58bits - Other

Four Days in Luang Prabang

Anthony Bouch — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 09:49:29 GMT

Have just returned from a four day visit to Luang Prabang. Four days is hardly long enough to get to know a place and the people that live there - but it was all the time I could spare on this occasion.

The trip began with an eventful arrival. I had less than the required six months left in my Canadian passport and so decided to travel on my UK passport - obtaining a tourist visa from the Laos embassy here in Bangkok. I used my Canadian passport to leave Thailand, and when I tried to enter Laos with my UK passport I was asked to 'have a seat' in a small office and wait while several officers of various rank (over a period of about an hour) came in and explained that I would have to pay a US 200 dollar fine because there was no exit visa in my UK passport to prove that I had come from Thailand. For the most part I pretended to be clueless (not that difficult for me to do), pointing to my Laos visa, and at one point feigned a decision to go back to Bangkok. Smiling a lot probably helped. In the end the fine was reduced from 200 to 100 US dollars paid in Thai Baht. I'd love to know how it was divided up amongst the 'officials' on duty that day.

The rest of the trip went well and we had fun walking around the town, markets and temples. The views across the Mekong and Khan rivers in the early evening were beautiful. Most locals reported fewer tourists than last year due to a large number of cancellations caused by the problems in Thailand - in particular the recent closure of Suwanapoom airport in Bangkok. Perhaps things were a little more relaxed than usual as a result. We made merit at dawn on Friday morning giving rice, chocolate bars and small cartons of milk to the stream of monks leaving the temples to receive alms. I went again on my own on Saturday morning and shared my mat with a Swedish and American couple. I'd read about the concerns by some that the number of photo snapping tourists (including myself) at the early morning ceremony might be changing the nature of the ceremony for the worse, but the atmosphere was relaxed and respectful. It appeared to me that the right balance had been struck between those participating and those wanting to record the event.

The highlight of the trip was when we invited ourselves to visit the central Luang Prabang school. We spoke to students and their teacher during a Saturday afternoon class. The school is a combined primary, secondary and vocational college and the students were taking a lesson in nutrition. Most students had travelled by bus from the areas around Luang Prabang to attend class that day. I gave an impromptu (and brief) lesson in Canadian geography, explaining that at the moment the weather is very cold in Canada - reaching minus twenty degrees Celsius during cold snaps, and that there is plenty of snow. I told my usual stories, including how if you breathe in through your nose very quickly, your runny nose will instantly turn to ice (with the usual gasps of surprise followed very quickly by disbelief). And my old favourite - of how during the winter, people that have to park their cars very far from where they work don't always make it to the car before freezing like a statue - and have to be carried back inside to be warmed up before trying again (more gasps and then laughter as I pretend to be frozen). We bought the class a box of cakes, swapped email addresses and said our goodbyes after having rescued them from twenty minutes of nutrition.

I suppose if I have any misgivings about the trip as a whole, it would be the questions I continually asked myself which included: why were people coming to Laos?, and who benefits? One theory at least is that tourist dollars help the local economy and that some of this money will filter down to the average Laos person. Looking at the condition and teaching materials at the local school I struggled to see any immediate evidence of this. What's more - having lived in SE Asia for nearly a decade now, I've seen families that have become rich on tourist dollars - the fortunate ones that have land, or a house in just the right location, and my impression in most cases has been that these families tend not to share their wealth with their less fortunate neighbours. And then of course there is the system of patronage and corruption common in Asia which usually means that by the time tourist dollars have trickled down to the 'average' person, a large percentage has been siphoned off at the top.

The central night market in Luang Prabang is remarkably well organised and suspiciously homogenous in the goods that are on offer. I would have liked to ask the vendors who they bought their crafts from and how much they paid to rent their spot in the market.

