Hong Kong

Sunset over Hong Kong
No touch up. Just timing and framing to catch this boat, the Luna Aqua, passing by the Avenue of Stars on Kowloon.



Star Ferry
The famous old ferries that ply between Kowloon and Hong Kong island.


Link to large

The view from Victoria Peak at night
Learning points: A panorama of 2 shots, I used a bean bag to keep the camera steady on a binocular post meant for tourists on top of The Peak's viewing gallery. Made sure to use only ISO100 for noise, the live view to ensure focus, and to review to ensure sharpness.



O'Brien St

The distinctive taxis of HK, which were ubiquitous. Taken from a 2nd story pedestrian walkway, the 'bean bag' I mentioned earlier is actually rice in a ziplock bag which I brought from home - a useful tip I read. Worked like a charm and I didn't need a tripod at all.

F1 Night

A belated post.. had not had time to post photos recently, but I had a chance to experience the thrill of F1 engines 2 weeks ago. It was great. I had the lucky opportunity to take in some sights and sounds from the rooftop of the Asian Civilisations Museum, but unfortunately was not close enough to get any good pictures of the cars. At full zoom, the pictures were either too blurry or too dim to use. What I have are some other sights:

From 2008_09_26 F1

Decided to use a square format here, showing the grandstand and the Singapore Flyer

From 2008_09_26 F1

The Esplanade roof against other buildings here makes for a beautiful urban pic.

From 2008_09_26 F1

The only shots I could get from my vantage point were stuff like this.

From 2008_09_26 F1

Some other views from the night...

From 2008_09_26 F1

And a lovely view of the lit-up Cavanagh Bridge and Fullerton Hotel.

Fireworks

From Fireworks

When the Singapore Fireworks Festival was on, I brought my camera out to experiment. I was not really prepared at all - I did not scout out any location and had no idea what settings to use! In the end, we raced to a spot just along Clarke Quay and the fireworks began. I quickly set up my tripod played with my zoom and my shutter speeds. I don't have a shutter release so I had to either use the 2 sec timer or be very gentle with my shutter presses. I discovered that you needed to time the shots to get the best fireworks bursts, so the 2 sec timer was out. If you look closely or zoom in, you'll see that the lines are not straight - there are curves and wobbles - but at this scale it's not very noticable.

I experimented with 2 second exposures, 8 sec exposures and full auto; zoomed in for some individual bursts, and tried to frame the clock tower in most of the shots. These are my favourites, with the middle being an 8 sec shot. I learnt that to capture the beauty of the burst, you need to set a low ISO and hold the shutter open for a couple of seconds. I'll need to invest in a shutter release next time! It was a great show!

Deconstruction

From My Photo Blog

This building was being demolished. I just thought it was interesting. I pushed the saturation way over and found that there's a whole bunch of primary colours just hiding there.

Bronze Roof

From My Photo Blog

This is my favourite photo from my trip to Japan. Taken with a PnS, I used the tip of the roof as the focal point, composed the shot by putting the two bronze lanterns in the foreground, and let the camera do the rest. The details on the lanterns and on the roof are just amazing. This was taken in the morning under bright sunshine.

Tags

In order to catalog the photos on this site, I have decided to use the following:

• Macro - Insects, flowers, anything really close-up.
• Landscape - Nature, Sunsets, etc.
• People - Culture, Portraits, etc.
• Abstract
• Urban - Buildings
• Wildlife - Birds, etc., usually zoom shots.

Click on the Tags at the left column to view the photos in that category.