to a DSLR the noise level is annoying. (This was at iso 400)

(click on image above to see what’s bugging me)

I didn’t take enough photos with it as much as I want to, but I could say that if I want to get a compact, LX3 will come top of my mind. Though in high iso number (800 and above) the noise become more pronounced, I’d still think it’s an improvement compare to smaller sensor cameras. As of now, the Lumix LX3 is the reigning champion in its class. It’s a hot item, so hot that it might be hard to find in some areas. But that’s about to change with the recent announcement of its successor, Panasonic Lumix LX5. It will have more range (24-90mm from the previous 24-60mm), supposedly better CCD to reduce noise, and better image stabilization (power O.I.S.). I can’t wait to see how far it really improved.

So, any camera you’ve tried and compared that you really recommend? Or maybe camera you had bad experience with? I could name a few, especially the ones that made my wallet empty,… =P

by ingimg
ingenious imaging

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