Relocated

I've relocated to:

https://thelittlemissmarbles.wordpress.com/ 

Thanks everybody!

Crochet Haul

I was surfing aimlessly on Etsy one evening (a very dangerous sport for the pocket, I must say) and came across some crochet bags by a lady in Thailand. They were so cute! All designed to look like little cameras! I was especially taken by the one that looked like the Instagram app. She had so many different designs in different colors up for sale so I was mulling over the bags for a long time before I finally decided on the ones I wanted. It took about a week or so for the bags to be made but the shipping itself was quite quick. She also popped a few freebies in, the 3 bows and the 2 pom pom hair ties. Although I appreciate them freebies, I honestly do not know what I am going to do with them because I'm not exactly a hair-tie kinda girl. Anyhow, here's my haul:

The mint green and pink pouches are a little bit of a tight squeeze, I can only fit a couple of cards and my iPhone 6 Plus in there. Nevertheless, they're really cute and fun to use. The Instagram-lookalike bag is quite much larger and can fit a whole lot more stuff. I have 1 more bag on the way- it is the same design as the mint green and pink ones but in black. Basic colors, can't live without them!

Our First Photography Project

Just thought I'd post a couple of photos from our shoot a few weeks ago, it was our inaugural engagement shoot and we were really excited/nervous about it because we really wanted to do a good job for the couple. We were their "back-up photographers" initially, but it turned out in the end that we would be their only photographers! 

We shot at Sanctuary Cove (on Hope Island) and Tweed Heads, both beautiful places! The Husband and I will be returning to Sanctuary Cove for the seafood chowder by the docks. So yums! Anyway, here are a few sample shots of the lovely couple:

We also shot for them the next day for about an hour at the Brisbane Powerhouse. Mad love the huge brick wall and that little separate section where they have this Tuscany-like trellis area. We've seen lots of weddings and photo-shoots take place here.

They were a really, really sweet couple and so easy to shoot for. I am so appreciative and glad that they trusted us to do a good job and I really hope that they like our photos/style of shooting. The Husband and I are thinking of upgrading our gear because at the moment, we are using A-PSC sensors and I think having a full-frame might help us achieve better image quality.

Inside my Camera Bag

After seeing so many people post photos of what's in their camera bags, I decided to do one too.

Unfortunately, I really don't have as many essentials in there as I should have. Why? Because so far, the battery life of my Fujifilm X-T1 has been excellent! It has yet to die on me even after an entire day's worth of shooting. At some point I guess I would have to make that purchase.

The bag I take on all my shoots is the ONA Bowery Bag. Mad love the leather on there! It has developed this patina on the back (where it rubs against my body the most), giving it a nice sheen. The bag was from a Leica distributor in Perth and was about AUD$270 including express shipping. It was on offer and is really a steal at that price!

Before the Leica Q arrived, I carried my Fujifilm Instax SHARE printer (SP-1) alongside my X-T1. It is a nice little polaroid printer that's fun to have around especially when you are out with friends and are taking selfies with each other.

What's in my bag:

- Leica Q

- Fujifilm X-T1

- Fujinon XF 16-55mm f/2.8 

- Spare 16GB Sandisk memory card

- iPhone 6 Plus

- Pouch holding my keys, Carmex chapstick and eye drops

On an unrelated note, isn't the fuchsia pouch cute? It has little eyes printed all over it. I think it was $5 from Cotton On.

Credits to the Husband for arranging the items for me. I got too impatient halfway. Heh.

Leica Q

I think the Leica Q is easily my Purchase of The Year (POTY; is there such a thing..?) for 2015.

And no, not because of its price tag but because I know we will be very happy together for the next few years.

The Husband and I have been quite the shutterbugs and he has taught me a lot about cameras. For me, I just like to grab my gear and jump straight into the scene whereas he prefers to read up and prepare for things a little bit more. As such, he is much better at composition and framing of subjects. In any other case, I am also more comfortable with back end work like post-processing. Hence, we make a pretty good team, #teamclembree FTW! A point to note is that we have always used the Fujifilm X-T1, a fantastic camera by all measures, but have yet to make the move to a full-frame system.

Anyways. I got on the wait list for the Leica Q and put my downpayment for it at the end of August and received it just last Friday, so the wait was about slightly more than a month. I was getting really impatient, to be honest. I think the worst part about the wait was that the camera store couldn't give me an ETA, so it was like an open-ended wait. I guess it's not their fault since they're just the distributor for Leica. When I got the phone call telling me that my baby was here, I was just over the moon! I was at work when I received the call and quickly drove down to the City to pick it up. I got the Q at a really good price- AUD$5,450, considering that the RRP is about AUD$5,900. Singapore priced it slightly more expensive at SGD$5,990. I got a good "because you're pretty" discount from the salesman at my local camera store, ahh the perks of being a young-ish female hey!

Unwrapping the Leica Q was a challenge! It was encased in a box within a box within yet another box! Given the price tag, I shouldn't be surprised at how intricately it was packaged but I still was. I had to take a photo of the two little drawers in the main box itself. You'll see it down bellow later. 