I guess the other reason people visit a country like Laos is to experience the culture - to see how other people live and perhaps to learn something about the hardship experienced by those living in a developing country - in particular the minority areas. The trouble I have with this explanation is that Laos is a 'developing' country for some very good reasons. I'm not an expert on the history of the region, but after just a little reading on the topic it's easy to see how the recent and tragic history of Laos (as well as Cambodia and Vietnam) explains a lot in terms of its lack of development. According to the CIA world factbook the average life expectancy in Laos is just 56 years. So does this mean that as tourists, we are benefiting from a tragic past? That we're able to travel back in time to see the 'real Laos' - people in villages living a subsistence existence because of the chess piece wars and conflict in the region that stunted the development of a country which should otherwise have prospered? I'm not sure, and that's probably a simplistic view of the complex combination of conflict, culture, religion and environment that have helped to create and shape the country as it is today.

So would I go back? Yes I would. The people are truly friendly and welcoming. I'd love to spend more time in Laos travelling and talking to people about how they live and the changes occurring in their country.

For now at least I'll have to accept that after such a short trip - I'm barely qualified to comment, and close to justifiably being accused of being a 'flash-packer' in Luang Prabang for four days :-)

A collection of some of the pictures I took in Luang Prabang can be found here - all of which are available for free usage under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Auto Focus Strategy for Nikon D700

Anthony Bouch — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:53:39 GMT

It's taken me about a month to settle on an auto focus strategy for my D700.

I skipped several generations in film and digital SLRs, so getting up-to-speed with the D700 as well as re-learning some of the basics in focus and exposure has taken me a little longer than I'd thought it would.

Thanks to a couple of good forum posts - in particular this one - D700 and autofocus at Photo.net - I now have a much better understanding of how auto focus works in the D700, and in particular the focus points and what to expect in terms of different scenes, lighting and camera orientation.

There's a consensus that the cross type focus points - 15 of them located in the centre of the 51 AF point matrix mean that you may occasionally find it hard to focus vertically (portrait) when using one of the edge focus points. In low light with little contrast and a lack of horizontal lines under the focus point this might be true - and I've been able to reproducibly see the difference in test shots against a target - but in practice - outside and focusing on people at events, or on the street, I'm finding the edge focus points are working ok.

So here's my recipe for fast(ish) focusing - in particular when photographing people at events or outdoors - in either landscape or portrait mode.

1) Remove the focus from the shutter button - (option a5:AF Activation - set to AF-ON button only). I was actually told to do this a while ago by a good friend, Patrick de Noirmont - but like most things - I have to learn them the hard way. :-) There are a couple of good reasons for this. For one, I was losing pictures when I was occasionally slipping, or releasing the focus after recomposing. The D700 is not a light camera (even without the battery pack) especially when there's a 70-200mm/2.8 lens attached to it and so it's possible to lose the 'feeling' of the half-pressed shutter button in all that weight. Moving focus off of the shutter button guarantees that you won't accidentally refocus after recomposing. What's more, you can always pull focus manually and know for sure that pressing the shutter button isn't going to change anything.

2) Leave the focus mode in continuous servo AF mode (the switch on the side). By moving the focus to AF-ON only - you effectively get both single servo and continuous servo focus. Press once for the equivalent of Single-servo mode - press and hold for continuous AF mode. Kills two birds with one stone and no need to flip the switch.

3) This one's important.. turn OFF the image review under the playback menu. Here's why. If you're shooting an active scene (again - an event or people moving around outside) then you're likely going to be moving the focus point using the multi-selector (multi-wheel), focusing, and recomposing repeatedly (especially if you're switching between horizontal and vertical composition). I want this process to be as fast and as fluid as possible. The bad news is that pressing the AF-ON button (or the AE-L/AF-L button) won't interrupt the image review like the shutter button does (turning off the monitor). If you have your eye to the view finder - having just taken a picture, and then try to move your focus point by pressing the multi-selector (before focusing again or recomposing) - you'll actually be moving through images in playback mode on the rear screen. If you don't turn off image review - then you'll have to press the shutter button first - and while that might not sound like a big deal, it's an extra button to push and when you want to move a focus point, refocus and shoot in under a second - it gets in the way.

And that's it... :-)

The results below - after a quick switch from portrait to horizontal - placing a focus point on the eyes (yes - the eyes) with no recomposing.

