Marina Bay Sands, Lunar New Year 2013

Chinese New Year decorations at Marina Bay Sands. The red thing on the left looks like the bottom-half of a Chinese lantern. It's made out of large cloth banners and is at least 10 meters across.

Rainy day on a Sunday afternoon, so the sky isn't too bright. I had some fun walking around to get different angles on the decorations. The lighted ball on the right helps to balance out the photo. If it were just the red lantern, the photo would be boring.

• Nikon V1, 10-30mm f3.5-5.6
• At 21mm, f5, ISO 1100, 1/30 seconds
• Auto-everything
• Picasa: Crop

I bought the Nikon V1 after its price was heavily discounted in December 2012. I wanted an every-day-carry (EDC) camera that was lighter than a DSLR, didn't look as intimidating (didn't scare people or security guards), but with decent image quality.

The V1 is Nikon's part of Nikon's new "mirroless" Nikon 1 system which has a 2.7x focal length crop. It's Nikon's answer to the Micro Four-thirds cameras from Olympus and Panasonic. I chose the V1 because it:

• Uses the same battery as my D7000 and D600
• Has the FT1 lens adapter that allows it to use Nikon F-mount lenses. My 55-300mm DX zoom becomes a 810mm f5.6!
• Is an underdog. When people first heard about its small sensor, most dismissed it as having poor image quality. But the high-ISO sample images on the websites looked good.

I'm happy with the V1. Turned out as I expected. High-ISO performance is better than the D80's, Nikon's top consumer 1.5x crop DSLR from not that many years ago.

Flower Dragon, Mandarin Gallery

The Dragon year is the most auspicious year in the Chinese calendar. More babies are born in Dragon years compared to other years. Photographically, the Dragon year is good because dragons look cooler than the other zodiac animals.

Chinese/Lunar New Year decorations aren't as fancy or widespread as Christmas decorations. I'd say less than 20 percent of the shopping centers along Orchard Road have decorations outside. Most however do have some decorations in their atrium.  

It's not so clear at this picture size, but there are flowers all over the dragon. I actually saw workmen sticking artificial flowers onto the dragon, a few days ago. It's the Water Dragon year this year (the animals cycle in a series of 5 elements), but I guess a flower dragon looks prettier. 

• Nikon D7000, Sigma 20mm f1.8
• At 20mm, f2, ISO 200, 1/30 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: No editing

I chose this angle to squeeze both the chinese words on the left and the whole dragon, into the picture. I tried a flat side-on angle first but it didn't look too good, especially with distracting colored lights in the background. This angle closes up the spaces between the dragon and blocks more of the lights. 

I would normally use f5.6 or smaller but I'm testing out the Sigma wide open, getting a feel for the lens sharpness and depth of field. Even at f2, the depth of field is surprisingly deep. The building in the background is only slightly blurred. This would not be the case with the 35mm f1.8. 

Chinatown Chinese New Year Light-up (Year of the Dragon)

The Chinese New Year light-up is from Chinatown Point (yellow building in the center, now under renovation) to Pagoda street. It's the year of the dragon, the red arches are a dragon (the head is on the left, hidden by the banner across the road).

For a photo like this, you want to cram in as many lights as possible. Which is why I went up to the pedestrian bridge to get both the dragon and the neon lights across the road, into the photo. Well okay, truth is that I just walked around and tried different angles. You can't always plan the best shot, you need to explore.

• Nikon D7000, Sigma 20mm f1.8
• At 20mm, f2, ISO 200, 1/30 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, incandescent white balance
• Picasa: Auto contrast, fill light

I was testing out the Sigma 20mm f1.8. If not for the large f2 aperture, I'd have to go to ISO 800.

Found out that I wasn't getting clear photos from it because it has a focus offset problem. By setting -4 focus offset in the D7000, the lens is much more usable and I'll be using it more often in the future.

With a wide angle lens, you've got quite a large depth of field, even at f2. For most scenery, you don't have to worry about the depth of field. But for this photo, the neon lights at the bottom of the bottom of the photo are too close and are out of focus. Luckily, that's not very noticeable.