Getting started...

Last friday I finally went for a walk with my camera not worrying about anything else than taking pictures. You have no idea about how much I needed it. Until then I had taken pictures, but it was always because it was on the way when we all were walking to somewhere, or I was going to buy something or to find some information. But not this time, on friday I took all my stuff and I went to see the world out there. But let's go step by step, don't hurry up.

Before telling you anything else, I am going to tell you about Zaid. Zaid is the driver that Zuzana's company contracted here in Kuala Lumpur. He’s a good guy, just for you to have an idea, the other day in the afternoon he was around here, in the flat-office, and since he didn't have anything to do, he made us a salad, and the best thing is that it was really good.

That weekend two cousins of Zaid celebrated their wedding (not between them, of course), and on Sunday Zaid took us all there as guests. It was a Malay wedding, and he told us that they celebrate Malay weddings during three days. We only went on the third day, so I hope to go with Dan to all three days of his family wedding (you know i don't remember if t is his brother or sister getting married). The people there were very charming, thanking us for coming, the traditions were very interesting, the food was good… everything was great. I made just a few pictures because I didn’t know what was going to happen, where the people were going to appear from and besides I didn’t want to be too much in the middle. I didn’t take the flash with me becasuse I didn't want to carry all the things… well, really, they are just excuses not to say that I don’t have anything spectacular, ups…


During the week I didn’t really do anything special. Just for a change, a lot of search of shops and surfing Internet to find information. But one thing’s for sure, the search finally secceeded. At least I found two second hand lenses which I was interested in, and a new camera bag, because in the one I had the D700 was a bit too tight, poor thing. So finally I managed to complete my photographic equipment (so far). For those of you who are more freaks, I’m explaining it in more detail here.

And finally on thursday evening I decided that it was enough and that I wanted to go to take pictures, because that's why I came.

So on friday moning I went again to Little india to finish the walk that we started the weekend before in the street market... and that's how I found out that the market is on saturdays and not on fridays.

What I didn't know, and I don't think I will ever forget, is that in Islam the Friday Prayer (called jumu'ah), which is after noon, is obligatory for all men. On Friday I was lucky to pass by the Hindu Mosque a bit later than one o'clock. When I arrived there I already saw that there were some people ready for prayer. But, little by little there were more people coming until at the end there were there, literally, hundreds of men praying at the same time, an all them facing Mecca, of course. You can be sure it has been amazing.


Once the prayer was finished (and I had already asked somebody to explain me what had happened there) I continued walking, taking pictures and from time to time talking with somebody. Until I arrived to a Chinese temple called Sze Ya.


There I met two Chineses: Yin Bin and Migguell (this doesn't sound very Chinese, I know). I asked them if they didn't mind that I took pictures of them while making the rituals. And I also asked them if they could explain me what they were doing. They told me that people use to go there to ask for different reasons. For example he was going to ask about his studies. I guess you understand that I am not going to tell you now every single aspect, but I was joining them in all the different ceremonies.



My plan was to keep on walking to Chinatown, but after a while it started to rain and I had to leave. Anyway I had something very important to do, I had to go to pick my business cards up (really much cheaper than in Spain). So yes, I already have a business card to give out around Malaysia. I have no idea which colour you will see on the screen, I have set it with the colour we chose en the printing works (from pantone colors), but you never know. So here you are, my business card:


And yes, that's my telephone number, if you want to call me just dial it.

I think this all, because on sunday we went to a place called FRIM which is a place close to Kuala Lumpur where you can see primary and secundary rain fores. There are some paths you can walk and it is not bad, but you don't really have the feeling of being in the rain forest (well, sometimes a bit).


After all, it seems that this could be taking off...

The technical section

When I decided to take this way of photography, the first thing I had to think about was what camera I was going to buy. I knew I was buying Nikon, because if I couldn’t find second hand lenses at good price and my budget would only let me buy one new lens, I still could use two of my lenses. In fact I will be using one of them until I earn money enough to give myself another whim. And what the hell, I like Nikon, I use it since I take pictures and it worked well, so I stay with Nikon.

Knowing I was going to buy Nikon I had a doubt: D3 or D300? I was really tempted by D3, of course, being able to take pictures at 1600 ISO not being worried about noise is great, but D3 is too expensive (even in Malaysia). So I finally decided that I was going to buy D300, because even if it doesn’t have a full frame sensor, it is very well considered in all the reviews.

