Photogear review: Nikon focusing screen H2

Dear Reader,

Today I'll talk about another focusing screen, last time I told you about the eBay big eye focusing screen here, it worked well but not well enough so that I can really recommend a purchase, especially for the split screen area. I said at that time that I would give Nikon H2 focusing screen a go and I did...
Went on eBay, wait a huge amount of time to have a h2 pop up at a relative good price and snatched one sample.
The Nikon focusing screens type H are equipped with microprism over the entire surface of the screen. There are 4 grades, 1 to 4 that correspond to different focal length of lens used. Longer lens light rays are not hitting the focusing screen the same way as wide angle so that's why there are different grades. I took a H2 because it was the one that is said to work well with the 50mm f1.2 that I own.

Amending an old Nikon focusing screen for cropped sensor body is not so difficult, old ones come in 3 parts, the focusing screen, a condenser (to direct light), a frame to hold all that. I took the focusing out, wrapped it with masking tape, cut it with a metal saw to approx the right dimensions (just took the existing one out and measured it with a caliper). Then started the long process to grinding it to the right dimensions using a file and some sand paper.  Once the dimensions were fine, I took off the masking tape and Voilà, it was done. By the way, for people looking into doing it, I did not make the side tab that protudes from one of the side, I just did a rectangle shape.

After putting everything back in my DSLR, I tried it and I figured out that the focusing was off... Wayyy off.. After a few puzzled seconds, I figured out I mounted it upside down... The focusing surface is towards the top. So took it out again and replace it correctly that time. Test it and it works quite well. The focus is easier to acquire than the big eye focusing screen and It is way easier to pinpoint focusing with it. It's not perfect though as my main manual lens is a nikkor 50 1.2 which can be a bit soft sometimes at its widest setting, so it can be challenging to nail focus. But the fact that the microprism cover the whole screen is a good help, I can focus just anywhere on the frame. I still need to make sure to move my AF point at the right location for metering but I can leave it in the middle and just do a center weighted metering and be done with it.

In a few words, a very good focusing screen.

Thanks for reading.

Getting better

Dear Reader,

Yup, he is getting better!

Last time we put steroid was yesterday but it was after 8 nights without!
Please continue to pray for him.

Now they can start to interact a lot more:

It's not perfect though, he still got reddish after a few days and it does not seem to reduce, but he has been sick the last few days and we know that it affects his rashes. Myrtille on her side has more and stubborn rash, we don't really know what's the reason she got rash all of a sudden these last week, but we are monitoring her situation.

Anyhow, just a quick post to thank everyone for your prayers, it's working! Thanks to The Lord.

See you soon.

Geek post: Data back up

Dear Reader,

People who knows me a bit more knows that I am It savvy and knows quite a lot about computer stuff and general electronic stuff. Lately, our computer has been showing red alarm on storage space. I bought my current computer in 2009, it's an old i5-750 with 2x1TB of storage, the system is running off an SSD which is fast and responsive. Our usage is simple, I do photography editing/exporting through Adobe Lightroom, I do a lot of TV recording, we have a TV tuner and I mainly record some blockbusters along with some hd documentary (the ones from BBC for example). It's better than downloading them from the web, I am patient in nature. It takes a bit of time to process all of that, cutting the ads and all but it's worth while.
So far, my pictures archive is toping 250GB and video is over 400 GB and as it's growing at a certain pace. As I keep two copies of pictures and certain files, everything is taking more and more room. So I decided to buy some storage. A few options are available, firstly,  the external hard disk, it's easy you attached it to the computer and it's done and dusted. I could go that way but last year, I went visit a friend's home and he had all those external drive laying around, maybe 5 or 6. So I thought that it was not a good idea, it's far from being upgradeable and once you reach the limit your are done with it, you need to buy something else. Also, you need to manage the space and redundancy yourself.

