Introducing...

HEHE!!

View of the front entrance of the Esplanade.

View of the surrounding buildings from the rooftop terrace.

Dusk at Marina Bay. I only saved a small version of this because I'm ashamed of it... The buildings on the right are blur! I'm kicking myself for not being careful. So this means I have to go back to photograph this again! But blurriness aside, I really like the stitching in this picture! Because in the other panoramas, I had to warp them to get the final result. But not for this one! I just needed to crop it and it's done! So you can imagine my frustration when I found out it wasn't perfect...

Other photos I took:

This is the life!

Tanglin Rose Big Band!

Drummer!

Guitarist!

1/15s at 100mm

This was shot at 1/20s at 250mm. While it's not super clear, at least you can make out the dude's face! It's a pity my 450D can only go up to ISO1600, if not I could've used a faster shutter speed.

Alright, that's all! Stay tuned for more stuff in the coming weeks!

Click for larger size!!

I'm going back tonight for another round of panorama photography! I can't wait!!!

My 2 favourite photos from the batch.

I've decided to give up Photo of the Week because 1) Nobody comes here and 2) I can't be arsed to post a photo every week. Bye!

I really have to go back another day. Night photography is so fun!

So for yesterday's shoot I was experimenting with a photography technique that I call 'Custom bokeh'. Found a tutorial on the web that seemed simple enough, but produced cool results. This is what I made:

Basically, I made a fake lens hood for my camera, and cut the shape of the bokeh I wanted right in the middle. Coupled with a wide-aperture lens, like my 50mm f/1.8, this is what I got:

Cool right? Here's another example:

My favourite place in Singapore, bokeh-ed:

I just love the sheer simplicity and brilliance of this trick.

Of course, I didn't forget to take focused pictures:

And here's my other bokeh design, the Haha bokeh:

Everywhere I looked, I saw lights laughing at me. As the cars drove past, all I saw were 'Haha's from their headlights. I love it!

Some more photos of the exhibits:

Do visit my Facebook album for more photos!

And now for Photo of the Week #8!

Took this photo a few weeks ago, during a photography trip to the CBD. I like this photo because it captures the Maybank building from another angle, while managing to include the Maybank logo. When I'm free, I'll post more pictures from that trip.

Here are some random shots around the house I took just now:

For this photo, I added noise to increase the 'abstract' feel.

I thought of getting a macro lens. But when I saw the cheapest one was at least $500, I gave up that idea. I'd rather spend that money on my 100-400...

My parents' car, the Subaru Impreza. I've seen photos of car headlights so I thought I'd take one of my own. I think this angle brings out the shape of the headlight nicely. In Photoshop, I reduced the saturation of the car and surroundings so the white colour stands out further. Now if I had more time I'd try to include the Subaru logo in the picture, but as my mother was in a hurry, I could only take one picture. I'd love to photograph the BMW 5 Series and the Audi A4. They have killer headlights...

One of my favourite shots so far, taken on 3 Feb this year after my second outing at the Singapore Airshow. I love this shot for many reasons. The first one is obviously the interesting shadows on the wall and their reflections in the glass and floor. The second reason is if you look closely at the left glass wall, you will be able to see the reflection of the partially-hidden control tower, but if you look to the right of the picture, where the tower actually is, you'll see it's over-exposed. This little detail I hadn't noticed until it was accepted, haha. And here's the thing - you have to be at the right place to get the tower in the shot, something that I hadn't planned for.

The third reason is the timing of the shot. One cannot take this photo at any time due to the different angles of the sun throughout the year. I believe the beginning of the year is when you'll get this kinds of reflections. I went back to the airport recently and took the same photo from about the same spot and here's what I got:

Definitely not as interesting as the shot above. Maybe the lack of shadows is due to the overcast weather. But even if it is so, not everybody can wait for the sun to come out for a good picture. I just happened to be there at the right time. ^^v

The fourth reason is that the photo made it despite containing a lot of noise (you can see it in the black part of the 'Changi Airport' sign). I shot this at ISO400 and strained lots of eye muscles removing the noise, only to have it added back when I uploaded the photo onto A.net. I took it from the queue, but a few days later I said what the hell and uploaded it again. I'm glad I went for it.

