SnapIt!! (Aug 14 - Oct 14)

It has been long time since my last post at this blog. My last post was in mid July 2014. I have been busy with works, examinations and other personal commitments since July 14. I was so exhausted that I would not have the time and energy to explore new locations for my shots.

Here's some of my updates since eng Jul 14.

Bali (Jul 14)

We visited Bali near end of Jul 14 for vacation. I was pretty excited and brought all my gears including my best companion, tripod. I was expecting myself shooting beautiful sunset and sunrise. For landscape, I would always plan my shoot. For example, scouting the locations prior to shoots, looking for possible composition, level of crowds at certain time of the day, location of the sun, etc. However, being first time to Bali, I was equipped with limited information. And that was a great challenge. And I would say, it was a great learning experience. Without more to say, let's enjoy the shots and the story behind these shots.

Family Time

This shot was taken just few hours after we landed at Bali island. The hotel we stayed is very near to Kuta Beach. It was about 10-15 minutes walk. After checked-in to the hotel, we decided to have a walk nearby the beach. This is my first lesson. Thinking that I would be able to shoot handheld for this shot walk, I decided to leave my tripod in the hotel. I did not know that Kuta beach has a very beautiful sunset view. When we reached the location, I noticed the sky getting dark pretty early there. I was not able to shoot even at 1/20s handheld. Image was blurred. Then I realised my mistake and I was telling myself "Damn it!!! I left it in the hotel!!".

Forced with nothing much left, I was cracking my head looking for other ways to place my camera on the wet sands and tides which were coming any time. Decided to take the risk, leaving my camera on my slippers. When I was doing that, I noticed the rest of my family were already in actions. And they were nicely fitted in the shot. I decided to shot it as it was a candid shot. Exposure range was great, hence decided to go for a silhouette shot.

Learning from my first day's mistake, I brought my tripod every I went. This is my other shot taken from the great cliff of Uluwatu.

The Edge

Uluwatu is a great location for sunset. One thing to be careful is thief monkeys. On the way to this location, we would have to pass through a place where there were lots of monkeys. These monkeys stole food, belonging of tourists passing through. We got to keep all our belongings in the bag, including my camera. Lolz. The first time in my life I saw human afraid of monkeys. This place was very crowded. To get a good and clean shot without any people was a challenge. Due to the great exposure range of the setting sun and the foreground, I used my GND0.9 filter. Happy with the results. There were other great places in Bali we visited. But due to the weather conditions, no decent shots from those places. Overall, it was a memorable trip. Learning experience for me as landscape photographer. 

Jurong East (Aug 14)

In Aug 14, I only had 1 weekend for photography. It was a busy month with projects, study, business trip, etc. To keep it to my commitment of shooting sunset/sunrise shots for year 2014, I decided to visit a location nearby my place. It was almost the end of the month and I only had 2 days. I visited the location on Saturday. But there was patches of dark clouds in the sky. Not giving up, I waited. The sun decided to hide behind the cloud and this is the best I could capture.

Interchange

Disappointed with the weather on Sunday, I decided to go back on the next day which was the last day of the month. And luckily, I was greeted with a nice sunrise. I manage to capture the stream of light just before the sun appear above the buildings. That was the kind of sunrise I was hoping. Enjoy!!

First Light

Marina Bay (Sep 14)

My journey in photography had evolved since the first time I had my DSLR. In particular, I have lots of interest in landscape photography. Along the way, I started to enjoy long exposures photography. Due to the nature and limitation of the DSLR cameras, long exposures are only possible at night and during the twilight. The only way to achieve it during day time is to use filters which are few stops. Because of that, I decided to invest on Lee Big Stopper, 10-stop ND filter. Since the day I acquired it, I had not had a chance to use it.

Sep 14 was another tough month. Weather was unpredictable and hazy. And I only had the chance to touch my camera near the end of the month. Merlion Park is one of my favourite place for sunrise shots and I had been there few times this year. And every time I always found something new.

