Recently I noticed that the colours on my old photographs have faded. They were taken using my old Canon EOS 500 SLR film camera, and the colour of the film has changed as well. I am worried that I will loss these pictures sooner or later, so I have asked my brother to scan the photos for me using his newly bought all-in-one machine (Printer + Scanner + Fax).

The first scanned picture shown above was taken using a special technique. I zoomed the lense while the shutter was left opened. The exposure time was less than 10 seconds. I think I can only be able to produce this type of photo again with a DSLR instead of with my dream camera Canon PowerShot S6 IS. I don’t think a prosumer camera has the programable Power-Zoom feature to create this special effect.

Do you notice that the line zooming toward the center is actually shaking. It’s because I zoomed the lense by rotating the zoom-control on the lense, and even though the camera was stabilized on a tripod, I still couldn’t avoid it. I believe only a very high end professional camera has this feature that allows zooming automatically while the shutter is opened. The camera must be programmable such as after x seconds the shutter is opened, it should start changing its zoom from focal point y to another focal point z, and solving the focus problem by locking the focus in all different zoom power.

May be some camera allow you to zoom the lense while the shutter is opened, but you still have to touch the T/W button or rotate the control on the lense mechanically (usually clockwise or counter clockwise) to zoom, and the line won’t be perfect. It will still produce a shaky line.

So if you come across any camera with programmable-zoom feature, please let me know.

This is a typical long exposure photo taken from a car when the car is moving. It absorbed all the light on the street. It’s very easy to produre this type of photo. You just need to reduce the aperture size and increase the exposure time and hold your camera on a stable tripod.

You can read the following post for more night photos using my digital camera, they are different because they were taken using a digital camera.

Light in the Night 3
Light in the Night 2
Light in the Night 1

When I use digital camera to take long exposure photographs, and when the light is moving fast, I noticed that it’s actually become dots instead of lines. I hope someone can tell me the reason for the occurrance of this situation. May be different digital cameras have different “interval time” to let the light paint the photo.

Yes, this post is a bit too technical.

“Hydroponics is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions instead of soil.” - Quoted from Wikipedia.

These are crystal soil in purple colour.  Using the crystal soil is another good options for Hydroponics.  The watery crystal soil balls are in differents colour.  Here I only show you the purple colour crystal soil.  I believe it is made of special fiber material.  It can absorb water very well and retain water for weeks.  When it is dry, its size is extremely small.  It need to be soaked in water for 2 to 5 hours to allow it absorb water to its maximum size.  It is cute at its full size, it will bounce up if you throw it onto the floor.  I’m sure most of the kittens or cats like to play with it.

I have planted the Sansevieria Trifasciata in a very small transparents containers using the purple crystal soil.  This plants are specially made for this container, I use a special method to create a mini version of this Snake Plants, or also know as (Tiger Tail Plants in Chinese).

I call these plants the Zebra Grass because its leaves look like zebra cross and I do not know its name.  They are also in the purple crystal soil.

Since these plants are small mini therefore they look nice when they are in group of 3 to 6 pots.

However if you have limited space, a single bigger pots of mini plants on table is also not bad. 

They grow very well beside the windows, if you don’t have the space somewhere near the windows, you can get 2 plants, put one of them indoor (on your table, top of a short cabinet, or anywhere you like), and the other one outside (but not under direct sunlight).  Then you can swap them every 2 weeks or one month depend on the type of plants.

I am going to prepare different type of plants in different colours of crystal soil, and different containers as well.  Hope you enjoy.

This picture was taken in a farm in Cabarlah, Australia.  Read my previous post for the details.
          1.  Cabarlah - The Cuckoo Clock Center.
          2.  Cabarlah - The Farm.

Wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day.

First of all, ColinJong.com would like to wish you Happy Chinese New Year & Gong Xi Fa Cai.

We have been very busy since a week before CNY. I have decorated the garden for the vihara few days before the CNY. It took me 3 or 4 evenings. Finally, I have “completed” it before CNY, it’s not really 100% complete, but there will be some upgrade in the near future.

We went to a night wet market to buy many boxes of Mandarin Orange in one of the late evening at about 11:30 pm. We saw these Capsicum there. We seldom eat capsicum, but their colours attracted us. So we bought it.

Since we are vegeterian, different colours in food is very important to make sure we have sufficient nutrients. I have read from a book that says, if we take at least 5 colours in our meal, and change them frequently, we as vegeterians can actually get enough all of the different vitamins and minerals. I will do some research on what vitamins and minerals that were provided by capsicum.

We have bought a bottle of Vegeterian Salad as well. We have been searching for it from so many places and finally we found it. It’s a good idea to make the Capsicum salad.

This is a colourful post in a Chinese Year. ColinJong.com Wish you again to have a colourful and wonderful year and may the year of Rat brings you prosperity, health and longevity.

Succulents - the water-retaining plants that adapted to arid climate or soil conditions.  They store water in their leaves, stems and/or roots.  They are similar to cactus but do not have thorns.

On the same day, from the Cuckoo Clock Center, we continued our journey to a garden farm.  It’s about 25 minutes from the Cuckoo Clock Center.  There were different types of plants and animals there.  Again, I have forgotten the name of this farm, and it’s exactly 5 years ago when I visited there.

I found different types of leaves there. 

This is cherry if I am not mistaken.

Rows of different colours of roses.

Rows of white-leaved small trees.

This is called gourds, - “hollow, dried shell of a fruits in the Cucurbitaceae family of plants of the genus Lagenaria.  Gourds can be used as a number of things, including bowls or bottles. Gourds are also used as resonating chambers on certain musical instruments including the berimbau and many other stringed instruments and drums.  Gourds are also used as a tool for sipping yerba mate by means of a bombilla, in Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, where it is called “cuia” (kOOya). “  - quoted from Wikipedia.

There’s  a big pond for the geese and the sheep.

There’s a small shade for a duck called Arnold.

The duck and ducklings statues are very cute.

The sheeps at somewhere near the big pond were waiting for visitors to feed them.

I believe, the “farm cart” is one of the Australian tradition which can be found in many farms, and is one of the attraction in the farm.  But I don’t think they are still using it because the carts usually look old.

There are direction signs in the farm, and some decoration around it.

All these photos were taken exactly 5 years ago, and the place may look different now.  I wish I have had taken more photos there with a better camera.