And that's the happy story behind my 15th photo on A.net. In future PotWs, I will try to describe the photo in greater detail, like why I took it, and what it means to me etc. I realise my posts have been rather short and boring and it's always nice to know a little story or two behind a photo. So I shall try to do that. In the meantime, I am going to plan my next photography outing and then dream of my 5D Mark II.

Another attempt at photographing my cello using the technique I call 'light painting'.

The trip was unfruitful because I took a record low number of photos. There really was nothing much to photograph... Or it's because I still haven't got that 'eye' for composition yet. Maybe I never will. There was a photographer among us and he was using a D700 with a 50mm prime and a 14-24 wide. He lent me his camera for awhile and my was it heavy! It is built like a rock. And I had no idea how to use it! There were so many knobs and buttons and dials and the stuff on the LCD screen made no sense. But I got used to it after some time and the photos it took were amazing. Especially with the kickass 14-24. All of a sudden, my 450D looked like a silly point-and-shoot, like something picked up from the dump heap at a flea market.

Sorry, camera. Didn't mean to talk about you like that. I still love you, y'know!

We didn't go parasailing at the beach, much to my dad's disappointment, no thanks to the downpour in the afternoon. So we went shopping. Then we went to our hotel and at night we had the dinner in the ballroom. Plus a lot of lame games. Don't ask.

Day 2: Played mini-golf, had lunch, bus broke down, changed bus, went shopping, went home.

That's pretty much it. Now for the pictures... (They aren't terribly good, but then neither are my photography skills.)

... You know, this trip is such a failure, photography wise, that I don't even have a single decent photo that I can show you guys. I usually have at least one photo that stands out from the rest of the batch whenever I go out photographing stuff. As for this trip... No. All I can say is... Epik failure!

Harbourfront in the morning. Resorts World Sentosa in the background.

Our ferry, Wave Master 3.

Dragon statue on the roof of one of the temples we visited.

Event of the day: QF 380 flying over us!!! I regretted immediately that I had left my 55-250 at home...

We couldn't take photos inside the temple but I took this one from outside so it doesn't count. It's my favourite photo from the trip. Says a lot about the quality of photos I took.

Granite (?) statues outside another temple we visited. Heard it's the biggest temple in South-East Asia built for a certain buddha.

Hopped off the bus to retake this picture when I realised my previous shot had part of the motorcycle cropped away. Don't know why I bothered though.

At least the hotel was awesome. Holiday Inn rocks.

That bed is fooking comfortable. I could sleep in it all day...

The Sijori resort, where we played mini-golf. Oh gosh the sky has such an unnatural colour. Don't know what's wrong with my circular polariser :(

Event of the day: Finnair MD-11 flying over us!!!!!! As Finnair is no longer using MD-11s for passenger service, I believe it's a cargo plane. How awesome! I mean, how terrible that I didn't bring my telephoto lens!

Come to think of it, Batam is a good place for planespotting... Provided you have super telephoto lenses.

After lunch we had a poll to see who wanted to visit a certain bridge and who wanted to go shopping. The bridge people vastly outnumbered the shopping people. But along the way our bus broke down right in the middle of a busy road. So we had to get a replacement bus. But by then it was getting late so it was decided we only had enough time left for shopping. Off to the Megamall we went and it was where I got myself the pink purse. (For the second time, don't look at me like that! It's a really awesome purse and when I saw it from a few floors above I knew I had to get it. Stop it! It makes me nervous you know.)

The trip back to Singapore was uneventful. The seats were more comfy and the ferry was cleaner. I wished the sea were rougher though. Haha.

Back at Vivocity, I was determined to use my tripod because I didn't have a chance to use it in Batam and I didn't want to have brought it for nothing. So off to the upper level I went and sadly, out of the dozens of photos I took, I only found one satisfactory...

Oh yes. I just remembered I missed last week's Photo of the Week. Well I'm saving the second-best photo for last. (Remember the best photo was that of the lanterns)

Sunset at Harbour Bay. When we were boarding the ferry my camera was already in my bag and I couldn't take it out in time to photograph the gorgeous sunset. In the cabin, I was so miffed I kept looking out of the window and then I couldn't take it anymore so I jumped out and spent a few precious minutes photographing the scene. I was lucky the departure was delayed due to a customs cock-up.

So there you are. A report of my boring trip to Batam plus a Photo of the Week to boot. I won't be blogging for the next couple of days because I have to attend a school camp from Tuesday to Thursday. I hope it's going to be fun.