That morning, I decided to visit this place one more time. I reached the location a little late. The blue hour had already passed. The sun appeared on the horizon. I used my Lee GND0.9, but it was of not much help. I wanted longer exposures to smooth the water. I popped out my Big Stopper, and used it together with the GND to even out exposure of the entire frame. I turned on the long exposure noise reduction feature in my camera. I took few shots and each shot took me about 2 minutes. Long wait, but it was worth it. Love this composition, and I hope you will love it too. Thank you and Enjoy!! Happy Sunday!!!

SnapIt!! (19 July 2014 - Lower Seletar Reservoir)

Yes, FINALLY!! That's my expression yesterday after I had finally managed to get a decent sunrise shots at Lower Seletar Reservoir.

It was my 3rd morning there in the past 1 month. I always wanted to capture beautiful sunrise there. However, due to unpredictable weather, I always came back with "nothing". Well, it is not exactly nothing. I always came back with other type of shots which I am happy with.

First morning I was there, I was greeted with passing rain with large rain cloud in the sky. Here's the result.

Although there is no sunrise, I love this shot very much. The situation forced me to get most out of it. The light trails from the MRT, leading line from the wooden jetty, star burst from the street lights and the rain clouds all come together as one pleasing composition. Definitely one of my favourites photo so far.

Not happy with the results, I went back there again. This time, there was no rain. But... Yes, it was cloudy. I have taken the shot at the fishing jetty from my previous visit. So this time I skipped that and went straight to the other location. I met a young fellow photographer who had arrived there much earlier. As morning blue hour is short, I quickly set up my gear and started shooting. It was so dark that even with viewfinder, it was so difficult to focus. Finally, I managed to get a few test shots and adjusted the composition. Here's the result.

Best time to shoot in the early morning is about 10-15 minutes before the sun rose. You will find the sky is blue with red glow on the horizon. With your naked eyes, the red glow is not prominent. However, you will see a big different if let your camera exposed for longer time. The above shot was a 30s exposure shot. The cloud moved during the 30s and created a nice smooth effect. As the sun rose higher above the horizon, part of the sky will lose its blue colour.

I went back again for the 3rd time. This time, it was partially cloudy. The light was beautiful. I arrived there earlier and managed to take few shots. One of them is when the sky was still pretty much blue.

The water water was calm. No wind blowing. That's why the boats looks sharp and not blurry. My tripod was set up very low and close to the subject. Be careful when going to this place. There were lots of leeches and mosquitoes. Bring your bug sprays!!

When the sun rose higher, you would see the horizon glowing red. And the part of the sky where the sun would appear turned white. In this case, it was to the far left on the above photo. The clouds turned magenta red. This would not last long. As soon as the sun appeared above the horizon, your shutter speed should be faster to avoid blown up sky. I used my GND filter covering the top left corner of the frame which helped to bring back the details of the sky. Here's the result. As the sun rose higher, the sky lost the colour saturation. So for this type of shot, please take the photo as quickly as possible before the sun is too high. Here's the result!!

I will definitely come back sometime at the end of the year when the sun will appear in the middle of the frame. That would make an interesting shot. For the time being, I am pretty much done with this place.

My long term sunrise/sunset project update for the month of July 2014 was published. I would not be posting any photos till end of this month. Stay tune for more updates!! Next we are heading to beaches.

SnapIt!! (10 May 2014 - Tg Rhu Riverside & Chinatown)

Same as before, my weekends are shooting time. Last week, we visited Tanjung Rhu riverside for sunrise and hopefully great panorama shot. The place was very far, and we need to change train a few times. Leaving us much lesser time to shoot before the sun is out. This weekend, we tried again. Yes, still no luck. We will be back there some other time when sunrise is around 7.15am.

