Last Saturday I went to the Algarve’s International Racetrack, known here as AIA, to watch the final of the International GT Open, because life is not only made of anime, we need to diverse . Ferraris F430, Porsches 911, Aston Martins DB9 and others (I think I saw a couple Hondas S2000) were all racing against each other. The noise was amazing, really loud, it was my first time watching a live race. To bad the stages were almost empty, I think the problem was that the race was barely promoted, I only knew about it after going to the racetrack webpage. The price was really great, 10€ for the 3 days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and it was not only GT Open, there was also classic races, Formula Renault 2.0 and others. It was really great watching the races, the racetrack is currently working really hard so that we can get the Formula 1 next year, if that happens I’ll make my reservation immediately ^_^ . This was also my first time photographing high speed moving objects, it was really tough specially with the GT cars cause they went really fast and my camera sucks at isos above 200.

Final arrangements are done, ready to start. The yellow car was really noisy XD.

There he goes.

And the Porsche follows behind.

Tough race.

Racetrack getting ready for the International GT Open.

Loads of Ferraris were in the track.

If I’m not wrong this one was a Corvette, the noise, the rear and tail lights reminded me of a Corvette.

An Aston Martin DB9.

Quite a good number of Porsches 911 were in the track as well.

I didn’t know Spider-Man had a racing car.

2 minutes to start, everybody get off the track.

Here’s a video I made with my cellphone when they took off.

Here they come ^_^ (so exciting).

Engines warmed up…ROLL OUT!!!!!

There they go at full speed.

Really hard to catch these suckers, camera and me couldn’t follow them .

Really liked the colours on this Ferrari .

There goes Spider Man.

Can you feel the sense of speed?! I sure can.

These two pictures came out really nice, wanted to capture the red Ferrari trying to overtake the blue Ferrari and got it ^_^.

After leaving the racetrack, while going to the merchandise shop to buy a nice polo, one of the racetrack racing school car (there are also BMW, Ferrari and GT-R) was waiting for me to take its picture ^_^.

It was a great afternoon after all. Can’t wait for more races, next time I’m getting the Paddock ticket as well to take even more photos ^_^. One thing I won’t forget is how cold it was there, a racetrack in the middle of nowhere, cutting cold wind drafts….brrr I’m getting cold just by remembering it.

Today I got in the mail Agarest Senki for the PS3 which I had pre-ordered some months ago in order to get a big discount. Of course after I knew there was going to a Collectors Edition for Europe with an art book, characters card and poster I had to make my order. For those that do not know Agarest Generations of War (western name), this is a strategy JRPG, with a battle grid, combination attacks, special skills and so on, the game also has some dating sim gameplay so that our generation continues as in getting married to the girl you choose (lol). When I started playing, the first thing that came into mind was Cross Edge, the menus are the same thing (the game makers are the same) but the battle system is was more simple, plus we can bring six characters into battle.

The game only has Japanese language but everything else is in English, so if you’re one of those that like Japanese games but don’t want to listen to Japanese because you won’t understand the story even having subtitles (it seems people these days are too lazy to read subtitles) than don’t buy it because this game was made to a very specific group of gamers that like these sorts of games.
If you want to get the Collectors Edition be fast because this will be the only release, Ghostlight won’t print any more of them.

The game box is quite thick and big.

Here is the entire loot, Deunan and Advanced Hazel not included XD.

The opening is the typical JRPG opening.

Here is the famous wedding scene and the reason why the game is 15+ with mature content .

Damn space traffic. It was total chaos to get into the Macross Frontier docking bay that day. After the war with the Vajra, the Macross Frontier managed to get back into space, everything was back to normal hence the traffic. That day was the return of the Galaxy Fairy to the stages and I was late because of the damn traffic. I thought I was going to miss the concert of Sheryl Nome and Ranka Lee. Thankfully I arrived just in time (10 minutes late) to watch the beginning of the concert. This was a concert I did not want to miss. It totally blew my mind away with sound, voices, special effects, you name it, it was the concert of the century. With the backstage ticket in my hand I managed to get a private talk with the Galaxy Fairy herself. After showing her my work she volunteered immediately for a private photo shoot. I must say it was an honour to shoot the Galaxy Fairy and what a great cooperative model she was.

As I mentioned in my last post I was really lucky to get a figure of Sheryl Nome, I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t managed to get her (now that sounded really geeky). Of all my figures Sheryl is clearly on my top list, not only because she’s a great figure but she is my favourite anime character ever. She was a little pushy at the beginning of the series but I knew she had to revert to a good side, her character was simply to gorgeous to be a push over through the entire series. Every Macross Frontier fan should get this figure.

Sheryl comes with two concert suits, first is the captain suit. Really detailed but a bit force wrinkled on some areas which could had been avoided.

If there’s one thing I like doing with this figure is torso shots, really like the upper part of this figure.

That look is breathtaking.

This is her underwear huh I mean undergarment suit, very provocative, but prefer the captain suit.

The shorts are really short, without those suspenders I’d say that they would fall down.

I love the hair, the combination of black, blue and pink hair is a cherry on top of a cake..

This was my first photo shoot using only the macro lens. I can really do those shots I always wanted, the downside of it is that I need to be in awkward poses that really put a strain on my back XD. A macro lens with zoom would be the perfect choice, but those can be quite expensive.
Belela-san is out of here.

Here is the 2nd edition of Black and White pictures. From now on I’ll keep making these posts of black and white pictures that I take from figures. Tried it with mobile suits but it didn’t come out that well, will need to test various things on them.
Got a new lamp from Ikea (this one), its a very nice desk lamp, and to complement it also bought a 4200k light bulb and the color balance is very good. Will need to get another one for a second light source.
Perhaps one day I’ll compile all of my B&W pictures and print them into a book, but for now I’m content with the few ones I take from time to time.
Yesterday I received Sheryl Nome from MegaHouse, managed to get one from the quick re-stock of HobbySearch. Was really lucky to get one, because minutes after I made my order she got out of stock. So I’ll be making her photo shoot very soon.