Device:    Nikon D700
Lens:    VR 70-200mm F/2.8G
Focal Length:    180mm
Focus Mode:    AF-C
AF-Area Mode:    Dynamic, 9 points
VR:    ON
Aperture:    F/2.8
Shutter Speed:    1/125s
Exposure Mode:    Manual
Exposure Comp.:    +0.3EV
ISO Sensitivity:    Auto (ISO 1800)

That Time Again

Anthony Bouch — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 03:01:58 GMT

Well partly as an act of procrastination (the books and reading are piling up), and partly in recognition of the fact that the previous design sucked big time... I've redesigned the blogs and photo gallery. It took three days in total - and I think the results are ok. At least I think it sucks less than the previous design.

Thanks to firebug and a list of fairly well known IE7 issues - it went pretty well this time. No major CSS gottchas... a pretty good two column liquid layout and drop shadow as well as less cruft. I've dropped IE6 support - too much pain to go there and well.. it's my site... :-)

Nikon D700

Anthony Bouch — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 23:45:21 GMT

Not sure what came over me. It's not my birthday, and it's not Christmas. And I'm so deep into studies at the moment that I'll only be able to use it on and off over the next few months, but...

...I bought a Nikon D700 yesterday. What an amazing camera. 12.1 Mpixels, full frame (FX), 3D Color Matrix II, 5-8 fps, and unbelievably fast and sharp in low light.

I purchased the body from AV Camera, who are a very well known authorised dealer here in Bangkok.

The AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED and AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED from Sunny Camera - MBK 3rd floor, 3c33 - also an authorised Nikon dealer.

Ken Rockwell's site was an invaluable reference when looking at options for lenses. Most people, including Ken don't rate the 24-120mm VR that is advertised in many bundled packages for the D700. The Nikon 24-85mm is very sharp - but as Ken says, you need to be aware of the barrel and pin cushion distortions at fully wide and full zoom positions.

Here's a picture I took at Victory Monument last night. The NEF RAW version is incredibly sharp and rich in detail, with almost no discernable noise (click for a larger JPEG version).

Can't wait for my next trip - probably to Luang Prabang to put the D700 to work (albeit in my amateur hands).

Collon Biscuit Rolls

Anthony Bouch — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:01:14 GMT

Hehe... couldn't resist. I've seen quite a few product names in Asia that become lost in translation, but I'm struggling a little to understand what was on the mind of the Glico product executives when they decided to launch 'Collon Biscuit Rolls'.

Agoda Cancellation Policy

Anthony Bouch — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:26:36 GMT

An unfortunate incident today with Agoda Online Travel. This is a site I've used once before to make a reservation for a hotel in Hong Kong. Unfortunately on that occasion we had to cancel. Agoda's cancellation policy for this booking meant that we lost US$15 on the booking, but I figured that was a reasonable penalty to pay as an administrative fee. Overall I found the service easy to use and thought highly of Agoda (at the time).

A couple of days ago I booked another hotel in Hong Kong and yet again - a change in plans meant that we needed to cancel this booking too. However this time I was stunned to discover that we would loose the FULL AMOUNT of the booking.

At the time I made the reservation - I mistakenly assumed that the cancellation policy we'd used on our previous booking - was an Agoda site-wide policy. I didn't realise that the cancellation policy can be different between bookings. Ok - you could argue that would seem logical.. but I was caught out for a couple of reasons.

Firstly - the link to the cancellation policy is at the bottom of the page and as in the screen shot attached (click to view the larger image) - says... Please click here for 'Cancellation Policy'. It's missing a couple of important words. I think it should say - "Please click here for the Cancellation Policy for THIS BOOKING.".

Secondly - on three of the four step page process - you have to scroll down to see this link.

I think the cancellation policy should be displayed right there on the page - or at the least a warning message during the booking process that explains clearly that the cancellation policy can be different between hotels and bookings.

For example - I went back to review the cancellation policy for the exact same hotel, on the exact same dates - and the policy now indicated that only the first evening would be forfeited in the event of a cancellation - and that any remaining nights would be refunded. Hmmm....

