Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 Review

Do you ever act as if your a tourist in your own country? Well, ever since I bought the Lumix DMC-FZ18, I've been doing just that.

The DMC-FZ18 is my first DSLR experience. Previously, I've been using the Olympus u850 which is a simple dummy camera with waterproof features.

The FZ18 is Panasonic's latest "super zoom" camera that comes pack with x18 optical zoom and 8.1 megapixel resolution. One thing i liked about this camera is the Leica lens comes together with this model. Leica is a well knows German camera manufacturer that is famous for its quality lenses.

At the moment, there is only 2 other camera that matches the specification of the FZ18. The two are Olympus 560UZ and Fuji's Finepix s8000fd. However most reviews that I read pointed FZ18 to be more superior then the other 2.

The FZ18 also comes with a generous 2.5" LCD and for the first time introduced their Intelligent Auto Mode which integrates face and scene recognition, image stabilization, intelligent ISO control and continuous AF in an easy to use auto mode.

Battery, battery charger (that plugs directly into the wall), USB cable, AV cable, CD-ROM, shoulder strap, lens cap, lens cap string, lens hood, and lens hood adapter are bundled together with the camera.

The highlight of the FZ18 would definitely be the x18 optical zoom with a 35mm equivalent focal length of 28-504mm. The FZ18 is fitted with optical image stabilization, which, at an 18x zoom, is an absolute necessity. The result can be seen from the below 2 picture's I took.

1x zoom

x18 (telephoto) of the dome

This camera is ideal if you do not want to spend a lot of money and still want to play around with a DSLR camera (Cost me RM1500). Its ideal for beginners too since you can still point and shoot with the camera and then review what kind of aperture size, shutter speed and ISO exposure used by the camera. With time you can then experiment with your own settings and see what you get.

Ubudiah Mosque, Kuala Kangsar

Using the camera for the last week or two have been a pleasure. Its a great outdoor camera and you can happily shoot away and get pretty decent pictures even while using its Intelligent Auto mode. The casual photographers will definitely enjoy this. Nevertheless, if you are taking non-stationary images, I would suggest the P mode since the continuous AF is not fast enough.

Istana Kenangan, Kuala Kangsar

The only downside of this camera would be night and indoor shots. If you are taking pictures in a dimly lit area and the camera needs ISO 400 and above, the shots looses a lot of detail (significant digital noise) and its simply frustrates me sometimes. So I won't really bother using this camera for a party at night.

In conclusion, if you are looking for a "super zoom" camera that is not that expensive, comes with full feature set (manual exposure mode etc) and like to take outdoor pictures then its worth putting the FZ18 in your short list.

Locate your friends anywhere with Mobile Phone GPS Tracking Technology

Found this really neat website that can detect your friends anywhere in the world as long as the country has GSM technology. All you need to do is key in the persons phone number and the country that he is currently staying.

Its a really neat technology in which by using repeater triangulation, the system tracks mobile phones using GPS and GSM technology.

To be honest, I guess no one is now safe...

Here's the website if you want to try it out http://www.planetcreation.co.uk/sat-gps/

Do give me feedback on my comment on how well it worked for you.

I tested on a friend earlier and I could locate him while he was tracking at a nearby forest reserve. Simply amazing!

Gravity Defying DragonFly

A while back, my brother showed me a gift that was given to him by a friend from Cambodia. Its a wood carved dragonfly. It is claimed that it can stand on virtually anything without dropping.

I decided to try it out.

Hmm..... on one finger

This time at the base of a scissors.... still standing

At this point I was pretty impressed (yeah i know, i am easily impressed!). I tried to look for a pinhead give it an ultimate test but the best I could do was the tip of a branch.

At the tip of the branch (where dragonfly's ought to be)

Side View

By this time my bro was wondering if my fascination was going a bit too much (he may be fearing for my sanity), as I was frantically taking pictures from all angles. Hey! I need proper pictures for my blog ok!

Anyways, next time any of you drop by Cambodia and want to get me something, this is a really BIG hint =P

Remark (Some info for the 4 eyed)

This may be a boring technical post completely relating to my work. Nevertheless I have had enquiries from a few of my friends when I told them that there is a new product coming out for many of us computer freaks that face the PC for more then 6 hrs daily. So instead of repeating what I said over and over, I have decided to blog it out.

As we know, our eyes tend to get super tired after hours upon hours staring at the dumb LCD monitor. Thats because our eyes tend to accomodate to the near work task that we are looking at. After many hours, the muscles in our eyes will start getting fatigue and we end up with various symptoms ranging from tired eyes, sting or burn, headaches, blurred vision and so on.

