Gardens By The Bay

The latest mega attraction in town is none other than Gardens by the Bay. Although it is still pretty inaccessible by public transport, it attracts lots of people everyday. I went on a weekday afternoon, so it wasn't crowded, but people started to pour in towards the evening. The place is really quite huge, and almost impossible to finish walking in an afternoon, but most of the attractions is located in the bay south, which houses the super trees and flower dome.

For people who don't want to pay a cent like me, there are still many places which you can visit and take awesome pictures of. Although I prefer to shoot HDR in the day, but it is during the night where the park comes alive with all the light show and music. In the afternoon, it's just a little less exciting.

So here are 2 pictures shot on my first visit. The first picture is of this supertree. It is the biggest of all the supertrees and sits in the center of all other trees. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dallasgoh/7557203598/

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Mosaic Playground - Penguin

Long ago, in the mid 90's, Children had no iPads or electronic games to play with. What did we do then? We'll have a ball of time at the playground downstairs. Back then, there would be a sand playground in every neighborhood, and those with plastic floors are like beyond rare.

The playgrounds are normally dirty and very sandy, with sand all over the slides and structures, but that doesn't stop kids from having a great time there. I remember the playground under my block had only a swing, a slide, but I can spend hours playing there.

But then, slowly the playgrounds around Singapore got upgraded to the newer plastic floors ones. The remaining ones are in danger of getting demolished. I didn't pay much attention until I read an article named "Mosaic Memories" from www.SingaporeMemory.sg.

So today, I visited Vocational Dr, off Dover Road, to see the only remaining mosaic pelican in Singapore. The residents of this neighborhood has already moved and work has began on either upgrading or tearing the buildings down, and the playground is boarded up. However, I managed to sneak in and get some shots.

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Marina Bay ArtScience Museum!

iLight Marina Bay is a lot of fun, seriously! My favorite light installation would be the Merlion, as you can color the virtual Merlion on a computer screen, and it shows up on the actual Merlion in real time!

limitless color combinations! 

There were other awesome and creative light installations around the whole Marina Bay, and like a kid, I had a great time photographing and playing with them. One of the"big" light installations is at the Marina Bay ArtScience Museum. I haven't been inside, nor have a clue of what this building will house, but the name of the building does suggest a big clue.

I've been here before, photographed, edited it, but I felt something lacking. Perhaps it was the featureless white exterior walls of the building. It was good, but a little dull and flat.

When I first heard about the iLight Marina Bay festival, I saw a photo of the ArtScience Museum and I clearly knew this is the moment that I've been waiting for! Something to be projected on the white walls and fill up the empty spaces!

Presenting the Marina Bay ArtScience Museum!

It's a HDR photo. This photo was a little challenging as I had to deal with unusually large amount of noise. Chroma was rather strong as well, especially purple, which is hard to separate from the purple that I want on the picture. A total of 21 layers used on this picture, and about 3 hours to edit.


On a side note: I read about native ISO on cameras such as 7D or 5D. The theory states that camera's noise performance is much better at a set of ISO numbers, such as "160, 320, 640". I'll try to talk about that in the future if possible. But I've tried running simple test between ISO 100 and 160, and I don't see a significant different like the article mention. Difference? Yes, maybe just 5%, but it could be a test variable. More on that soon!

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Enter The Merlion Night

Many Singaporeans never realize, but actually our iconic Marina Bay is a very beautiful sight. Let's put it straight, if it ain't beautiful, why would almost every tourist take the effort to drop by for sightseeing? However, I spoke to many local Singaporeans and not many people appreciate the beauty of our Singapore landscape. They normally say "Aiya, Merlion never see before meh? Only tourist will go one lor!".

I'm a frequent visitor of Marina Bay, walked round the reservoir many times over, but every time I'm there, I experience something new. It could be a new building, new angle to photograph an old scene, or an event. Local photographers might think the scenes in Marina Bay are already "Over Shot" or put it other words, photographed too many times. True enough, there are some iconic scenes that a landscape photographer should have been to and shot before.

Photographing scenes like this can be particularly stressing for the photographer. Although you clearly know the best angle for the shot, but the resulting photo may still be a far fetch from the real professionals. Even if your photo doesn't match up, but at least you know where you stand, and the difference gives you a good indication of the room for improvement.

Here is my take on one of the scenes that are "Over Shot". The Merlion with the Raffles Place backdrop. I'm happy with how the colors turn out and thus I sent this photo to participate in Samsung's
"Breathe Light Into The Night" Photo Contest.
https://www.facebook.com/SamsungCamerasSingapore?sk=app_165517023564572

My entry

And I won the FIRST PRIZE! I'm really glad that I won because the judges picked my entry and not winning by the number of likes/votes. It means a lot for a photo to be recognized, something that money can't buy.