So the other route is to go NAS. There are a lot of off the shelf NAS providing good transfer performance and somewhat good storage space. But boxes are limited in space, usually 2 bays devices are affordable but if you want more... It's a headache. Also more than 2 bays devices run hardware RAID and proprietary software so it's not safe against "what happen if the board fails? "

So I decided to go DIY route but it's still expensive, my main requirements are: It needs to run ZFS, if it runs ZFS, I need to have ECC memory (it's a type of RAM that does self-check to correct error). I don't want a big box so I would like to have a mini-itx format with the maximum disk that I can put in a box without too much waste all in a relatively small budget. After looking around and pulling my hairs around, I ended up finding a good deal: HP NL54 Proliang G7, a little box that can contains 6 drives on its own, memory ECC ready and that has 2 PCI-E slots available for upgrade, all for less than 1900 HKD (250 USD), I can't beat that price for the features it offers. Then, you add the RAM, the drives and all, you end up with 6.8 TB of storage for 6000 HKD (775 USD), 5 x 2TB drives in a Raid-Z redundancy set-up, so I can lose up to 1 drive before the system has issue.

The software side is handled by a napp-it to go appliance, it's a usb stick, you plug it, set-up the hard drive space and it works, I now have an network drive accessible from my computer with 6.8 TB of storage. Next, I'll probably talk about what else we can do besides acting as an external drive.

Thanks for reading this geek post...

Two Months in.

Dear Reader,

We are two months in and we are slowly getting used to our pace. We went to the birth registry and we are pleased to announce that our little guy's name is Lémuel, which means "devoted to God", because that's the way our Lord taught us to live our life. In Chinese, his name is 讚熙, "Praise Splendor" reminding us to always praise our Lord.

As I said earlier, we are slowly setting ourselves into baby sitting pace, Lémuel sleeps quite a lot, he does not need us to rock him too much, a big difference from his sister, Myrtille had us rocking every time before her nap/bed times up until 6-7 months and even now, she is somebody who easily feels unsecured about things. She easily get mad about things that she can't accept right away, she would yell on us because things does not go as she expect. She has her character... We just need to learn how to live with it and raise her in a way that she understand her limits. Lémuel is already different, actually, he is more playful, he smiles a lot more than Myrtille at the same age and he communicate a lot more with us, he likes to talk to us, he likes to be with us, and when we let him alone, he will make us understand that he is the poorest baby on Earth.

One of our biggest fear about having two kids was the fact that we would prefer one over the other. I think it's difficult to avoid and through the short paragraph I have written, you might think that there is something that changed between us and Myrtille, but I don't feel this way. Maybe I am just convincing myself, but relations are just different. One thing for sure, we continue to love them with abundance. 

Myrtille changed a bit since Lémuel's arrival, at first, we were over busy taking care of him, Yukyin was exhausted from breastfeeding and the fact that he was in and out from the hospital did not help her at all, so she felt put aside, she went as far as saying that she did not want little brother to be home, but when he was at the hospital, she was worried that we came back without him.

Time passed and she started slowly to get a better temper and play her role of big sister, bringing us the changing mat when we need to change her brother's diaper, talking with him, reassuring him when he is crying, telling him that we are quickly coming to take care of him etc... a playful big sister.

So, two months in... Thanks to the Lord, we are still in one piece. This week, we will have the Chinese New Year, that will allow me to rest a bit and work a bit on my speakers project that did not move for 2 years since I talked about it.

10 days into a 4 Pax family

Dear Reader,

It's been 10 days since God gave us the joy of having a new baby home and what a gift! :)

Lil'bro does not have a name yet, but he is growing. The first half of his life was spent between hospital and home. He was born on the 22nd of November and they spent 2 nights at the hospital, as Yukyin wanted as best as possible to breastfeed, Lil'bro was not allowed any formula supplement, but we might have done it wrong at first. Lil'bro was a bit hungry and after two days, he was suffering from jaundice. He had quite a yellow tint but they still allowed him to be discharged. On the other hand, Yukyin needed an extra day to recover as she did not eat on the delivery day and could not eat afterward at all, she lost too much blood and did not have the energy to put her back in shape, she was feeling dizzy and uneasy with food. On the next day, appetite came back and she started to eat and regain energy. So, by Saturday afternoon, they were both home. But, Lil'Bro appetite dropped and we started to be a bit worried. Yukyin did not have milk in yet, so we were a bit concerned.

