Sony Would Be My First

Ok, I love traveling, let’s stop bragging about it. It’s all over it. So I thought that in order to capture the moments I need a proper camera, by proper I mean an interchangeable lens camera with huge pixels and more ISO (common people paradigm). The last time I used the kind was when I went to Karimunjawa and it was my friend’s. It was a shame though, I could not maximize the function. To my least understanding of photography, I thought I took some great pictures. Here the photos I took with Canon EOS 550D with 18-55mm kit lens.

Pantai Pulau Cemara Kecil

At the small boat, heading to Karimunjawa island, the mainland 

I love taking picture and traveling. I’ve been wanting to buy a camera since a long time ago to preserve the moments. I said the hell, this is it, and I have to buy it now. And so they say, the first camera you buy is very crucial because in the future you will be needing more lens, more accessories that are to be compatible with one you already have. So it is more likely that you will have to stick with the first. Given the thought, to avoid future regret, I asked some of my friends for reference who then told me to just buy a Canon. 

I’ve done my homework. I came to a dozen camera shops just to ask reference pretending that I would directly buy from their shops. I researched and read almost all the reviews that popped up on google. Their answers vary from favoring the mainstream brands like Canon and Nikon to the underdog, new comer Sony. This did not lead me to any further confusion though. If anything, it convinced me to stick with the underdog that I was in love since the first time I laid my eyes on her at one of the shops I came across.

Sony A37 SLT

After some debates (mostly with my own persisting fear of regret), research and friend-asking process, I decided to buy a Sony camera type Alpha A37 SLT (Single Lens Translucent) with 18-135mm kit lens with aperture range f/3.5 – f/5.6. The debate involved the popularity amongst the brands that I considered (Sony, Canon and Nikon), the wide availability of various lenses, the features and performance, the image quality that they produce, the complexities of the camera, the endurance and maintenance and of course my instinct.

Well, since I was still very green in the area and not really in the capacity neither to break down the detail of review here, nor to thoroughly compare this camera to another. I’m just going to highlight some reasons of why I am happy with this little Sony A37 so far. 

Let’s see here what all those things might be. It is obvious that the size is quite small. It comfortably fits my grip and it is quite light as well. The camera has wide viewfinder that makes you comfortable to peek out through it and shoot.  The speed of the focus when taking picture is also amazing. This has something to do with the technology that is talked a lot from a Sony camera alpha series, which is its translucent mirror technology that allows the mirror inside the camera not to move so enables you to take pictures with shooting-speed up to 7 fps. The technology enables the camera to shoot and focus simultaneously. And the picture is great, the color is vivid. The Sony A37 is also talked to be able to record great full HD video. And I was shown this one and it was great. The camera is very responsive.  

Here are some of the pictures I took with my Sony A37. 

Spider at Gelanggang Kolamrenang UPI

Sunset around Gelanggang Kolamrenang UPI

JICA, UPI

I didn't do much editing to those two images. I just change the sizes to that it would not be too hard to upload.

So what do you think of the images? The underdog is not that bad after all, is it?



Fajar.

Traveling? Yet Again.

It has been quite a long time since the last time I wrote something. I mean with all the works, romance and personal struggle through everything, I had spent so little time for this particular activity (thank God I finally have a life). It’s not that I am a regular or professional writer or anything. It’s just that I used to like writing once in a while. So here I am, trying to rebuild the habit hoping to be able to make something out of what has been left off, what has been unused for a quite some time.

So what I like to talk about this time is traveling. This particular topic has been on my mind since a very long time (to make sure of it, I have written couple about it). I have to admit that I am some kind of a late bloomer for this kind of thing, looking up to those traveling gods I read on the magazine or some places worthy of visit that they have been. Here I reasoned why, it was not only because I had no money to do that but also I had no gut. It was gut mostly though, to be more honest. But not anymore, I have money now, it was not a lot but if you save up a little, it could take you to places. So I now travel. 

Pantai Cemara Kecil, Karimunjawa.

