And I'm back

Finally. That's the only thing I can say.
After few months of events and lazing around I finally decided to go out and roaming around the city to take picture again and somehow all picture I took this time are buildings.

Have Youself a Merry Little Christmas

Just want to wish you all a Merry Christmas. Hope you have a blessed one ^^

ps: I wish for at least 50mm prime f/1.4 so I won't have a harsh blur. 50mm prime f/1.2L will be nice though ^^

Foodies not always means goodies

I always want to try food photography but I haven't got a chance to try it. It always amazed my how photographer can capture a really nice food image when it is actually err.. I can say not really nice to eat.

A lot of us were fooled by nice food photos but when we ordered the food and taste it, it's just OK, so so.. or even not nice at all. I guess the restaurants have to thank these photographers for their great skill to make the food looks interesting.

Anyway I still want to learn how to take food photo though I will fool people who thought the food looks nice ^^ Below are some of my food photo from my Christmas lunch and dinner. Did I fool you? umm.. I don't think so... Have to practice more..




ps: my friend said it is a torture to be a food photographer. Especially when you are hungry and the food smells so nice but you are not allowed to eat it

Goo goo gaga..

One of my good friend just gave birth to a baby boy. When she was still pregnant I told her I want to take picture of her pregnancy and the baby after he is born. Too bad I was too busy and every time I met her I didn't bring my camera along. I was too also too busy to go to her place and take picture of her, so yes.. I miss the pregnancy part.

Anyway. She told me she gave birth to a very healthy baby boy and I thought, "OK this time have to take picture. Can't miss this one since he is her first child and I never take picture of baby."

I have to admit, I love taking picture of baby. They have sooo much expression and it is quite a fun time taking picture of him. Though he is only 10 days old, he is very alert of the camera. Few times I realized he was staring at me and my camera for a while.

Anyway, here are some picture of him. A very adorable baby boy, Isaac.
Once again, congrats to Adrian and Sophia!! ^^

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Christmas is always been my favorite holiday since I was a kid. It is nice to see all the decorations during Christmas and I can say Singapore Christmas decoration is quite amazing (the amount of electricity they used is quite amazing too). If you want to see the decorations, you have to come to Orchard Road after all the lights are light up. During the daytime it can be quite ugly.

ION Orchard joins the rows of decorated shopping malls this year by placing a purple Christmas tree in front of it. From far it just like normal Christmas tree. But once you come closer, you notice that you can actually go inside the tree. Yes. INSIDE. No kidding.

the normal outside
bubbles

Once you step inside the tree, it feels like you are in outer space. The decorations looks like thousands of sparkling stars and planets. Though it is pretty, it is quite hot and bright inside so you can't really stay for a long time. It is quite an experience, imagining you are at the outer space (maybe I just dream too much..)

the outer space

The Glass Talk

It has been a while..
I realize my last post was last month and since then I was quite busy every weekend. Literary running around.

Yes. I now work as event photographer every now and then. Weekends for most of the time, with weekdays every once in a while.
No. I am not complaining that I am tired. In fact I am quite happy since this is the job that I like.
Hope next time I can upload some of my event photos here as well.

Anyway lets move on. Every now and then one of my friend will tell me "Go and buy 17-55" "It is a very good lens" "At least you can try to rent it first."

Rent?? Never think of that. But maybe it is a good idea.
He told me about this place which let you rent all different kind of lenses, studio and even camera body. From Nikon to Canon. I admit I open the website for quite a few time and think which lens should I rent. Just to feel it before I decide which one I should buy. But at the back of my mind I was thinking how is the lens condition? Will it be scratch? Loose or something even worse than that. Well... it is a rented lens so you can expect these kind of thing since a lot of people use it. And when I ask my friend he said he has the same thought. He never rent their lens as well so he also doesn't know how is the condition. He did suggest to rent it for one of my event but I feel there is no need to rent one for event (you try to earn money you see, not spending more than what you earn). So the opportunity come when one of my friend come over to Singapore. She asked me to do a prewedding photo for her, but it is more for fun. not a serious one.

Canon EF-S 17-55m IS F2.8 it is. Yes finally I rent the lens. Get the last one since I didn't book it much earlier (you have to book for those popular lenses. They get booked very fast) but lucky I get one. I can say I was quite impress with the rental. At first I was thinking, "don't tell me it is only the lens without hood and UV filter. How am I suppose to shoot with only the lens. I am so dead... And it is for my friend." turns out they have the uv filter and the hood on. And the lens is in a good condition. They will try to find similar lens and deliver to your location if the lens you took failed you. Nice service from the rental. If anyone interested, you can go to http://www.camerarental.biz/ and check the items they have (nope I am not advertising for them. Just to share so maybe when you need to rent a lens or camera body, you know where to go). And one more thing, they have a Super Value Saturday; they are giving away 50% discount on selected equipment every Saturday. It is a good way to save your money I guess.

Moving on to the lens. 17-55 is indeed a good lens. Very good I can say. Very sharp, the bokeh were nice and basically I felt like I want to throw my 17-85 away (duh.. wrong comparison). Anyway it was very sharp even after I resize the file and upload it in my crappy mobile phone, the image is still nice.

Sample of image taken by 17-55

The down side of the lens is that it is an EF-S lens so not all Canon body can use it. The lens that I rent also showed some CA in the images. Not quite sure the lens is like that or it is actually because it is a rented lens. But my friend and i tried different exposure and it still turns out like that. But the CA only appears in the images with my friend in his white shirt. Anyway, maybe I will try one more time before I decided to buy one for me or not. It is not a small amount of money anyway.