On Monday, we brought him to the Medical Health Centre, they told us that he needs to go back to the hospital for further checking. Through those events, I became angry about how wasteful the government can be in some cases, devices to check jaundice there have a 30% variation in readings and at the end, we were asked to go back to the hospital... somehow, I am just thinking if we should not have all those checking done in one same place instead of running around. Anyway, we got to the hospital in the afternoon and Lil'Bro needed to stay in for the night. I was kind of heartbroken... I know that jaundice is common but it's just sad seeing that little guy half naked in a plastic box lit by a powerful lamp. Just a feeling of loneliness. Besides that, they needed to feed him formula, bottle after bottle... they had a fixed amount of milk he needed to eat so that he could flush toxines and other bad things responsible for his jaundice... After one day, he was sharp awake when we visited him... 8) At home he has always been a bit sleepy, there he wanted to eat... So, somehow, we were disagreeing with the hospital's way of doing things, but in the same time, they got him his appetite back.

Another night passed and lamps when out, he was in observation, his jaundice rates were back to lower readings and he could go home on holiday for a night :). So, since Wednesday night, he is back home and we got all tired again from lack of sleeping. Yukyin's milk quantity is a lot higher than before, so I think he can be breastfed from now on. He had a few hesitations at first asking for milk bottle, but Yukyin kept strong and got the message in his mind... "you can only be breastfed".

Now, it's been few days, we are still very tired, Yukyin makes most of the effort, getting up and feeding him through days and nights. There is just some things we will never being able to replace. I tried to keep my head cool down, I had some bad time at start, gave some angry stares at Yukyin, but I'll pray that I'll get my temper in check. Sorry for being such a bad husband. I admire the love you give us so much.

I'll probably tell more about Myrtille another time as she also did change to cope with the presence of her little brother.

Here are some pictures of him:
Thinking about Mum

Another one:
Fully Awake, staring at Dad

Thanks for reading.

Still Waiting.. :)

Dear Reader, 

It's maybe the fourth time I use the word "Wait" in a post title, but yes, we have been waiting for a long time now. We are week 38 and baby does not seems to show any sign that it wants to get out of Mama's belly. So, meanwhile, we are still preparing ourselves. 

Myrtille is growing and she entered a new phase in her mind, we gave her her first stickers program reward, a Vaude flashy red backpack! She loves it. The stickers program is something really simple for kids, she does good thing and she receives some stickers, she gets 30 stickers and can exchange for a gift, it can be bought in advance so she is fully aware of it and even chose it. Right now, we have 3 boxes of toys sitting in our glass shelves... just waiting for her to collect some extra stickers.

She lost appetite too... That's a shocking piece of news, but she started to show difficulty eating vegetables... at the end, I think we are going to have to live through that. 

Yukyin is still doing various training in order to get baby in the right orientation, we really pray that she can do a natural birth this time. Her due date is in 10 days, so please keep her in your prayers if you think about us.

My workouts have gotten faster, I switched skates, I went back to my old BONT Vaypor 5x84mm wheels (you can google that if you have time). They are a LOT lighter than my previous Seba High boots, so I can skate faster and don't feel to have a 100 pounds gorillas attached to each one of my feet. Now I have some more precise figures to share, I average my outings at 15-16km/h, average speed is 17-18 on a flat surface. A sprint will get me into the 27-28km/h. I would like to reach a steady 20km/h on flat road and break the 30km/h on a sprint, but there is still plenty of work to do. I need to boost my heart first and I think I am going to jog train at a low speed in order to do that. Need to find the right fitness plan.

So, That's all for this week end. 

We spent some time taking some pictures, so here they are:

Another one:

And a last one, our little monster:

That's all folks, thanks for reading :) 

Please keep us in our prayers :)

6 years and counting.

Rear reader,

Today we celebrated our marriage anniversary. 6 long years, during which, we have been growing our love to each other. I learnt more about my wife, she learnt more about me, and this year has been marked by our will to be parents again. So after a big amount of prayers, of trying, Yukyin has a huge belly ready to give birth somewhere around next month.