Also have black and white pictures that i took from people but am not allowed to post them anywhere XD. So I’ll keep searching for “models” who are willing to have their pictures posted on my flickr page.

One of the dreams of many Gundam fans has come true, an official Gundam video has been released containing all of the major Gundams from the series since 1979 till today and beyond. It’s really a nice video , so Gundam fans enjoy ^_^
Once again, happy birthday Gundam.

Finished MG Musha Gundam after lots of work and painting some areas with a gold, silver and black marker. Really like this kit because its design is completely different from the rest. A samurai Gundam, what else could you ask for. I have no intentions of taking more pictures now because I want an action base to make all the poses I want and also need to get some gloves in order to move it because of the gold paint. Here are a couple pictures.

And of course a small video with one of my favorite soundtracks ever besides Star Wars and Batman Begins.

The army is out, all of the warriors are united under a single banner and hell is about to break loose. If you want to join the army gather your cleaning equipment cause it’s dusting time.
So yeah it comes a time when you need to do that hard task of cleaning your precious collection, which means getting them out of the shelfs and start to dust away all of that dust. It has been quite some time since I cleaned my shelf and my figures and gundams, but now they’re all pretty and shiny again. The army keeps growing, still waiting for two more girls, Sheryl and Saber Lily, Musha Gundam is still in construction and was not ready for presentation.

The second hard thing to do after cleaning is putting everything back in their places, I don’t know which one is worse, getting everything out or putting everything back in.

Doing these “close up” shots is quite amusing.

Here is an overview of everything.

You may have noticed that you can no longer click on the pictures to view the bigger version, the reason is because I didn’t add a link to the bigger version, even if you go to my flickr page you won’t be able to see the all the sizes, only the ones that are my contacts are able to that. Why?! Well simply because I’m tired of seeing my pictures all around the web cut, posted, modified without giving me credit, and to not kill the entire picture by putting a huge watermark in middle of it I decided to go this way.

So if you used to view at the bigger versions, sorry, either get a a flickr account (free) and add me as a contact or just look at the pictures the way they are shown. I hope you readers who usually come here and new ones understand.

Been doing some videos from my photos. The first one I used an internet program called animoto, where you upload your pictures and song and the animations are made automatically. The downside is that you can only upload around 12-15 pictures since the video only lasts for 30 secs. If you want a full-length video with high-quality you need to pay, it’s not much but still I rather have something for free than pay .
The second video I used Proshow Producer version 4, very easy to use and with some new animations compared to the old Proshow Gold I used in the past years.
Clearly my favorite video is the one made at animoto. Try it you won’t regret it.

There’s a goodie after this.

Since I saw Saber Lily by GSC loads of ideas for picture movies came to my mind and so I started searching for the soundtrack and found one. Not an anime song but the lyrics clearly mention Saber in a way. Enjoy the 30 sec movie.

After so many months I finally made the Priestess Benedrom, unfortunately it didn’t turn out how I wanted. This is my first photo shoot in an almost dark room. Already got a tripod by Hama but for some of pictures I had to use flash because I was using the camera in hand held mode and it would be almost impossible to take good pictures without flash. There’s a difference in colors because of the flash. Used photoshop in here to make selective sepia and the glowing eyes but those got a bit exaggerated, still have much to learn in this field.

Besides burning the enemies with the holy light, priests also use weapons to protect them but their main function is to give them more power.

Also took some indecent and provocative pictures of Kan’U that same night, still thinking if I should upload them.

For quite sometime now I’ve been searching for a lens to do close up shots because my current one, the 24-105mm doesn’t allow me to get so close to the objects but it’s a nice portrait lens for family pictures and a good walk around lens. Well at first I was interested in the Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG Macro, then I saw that the Sigma 70mm F.28 EX DG Macro had received the 2007-2008 EISA award for best macro lens and the 2007 TIPA award as well, so I was very inclined to this one. But then I saw the Sigma 50mm F2.8 EX DG Macro, it was more than 100€ cheaper than the 70mm one, so I went to a shop (Niobo) that I found out in a town close to my own and asked the owner if there was really such a big difference. He said that judging by their characteristics and price differences I would be best served with the 50mm one, if the price difference was like 200~250€ than it would be better to invest a bit more in the 70mm, so I stayed with the 50mm one. Of course I chose it based on seeing other people pictures, reading reviews and so on and so on. All I have to say is that I still have a lot to learn with it, but the pictures speak for themselves .

This is a fixed zoom lens, perhaps one day when I have more money I’ll invest in a bigger one. Unlike Sony, Canon, Nikon, Pentax…whatever brand you may use, the focusing barrel on this one extends (there are some from the previous brands I mentioned that extend as well). Not many people like this feature and they spend a bit more in one that doesn’t extend, well it doesn’t bother me. The max magnification is 1:1 which is great, most likely I won’t be using it.

Here are a couple pictures I took with it. Still have much to learn with it.

The next ones were to test the Aperture with 1:1 magnification.
F2.8

F10

F16

There’s not much difference from F10 to F16 apart from the amount of light, of course the Aperture can go higher, but didn’t try that one. So currently my gears are the Sony AF DT 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 (standard lens), Sony AF 24-105mm F3.5-4.5 and now the Sigma 50mm F2.8 EX DG Macro, and of course the body Sony Alpha 100. Currently thinking about upgrading the body to a Alpha 350 or another one, I’d love the A700 or the A900 but those are way out of my pocket, perhaps with a bit of money saving I could get to those one day.