But it must be that somebody in Nikon heard me somehow and on July the 1st they announced the launch of the new D700, the camera that suits perfectly my needs. Basically we could define the D700 as: the sensor of the D3 in a body as the D300 at a price between both of them. For me it is perfect: lighter, smaller (better against thieves, it goes unnoticed), FX sensor… and it has the cleaning sensor system which is not in the D3 (it is in the D300). Ok, it doesn’t take 9 pictures per second as D3, but for my needs I think 5 per second is more than enough.

Buying it in Malaysia it has been almost 1000€ cheaper (yes, one thousand euros) than in Spain (I think Spain has higher prices than other northern European countries, I don’t know why). The only problem is that I don’t have international warranty, but I hope that if it works right during the 3 or 4 months that I will be here, there won’t be any problem rising when I go back to Spain (everybody fingers crossed right now… thank you…). So I started to look for shops in Kuala Lumpur and to find out the date it was going to be released in shops. I was not sure if it was going to be available by the time I arrived. When I knew they were starting to sell it in Malaysia at the end of July I was quite happy. I really have to thank Zuzana that she called like 20 times Jason (a seller here in Kuala Lumpur with quite a good reputation in Malaysian forums) to reserve one for me until the 13th. Later, Jason told us that the demand is so high that after buying mine he got 5 more cameras and he sold all them in one day.

So this is the camera which will be travelling with me, the Nikon D700:


Now I had to start with lenses. However you approach this and whoever you ask about it you will reach the same conclusion: using a good quality sensor with bad quality lenses doesn’t make too much sense. And everybody will tell you that it is worth more to invest your money in lenses than in the camera body. From all this we could have a nice talk about why I decided to spend my money in the D700 instead of the D300, together with the topic “bodies and lenses of DX series” vs “bodies and lenses for FX format”. But we can leave it for the next time we meet.

I wanted to buy some good lenses, but they are so expensive that I had to reduce it as much as possible and look in the second hand market.

First I decided that I was keeping the Nikon 28-80 G from everyday life, I decided it after reading in Ken Rockwell’s site his review and seeing that it is in his Nikon's 10 Best Lenses list. So I only had to look for wide-angle and telephoto. Depending on what I could find in the second hand market, and the money I had after buying the first one, my options were:

Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S
Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G ED AF-S
Sigma 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6 EX DG

Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G AF-S VR
Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED VR AF
Sigma 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 EX DG OS APO

I know there are differences between all them, but if I couldn’t find any second hand one and I had to buy both new, then I could only buy one of the first class from one of the groups and from the other group I had to buy one of the second class. All this depending on what shops had and the price they could offer. After several walks around Kuala Lumpur and searching on the Internet, I found this in one shop:

Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S

Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED VR AF

Great, isn’t it? Two second hand lenses that I was looking for. And since I bought them in the same shop I could get them both for 7000 ringgits, which means something like 1490€ both together. I think it is quite a good price.

At this point (even before buying the lenses) it was obvious that I was going to need a new camera bag, because the new camera fit in the one I had, but it was a bit tight and I didn’t like it. Besides with the 17-35 the zip shut but not very well, and with the 80-400 attached just forget about it.

I like Lowepro, but thieves also like it, they know when you carry a Lowepro bag there is something interesting in it. But they don’t know Tamrac that much, and I really liked the one I had until now, so I bought another Tamrac. I bought the Tamrac pro digital zoom 7, a new zoom case for the 80-400 and a belt to carry it all when I go trekking (both things also Tamrac). I think backpacks are comfortable but too slow to take the camera, and all this is too heavy to carry only on one shoulder.

In short: too much money, I better leave it before I start crying...

Welcome to Malaysia

Yes, this is what you see when you live in a flat on the 33rd floor in the center of Kuala Lumpur and you look out of the window. More precisely this is what you see from one of the bedrooms of the flat, the one in which we will be living when we rotate bedrooms.

So it seems that here we are, it looks quite like Kuala Lumpur out there. And it also looks like we have a new camera. Yes, I finally mooved to digital. Those of you who know me better, you already know that it is not that I didn't want to, it just was that I didn't find the right camera. As things have been happening lately, it seems that I bought it because I needed it, but I can asure you that if I had come here on holidays, I would have bought it anyway. What I probably wouldn't have done is spending all the money I am going to spend in lenses. Since I still didn't buy any, we are skiping the lenses stuff for the next time, ok?

So far, sightseeing, what we usually call sightseeing... I haven't gone sightseeing a lot. The first day I managed to buy the camera and to get some informaton from the toursit office (not as much as I would have liked but I already expected that). What was different as I thought is that it was more difficult buying the camera than getting the information from the tourist office. The problem was that the exchange office in the shopping mall was closed so I had to go to the center and come back again to the shop after going to the tourist office. On thursday I was trying to find out more information about the National Parks and searching for lenses. And on friday more of the same, more visits to offices and shops.