 See what I mean by the "two little drawers". Too cute! All the manuals and spare bits were inside. I was also impressed by the fact that all the little bits and pieces (charger, battery, cables etc..) were housed in separate little cloth drawstring purses. It was a welcomed change from the other camera brands that package their stuff in clear plastic bags. Also, the Q comes with a leather neck strap, not the shitty nylon ones you get. You get what you pay for, I suppose.

Enough swooning about the packaging. 

What's the image quality like? I would have to disappoint my readers slightly by saying that I have yet to test it out properly. As I had received it only a day before our actual shoot down at Tweed Heads, I was unable to learn how to use it in time! I did bring it down with me but had it all set to go in Auto mode.

I took a few shots and by George, the photos are amazing! Usually in Auto mode, photos don't always turn out the best, but this experience with the Q blew me away. This JPEG photo below is straight out of camera with no post-processing at all:

Wow, just wow! Can you imagine what it could do if I had tweaked the camera to more appropriate settings? I don't claim credit at all for the photo above because all I did was hit the shutter.

I might actually be exclaiming for no reason at all (hahaha) because I obviously know that there'd be a great difference between using an APSC and a full-frame sensor, but I just didn't know that it'd be this awesome even at a default mode and without post-processing.

I really do look forward to shooting with the Q a bit more in the future. I still don't know if I would regret its fixed lens eventually but hey, for what I paid for a Leica, I can't complain. I'll work around it and get the best out of it as much as I can. I did consider other Leica models, but I don't think I appreciate using a rangefinder at all. The Q has an almost lightning fast autofocus and a great macro mode (min. distance 17cm, like whuuuut)! Sure, not everybody would love it but I think for what I do and what I shoot, it's great! One thing is that I do wish they had put on a tilting screen (like my trusty X-T1) on the Q though- it would make awkward-angled shots much easier to take.

Watch this space for more photos from the Q in the near future!

Wellington Point

It was a weekend we actually went out to do something other than eat.

We had a friend's pre-wedding shoot to do and so were looking up several possible places to go for the shoot. We decided to go to Wellington Point to have a look. 

After driving what seemed like 475163584 miles, we finally got there and whipped out our cameras. Sadly, there wasn't much there, just a jetty. It was low tide, and people were just walking across to the sand island on the other side. Too bad I was in long pants, otherwise I'd have wanted to get my feet wet and join in the fun too! 

The sun was blinding that afternoon! I had trouble focusing even with the EVF on my camera. There were totally no clouds at all, just a blue, blue sky. I suppose it was pretty good weather overall minus the blinding sun.

Pretty place but it is probably just somewhere I'd walk my dog at, there wasn't much to do really. Nevertheless, I appreciated the fresh air, the blue skies, the sun on my back and the salty sea spray!

Green Thumb

Oops I have neglected this space for quite awhile now! Been so busy with work and life in general. Ever since we got more involved in Church, we've been spending a lot more time outside. Have become pretty tight with some awesome girlfriends, met heaps of awesome people and so yes, now I have a social life. Ha! Before, it used to be [work, home, eat, sleep] x repeat, which can be pretty boring indeed. 

Anyhow, I took some pictures of Mr. Gardener at work a few weeks ago. He tends to the few plants we have every now and then, the mint, basil, lemon thyme and the dragon fruit cactus. We also recently acquired a curry plant from our neighbour, Auntie Evie. I'm not really a plants kinda person, so I'm quite glad that the Husband has it all under control.

Our resident spider! It used to live in our basil plant up till a week or two ago when there was heavy rain and hail. I don't know where it has gone to now, possible swept away by the winds or simply washed away.

Here's Molly! This is a rather old picture of her, these wee buds have since grown so much. We got advice from an experience gardener that we should tie up our dragon fruit plant to a wooden pole to give it that extra support as it grows. Am hoping that she would bear us some fruit soonish, haha!

This next picture was taken on the night of River Fire. Am so thankful that we can see the fireworks from our balcony and not have to jostle with the crowd down at South Bank. Loved the sky that night, it was a pinkish-purplish-blueish hue.

Speaking of South Bank, we were there a couple of weeks ago and there was like a strange event going on. Till today, I still don't know what that event was all about. There were lanterns, food trucks, performance stages, pop-up discos and more.

I guess all I really cared about was the fact that there was a cronut truck set up there! For the uninitiated, a cronut is the marriage between a croissant and a donut- cronut! It's flaky like a croissant but still solid like a donut. So sinful but total yums! At $8 a pop, it certainly wasn't cheap but it was quite a big one. We had some left over for breakfast the next day.

And of course, how can I blog about South Bank without leaving you guys with a mandatory picture of the ferris wheel!

Jazi's Birthday

Just finished CONNECT group with the Churchies. Had a really great time of fellowship with them, am kinda sad that the whole group will be split up into smaller groups but I guess that's inevitable because we're simply getting too big. The picture below only shows a few of us because not all of us were able to come tonight. 

We celebrated Jazi's birthday at the end, there were 2 cakes (a German hazelnut one and a fruit flan), they were delish! It's always nice to celebrate someone specials' birthday and make them feel appreciated! It's also a great excuse to eat cake!

