SnapIt!! (Oct 2014)

Another weekend, good weather, shooting time!!

This weekend, I visited Lower Seletar Reservoir for another sunrise shot. After few failed attempts due to bad weather, I was a little worried. The weather was still hazy on Saturday morning, although sky was clear with no cloud. The blue hour was not that fantastic, but the sunrise was intense. The results was great. Here's little story of how I framed this shot.

"New Day"

This was not the original composition I intended to take. Initially, I was thinking of using the wooden jetty as the leading line towards the centre and with a little sun light on the left. However, when the sun appeared on the left of the frame, it was intense and beautiful. I thought it would be nice to capture the reflection on the water and keeping the wooden jetty on the right (not fully) but still showing the leading lines. So, I adjusted my camera closer to the wooden rail. I initially set my camera on tripod higher and slightly towards the right of the frame. That would be good, but there was not enough drama added to the shot. So, I decided to adjust the camera lower much closer to the wooden rail. I manually focused at the far end of the jetty which resulted part of wooden rail closer to the camera slightly out of focus of due to the depth of field.

With such strong light, I would have to work on shutter speed of 1/200sec. There would be no way for me to create clear reflection on the water especially when the water was not perfectly still. I decided to go for a longer exposure using my Lee Big Stopper and GND0.9 to even out the sky and foreground. Exposure of 30sec was just right for this shot. To be honest, I love the haze in the background which adds the sense of serene and mystery to the shot. Personally, I love it.

After the sun was too high, the light was harsh. So, I decided to stay back for some creative photography. Here's one of it. 

"Hope"

Time really flies. Without realising, I have been in photography for a year since I first started in Oct 13. My photography style and taste have also changed along the way. Hopefully, it changed to the better one. There are many other aspects of photography to explore and learn. Gears in my bag have also been growing. Most importantly is the joy that it brings when composing the photos you want to create. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!!! Happy Sunday!!! 

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!! (MBS - HDR)

The last few weeks, I have been busy with works and too tired to get out there to shoot. I spent most of the time in front of my computer working on my HDR photos. I took whole lots of bracketing images at Merlion Park during the sunrise and I am really glad I did that. Here's another HDR photo I took at the Merlion Park. Compared to the non-HDR version, this one IMO gives a different feeling to it. Enjoy!!

SnapIt!! (MBS Sunrise - HDR)

I took a lot of bracketing images yesterday morning at MBS for my HDR practice. Here's one of them.

Comparing with the single exposure image, the details of the building is more visible.

SnapIt!! (Merlion Park - 11 Jan 2014)

We made an effort to wake up early today for sunrise shoot at Merlion Park.. It was fun and exciting. I am glad to see there are so many photographers in Singapore who are willing to wake up early in the Saturday morning. In fact, it was earlier than my weekdays time. Anyway, here's some of the results I have picked to post.. Enjoy!!

The Golden Blue

Blue Hour Merlion

Flying

Mission Accomplished

SnapIt!! (Buddha Tooth Relic Temple - 10 Jan 2014)

I planned to take shots of the "flying horses" at China town today. Just realised that it will only be lighted up starting tomorrow night. Decided to move through the crowds to the Buddha Tooth Relic temple. It was not lighted up as well. Feeling disappointed, I decided to go back. While waiting for the bus in front of the temple, I felt the view was quite beautiful. Took my gear out and shot it. Here's the results. Enjoy!!

SnapIt! Kallang Bahru, Marina Bay Sands, Esplanade

Due to my interest in Landscape, Architectural, Cityscape, and Seascape photography, I made decision to get a wide angle lens recently. It was Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM.

To test out this new gear out, I went to few places from day time, sunset, and night. Overall, I am satisfied with the results. Here's the story. Enjoy.


Kallang Bahru (Architectural)

Kallang Bahru is known as one of the spot for Architectural photography. But it was because of River Vista that made me went there. I accidentally viewed the condominium inside a car passing through the bridge across Kallang River. The view was magnificent, I decided to shoot it. Here's the result after post-processing along with other photos I have taken around the area.

River Vista viewed from the bridge

Marina Bay Sands (Sunset & Night)

From Kallang, we moved to area around Marina Bay Sands hotel where there are many skyscrapers. Perfect place to test this lens out. It was cloudy day. Luckily, it did not rain. Here's the results after post-processing.

Marina Bay Sands Hotel view from Garden by the Bay at Sunset

.

Another Marina Bay Sands Hotel view from Garden by the Bay

We stayed a little longer around the Marina Bay area for night photography. Here's the results after post-processing. Results seem to be a little over-exposed. I should have set the exposure 1 or 2 stops lower to prevent over-exposures of the neon lights. One last thing I noted is the sharpness seems to be around f8 - f11. Indeed, night photography is a challenge. I will be back there again.

CBD at night view from Marina Bay

LV at Marina Bay

Last part of the journey, we strolled around the Esplanade area and came across this unique lighting from the carpark. I stopped for awhile, and snapped this photo.

Carpark at Esplanade

Power of Photoshop

Trying photo editing in Photoshop with Camera Raw.. This is how powerful Photoshop is.. Simply amazed.. Not the best.. Certainly can be improved..

Before

After