sllɐqǝʎǝʎzznɟ

Dropped by the post office today to collect a package that was supposed to be in my hands on X’mas eve but unfortunately my office was closed when the postman arrived. Some of you might have read in my earlier entry about this metal sticker set by Gariz (in Korea) for the Olympus E-P1 … I thought it looked pretty cool and thus placed order for it through Gmarket. The entire ordering process was very fast and the item was shipped from Korea to me (using EMS) in a couple of days.

Anyway … here’s the package that I collected this morning …

Camera was placed there to show how big the box was. Cool! I thought those guys screwed up and sent me a couple of the E-P1 cameras instead! Yay! Nah! Now see the next photo …

Hahahaha! Amazing! In that pretty big box … was a way smaller box … and in the smaller box were the 2 sets of the metal stickers that I ordered. Both of the boxes does not contain any of those packaging foam or any other stuff! No wonder the big box was like feather weight when I picked it up! The actual items themselves are around the size of a CD cover and are just cardboard foldable packagings. I wonder if they could help customers save on shipping of they could just find better ways to pack their stuffs.

This is not the first time I’m getting such a shock. Once i bought 2 bags from Urban Outfitters and they sent the bags to me (and almost killed me with shipping because I used the VpostUSA service) in some giant box that could maybe fit 20 of those bags. Argh!!!

Ooops! I derailed the subject. Back to the Gariz metal stickers …

Here are the contents of the set. It comprises 2 packs of stickers, 1 LCD screen protector and a cleaning cloth. You might notice later (through the other photos) that I didn’t use some of these stickers because I somehow feel they don’t really ‘belong’. Hahaha.

I didn’t have time to do some fancy video of the whole sticking (and worrying) process. Here’s the final product after some very careful installation. Not 100% perfect but I think I’m okay with the result. I think it looks better with the white leather half case on because the stickers doesn’t cover the sides.

… and here are some closeup shots …

I don’t recall seeing the mode dial having a sticker in Gariz’s online marketing images but the set does come with one. It makes looking at those characters a little hard in low light though. I was wondering why the iAUTO thingie was left out but soon realized that it is necessary to align that round piece of sticker properly. You think so? Anyway … this is one of the toughest piece to stick. That little round sticker took me quite a while to get it in place … blame my fat fingers and fuzzy eyeballs.

There’s even a sticker for the lens release button. You’ll find that apart from the sticker that says ‘PUSH’, there is a very (very!) thin outline piece surrounding it in the package. I couldn’t really figure out how that could be placed around that ‘PUSH’ button, so I decided to ignore it.

Now let’s take a look the back of the camera. Honestly I find that the back piece isn’t as impressive as the front one. There are also a few very fine pieces of the sticker to decorate the ‘Fn’, ‘Info’ and also the 4 other buttons. It was hell for my fat fingers trying to get these in place too!

There’s a piece of sticker that I thought was some Mickey Mouse sticker … that goes to the bottom of the camera. It says ‘Limited Version’. Hmm. I hesitated a while about this one but eventually put it up.

Before I write a bit about my ‘encounter’ with this sticker set … let’s take a look at the instructions that came with it. If you don’t read Korean … I think you might be scratching (or banging) your head trying to decipher these. Agree? Or am I just stupid?

There are few things I’d suggest if you are gonna get these stickers for your E-P1. Firstly, spend some time trying to align the stickers properly before sticking any corner of it onto the surface of the camera. Once it’s installed … I find it pretty hell hard trying to peel it off to adjust its position. If you have to do it … do not use your fingernails because that might damage the sticker. Use those plastic sheets that came with the stickers to slowly ‘pry’ open some corners and slowly remove them.

The stickers don’t fit 100%. That’s what I think. Decide for yourself which part you’d like to align first. For example, in my case … (for the front pieces) I aligned the stickers to the top part first. This leaves a little gap at the bottom which I think ain’t that obvious.

If you have to stick those little pieces (eg. the M43 logo) on the other bigger pieces of the stickers … do pay more attention when aligning. It is really very difficult to remove them if you need to re-align. I removed the ‘F’ icon from the front of my cam and the ‘F’ sticker came out damaged. Thank God that was one that I decided not to have.

That’s all for now. Time to go grab my dinner and cry myself to sleep because it’s blue Monday tomorrow … and the long weekend is over.