Anyway, we reached the location about 6:35am. Get to the location and set up my gear, we were ready to shoot about 6:45am. There was still time before the sun is out, but the sky was quite bright. Technically we could not move to other location once we were there. Yes, I could not get what I wanted to shoot. :((

After sun was up, we move around to explore other good spots. As I was walking, I kept looking back at the sun. Then I stopped at this particular location and enjoyed the view of the sun. It was so uplifting. It brought energy to this exhausted body from work. I set my tripod to frame the scene perfectly as I wanted it to be. This type of shot can be easily taken handheld. Here's the shot. Enjoy!!

Uplifting

We found different good spots and will be back some other times.

In the afternoon, we decided to head to Chinatown to shoot the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. I always wanted to shoot this temple long time ago. I was waiting for the right time. As Vesak day will be coming in 2 more days, we decided to check it out if there would be anything special there. And yes, we made the right decision. The weather was right, the timing was right. We reached the location at about 6:15pm. We have plenty of time exploring the area and preparing for the shot.

We initially planned to shoot the temple from the HDB house next to it. We went to the 10th floor and realised that it was too high. So we decided to move to level 9. We shot a series of photo and experimenting with different angle. I have chosen the following one for 2 reasons. Less distracting elements and dramatic view. I have not upload this to my Flickr account. So, Enjoy!! 

Buddha Tooth Relic (Blue Hour)

As the sky getting dark, we decided to leave. When we exited the first floor lift, I had a clear view of the temple and the pavement's curve leading my view towards the temple. I saw a big patch of white cloud in the sky. It was lit by the moon light. I set up my tripod, adjusting my position and camera setting. The next thing I saw from my camera's LCD screen was WOW!! I was excited and we took few shots before too many people came to the area. Here's the shot. Enjoy!!

Buddha Tooth Relic

SnapIt! (iLight Marina Bay 2014)

Again, Marina Bay Singapore has changed. This time, it has changed to a light art festival. Yearly festival which was started in 2010 features 28 creative and unique light installations along the Marina Bay. The installations were divided into 2 routes, A and B.

We explored the route A yesterday, it was quite fun especially for family and kids to play. Photography in such low light condition and many people around is never easy. Moreover, I am using a non-IS lens and not able to perform well in low light. Noise performance of 700D is not as good as Canon high end camera such as 5DIII. Hence, I was taking most photos using my iPhone. But when I came across beautiful lights on the water, I thought of making it as my foreground. But what will be the background? The lights from the office buildings could make a great background. But some of the towers are too high. Although I am using ultra wide angle 10-22mm lense, some of those buildings are still cropped out. The main object I wanted in the shot is the lights on the water. Hence, I scarified some of the buildings and go for the foreground light. This time I broke the rule of 1/3, and the image still looks decent. Post-processing was done in Camera Raw to bring up shadows, correction of lens distortion, chromatic aberration, contrast adjustments, and proper cropping. Here's the result. Enjoy!

iSwarm

Moving further down to the end of route A, we noticed the symbolic ArtScience Museum is featuring artistic light painting which is unique. I found a good spot where I was able to view the light painting as a whole with the museum front door and a bit of lotus pond in the foreground. Here's the result. Enjoy!!

The ArtScience Museum

After this shot, we move to other locations to have a different point of view feel. I noticed a couple sitting next to the lotus pond with the ArtScience Museum in the background. The view gives the feel of love. Although, I doubt they were looking at the art piece. Yes, I still like the shot. :) So, I will still post it here. I have to waited for 10 minutes for a few guys sitting to their left to leave before I could frame this shot. So, enjoy!!

Love

That is all for the updates.

Thank you for visiting my blog. Visit my Flickr Photostream to view all my work here.

SnapIt!! (Marina Bay & Chinatown)

I was busy and tired last weekend, so there was no post.

So, to compensate for that, I will update the photos taken last weekend today.

Last weekend, we were exploring again Marina Bay area. The amount of light near the Marina Bay is always the main reason for us to go back there. But this time round, we managed to catch the sunset too. We called the shot "City Sunset". The photo is taken at the Singapore F1 track near the Singapore Flyer with Marina Bay Sands hotel and CBD in the shot.