A new challenge.

From the time we had Myrtille we learnt that we are not so patient anymore, we are less careful, we have less free time, we are older, I really enjoy sleeping some time. So sometimes, I am just wondering why we decided to get a new kid? But I do think it will help gather ours ties closer, Myrtille will learn what it is to share things at home, to share mum and dad's time. To live with a sibling. I always had my big brother, but I never knew how it was before I arrive in his life. Now, I can imagine through Myrtille's life and I think it won't be easy. At last, we want to build a family of 4 inside God's hands.

Yukyin's condition is fine, she is nearly at the end of her pregnancy and started to have all those different little things happening in her body that indicate the nearing of the end. I just want to ask you to pray for a smooth delivery. We are not so worried about the life with baby, we are more worried about how the delivery will actually happen. She had a c-section the first time and we would like to try giving her naturally.

Anyway, thanks for those beautiful 6 years, thanks for tonight's cake. I love you.

I pray that whoever you are, you live a happy tale with your half one. (If not, you can always drop me a comment, we'll pray for ya.)

See you soon.

New lens in my kit: Nikkor Ai-s 50mm f1.2

Dear reader,
 Today, I'll write a short review of the nikkor Ai-s 50mm 1.2 for Nikon body. I recently got one second hand in very good condition, so I decided to write up my tale with the beast.

Specs,
I won't t go back on historical facts as some other websites do this better than I can do (here for example). So what's so special about that lens? It's simply the widest aperture 50mm available (and affordable) out there for Nikon body. There might be some 1.0 prototypes but no where available. The fact that this lense has been manufactured in really big quantities help. The maximum aperture of 1.2 just allow for very very shallow depth of field, a bit too shallow sometimes. It has a commonly hated bokeh because of its nervousness but some sees it more as a signature of the lens than anything else. It is said to be sharp but I don't care too much about that fact, as far as it is sharp enough to give me good quality picture, I am ok with it. As it is an Ai-s lens, it is manual focus only. Right now, only Canon did a AF lens with such specs but that lens flies at around 1500USD price tag. Building an AF would be easy but we might get into the limitation of the lens, the image at 1.2 is quite soft and might not be sharp/contrasting enough for the autofocus module to work correctly, hence, we never saw an AF version, partly explaining why Nikon never updated the lens and is still manufactured as is at their factory.

I got it for HKD3000 from a nice guy in Hong Kong, ebaY auctions would fetch around USD450, so I did get a good bargain, the glass are clean, no fungus, I even got the rubber hood that goes with it. Once mounted on my body, I noticed several plays. Both rings (aperture and focus) have some plays, which make the lens shifting a bit during shutter release. It's so loose that the focus ring will actually rotate a little bit during exposure. It is annoying and I might get it fixed (got some ideas, need to do some testing).

Now, about manual focusing. How hard is it? Obviously, nowadays, we are spoiled with all those automatic functions, now AF module have 50 focusing points and would be able to track a cockroach in the night with only the stars for light. So, off the original body, it IS hard to focus, and it's hard to focus really well. For online pictures, it won't be too much of an issue, but for big print, you can see that the focus is off my a few mm. So I needed to dig around to see how I could improve the situation and the solution came by going back in time and asking oneself how on earth people where doing manual focus? the answer comes in form of a splitsreen and microprism assembly, that will come in another future post, but it came in handy helping me get the focus down.

Working on a DX body. It works, but I lose half of the bokeh goodness. Next purchase, I really need to upgrade my body. When I put my AFD 35mm f2 lens on the body, it frames like a 50mm on FX body, but the bokeh is so much underdeveloped compare to the 50mm. That's my only complain, I need to switch, before throwing any more money on lens, I'll get a new full frame body.

Anyway, I'll stop talking about gears: here are the pics:

Myrtille, off focused but still good looking

 and another one:

I'll have plenty more in future posts.
Hope to post them soon.

Trying Galleries with Lightroom... and new blog template...