Well, in conclusion, don't be afraid to shoot a scene that is shot by many before, and try to be creative and do in your style to be uniquely yours!

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Marina Bay HDR

I've taken this photo for over a year, but when I first attempted to Photoshop the pictures, it was an epic fail. So the photo was just in my computer waiting for magic to happen.

A year later, while I was bored at home, I decided to search for HDR photos in my computer, so I could practice some HDR processing techniques that I picked up over the last year. And this was my first choice.

The techniques I used to process this photo is mainly shadow mapping, and lots of color adjustments with layer masking. The main problem with this photo is that the sky has a huge amount of noise when being processed and excessive noise is never good for a photo.

Enjoy the photo and leave me a comment!

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Joy of children - part 2

This is another shot from the Marina Barrage shooting session. This is scheduled to be out yesterday, but I was too excited with my Helix shot, and decided to put this to today. I'll be posting the other helix shots after editing, which won't come soon.

New equipment coming! Finally all plans are in place and hopefully I'll be able to get my Canon 580EX II next week. Hopefully by then, I'll be able to take better portrait shots.

Now for the picture:



Camera settings:
Focal length: 50mm
F-stop: f/1.8
Exposure: 1/2000 second
ISO: 100
Exposure bias: -0.3 step
Handheld

Don't forget to leave a comment, cheers!

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Crazy shots of The Helix Bridge at Marina Bay IR

What a fruitful day! Today is the opening for Marina Bay Integrated Resort, and being shutter bug, I'm there to snap some pictures for the record.

The highlight would have to be the Helix Bridge. Shaped like DNA and amazing colourful, it's an attraction by itself!

This shot was taken today, and because of the people walking on the bridge, the merged HDR is very noisy. I'll probably have to re-shoot this or upgrade my editing skills.

So the title says crazy shots right? Unfortunately, I only have time to edit one picture tonight, since each photo takes me over an hour to edit. So enjoy this crazy shot for the time being!



Camera settings:
Focal length: 18mm
f-stop: f/3.5
Exposure time: 1/2 second . 1/8 second . 2 seconds
ISO: 100
Mounted on tripod
Added Star 4 filter

Processing:
Merge to HDR
HDR balacing
Crop
High pass sharping
Levels
Edited colours
Edited curves
Adjusted Chromatic Aberration
Noise reduction (3 pass)
Contrast and brightness editing
Fill lights and blacks editing
Blur tool

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Joy of children

Thanks to everyone who dropped by and nang me in Nuffnang, it has been a great help to promote Dallas Eye to the masses.

Today's picture that I'm sharing is taken with a 50mm F/1.8 lens at Marina Barrage. Yesterday's photo, today's, and maybe the photos for the next few days will be taken with this lens.

More about the 50mm F/1.8
I bought this lens about 3 months ago, but I hardly use it. Although I like the sharpness overall image quality of this lens, but the 50mm fixed focal length can be quite a challenge to use when walking around. This lens is amazing for portrait, to get the perfect background blur you need. Below is a photo taken with this lens:



Camera settings:
Focal length: 50mm
F-stop: f/1.8
Exposure time: 1/800 second
ISO speed: 100
Handheld

Kids, always brings joy to the people around.

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Abstract photography can be anything

Finally, I went to the Marina Barrage today! It's the second time actually, but my first time snapping around there.

So my photobuddy, Myo, uploaded an abstract photo yesterday, and I haven't posted any of this style, so I wanna give this field a try.

Photo taken at the Marina Barrage. It shouldn't be hard to guess what this actually is.



Camera settings:
Focal Length: 50mm
f-stop: f/1.8
Exposure time: 1/4000 second
ISO speed: 200
Exposure bias: 0 step
Handheld

Only editing to the photo was to make it black & white.

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Old Supreme Court Night Photography

Sharing with you guys this photo that I taken from City Hall.


Camera Settings:

Focal Length: 27mm
F-stop: f/20
Exposure time: 15 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Bias: -0.3 step
Mounted on tripod

Edited with photoshop for dodge, burns and un-sharp mask, then lightroom for temperature, noise reduction and Vignettes.

The weather these days is really not good for shooting; very unpredictable weather. Rain, rain, rain in the day, then hot like crazy at night...

Lastly, hope can make it Lorong Buang kok and Marina Barrage this weekend before starting work on Monday. =)

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Night Photography at VivoCity!

When I shoot, I always shoot. When I don't, I always don't.





Picture taken at VivoCity level 3. It wasn't that colourful up there, not with the help of Brightly Bold preset.

I love pictures like these, I just need to spend more time snapping at night, rather than in the evening.

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