Plaza Singapura Christmas Tree 2012

This is the first Christmas since the major renovation that was completed this year. You can see the new facade of Plaza Singapura in the background. Their Christmas tree is usually placed further to the right, but there is now a plastic pop art sculpture in that location. 

• Nikon D600, 28-300mm f3.5-5.6
• At 52mm, f4.5, ISO 1600, 1/15 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: No editing

It's good to get a sign or something showing the name of the place, into the photo. It's not just for informational purposes. The sign often adds an interesting visual element to the photo.

Take a few minutes and walk around a bit, look at the Christmas tree (or fountain or statue or whatever) from a few different angles and distances. You get better photos, enjoy your photography more, and train your observational skills.  

Orchard Road Christmas Light Up 2012

The traditional Christmas decorations along Orchard Road. This year's lights are red, last year's were blue. Maybe next year's will be green.

I don't know what the bird is. Maybe a partridge (in a pear tree), turtle dove or French hen.

Photo of the 2011 Light up is at
http://sgsnaps.blogspot.sg/2011/11/orchard-road-christmas-light-up.html

• Nikon D600, 28-300mm f3.5-5.6
• At 300mm, f5.6, ISO 3200, 1/60 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Straighten

Aside from the exposure (use manual exposure, check the LCD) and focal length (zoom in to collapse the lights together), the thing to watch out for is the cars on the road. Chances are that if you take one photo at random, the cars will look messy and will be distracting to the viewer. Take a few photos until you get one where the cars are neatly lined up and don't draw attention to themselves.

Backpackers' Inn Chinatown

I've come across small backpacker hotels before, but none as colorful as this one. Nicely integrates simple and effective advertising with a striking design.

It's in a row of old two-storey shophouses, located opposite Chinatown Point, in the heart of Chinatown.

Note the old-style electric fan at the top left, and the classic red letter box on the right.

http://www.backpackersinn.com.sg

• Nikon D600, 28-300mm f3.5-5.6
• At 28mm, f5.6, ISO 1600, 1/180 seconds
• Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Straighten, crop

Main difficulty with this photo was cropping out distracting details at the edges. I wanted to crop out the table and ashtray at the bottom but that would have cut off too much of the sign on the door. But I did manage to get rid of a lot of junk at the sides.

Back in the film days, you had to crop in-camera because cropping during printing wasn't practical unless you had your own darkroom. With digital photos and PC editing, it's better to zoom out a bit and give yourself some margin to crop later at your leisure.

Cropping is the number one way to improve your photos. Most of the photos that I see on Facebook would be improved with some simple cropping. Remove distracting details. It's simple.