Dear Reader,

When I was cleaning up my FTP, I accidentally deleted some files that were used by the previous template... and besides, it's not available anymore in the blogger system, so I went for the new ones. They are quite nice actually, so I hope this one looks good. I'll run it through Yukyin to ask for her advice.

Second big thing, I purchased Adobe Lightroom 3.0 and this piece of software... is... quite a good piece of software. I know that there is other alternatives on the market, but the first issue I needed to sort out was the compatibility with my DSLR, a Fuji S5 Pro which a lot of catalog/raw processing software don't support. Anyway, I followed the 3.0 development and now, I am using it. Very quick, very convenient, at least for me, Yukyin found it to much difficult to handle, lots of options everywhere, but to me, it makes sense, I import pictures, do the back-up in the same time, apply metadata, batch process, pick the ones I want, drag and drop them into publish and there are there on flickr/facebook/ftp.... isn't it simple? Anyway, I am overly thrilled by the features of this software and just for a few quirks, it answers pretty much 90% of my needs.

As you read my previous paragraph, you may have read that the software can publish to FTP. For LR user, it might not be a big deal, but I found it really convenient (now that I filled up my free flickr account), so here it is after the jump: Morning Jam. This is the complete gallery for my pictures session with Myrtille on her bed, the pictures from the previous post are from the same series.


Here is another picture to give you another insight:

Gallery is here: Morning Jam
I still need to work a bit the format, but it should give you a quick glance of my future plans for this blog and its photographic contains.

Time to me to jump in bed, Good night and take care!

Not dead yet!

Dear Reader,

It has been a while, like always... but I am not giving up blogging yet, it just that I have too many things to handle at the same time. Between work, where there was quite a stir lately, and home, with our noisy princess, life has been so much tiring these last months.

Myrtille continues to grow up, now, she is not walking yet, but crawling as fast as ever. She is getting noisy and all that stuff. I am still yelling at her quite a lot... not that good, but I pray that it won't affect her too much and that she will forgive me. I'll apologize when she will get older. Anyway, here are some of her last picture:

Yukyin was completely tired as our little princess decided to wake up at 7h15... on a sat morning, so I spend some time with her and the camera... Should do it more often...

Hehehe. Ah, last thing, I am thinking about moving away from Flickr, I reached my limit of free pictures there and I need to find a way to host my pictures.... in a cheaper and more permanent way, so I'll start to dig up my old ftp for that. You might see new galleries showing up.

Sorry for the wait though :)

Spring

Spring is coming and it is quite a season here... It's hot and humid. The worse is that we are in the middle of a weird spot where very cold and dry wind can cool down the city during a week and humid and hot air can replenish the city's street the week after. It makes rain falling inside, the water condense on the cool walls making them sweat.

This is also myrtille's first spring. She is quite growing, she eats up a lot of porridge, she starts to have her own rhythm, she likes to smile at me when I am making a clown face. She loves to stand up now that she knows that she can do it, we still have to hold her, but we are patient that she will learn it at her pace. Last week end we took her out and apparently, she loves parks and green areas.



I started to play a lot with her and it makes me feel important to her, at least it makes her important to me. It looks like that I am building my own relationship with her, at least. Yukyin did tell me about that lately, she found that I have changed. Great! If it can make both of them live happier, then why not?



On my work side, I have been promoted, that's great! Not so great is the amount of responsabilities that are induced by that promotion, being responsible for other's performance, for their future performance, interviewing people, etc... Next to it, I need to work out the IT department of my company, that's also a huge piece of work there... Put it simple, I think that everybody should grow up one day, it's just that the pace of my growth took a haste pill lately. I really need to take some rest. During my numerous interviews, I noticed one thing among fresh grads from everywhee in the world, it is the way people strives to gain ranks in a company but it is way lot more accented in Hong Kong graduates. They want to jump from position to position, from title to title, from low salary to higher and higher salaries. It's not that I am not interest in all that, but I am not sure that all of them can soak up the amount of pressure and workload that those titles require... It can just be me, after all.

Time will tell.

To open spring season, let me present a few of my last pictures.

Myrtille playing with dad at home:
 



Myrtille eating her toe:



Myrtille in TST with her parents.