Speaking of traveling, I like to talk about a fellow traveler I ran into the other day. The story was just to help me make a point out of this writing. It was a young foreigner on my way home the other day. We took the same minivan to Pangandaran, my hometown, her traveling destination. It was like a private shuttle services so it provided door to door pick-up service. We were the first two passengers in the minivan. The waiting was killing us. I knew it’s killing me. And it’s killing me too, not to initiate conversation when, aside of the driver, there were only us. I might have got quite a story from this foreigner and some time to kill.

So it began with “wow we are waiting for the passenger to come” on my part, she responded with “yeah, is this some kind of housing for rich people?” and the conversation continued to traveling, how she had been sitting for more than 20 hours on a bus hopping from Padang to Medan, all by herself (yeah, I was amazed too). And the conversation moved on towards the most fundamental thing in our existence in the world of how we perceived religion. It’s not that she was in some kind of in a mission of religion neither was I, with all the religious talking. Bottom line, we’re not religious freaks. We were just couple strangers who, for the long hours, got stuck together and made conversation of whatever came to mind and surprisingly we shared the same questions and confusion about what religion really was. And the funny thing was that I never got her name, neither did she.

Oma Alchy Bar, Karimunjawa.

But anyway, my point was that traveling not only could get you to places but it also could get you to meet a lot of people you would not expect when packing your bag and sitting on a bus, train, plane or ship and discussed the most private, essential and unlikely subject you probably would not discuss with the people you already knew at home.  You got the chance to have insights from complete strangers who you probably meet only once in your life but you will remember them and their stories for the rest of your life, not to mention their companies to enjoy beers and cigarettes. All we have to do is to be open and that is exactly what I have been trying.

  

New Days Begin!

Let’s say that the beginning of this year was a way far from what I imagined. I definitely had plan, good plans. Resolution, as what is commonly known. But how can I say, you definitely can’t predict what tomorrow will bring to you. At exactly the beginning of those days after I had my shitty holiday, New Year holiday, I learned that I just lost my job over some stupid new regulation my office issued (let’s just drop it, too crappy). It’s out of the blue. We just never saw it coming. Slap! On your miserable face, man!  I did take it quite hard, because clearly it got me back to the old days where I need to ask for my regular allowances from the old folk. Well, anyway since I grew up in the culture where it doesn’t matter how much you hurt you just happen to be grateful that nothing else hurt you even worse, I just need to look at the bright side. That it’s the time for me to get back to my research paper. Unbelievable!

I meant, that’s it, I needed to get away from all of this, right fucking now. I was not a spontaneous person before. Not a chance in hell. I needed plans, assurance. I needed to calculate everything. But this was just too overwhelming and I was sure as hell allowed to take a leave. So I decided (spontaneously) to go here;

I need a place where screams do not cause a commotion and are not interpreted as a warning of danger, or a sign of troubles. There I got it, trying all those games that got me scream till my throat sore and shook my tummy up till I wanted to throw up. You saw the world turned upside down (literally), yet you got through it and you got through it all just fine. All you have to do is let it out, that made me a little bit better. Same thing works for the (temporary) real screwed-up state of mind. You don’t need to pay someone with Freudian bullshit, patronizing, sitting and talking to you in a room on a floppy couch, telling that you have to simply work on your anger management or mild depression, which in fact you just need to loosen up a little bit, to have fun to recover. Scream helps!

I spent two days in Jakarta, long enough to make me fall in love with the city. Pretty lame, huh?! When everyone begins to hate the mess, I just begin to know it and even love it. Here is the thing, I mean, almost every big city in this world is a two-faced bitch. In one hand, she shows the beautiful alluring face where you can see future, hope and, wealth she might offer. On the other, she shows the ugly one where you can’t see anything but the fucked-ups! Living there can be a proof if you’re strong enough to work your ass up there. This was like a booster for me, a reminder that I have purpose, I still have dreams, and I still have a lot of options and I’m young and free.  

   

By that I get to realize, firstly, I need to finish my research paper to get my butt out of the university. And it tells me that bitching on it won’t help me get any of that at all. It won’t finish itself. Then I started to write again. I guess what they say is true after all, that you’ve got to look at the bright side. Thinking, well, at least my other hand didn’t get cut, (trying to be metaphorical).