Ok -so I don't have a problem with the cancellation policies per se. If we're getting discount rates, I'm prepared to lose some flexibility in changes or cancellation. However I think Agoda owes it to its customers to make it much clearer that these policies can be different between bookings. They should WARN their customers in particular when a booking is totally non-refundable.

What's more - and what made this particular incident a sour one - is that when I tried to explain my concerns to a supervisor at the Agoda call centre in Bangkok - the conversation (from the Agoda side) quickly descended into an argument about who's fault this was - and that other sites operate the same way, and so I was to blame. That wasn't really the point of the call. What I wanted was recognition of the problem. As far as I could tell, they were getting good feedback, and they could have used this as an opportunity to improve their services in a way that would help to build trust and reputation, as apposed to reducing it.

The old used-car sales tactics of 'fine print' that's hard to read, find, or subject to misinterpretation really don't belong on a modern Web site today. Too much is at stake. Reputation travels farther and faster than before.

So.. Agoda - if I can get passed your argumentative customer service supervisor in Bangkok - please change this single but important link on your site to "Please click here for the Cancellation Policy for this booking...". And if you really want to build trust - warn customers explicitly when the policy indicates that they are not allowed to change or cancel the reservation - without having to click on a link or open another window.

You can and should do better Agoda...

Why Marriages Fail

Anthony Bouch — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:36:38 GMT

At dinner with friends last night - and one of my friends gave the quintessential Occam's Razor answer to why marriages fail. Occam's Razor...

"One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything".

And the reason? Well... we live longer. In the past, life expectancy was what... about 35, 40 years? Get married at 19 and you only have between 16 to 21 years to slog it out. Today, in the developed world - average life expectancy is around 74. Get married at 28 and you may end up with your significant other for a whopping 46 years! :-)

Last.fm

Anthony Bouch — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:08:40 GMT

Having spotted a tweet on Pandora.com - and then of course discovering that Pandora.com is not available outside the U.S., I was inspired to take a proper look at Last.fm. Incredible. Download the desktop app, and the appropriate plug-in for your media player - and Last.fm will "scrobble" whatever you listen to, building up a recommended playlist; similar artists, genres etc. I wonder how Peter Gabriel's venture over at We7 will fare in the same space.

Even my Cleaning Lady?

Anthony Bouch — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:44:09 GMT

This made me laugh. You know a product has long since reached the 'tipping point' when even your cleaning lady tries to sell it to you. I was sitting here minding my own.. when my cleaning lady asked me if I would like to by some of the of the V word (I don't dare write it in full - since I suspect I'll be cast down into spammer hell if I do). Actually at first I didn't know whether to laugh or be worried. Do I look like I need it? Apparently her younger sister has a nice little sideline in 'other market' pharmaceuticals. Lol.

The Rights of Young People

Anthony Bouch — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:46:34 GMT

This is scary - U.S. School District to Begin Microchipping Students - as Karen Lawrence Öqvist"s points out as well.

I remember reading about high schools offering parents access to the school's Intranet to see whether or not their sons or daughters were actually at school or not, and I thought that was worrying at the time.

Another example of the continuing cycle of media and government generated fear being used to reduce civil rights in the name of 'security'?

Reading The Catcher in the Rye , or Nineteen Eighty-Four and students today might wonder why it is that they are able to easily identify with Holden Caulfied, or wonder perhaps whether or not they are actually living in 1984; while their freedom to make decisions (and accept responsibility for their actions) is being steadily reduced.

I remember some of the things I did in high-school. The choices I made weren't always the right ones - but they were an important part of growing up for me.

Teenage years are a complicated time. We're struggling to find the balance between life at home, life at school, our need to be accepted by our peers and even our need to be able to begin to form intimate relationships with others. What happens when a teenager suffers his or her first heart-break and is too embarrassed to tell their parents about it - and can't face going to school that day; just wanting a little down-time in order to try and resolve their feelings before facing the world again. Where does their freedom to choose to do that go?

Employees are protected from surveillance at work under various regulations (Lawful Business Practice Regulations in the UK). Surely our teenagers deserve equivalent protection from surveillance at school; where they deserve the right to prove they are responsible and trustworthy before losing their freedom to choose.