Not an in depth review I’m afraid, as like always these days I’m short on time. Collected her from the Post Office a few days ago but have been so busy I’ve only today had a chance to unbox her. Purchased as an impulse in HLJ’s Christmas sale with free EMS shipping. Very impressive overall, the fluid pose is beautiful though I’m slightly worried about leaning as she’s only attached to her base by a single metal prong in her left foot that doesn’t extend very far into her leg.
I need to invest in a better tripod, as both the cheapo ones I have now aren’t sturdy enough for my new camera, particularly in portrait mode (that’s why none of these photos are portrait!). Also need some sort of dedicated lighting for figure photography, but I’ll probably make that myself. Cut a hole in the bottom of an aluminium bowl, mount a bulb & attach silk across the top to diffuse the light or something.
These photos were shot with old manual Pentax lenses from my 35mm SLRs, a 50mm 1.7 & a 100mm f4 macro. With the crop/zoom of the APS-C sized sensor in the K20D, those work out as 75mm & 150mm lenses respectively, which are great for figure photography – with the 100mm in particular though it feels a little weird taking such close up photos from several meters away!
I should be collecting Alter’s 1/7 Fate T Harlaown Shin Sonic Form from the Post Office on Tuesday, which is the one I’ve been waiting for since the summer (originally meant to be released at the end of August I think, she only actually shipped at the end of November!). I’ll try to upload a few quick photos when she arrives, but hopefully I’ll have more time later on once I’ve gotten a better tripod & lighting to take some decent photos of all sorts of figures.
I almost encountered the same problem as you about the tax and “courier fee”. Luckily I heard from a mate of mine and managed to contact HLJ and switched my postage to SAL, they were glad coz it meant that they wouldn’t have to spend as much on the shipping. I believe that no tax is applied on SAL shipping although I’m yet to find out about the “courier charge” God damn Parcelfarce!! So I’m guessing that the next time HLJ does free shipping, I’ll just go for SAL, it’s not worth getting taxed and charged for using EMS ( I think there’s no tax on EMS for items worth less than £35)!!
btw, I’m in the UK too.
Yep I haven’t been charged for any SAL deliveries yet, but the lack of tracking makes me a bit paranoid for really valuable/rare stuff like 1/7 Fate! I’ve got 3x figma & 2x nendoroid preorders up at the moment & I’m making sure all of those are SAL though, because £13.50 courier fees on top of the price of a figma would be insane!
Yeah £13.50 is just crazy, I’ve really wanted to take advantage of the HLJ free ems shipping promos, but that fee just drives me off. Btw if you order from HLJ, and the stuff u order is too big for SAL “Small Packet” they’ll change it to SAL “Parcel” and you get a tracking code with it as well for the same price. At least that’s what happened to me, I currently have a tracking code for my order and I’m using SAL