Ampang Balik!

I was thinking of updating my blog with the typical "goodbye 2008, hello 2009" post, but then. . . it's OK, ill update it some other time. Anyway, i had a great day today, great in a sense great, and "great" as well. Yesterday (Thursday), we plan to go sightseeing at Ampang Look Out Point. Well, it's Ivan's idea. I had never been there, neither to Ampang, and from what i heard from him, it sounds kinda far away from my place. So we plan to go. Kinda funny how we plan to go, then cancel, then plan to go again, then cancel again, then go again. Finally we make up, we're going to go for it. Colin Gan followed us as well, so the more, the merrier.

So i picked Ivan, Colin and Kelvin Yee from Taman Bunga Negara, Alam Megah and headed to our destination. To cut story short, we LOST! We enter here there but still we're not even reaching our destination. Then at one time, we went the same toll twice. Oh! i did drive inside SMART Tunnel for the first time in my life! It's kinda err. . . modern tunnel. When i went inside, i saw this 2 big fans there (Wikipedia says that the fan is meant to recirculate the air inside the tunnel, as well as to extraction of exhaust fumes), then it's like a long stretchlah. After like few minutes driving inside the tunnel, we came out. I just hoped the toll will reach bout less than RM10, because i never drive there before, and i heard the toll is pretty expensive. It came RM2, pretty oklah i guess.

We've been driving for like, 1 hour plus, and going aimlessly, and yet not arrived to our destination. I wanted to give up, i kept on driving and driving, simply shoot directions. Then Ivan wants to go to toilet, so we stopped at a Esso station. After he had done his business, i told him to ask for directions, he asked. Rupa-rupanya, we're quite near to Jalan Hulu Langat, THANK GOD! So we turn back, pusing here there, then go to the next road, which leads to a toll, and to Jalan Hulu Langat. During driving time, i saw many accidents, quite terrifying seeing all those cars smashed, and lost the mood of going. Anyway, we lost again, and we asked for directions, and we made it to the hillside. It was pitch black, super black. So we kept on going and going, till we came to our destination. Paid parking RM2, then when up this steep hill, can't believe my car can actually climb on top, ahahaha! Reached the top, waited for parking so long, couldn't find any, and the time is 11:36pm. By 12am, something, the KLCC lights will be off. We park below, and walk up towards the tower. Penat gilelah, i tell you. It's was so steep. Finally made it to the top with little breath to spare.

Whipped out my camera, and terus aim and shoot!

My camera couldn't capture most of the light, because of the distance and also the setting. After i saw the first few shots, i switched to Manual, and set the ISO and the Long Shutter :P


Great Scott, it works! I used to mess with the Long Shutter, and the results were horrible, why? Because the pictures turns out white. I used to think Long Shutter is actually Shutter. After few experimenting, checking online and asking people, i finally knew what was the Long Shutter for. It's used for times when there's lack of light, and you can't use flash to get that "light". Flash gives flash, and light gives light. So i decided to use this technique to obtain a good picture. Believe it or not, all this shots were taken only by my Powershot A470! But, it's really hard to obtain shots like this. Because i had to place the camera on a tripod and wait till it focuses and wait about roughly 15 seconds depending on the Long Shutter setting, and make sure NO any SLIGHT movement AT ALL, or else it will turn out like the shot below. . .

I was testing out, if my camera could zoom in to snap the Petronas Twin Towers, since Long Shutter mood needs to use tripod, accidentally my tripod moved a little bit, and this is how it turned out.

Speaking of zoom, this is a decent picture after zoom. It didn't lose much details, since it was on Optical Zoom. If you notice, the picture is slightly uneven, it's because of the tripod, the tower we're on, is very dark, and i couldn't set the tripod on centre.



Experimenting with Long Shutter, ISO and camera's location.


Going back home. Colin is sitting behind Ivan, so you can't see him. Going back home was a breeze, as we go back home by highway, and it' was such a nice journey back, without any jam or confusing roads. Will i go back there again? Certainly, but with more money, and more people.

Me-lvin