The gang adjourned to our place after the cutting of the first cake to start on the second cake. Mmm!

6 of us from our smaller group bought Jazi a little gift from Pandora, hope she likes it as much as I like it hahaha!

A Hidden "Talent"?

A few of us girls from Church got together 2 weekends ago at Gwennie's to do some canvas painting! It was my first time and I was quite apprehensive because I know I have totally no interest/skill in this kind of art at all. I was thinking that it would be a complete disaster but it actually turned out to be really fun and I enjoyed myself thoroughly!

Everyone was doing scenery-type painting but I knew I didn't have what it would take to paint scenery so I just googled "easy canvas paintings" and just grabbed the first one that caught my eye. It was a simple painting of a cat sitting on a barren tree.

And here's all of us with our painting!

Super fun! Can't wait for the next session with the girls!

A few of us went to Hao Ke for late night dim sum after that. Glutton max.

Beautiful Cairns

I recently went to Cairns for the Genome Integrity Conference with 2 other colleagues and my Lab Head. To be honest, I wasn't all that keen on going but was convinced to attend it in the end. 

Stayed at the Pullmans' for the week. It's a pretty neat hotel. I was a little scared to be by myself in my hotel room, to be honest. The Husband was on the line with me every night I was in the shower, ha! Yes, chicken is my middle name.

The view from my hotel- pretty decent though I did wish I was on a higher floor.

Conference "goodies". Mad love the mini marker pen, heh!

In between pockets of breaks during the conference, I went out for a wander. The hotel was situated very near the sea so I took a stroll down the esplanade a couple of times. It was beautiful! The mountains were so near, much nearer than how it looks in the pictures.

I think I blogged about this before but I have to reiterate- the Paleo Cafe serves up magic! I walked 2 blocks almost every other day to have breakfast here. The spiced sweet potato rosti was absolutely delish!

We had a free and easy afternoon on one of the days. There was a deal for trips going out to the  Great Barrier Reef and Green Island and most of the delegates signed up for but since I am not much of a water person, I decided to stay high and dry on land. It was only the night before that I decided to go on the Kuranda Scenic Railway and Cable Car Skyrail tour. I had initially thought I would just stay in the hotel and watch a few movies, but at the end of the day, I was really glad I went on the tour! I enjoyed it very much. 

The whole tour cost slightly over a AUD$100 but to me, it was worth every cent. A coach picked me up from my hotel, and dropped me off at the cable car station. I was to travel and make 4 stops during the cable car ride, visit each little town during each stop and then catch the mountainside scenic railway back.

I am actually quite afraid of heights as well but I may secretly be an adrenaline junkie, I don't know but I was actually quite excited and scared at the same time whilst waiting for my cable car. 

It was a loooonnnnng way up and a loooooonnng way down. My hands got all clammy and I was gripping the sides of my seat in the cable car. I had one whole cable car to myself each way, so that was quite fun.

It was very quiet the higher the cable car went, very serene indeed. It felt quite surreal actually! I only wished the Husband was there to join me, it would have been a lot more fun. Next time perhaps!

When you can't even see the other side of the station because it's just too high up or far down, you know you'd be in some deep shit if you got stuck halfway.

Lovely short walks through the historical Daintree Rainforest:

I can't remember the name of this gorge, I only remember being in complete awe when I saw it from the viewing platform!

I bumped into my colleague halfway during the walk through the forest! He was the one who first introduced me to the tour and asked me to go but at the time, I hadn't decided. Anyhow, it was good to have some company along the way.

The last stop was the village of Kuranda! I love this village so much. There was so much to see and do! I only wish we had more time there. There were heaps of little markets and stores, it was huuuuge! I bought quite a lot of things from there, including some stuff for Mum and Dad.

By 3.30pm, it was time to hop on the old steam train and head back. I was really excited about going on this ride, I love trains. It was very quaint, everything was made of polished wood and whilst not quite like Harry Potter and his 9 3/4 platform, it certainly felt like I was in the steampunk era.

This was our wee cabin!

Most of the journey was not too interesting, we passed through a lot of tunnels which was quite boring actually. Nevertheless, there were still a fair few good bits of scenery along the way!

Coming back, we passed by heaps of sugarcane plantations. Apparently, they export a lot of this stuff.

My stop was at Freshwater, I disembarked and got on the coach to go back to my hotel. I had so much fun and was quite exhausted by the end of it.

I had to present my poster for two nights, and on the 2nd night I was kind of feeling a little bummed out by one of the delegates' comments (more of a miscommunication on her part actually) so once the session was over, I headed straight back to room and ordered room service. I had duck pancakes, pumpkin risotto and creme brulee! Usually, room service food isn't fantastic but I did think very highly of what the Pullmans' had to offer, especially the creme brulee. It's not your ordinary custard with scorched sugar, it was flavoured with kaffir lime and dusted with crushed nuts and some other spices. It absolutely blew my mind off.

Oh and as it turned out, I actually won the poster prize! Ha. I mean, a $100 isn't much but it was fun to win something, to come home with something.

All in all, it was a good trip. I have a good first impression of Cairns and wouldn't mind going back there again!