But that was not all. On Wednesday I met Dan, well, Zuzana told me that Malays use fake names so they don't have to tell you "Hi, my name is Chung Wan Lao" and then you start a stupid conversation like "What...? Chun what...?" and you spend at least two minutes like that. Dan is a nice guy with whom I ended up having lunch. He told me that on Thursdays and Saturdays there is a local street market that he thinks we might like. We were supposed to go today, but today it was raining one of those heavy rains and we decided to go some other day, what a pity.

Dan also told me that in October his brother (or it was his sister?... it doesn't matter) was going to get married and he said that for sure they will like us going to the wedding and that there won't be any problem if Iwant to take some pictures. Here in Malaysia, apart from aboriginals, there are three main ethnic groups: Malay, Chinese and Hindu. Everyone of them has its own ritual of celebrating weddings. I would like to see one of each one to see how they are. It seems that we are going to go to a Malay wedding, we will see how we manage to go to the other two of them.

Something else I saw the other day, when unfortunately I still couldn't take pictures, was that there were some people making small fires on the street while placing food around. I thought they were selling the food, but yesterday I knew that they were not selling anything. According to the Buddhist tradition, on the 14th or the 15th of the seventh lunar month of the Chinese calendar, they burn paper monies and give food as offerings for the wandering ghosts in order to appease them and keep them away. If you want some more information about it you can read it here.

Yesterday evening, when we were leaving home to take a walk and have a dinner, there were a group of Chinese people making fire on the street. Then I knew what they were doing.


The dinner yesterday was in a place prepared for occidental people, but I resisted the temptation of pizzas and hamburgers and I order any kind of chicken with a strange name that the waiter suggested me. Five minutes later I thought that it didn't matter if the food was going to be cold, because my mouth would keep on burning for the whole night.

The usual menu here consists on noodles (which are not only the thin long noodles, there are several types of them) or rice, and it's not always spicy. You know me when we talk about food... I want to try everything, but these days I feel a bit weird with my tummy (I think more due to air conditioning than food, because I can keep on eating without problems). And it is also that there are so many things that you don't know what they are... Today we were in an Indian street market and they had so many strange things. I didn't take pictures, as I told you it was raining, and I want to go there with a local, so I know what I take pictures of and what I eat (or maybe it is better not to know it until you have tried it). And for my Belgian friends, I think you could survive here with fritur, they have many of those stuffs here which look quite similar to the Belgian ones, but I can not tell you what is inside of all those things the fry.

So this is how days are here, it s not bad for warming up, but telling the truth, I am really looking forward to leaving all this paperwork and preparations, and starting the real adventure. By the way, talking about warming up, it is truth that it is warm and humid here, but I think it is not so bad.

Ok, Let's see how we finish the weekend.

First stop: London

Somehow it is much easier to begin in this way. You Take a plane and you go to a country that you already know and go to your best friend's house. Besides, you have already been in the city a couple of times and you don't really need to go sightseen or walk around the city during the whole day. In some other moment I would do it, but now I still have a couple of matters to solve, like the blog and the web. So I can enjoy Fernando and Pamela's company. Because since Fernando came to London... already five years ago?, we hardly have seen each other.

So here we are, invading their living room and enjoying some days of realx before going to Malaysia. And I do need to rest, because on tuesday noon (London time) i will be taking a plane to flying to Kuala Lumpur. I will land there at 7:25 in the morning (local time), which means 0:25 London time.. nice, I have to get up when I am supposed to go to bed. After taking the train to Kuala Lumpur and going to Zuzana's place (by metro or by taxi in a huge traffic jam) I will have to go for the camera I have reserved in a shop and then to the Malaysian Tourist Office to fix a schedule that I need for the photography permission.

I would like to be positive, but I am afraid that these two simple things will take a while to be done, especially the steps in the tourist office. If when I will arrive home in the evening, I have managed to have the camera in my hands and I have fixed the schedule for my trip, I will feel absolutely satisfied.

Once I get these two things, my new tasks will be printing my business cards, buying one or two lenses for the camera, memory cards, an external hard drive, probably a good monitor for the computer (maybe i can delay this one), good shoes for treking, some clothes suitable for rain forest, a good insect repelent... and the rest of stuff coming up in my mind.

I think that after all that I will have the ideas more clear and I will be able to keep you up tu date. But now, let's enjoy these days in London before the adventure. Don't you think so?