2 lens manufacturer has introduced a first of its kind single vision lenses to tackle this problem. About 3 weeks ago, one of the company has introduced this lens to the Malaysian market. Its called Remark, a new generation single vision lenses in which in addition to the standard visual correction has anti fatigue properties. This lens is purely targeted for the 20 yrs old to 40 yrs old segment. The lens is selling very well in Japan and was only introduced to the Asian market a few month ago. So most of my attempt on Google to search for extra detail failed so apart from product brochure that I have with me right now, there is no other extra information regarding it (unless you can read Japanese).

Anyway to put it simply, Remark lenses are designed to cater to your eyes movement - IN ALL DIRECTIONS. With its horizontal and vertical asymmetry and vertical aspheric design, it gives you a clear, comfortable and relaxed vision in all direction and distances. It also supports your eye muscle by reducing the strain needed to maintain a good focus for near. Theoretically, if you are already wearing glasses you should feel the difference straight away and there is no need to learn how to use the lens.

So far, I have been quite impressed with the technical details given, nevertheless there are still some reservations on my part on this lens due to many factors. So I will not fully recommend this lens until I have tested them out myself. Will be ordering one for my own use soon.

More info to come in the coming weeks.

Made in China Product

2 weeks back, one of my staff bought a cheap (less then RM10) made in China solar powered calculator for the office. Sad to say 2 weeks later it died on us. She even tried putting the calculator under the sunlight for an hour but to no avail the calculator did not come back to life.

Since it was not a very busy day at work, the little kid in me decided to have a closer look at the calculator since we would be throwing it away anyway.

And guess what??

Removed all 4 screws at the back and investigated closer

I smell something fishy here

Damn.... what happen to the solar panel?

Now this is something totally not what I expected. I know cheap made in China goods would be of low quality (after all the cost reflects the quality that you get). BUT what I do not expect is them pulling a fast one. I was actually expecting a faulty wiring or something but to not have a solar panel at all... now that's naughty!

So next time your made in China product died on you maybe its a good idea to snoop around. You might find something interesting!

My N95 8GB

Christmas is a day to be blessed with happiness. Hence I have decided to buy myself a Christmas pressie. Its non other then the N95 8GB that I used RM2800 of my hard earned cash on.

Here's a few pics of my new baby.

Here's the new package. N95 8Gb by Avaxx (original set)

My shiny black baby greeting me as I open the box

The set comes with hands free kit, charger, usb cable and tv-audio cable

The screen can be viewed horizontally.....

.....and vertically

See that small hole at the side? That's for the the hands free kit and also for the tv/audio cable

Comes with 5Mp Camera and Carl Zeiss lenses

The hands free kit with audio controller. Notice the jack? In fact, you can use any audio headphone for this phone

Been using the phone for 2 days. Its been trouble free. I am a happy boy :)

Nokia N95 8Gb vs HTC TyTN II

So while the year is coming to an end, the little devil in me decided to burn a hole in my pocket in the form of a new mobile phone.

Being a road blind in most cases, I have been toying on the idea of getting a GPS system for general travel wear. This year a few phones have come out to my liking with GPS built in.

Wifi would be neat as I can go online while having a cup of my favourite Mocha Frappuccino (Yeah, I am one of those few people that have only used a desktop all his life).

Anyways, I have narrowed it down to 2 phones at the moment. The Nokia N95 8GB and the HTC TyTN II.

Here's a short description of the two phones. Firstly the Nokia N95 8GB

2.8" QVGA Screen
HSDPA / GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 (Of course got 3G lah)
8BG of Internal Memory (Wow!! IPOD on steroids)
128 MB SDRAM memory
ARM 11 332 MHz processor
Integrated GPS and Nokia Maps (No more getting lost!)
5 Mega Pixel Camera with Carl Zeiss Optics
TV Output
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology (Can chat on yahoo for free!)
Symbian OS 9.2, S60 rel. 3.1

If you still have no idea what I am talking about. This phone just rocks!

Nevertheless this phone will be setting me back to about RM2700 for a original set (Ouch!)


Next is the HTC TyTN II













Touch Screen!!! (Woahhh!!)
Windows Mobile 6 Pro
2.8" TFT LCD Screen
256MB Internal Memory (Boooo!)
128MB SDRAM
HSDPA / GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
QWERTY Keyboard (Cool eh)
Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
3 Mega Pixel Camera
Micro SD Memory Slot
Integrated GPS

A cool phone. Touch screen is real tempting

This phone would set be back as much as RM3200 (double ouch!!)

I am leaning more to the N95 8GB at the moment but with my touch of craziness I might get a completely different phone.

So any of you guys and girls out there already own or know more about this phone? Give me comments lah! If you got other phones to recommend please do so too ya.