The current Sony line-up. The entry level A200, A300, A350 which replaces the A100 and the enthusiast level A700 together with Sony brand lens. Image courtesy taken from Sony

In the middle of 2006, Sony introduced its first dSLR camera, the Sony Alpha A100. I bought my first dSLR almost as soon as it was released because I wanted to upgrade from my H1. It was the only camera brand with built-in stabilization and comes with millions of legacy lens from the Minolta era that Sony took over. Sony started with 19 lenses (mostly Minolta lens) with 3 Carl Zeiss lens announced but took some time to roll out.

Little less than 2 years later, Sony now has 5 cameras and 26 lens (info here), of which 4 are premium grade Carl Zeiss lens (16-80mm f3.5-4.5 DT, 24-70 f2.8, 85 f1.4, 135 f1.8) and 4 professional grade G lens (35 f1.4, 70-200 f2.8 ssm, 300 f2.8 ssm and 70-300 f4.5-5.6 ssm). Including special lens like the 135mm f2.8 (T4.5) Smooth Transition Focus lens and the world's only autofocus 500mm f8.0 mirror lens. In addition, we have seen preview of at least 5 more lens and one full-frame Professional grade body coming up soon and a new flash announced too. Now, everybody takes Sony seriously in the camera business, even Sigma is offering more Sony mount lens.

Why this post? Because I'm sick and Sony announced the new A300 and A350 live-view dSLR cameras with an innovative implementation to live-view that seems to be better than competing brands as it effectively brings the viewfinder view to the LCD screen. Plus I got plenty of time to surf around and read all the reactions to the new cameras. And I'm reviewing the photos I have taken for the past 6 months so I can develop them in time for CNY sharing. Besides, I got nothing to do at home (until I bring my laptop home that is)

I like to take photographs, and I'm happy there's more than 30 photos featured in the 2007 yearbook and couple of others in various school publications over the year. But I believe of the 30,000+ photos I have taken with my Alphas so far, most are school related. And after reviewing those that aren't, the number of 'good' photos I have taken dropped compared to the H1 days. Due to my higher expectations and lesser time for photography trips. Ever since the orientation ended, my Alphas are sitting in the dry cabinet most of the time as the school term starts.

There are so many things I want to achieve in life, and taking good photographs is one of them

Theme: Fundamental Forces of the Universe
Why this theme, well, the forces of the universe is responsible for everything that we observe, including that apple which fell on Newton's head. Each force has it's own unique characteristics and can represent each of the 4 words Chinese motto of the school

House Names: Gravity, Electromagnetism, Nuclear Strong and Nuclear Weak
Gravity - Where size matters, the more people you get, the greater your gravity is. So this represents unity
Electromagnetism - Lightning, electricity, magnets. This represents power
Strong - the force that holds protons together in a nucleus, it acts over small distances but it leaves an impression to us all. This represents impact
Weak - the name is weak but the force is not. This force is responsible for radioactive decay where changes take place. This represents change or creativity.

House Logo: Superstring theory - the idea that may unify all 4 fundamental forces, urmm houses, under one theory.
String theory logo (from wikipedia) sorry, no colour

Heh heh... Physics is Phun

Get ready for more than 30 pics in this post as I try to clear my backlog of photos to share... (So I will share in mini size version only)

The hottest 'thing' going on in school recently is definitely the student council elections. This is our first ever SC elections even though this is our 2nd batch of students. I wanted to comment about the election long ago but I waited until all the votes were casted before voicing my opinions. Besides, the classes had their class committee election not long ago while I believe many CCAs are electing their leaders too. So the concept of leadership seems to be in everybody's mind right now. It's a shame that we are doing intra personal skills like time management instead of leadership skills in civics now.

I don't think I would want to talk about what it takes to be a leader or what are some characteristics of a leader. I believe that there are many more resources and people who can do a better job listing down these ideas. But I shall share with you some ideas that I have of leaders and to quote some of the recent issues in schools as an examples to illustrate my points.

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Types of Leadership
Obviously, I can start with a line that goes "there are many types of leaderships blah blah", but let us cut the chase and go straight to the point.

Visionary Leaders
Or what Keirsey mention as leaders of leaders are the best known type of leadership today. They are leaders who can envision what an organisation can achieve in the long term and most important of all, how to get there. They are the big picture kind of leaders who can inspire other leaders and followers alike to achieve great things together. Hitler is a visionary leader, just that his vision is evil.

