Samsung Galaxy S6 Cinematic

SJ4000 Timelapse

GoPro Hero 4 Silver - Quick Review

      I received GoPro Hero 4 in December 2015 as a Christmas present. I've been messing around with it for quite sometimes. I got to say, the camera worked very well in different conditions; though, I haven't fiddle around with it long enough, but everything worked great so far.

      The touch screen gave me the ability to quickly adjust the setting; very useful, especially during family holidays when my focus is to spend time with my family rather than the camera and gears. I also put the screen protection onto the screen which I cut out a smaller size out of a spare Canon 60D's screen protector (bought long ago, cheaply from Ebay). 

      The GoPro battery, work at reasonable duration (approximately, an hour) but wasn't enough for all-day travel and can run out even faster when the LCD stays on, for such a small camera it was understandable. So I have two spare batteries from Smatree. It came with an adapter, I can easily charge three batteries all at once and I was able to charge from my power bank. Unfortunately, the GoPro battery wasn't able to charge with the Smatree adapter, which I'll figure the problem out later; maybe it wasn't compatible? Though, I'm quite satisfied with Smatree batteries, they worked flawlessly with the camera.

      This is my first GoPro camera, and I must say it took a while to get adapted to it, plus experimenting with the flat profile is something I'll get into in the next post. Where I'll dig deeper into the functionality of colour grading GoPro Hero 4 Silver footages.

iPhone 4, 'old but still great'

Why am I still using iPhone 4? Well, there's a story behind it.

      In the mid 2015 year, while I was using Samsung Galaxy S6. My old 5-years-old laptop didn't work well anymore. It was a time I should really purchase a new laptop for multimedia, editing and music producing. So I sold S6 to my aunt, exchanged with money and a free iPhone 4 from her. And there was the story.

      My first thought was, I shouldn't expect much from a 5 years old phone and its camera that doesn't even shoot 1080p video. (At first, I thought it was 4S, and I was disappointed it isn't) Not to mention, the limited iOS upgrade, which limits most applications like VSCOcam to run on the phone. It would't do much, just for major communication app and the camera function. However, I was glad at least Google Drive worked.

      Now, let's look at the good side. coming from newer phones where the touch screen is bigger for keyboard typing comfort, I felt the iPhone 4 is small enough to put in a pocket where S6 and other newer phones wouldn't. Typically, this size of iPhone 4 and 4S are great at portability. Though, typing on the keyboard isn't as comfortable, but taking photos with iPhone I didn't have worry about it falling from my hand, since my hand is pretty much gripping almost over the entire device. Which wasn't the same for S6, where it felt to be ready to fall from my hand anytime.

      The main focus here is the camera, it is a 5MP that still feels fast to snap a quick photo and the overall quality of photos are still acceptable for sharing to Instagram, if fine tune in post correctly(in this case, Adobe Lightroom), I'll end up with a good memorable photo for Instagram. However, it could never be as sharp as the S6 but iPhone 4 still maintain a great colour for further grading in Lightroom and with the attempt of the trendy film-look, it does the job quite well.

      In conclusion, the iPhone 4 is still great. If I would have a newer phone, I would absolutely turn it into iTouch for music and occasion camera because I like how usable it is.

Here are some photos taken from 'the old, but still great' iPhone 4:
note: These photos has been post-processed in Adobe Lightroom.

I have posted more iPhone Photography on my Instagram: instagram.com/chanemiki

The Feel Good Style - Color Grading

This is sort of a color grading style I was interested in a while back. Thought I should finish some and post them up.

Cardboard Models

These two models were built for my class's assignment. They were built simply with card boards, small packages, papers, and finished up with poster colors. The duration for this project was 2 days.

SJ4000 - Day & Indoor Test