I was at Kinta City last evening as there was a “Magical Christmas Moments” show so I wanted to take a video of the show. I ended up taking a video without audio because I did not turn the audio recording on. I trashed the video already. Bah!

Magical Christmas Moments - Olympus SP550-UZ

Since this was the first time I took out the Olympus SP550-UZ, it was a good chance for me to see how my iPhone compares to a real digital camera.

Magical Christmas Moments - iPhone

There was a beautiful Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage on display and many people took the opportunity to take a photo with it. I was standing there and four girls asked me to help them take a group photo. I hope the photos turned out fine for them. This is when the XShot would come in useful!

Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage - Olympus SP550-UZ

Most of the photos taken with the Olympus had a warm yellowish tone. I did not turn on the flash for all my photos but I think they turned out pretty well.

Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage - Olympus SP550-UZ

Compared to the Oly, the iPhone was not able to capture the yellowish lights of the carriage.

Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage - iPhone

Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage - iPhone

There’s this very huge Christmas tree there as well. It’s really beautifully decorated and it is 1.5 stories tall. Many people took photos with the tree too. I guess it’s something different for Ipoh folks.

A huge Christmas tree - Olympus SP-550UZ

The other day, I wanted to write a Christmas post but I did not really have the inspiration for it. I was so busy and could not motivate myself. All I want to do is to finish the Korean drama, Autumn Tale. There are still another ten episodes to go even though I watched four episodes consecutively last night!

Anyway, last evening, I saw this really beautiful creation at a bakery. HHmmm it is strange that for the life of me, I cannot remember the name of the bakery even though I see it all the time. Perhaps my brains are confirmed fried. Writing fifty posts a day does that!

As you can see, I could not pass up the opportunity to snap as many pictures as possible. I took a total of eight shots and ALL of them turned out great, in my opinion.

It’s too bad that these houses were placed in front of a glass partition separating the store proper and kitchen. You can see the kitchen in the background too.

I wonder if we can actually eat this [I am too polite to ask the staff] but it makes such a beautiful decorative piece. By the way, I think it is not for sale as it does not have a price tag.

A friend wanted to know how the iPhone performs at night so here are two shots that I took one night as we stopped at the traffic lights. As you can probably imagine, I was on the passenger side of the car and took these two with the window down.

I have taken similar photos before with my Nokia E61i, shooting from the car window as we stop at the traffic lights just to test how well the images will turn out but I am very disappointed with Nokia’s night shots. They are so noisy and unfit to be published at all.

Unfortunately, these shots are spoilt by the side mirror of the car which I did not even notice when I was framing the shots, but it is not that noticeable in the photos, right?

If I had not said it before, I really like the camera quality of the iPhone and the fact that I do not need to adjust any settings at all because there is none, unlike a conventional camera where I would most probably have to at least zoom in/out and half press for focus.

I would say that about a high 80% of my photos taken with the iPhone turn out well enough for web publishing, barring those that I accidentally shot because the screen is just so sensitive.

Edit: Full resolution images as suggested by Danny Foo. Click to enlarge.