The student council will definitely need visionary leaders to bring the senior high (and the junior high) SC to greater heights. They will be leading the students back to our new campus in 2009 with many unknowns, uncertainties and opportunities. They could set the tone, culture, environment for subsequent batches and bring the school to greater heights. They can inspire people to follow them with a common goal worth going for. Similarly for our new CCA, we need a visionary leader to set the directions for the CCA for the students at the beginning.

A visionary leader may feel out of place as a house captain/leader or a class chairperson. As a class chairperson, he/she may be required to take up the responsibility of keeping law and order in the class, performing a supervisory and administrator role rather than leading the class to, urm... greater heights. After all, the greatest height you can reach as a class leader may just be to win the class league or something. Similarly, as a house captain/leader, their objectives may be to promote cohesiveness as a house and perhaps to become the best house among the houses. They are required to come out with a game plan to lead their house within specific rules of the game.

Visionary leaders like to define the rules, that's how they always win (just kidding).



Moral Leaders
These are the people persons. They can be morally upright people who are great role models in school, often singled out by teachers as an example for the rest to follow. All SCs are suppose to be moral leaders first as they are expected to set good examples for their juniors. Moral leaders lead by the heart as they can empathise with others. They will always look for a cause worth fighting for when they lead. Their goals is to make the world a better place for everyone, perhaps including animals and other living things.

All students in the school are expected to be a moral leader to their juniors, to set a good example and display the positive characteristics as a role model. In fact, the society expects moral leaders out of teachers and political leaders too (even scholarship holders). We need many moral leaders to feel comfortable in the society as many would want to live in a world where they feel that the world is good rather than evil. To maintain the positive image of the school, we need these moral leaders to leave good images in the public's eyes.



Managerial Leaders
The class chairperson example given earlier will be a managerial leader. They need to manage the class and before they can manage the class, the class must be willing to be managed by them. Therefore managerial leaders tend to have good relationships with their followers. They will take good care of those they lead and are willing to contribute selflessly. As the title suggests, these leaders are there to manage a given tasks or group. They take responsibility to make sure that things get done and are done well. Most club and society CCA leaders are managerial leaders too as the person who really decides on the direction of the CCA is the teacher in charge. They are important leaders because without them, there will be no one to make sure that things get done




Ra Ra Leaders
The house captain/leader example would be a classic Ra Ra leader type. They are really fun people to begin with and are usually good with their hands/feets/words (so are good with things like cheers etc) They are spontaneous and quick to adapt to changes. These leaders can lift the morale of their followers and are willing to take risks. They usually rise to the position of a leader simply because they are the best at their trade (like sports etc). Ra Ra leaders are very important for SCs too.

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The SCs, or a CCA or any organisation for that matter needs all 4 types of leaderships to be successful. An individual student may be able to perform well in 2 to 3 types of leaderships but they definitely need others to be leaders to make things work.

As for the SC elections, I see a lot of managerial leaders who promise to do a lot of things for the school, to listen to feedback from the students and make contributions for the students in the council. I see a lot of Ra Ra leaders who are good at campaigning and are willing to take up the risks to challenge the norms so that they can have a fun and exciting school. I know some moral leaders as they have good character, academic results and attitude for example. But I only manage to find a visionary leader, and it's not through the campaigning process.

In the coming executive president elections, I hope to see a visionary leader being elected in the process, even though the visionary leader may not be the best at campaigning. Which brings me to the point of the flaws in a democratic elections which I may, or may not be discussing in the future.

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Disclaimer - do you think i need one? well.. let's just say that the stuff above is my personal opinion only. I only decided to type it out after i failed to load videos from tudou.com even though this issue has been in my head for quite some time.

We can't fit almost 400 people in the kallang basin at the same time, but we did the next best thing, fit 200 at a time.


More scenic photos from dragon boating..


and more scenic photos from dragon boating


"did you see a fish that big earlier?"

The morning dragon boating...

First, we have our facilitators...

The young and cheerful duo...


The whole batch there...


Demonstrating the universal pose for shots


Another pair of young and cheerful duo


One is cheering, another is shooting, and one more is being shot at.


A group of.. yes you guess it, young and cheerful girls


Another group shot of young and cheerful girls and one guy

Next we have to 'What's up shots'



What are they looking at?

Year 5 groups shots..

Before getting wet