♥ Princessa's Royal Diary ♥ - Royalty has never been so PINK!

Remember how it felt when you signed up for your first school outing? Having to go through the whole hassle of bringing that piece of paper back for your mum to sign, her forgetting to sign it, you panicking and throwing a huge fit worried that you'll be left behind by the rest of the class... okay, maybe that part was probably more smooth sailing for the rest of you.

Anyway, this felt like going back to school once again; having to gather at the Nikon office, taking off by bus from one destination to another, a whole lot of walking, taking photos, sweating your pants off while having tons of fun and laughs!

The morning assembly

We were told to assemble at 10am sharp, but unlike school, timing is a little more flexible... I was about 15 minutes late; Peggy came after and Celeste arrived last.

Class commenced shortly after Celeste arrived but before that we got to pick out our cameras for the day. Just a quick Photography 101 wit the J1, conducted by the folks from Nikon.

The J1 comes in various colours; white, black, red... and BABY PINK!

A pink option is rare enough (my camera is pink too, in case you're wondering) but to have it in baby pink, that was probably the second I've seen so far; the first was a DSLR taken apart, sprayed pink then put back together, which technically doesn't count.

Come to think of it, just the colour option alone was a good reason to purchase the camera already.

I made a dash for it without second thoughts (exaggerating of course; I was standing at the cameras when they said we could pick ours, which made it easy for me to reach for the pink one).

Nikon J1 features

Initially, I had the impression that the J1 and V1 were Micro Four Thirds... well, they aren't. To a certain extend they are pretty similar - systems are both mirrorless and allows interchangeable lens - but ultimately, different - mainly due to the sensor.

The Nikon J1 is a mirrorless camera; it's compact, built around a 1-inch type (13.2mm x 8.8mm) 10-megapixel CMOS sensor (giving it a 2.7x crop), features Hybrid autofocus allowing the camera to shoot at up to 10fps with autofocus, has only an electronic shutter (limiting sync speed to 1/60th of a second but allowing shutter speeds of up to 1/16000th of a second), and shoots 1080i60 video.

Plus, it comes with a cute pop-up flash!

The J1 comes with different lens packages: the kit lens is a 10-30mm (27-81mm equiv.) f3.5-5.6, the pancake is a 10mm f2.8 lens, and a long lens (not sure about the specs).

The first destination: Little India

Taking the “private minibus” we arrived at Little India close to noon.

Have you been to Singapore? Well, let me tell you, at 12 noon, when the scorching sun is up high in the sky with no dark clouds shading you from its fury... I could feel myself melting under my knitted jacket - the only thing that was keeping me from getting a sunburn.

Despite the heat, the PK Girls were fearless! Through rain or storm, they are committed to their passion and strive to provide us, the “photographers” the best footage we're ever gonna get from planking!

Thanks to their efforts, we had a blast! And, of course, accompanied with interesting photos for memory sake.

Of all the different types of features we were introduced to, the motion snap shot and slow motion video are THE two features I and probably you'd totally love. Dear Peggy and Celeste were gaga-ing over it. Admittedly, I was no exception, kinda.

The second destination: Merlion

Before we had time for a breather, we were at the Merlion!

A little Wiki-fact: The Merlion (Malay: Singa-Laut) is a mythical creature with the head of a lion and the body of a fish, used as a mascot of Singapore. Its name combines "mer" meaning the sea and "lion". The fish body represents Singapore's origin as a fishing village when it was called Temasek, which means "sea town" in Javanese. The lion head represents Singapore's original name - Singapura - meaning "lion city" or "kota singa".

“There's no place like home,” says Dorothy.

Coming back...

So, this time round we played with bubbles!

Doesn't it look so magicial?! (Peggy did the video by the way.)

Thanks to a cup of Dark Mocha Frappe from Starbucks, I was refreshed and ready for round 2!

I remember being a kid and going gaga over bubbles (and Street Fighter ;p), some many years ago.

Ahhh... the good old days...

Last destination: Vanilla

Drained from the day's activities, apart from remembering the cafe's name (mainly cause I helped Peg take photos at the entrance), I have no idea where in Singapore we were. Then again, it didn't really matter that much either.

The last destination was more or less the “rounding up” session.

Most of the camwhoring photos (of myself) were probably done there, and on the bus ride.

The J1 experience

Like I mentioned, the baby pink body is a good reason to purchase the camera already, all else are addons. But for those that are not that into the whole pink craze, I guess the major plus here would be the interchangeable lens. With the use of an mount adapter, you'll be able to use most of the Nikon DSLR lens in the market.