City Sunset

As the sun was setting down and blue hour approaching, we decided to move towards the Marina Bay Float area. Just 2 months back, this area was formed to a floating platform for Chinese New Year celebration, this time they were preparing for iLight Marina Bay event. This is another reason we always like to come back here. This place will never be the same through out the entire year.

Right after passing by the Helix bridge, I saw this beautiful panoramic view of the entire Marina Bay area. The entire area was lit by the light from the setting set with neon lights from the surrounding buildings. The sun has set but the dusk has not come. The remaining reddish orange light from the sun casting on the blue sky which result in magenta colour in the sky. The one thing comes to my mind, panorama stitched photo. But I had to be quick. During this time, the change of the amount of light can be quite fast. I quickly looked for a place to set up my tripod. As I am taking panoramic shots, if my tripod was standing behind the railings, firstly I may not get all the reflected light on the water. Second, the railing may be in the shot with a large amount of distortion like the fish eye lens. So, I have to set it up on top of the railings. I ended up setting up my tripod this way.

Taking panoramic shot of setting sun where the amount of light on the sky changing quickly is a challenge. The amount of light is low, and it forced me to go for long exposure of 2-4 seconds. I also wants the water to be smooth, so I need at least 2 seconds exposure to get that. As I need to take 5-8 photos, I may end up having photos with different exposure level if I spent too much time for each shot.

To avoid the amount of distortion in the panoramic shot, I usually take 5-8 shots in vertical format. But at that time, it would be to long as the sun light fading very quickly. So I decided to take 3 shots in horizontal format. I first post-processed the photos in Camera Raw for camera distortion correction, white balance, removing chromatic aberration, sharpening and a little noise reduction. The photos were then stitched in Photoshop. The result has a little distortion looks similar to the fish eye lens effect. But it was kind of nice. Enjoy!!

Blue Hour Marina Bay

After this shot, we called it a day and went home.

From another day last weekend, we went to Chinatown for dinner. As usual, I would bring my gear with me.
At Chinatown, I always curious about the view from the top of the surrounding area. There are mixtures of low raise and tall buildings which could make a unique shot. But first, we need to find a high raise building where we can have a clear view of the surrounding. So, we were exploring the HDB area and found a good spot. The HDB is 24-storey high, but we decided to stop at 10th storey. The reason was that the surrounding low raise building was really low. If we were to go high and wide, we may not get the details of the building which is one of the reasons for this shot. So, we thought 10th storey is perfect. We took a couple of shots at different angles and views. As usual, shooting directly to the sun is always a real challenge without any filters due to the high exposure range of the dark and white area. But I managed to find the sweet spot where it is still editable during the post-processing. Here's the result. Enjoy!

Chinatown Sunset

After taking couple of shots, we left. When we were moving toward the central of the Chinatown, we have a closer view of the colourful buildings line up in a row. We stopped by the road side and looking for a good place to shot. Here's the shot. Enjoy!! I included vehicle moving in the scene to add elements to the foreground instead just empty road. Because of the colourful building line up in a row that made us took this photo, we call it "In A Row".

In A Row

Thank you for visiting my blog. Visit my Flickr Photostream to view all my work here.

SnapIt!! (23 Feb 2014 - Orchard Central)

We went to Orchard for quick dinner and I remembered that the view of the city from the top of Orchard Central is pretty good for me to try out panorama stitching. So, we went up 3 long escalators to get to storey 11. Pretty scary though. Anyway, I took few images from different locations. Here's one of the result. It's stitches from 8 vertical format photos in Photoshop. It may not be the best one, but pretty decent for starter. Enjoy!

Orchard Central (click photo to view full size image)

SnapIt!! (Long Term Project - Best Sunset/Sunrise of 2014)

Starting of year of 2014, I set my self a goal "Taking Sunset photos every weekend".

Initially, I thought of creating a stream of sunset photos wherever I go in 2014. The stream would be grouped monthly and I would choose one which is the best for each month of the year. Hence, by end of 2014 I would have 12 sunset photos. So, this would be my long term project for 2014.