For now I can continue dreaming about the lens...

Not a jet plane

I went to another potential place to take pictures. I know this place from sometime back but that time I haven't bought my camera. After I bought it somehow I never go to that place again.

When I went there a few days ago, I went to the top floor to see the view (not actually top, just below the roof) and I was right. The view from higher place was amazing. Too bad I come after sunset. Maybe sunset shoot will be very nice.

Oh... and my friend told me. The picture in this blog looks different from what I have in my laptop because of my setting in the software. OK, I correct the setting. Let's see what happen to this post. Hope it turns right ^^

pic not taken from a plane though the window looks like one

Recce

Went to Ann Siang Hill to do some recce - well can't say it is a recce since I haven't decided to take the photos there. Maybe more like roaming around the city like I always did few weeks back. I haven't got a time to do that more often now.. Too tired always been my excuse these days. It is quite true, been working long hours in the office, do freelance event photo also, so I guess that's is the reason.

Amazingly this weekend I managed to drag myself to Ann Siang then continue to Tj Pagar Railway Station. Always want to go to this place but only got a chance yesterday. Somehow the photo doesn't turn out like what I expected. Maybe too high expectation or I was too tired (or maybe I'm just sucks with architecture..).

OK I'm talking too much again. Enough.
Enjoy the picture ^^

Ann Siang HillTj Pagar Railway Station

*as usual the color is not so nice like the one in my laptop (give me back my color... See.. I'm too particular with these things. Anyone knows any good photo blogs??)

Better too late than never

One of my friends always tell me to try Adobe Lightroom to edit my photo but I haven't had a chance to try it. He said the software is amazing - it can turn your lousy photo to a correct exposure, bla.. bla.. bla.. So I decided to try it.

I can say yes, it is amazing. But maybe due to my lack of knowledge for Lightroom the photo doesn't turn out that amazing. Well guess have to learn the software more or better to learn how to take better picture so I don;t have to rely to all photo editing software to make the image looks better. Guess I appreciate original picture without much editing.















* The image on the left is the one before and the right one is the one after. You might not be able to tell difference because the picture color turns out differently in this web.

R for RED

Was walking down Orchard Rd when I saw this bunch of Mini Cooper outside ION.

Only upload the red one. Somehow I like red color these days...
(I decided to change the page to red also)

When you were young - reminiscence of the olden days

Back to my routine - walking around the city taking pictures. This time the destination is Arab Street and the surroundings. I used to go to this place often but that time I don't have a DSLR. So after a long delay, I finally go to this place again.

I know there are a lot of interesting shop around this place but i always go at night so most of them are closed. So this time I got a chance to see them during the daytime.

One more thing, I went to the Little Children Museum. It is very small and you have to pay S$2. Nothing much to see but some of the stuffs are quite interesting - remind me of my childhood ^^

Please bring me home

What is a Vespa doing in a children museum??

Bla.. bla.. bla...

OK, bear with me.
This one going to be a long post. And it is the word not the photo.
So let's start.

When I bought my camera I was thinking of buying 500D but after thinking of it and discussing with a friend I decided to buy a 40D. It is a good buy and I never regret it. My friend said once you buy your DSLR, then there goes the money. Filters, lenses, tripod, etc, etc, etc.. But that only happens when you are really particular about your gadget. He said there are some photographers very particular about the sharpness in the image. They can zoom in to 100% just to see if the image is sharp or not. See the noise, etc... Crazy?? I thought so too that time.

Guess what. In few months (to be exact, 4 months after I bought my camera) I turn to be like that. I am not happy if my image is not sharp. Not happy with too much noise. And the best part not happy if my image is a bit slanted (I know can correct it in Photoshop, but it still not perfect since it is done after the image is taken). He said a bit slanted is very wrong, but slanted a lot is a style - I agree with this.

Well.. enough nagging. Guess I have to practice more if I hate those problem. Hopefully will take better images from now on. Oh yea don't worry, below still have the photos. And YES!! I am also not happy with them.

Hideaway in the City

One more thing. Though all my photos are crappy, all were shot by me. So please don't use it without my permission. I remember all my photos ok..

UP!!

This one is a delayed post. All the photos have been in my laptop since few weeks back but I guess I am too busy doing nothing or maybe too tired after the trip to take these photos. I can tell you, Old School is a nice place to take photo but the trip day is really a pain. Try to climb the staircase there any you will say the same thing. I wondered how my friend manage to work there and have to climb the staircase everyday. Anyway it is a good exercise to keep you in shape. Well at least keep your leg in shape ^^

Classic

I've always wanted to take picture of the Old Supreme Court at night. So finally last week I get the chance to go here after work.

Fenced - for F1

Convo

Last week was my friend graduation ceremony and I didn't know. Another friend told me a few days before so I was obviously not prepared. No gift, no plan to come to the ceremony as well. In the end I came up with this idea to go there and took some photos for her. Guess this is my kind of gift for her. Become her photographer of the day.

CONGRATS TIN!!

The BIG Feast

It's been a while I haven't posted any new photos here. A bit busy these days. Still taking photos but don' really have time to process it and post it.

Anyway, we had lunch together last week (in some restaurant near our office) to celebrate Rendy's and Mark's birthday. Since our photographer is the birthday guy so he shouldn't take the picture. Too bad our other photographer was on leave so the task fall on me since no other people use DSLR in our company.

Burden..... I never use flash before and I can say I am still very lousy in taking pictures. So people, I am really sorry if the photos not that good.

* I had to learn anyway since the next day I have my first assignment to take photo of some people we interview for one of our magazine.

Gosh... see how many plates we had there