Cameron Highlands

Steamboat


Cafe


Tea Hills


Cloud forest


Raju's strawberries


Butterfly park


Wild orchid


Rafflesia


Lakehouse


Inside the Lakehouse

Brother's Commissioning

On December 13th 2008. my brother was commissioned as an officer of the Singapore Armed Forces. I was there with my parents to catch the ceremony. I'm pretty proud of the shot from a timing and post-production angle. He was at the corner of his formation, so I knew there was an opportunity for a good shot in the march-past. As the earlier contingents marched past, I searched through my lens for a good angle and moment, and found that when they came nearer to my side of the stadium, they did two 90-degree turns, and decided that this was the shot I wanted. I took a few test shots to test the settings, and pictured the shot in my mind. I would only have one chance to catch the moment, and when it came, I snatched it. First time I felt like a proper photographer.

Although I got the moment, the photo was not quite as good. My brother appeared lost amongst all his platoon mates. At post-production, I did slight cropping, and used a mask in photoshop to create a depth map. Using lens blur, I simulated a greater DOF than the f5.6 I had. The slight change in crop and increased DOF provided a better point-of-focus, and I had the shot I wanted.



For this shot, taken at the parade square with hundreds of people running around, I knelt down to take a low-angle shot of him against the Tower, isolating him from the crowd.

Halloween @ ACM

These photos were taken on Halloween, at the Asian Civilisations Museum. Took me a while to post, but here they are.



I never had the guts to ask people in public to pose for my pictures, but such was the atmosphere of Halloween, with people in their costumes, that the moment I lifted up my camera, people actually started posing for the camera without me asking. First time I felt like a photographer. :)



For this shot, I asked "can I take your picture?", and totally in character, she paused in her tracks and dead-panned her zombie look to me.



A bunch of Japanese kids were running around and they were camera whores, posing for me. I got down low and caught this pretty purple witch.



As part of the festivities, a talk was conducted by Singapore Paranormal Investigators. This shot is of the crowd and it seems to capture a certain tension and atmosphere in the air.



There were many great costumes around that night, some spooky, but all-together fun.

Postscript: I shot all these shots with the 50mm, set to 1/50 at 1.8, the supposed slowest one should set for handheld shots. While some shots were blur (mostly the fast moving children), most turned out well.

Man on Pulau Ubin

There is some ambiguity at first as to where this shot is taken, but look carefully and you'll soon realise exactly where this is.

Processed to give it a 'grungy' look, and to bring out the interesting freckles on the man's face.

Walk the dog 2

Walk the dog

From cyjs photoblog

F/1.8

Got my hands on the 50mm F/1.8 lens and I really like the shallow DOF effect and the sharpness.

From 2008_09_30 Adele and Loretta

I took just one shot of this salad and it actually looks better than in real life!

From 2008_09_30 Adele and Loretta

Another experiment shooting food.

From 2008_09_30 Adele and Loretta

The focus is a little off on this one, but I like the detail in the sand. There was no sharpening added at all.

From 2008_09_30 Adele and Loretta

But what I really like on this lens are the portrait shots. Everything in the background thrown out of focus. It's so nice to be able to focus the attention like that, and the 80mm equivalent FL is just nice for portrait work.

From 2008_09_30 Adele and Loretta

I captured this shot just as we were walking at a shopping mall. The colour of the wall just complimented her clothes and the highlights in her hair added depth.

From 2008_09_30 Adele and LorettaISO: 800 Exposure: 1/25 sec Aperture: f/1.8 Focal Length: 50mm

For night shots, I found that the fast lens was somehow not fast enough, such as this shot at ISO800. The auto-shutter speed was 1/25, which was very slow and introduced lots of motion blur (had to sharpen it in photoshop). Will use shutter priority next time to try to freeze the action and reduce camera shake.


I've noticed some issues with focusing and reading from the web, it seems that others experience this too. I need to experiment more, but for critical sharpness, I will try switching to manual focusing coupled with Live view mode to see what I can get. Despite all this, based on the portrait shots and the $100 price, I really like this lens.

Portraits on sunsets

From My Photo Blog

Along Tioman beach. I was experimenting with shots of Loretta against the sunset, but she was rendered a silhouette everytime. I thus tried to add in a bit of fill-flash - I had to play with the flash exposure compensation and brought it down about 1/3 stops. When I took this shot, I thought "Oops I cut off her head" but then it proved the most interesting shot out of the lot I took. Goes to show that sometimes 'artistic' shots go against certain conventions - such as cutting off the top of people's heads.

I would like to bring the exposure of the sunset down a little more while retaining the exposure for the potrait. Can only do that by separating the two in photoshop.

Orange and Green

From My Photo BlogISO: 500 Exposure: 1/60 sec Aperture: f/4.0 Focal Length: 55mm

This was taken on the hike back to our inn. I like this photo for its colour theme of orange and green. The moss on this quaint little bridge adds to it. The bridge seems to provide leading lines to the point of interest, and the rule of thirds is observed. It captures a moment and a feeling on our long hike from Genting village back to Panuba Inn.

It's sunny

From My Photo BlogISO: 400 Exposure: 1/320 sec Aperture: f/6.3 Focal Length: 250mm

This shot is taken under very bright conditions at the pier of the Tioman Marine Park. Although large parts of the photo are blown or otherwise grey, I think it makes the photo work because all the colour is focused on Loretta. She looks relaxed and is sharply in focus.

Take this!

From My Photo Blog

This was taken in the lift of a musuem in Japan. We were having a wonderful time and were going down the lift when she gave me a playful punch. I immediately saw the shot, whipped out the camera and said "Do that again!". I had just proposed to her 2 days earlier, and wanted a shot of the ring. Well, the ring has some motion blur, but the grey tones, lines, unusual pose with foreshortening make this an interesting photo which shows her character quite a bit. And the smile is genuine - wouldn't you be happy if you were just proposed to too?

Mindanao

From My Photo Blog

I wasn't really sure why this simple group shot worked, but when I looked at it again, I realised that the evening light made such a difference. The shadows added so much more depth, and the colour blue popped up in interesting places around the photo. The walls, the wood, the well, the bags - have so much character. Of course, the weathered faces of the wonderful family that I stayed with too. The girl and the dog add a touch colour and interest.

Dingalan

From My Photo Blog

Group shots shouldn't be boring! Here, I posed them beside the distinctive catamaran style of Filipino boats and with the mountains in the background.

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.