However, along the way, I thought maybe it will be better to include sunrise shots as well. That would add a challenge for me. The most difficult part is to wake up at 4:50am on Saturday morning. So, I told myself why not?!

Here's the sunset and sunrise photos I have taken so far. Which one do you like?

January 2014

#01 - First Sunset HDR

(1 Jan 2014 - Sunset @ Lower Peirce Reservoir)

#02 - When Rain Clouds Gather

(3 Jan 2014 - Sunset @ West Coast Park)

#03 - Flying HDR

(11 Jan 2014 - Sunrise @ Merlion Park)

February 2014

#04 - Hometown

(1 Feb 2014 - Sunrise @ Kuala Tungkal)

#05 - Coastal Sunrise

(4 Feb 2014 - Sunrise @ Kuala Tungkal)

#06 - Morning Breeze

(15 Feb 2014 - Sunrise @ Singapore Flyer)

#07 - Icons

(15 Feb 2014 - Sunrise @ Singapore Flyer)

#08 - Sunview Way HDR

(22 Feb 2014 - Sunset @ Kelong Walk)

March 2014

#09 - My Dream

(29 March 2014 - Sunrise @ Merlion Park)

April 2014

#10 - Twin Star

(6 April 2014 - Sunset @ Chinese Garden)

#11 - Two Sides

(19 April 2014 - Sunrise @ Marina Bay)

#12 - Coastal Sunset

(20 April 2014 - Sunset @ East Coast Park)

#13 - Fullerton Bay Sunrise

(26 April 2014 - Sunrise @ Fullerton Bay)

May 2014

#14 - Morning Light

(3 May 2014 - Sunrise @ Tanjung Rhu Riverside)

#15 - Glow

(4 May 2014 - Sunrise @ Marina Bay)

#16 - Uplifting

(10 May 2014 - Sunrise @ Tanjung Rhu Riverside)

#17 - Changi Beach Sunrise

(18 May 2014 - Sunrise @ Changi Beach)

#18 - Entei

(24 May 2014 - Sunset @ Kelong Walk, Changi Broadwalk)

#19 - Sunset Walk

(24 May 2014 - Sunset @ Sunset Walk, Changi Broadwalk)

#20 - Kagero

(31 May 2014 - Sunset @ Ang Mo Kio Singapore)

June 2014

#21 - Majestic

(24 June 2014 - Sunset @ Chinese Garden Singapore)

#22 - Glare

(24 June 2014 - Sunset @ Chinese Garden Singapore)

July 2014

#23 - Serene

(19 Jul 2014 - Sunrise @ Lower Seletar Reservoir Singapore)

August 2014

#24 - First Light

(31 Aug 2014 - Sunrise @ Jurong East Interchange Singapore)

September 2014

#25 - Marina Bay Sunrise

(27 Sep 2014 - Sunrise @ Marina Bay Singapore)

October 2014

#26 - New Day

(25 Oct 2014 - Sunrise @ Lower Seletar Reservoir Singapore)

November 2014

#27 - Aftermath

(9 Nov 2014 - Sunrise @ Chinese Garden Singapore)

#28 - The Aura

(15 Nov 2014 - Sunrise @ Chinese Garden Singapore)

#29 - Sun Stream

(22 Nov 2014 - Sunrise @ Pandan Reservoir Singapore)

#30 - Serene

(22 Nov 2014 - Sunrise @ Pandan Reservoir Singapore)

#31 - The Dock

(29 Nov 2014 - Sunrise @ Pandan Reservoir Singapore)

#32 - Changi Beach Sunrise

(30 Nov 2014 - Sunrise @ Changi Beach Singapore)

December 2014

#33 - Intense

(21 Dec 2014 - Sunrise @ Toa Payoh PIE)

#34 - Daybreak

(25 Dec 2014 - Sunrise @ Lower Seletar Reservoir)