Right now, I want to purchase a new lens but I am not really sure of the usage I want to do with it yet, so we'll see later. Maybe my year's budget will go into software instead of hardware. Like buying lightroom... I am trying the beta2 and it's very quite cool, very quick photographic workflow.

Anyway, I hope that you don't mind having me posting that seldom, I still hope to do better. Please keep us in your prayers.

Jump to my flickr link on the right to see lots of latest pictures:

Trying To Get Some Sleep!

Dear Reader,

It seems that I can't really hold a 1 message per week rhythm, so, at least, I'll try to get 1 message per month and give some extra when I can.

This month has been very exhausting for both of us. We start to lack of sleeping again. Actually, we are trying to get Myrtille to sleep by herself, better now than when she'll start to crawl everywhere... but still, I don't think it prevents us for having her crawl and jump everywhere at bedtime when she'll be that age...

So, we started to put her to bed awake and wait for the time she would decide to sleep, during the process, we did learn a few things, first, it's not that hard but it's not that easy, but also, prayers were a great help for us. We figure out that we don't pray enough with her and preparation to bedtime is quite a good time to start in getting used to that. Usually, if we pray before putting her to bed, it works. I don't say that prayers is the key for putting her to sleep, but it helped us greatly and Thanks to God, we did manage to succeed quite a few times without too much issues.

But still, when there are unsolved issues, she would cry for us during hours, hence our lack of sleep. Usually, she will cry between 15 min to 2h at the beginning of her bed, then, we would decide to feed her again and she would sleep after 10 minutes. But it really gets us tired easily and right now, our patience is like a very thin layer of glass, ready to shatter at all time.

Just a quick clarification, we don't just drop her in her bed, we go to see her every 15 minutes to see if everything is ok, and we lengthen the waiting period each time.

Besides that, Church service, our pastor asked Yukyin to help out at the choir as a pianist, it's very very good, but we won't be able to make it. Yukyin has a bit of concerns when she leave the baby to me... I get quite angry easily at my little piece of cake, so even I would really enjoy giving a helping hand to the Lord, we need to wait a time when the whole family is prepared for it.

At work, this year will be full of new things for me, I have been promoted and will be responsible of few people (at least 2 for the meantime), it's not a huge deal, but my performance will be related to people under my watch and that's something that concerns me a bit more. Anyway, it's all new to me and I'll just pray for help. :)

Ah ah, last thing that got through our mind... the need to have someone at home taking care of our chores, households and a bit of the baby, in two words, getting a maid. I don't really like the idea of having someone at home, but if I am paying somebody hourly paid to do such things, I could also paid a helper full time to do even more. In Hong Kong, it's something quite affordable, but that's not that easy, so we need the Lord's guidance on this one, at the end, if we hire somebody, she will also be part of Myrtille's education. So, let's wait, see and pray. :)

Some few pictures of our squid.

Myrtille and her Strawberries' bits


Mum and me


Hmmm... Phone + Octopus Card = Big Girl


Sunset Time


And some pictures of friends, that I would like to share:

Sweet Smile from Kathy:


Our friends preparing to take off:


And Kendrick Driving His Truck


That's all folks for this ... month. Hope I can get a video uploaded soon.

6th Month Milestone (lot of pictures this time!)

Dear Reader,

First, Happy New Year, I did not have the time to wish you all... life is a bit busy lately and I did not find a time to share my life with you. Last year was a year with big changes, Yukyin became a mother, so I need to "share" her with the little squid, talking about her, she will be 6 month in a few days and lastly, I became a father.. so I have much more responsibility than ever.

To cope with all of that, Yukyin found out that my organization skills are meaning pretty much: zero. So, I am starting from scratch, this year, I need to change the messy guy I am in a clean and tidy person. Starting from home, work, and extra activities. There is a load of things on my to-do list and this one does not stop to grow, like Myrtille.

Starting with the easier things: Photography and Computer stuffs... Last year, I had the chance to change my computer, :) this one is blazzing fast and I am happy... I would like to have something even faster, but... it's out of reach. Actually, computer is very much related with how fast I get pictures to this blog... After I take the picture, I need to review them, add my little spice, upload them on the Internet and scratch my head to find something to blog about.