My Traveling Tale: the Exotic Ujung Genteng

Adventurous, an adjective; I find the meaning in the dictionary as

/fond of adventures/ or

/full of excitement/

And for me it means that you have enough gut to just go outside your house and go out of your comfort zone, wander and find new comfort in new place. You’re familiar with surprises that might happen outside, you’re ready to enjoy anything the world might offer, not to mention its beauty, kindness, and sometimes ugliness.

Well, to be quite honest, I was not really fond of adventure as I was a little. I tended to spend my time reading or just playing my favorite music home (not that I was a nerd). I went out once in a while, for sure, but that didn’t include exploring the neighborhood, or going to the preservation forest. But, quietly, I have passion of an adventurer of doing that. It started as I read books by Gola Gong (an Indonesian author with his iconic character named Roy). Somehow it inspired me to also do traveling, okay maybe dream about traveling. I begin to feel the need to see the world, by my own, you know. I need to figure out what’s out there. I need to know, the world outside mine, so that it will open my new perspective. I need to get out of my shell. Meet a lot of people, learn something new, see new places, know what God has given us, and praise it, okay, this one sounds cliché, but that’s probably true.

My first (I’d say a real) adventure of traveling was as I went to Lampung with my friend about a year ago, I’m sure I have written it in this blog, you can find out in the blog’s archives. See the excitement about going off the island for the first time. But now I want to talk about my trip, couple months ago, to Sukabumi. There were three places that we visited, Pelabuhan Ratu, Ujung Genteng, and Cisolok hot spring.

Let’s see the details.

Ujung Genteng

Practically it takes six hours to get Ujung Genteng from my friend’s house in Sukabumi, we went by motorcycle. The road is so sinuous and narrow that you have to be very careful if you drive your own vehicle. It’s about 16 KMs from Surade, the closest sub-district, since Ujung Genteng is quite rural. We may find the tea plantation, at the mountainous part of the road, and coastal forest near the spot.

Ujung Genteng is really gorgeous. The shore is complete white sand beach. There’s place like a lagoon before the high seas. It’s quiet out there, both the entire place and the lagoon, so you can swim safely. Cottage that we checked in was exactly in front of it, not to mention the gazebo nearby (we baked fish there at night and got fresh coconuts at mid sunny day, over the blue sky and green sea, good Lord!). 

You know the concept of virgin, right? Well then, you might categorize the place into that. Oh yeah, there’s also tortoise preservation in Ujung Genteng. You can come and visit then you can release a baby tortoise to the ocean and feeling that you’ve saved them, saved the earth. Isn’t that a great feeling?! I should say that the exhaustion of the trip will be worth it, seriously. I’ll tell you how to get there.

 If you go there by public vehicle, here is the direction. Supposed you go from Bandung, there you take the bus to Sukabumi taking about four hours trip, then in the bus station in Sukabumi you take another bus to Surade, another around four hours long. You’re almost there as you arrive in Surade. You might want to reload your supplies here, since you might find no big stores in Ujung Genteng, neither restaurant. From Surade you take public minivan (angkot), the red one which will lead you to the exotic heaven on earth.

Pelabuhan Ratu

There’s not much to tell from Pelabuhan (maybe because my hometown is, at some part, the same, though mine is cleaner and more beautiful hehehe). I do not really reckon the place, for maybe I came in the wrong time, sometimes it happens as you visit beach you know. It is dirty there, trash at the coast line, inconvenient waves, and so on. I did not even bother to swim there. So, I did not really enjoy the place.

Cisolok

It’s a hot spring. Here is the thing, hot water spurting from the rocky small river (there the hot spring, I guess), but oddly, the water around the river is not hot, really. There is nothing more I can tell from the place though; meaning that I don’t reckon this place either. You probably will want to spend your holiday in Sari Ater, Subang instead.

So that’s my traveling tale to Sukabumi. So eager to tell you another traveling trip that I ‘m going to do.

“Traveling—It leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.”

-Ibn Battuta-