It requires a little bit of organization to do all that in a very precise and constructed way. So, finally, after testing different solution, I went ahead and freshly install Adobe Lightroom (a beta version, but I might break the pink piggy bank to buy it). For the non photographer friends, it's a Photo cataloging software with a lot of different tools to process your pictures in a very efficient manner. So right now, this software helps me: back-up pictures, tag them, classify them, post process them and publish them. All in one software without the need to open another application (most of the time). I still need to figure out a few things, but I mostly cut out 50% of my post-production time with it. For the special case, I still need to launch The Gimp or Lightzone (two other applications I am working with).

At least, that's something taken care of.

Work wise, I need to get some secretary courses... get organized.. that's the main focus for this year.

Home wise, the same... Yukyin always complain that I am messy (and she is right), so, I have a new method in my mind, I mind photograph the scene in my house when it is in a clean state... (yeah, even if I am messy, sometimes, it's tidy) and then, before Yukyin can say anything, I try to see what's not in place and tidy it... that's my new method, I pray that I keep doing this.

It can seems weird, but I am highly efficient in doing the mess everywhere!

So, where are this week pictures? (by week, I pray that I can keep up and post something new each weeks :))

Here they come:

Myrtille enjoying a play-time session on our bed with Mom and Dad:


Myrtille, playing with her miniaturized walkie-talkie


Snack time by Myrtille


Tiny Feet :)


Woken up by Dad


Snoozing


Bwerh!


O_O, watching TV


One of a serious portrait:


So, that's it for now, you can still watch over my flickr for new pictures as I post new pictures usually quicker than blogging about them.

Please pray for Myrtille as we still have difficulties handling her, she still cries a lot and we get mad easily and are very tired. Other than that, she is plenty of life and I feel happy... sometimes... when she agrees that I care after her...

If you did not see her last videos, here they are:

For her 5th month:


And Mom caught her calling her...:


That's all folks, see ya around :)

If you have any prayer request, please drop them in the comment section :)

4th Month and still growing like a squid.

Dear Reader,

Myrtille is four month old now and as usual, to celebrate it, she took two shots... one in each tight. :) After her two journey in hospital... Wait a minute? Two? ... Yeah yeah yeah, I said two, actually one week after visiting her birthplace, she had fever again and this time, we went for the private system. At the end, we got out of it with a 10k HKD bill, was far from happy but eh.. what do you want, you need to take care of baby after all...

So, her two shots? after enduring blood sampling, IV etc... just like a mosquito bite. :D cried a bit but 2 min after, she just forgot it. She had two days of fever and now, she started to bug us again, she does not want to drink milk, breastfed or bottle fed... she does not want any milk, breastmilk or formula. Please pray for our sanity... we are at the edge of melting down.

So to kill time, we took some pictures of her:


Doing some push-ups on the sofa...


A funny face in front of Daddy's camera.


A portrait of our active girl with her beautiful mother.


Posing with her toys :)

That's all folks, see you next time around.

Now, Some Pictures of Her

Dear Reader,

As said in my last post, here are our latest pictures:

2 months old, 2 shot, one on each tight, followed a fever during 2 days:


She was quite dizzy during those two days. Hopefully, she recovered quickly.


Sleeping everywhere:


Again, I like taking pictures of her while she is sleeping on her changing mat, so cute. It's so rare when she is so tired that she does not have energy left. Can do whatever we want then.

Playing in Shatin's mall.
Yukyin left us for 2 minutes, we were near a window, so, took out the camera and shot her. Nice lightning that day, the blue from the dusk mixed with the warm yellow of the mall's spots:





Actually, start to get more and more experience with handling my camera and the flash... I only need a minimum fine tuning necessary. The out of camera jpegs are already good, don't know if the RAW editing really worth it. We'll see later.
I really like the use of the flash though, a lot of my pictures are with the flash on, don't know if it's noticeable, if not, great, that's intentional :)

Have Fun :)