Art Deco Building, Loke Yew Street

Named after a businessman and philanthropist ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loke_Yew ) Loke Yew Street is a small street near the center of town.  

This is an old 4-storey Art Deco building ( http://www.ura.gov.sg/conservation/lokeyew.htm ). Only the top three stories are shown because the ground floor was a bit plain. The spotlights help a lot in making the building look good.  

• Nikon D7000, 24mm f1.4
• At 24mm, f1.4, ISO 100, 1/30 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Crop.

It's a bit of a formula, but I like it: photograph the building at an angle and try and fit in a nearby tree.

The Substation

The Substation is the 3-storey building on the left. It used to be an electrical substation. It is now an arts centre. It is located on Armenian Street, next to Singapore Management University. I think the black fabric exterior is temporary, an installation art display.

http://www.substation.org/

"Founded in 1990 by the late Kuo Pao Kun, The Substation is Singapore’s first independent contemporary arts centre. We are centrally located in the city’s civic district. Our venues include a black box theatre, a gallery, a dance studio,Random Room and two multi-function classrooms. We present and co-present a wide range of artists and programmes, from traditionally trained dancers to local rock bands; established visual artists to young poets; publications to international short film festivals; experimental theatre to seminal conferences on Singapore arts and culture."

• Nikon D7000, 24mm f1.4
• At 24mm, f1.4, ISO 100, 1/30 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Auto contrast, straighten, crop.

I tried a few different angles: left, right, straight-on. This view from the left seemed to work the best. The windows at the side of the building make the photo more interesting.

I cropped the photo to leave out some clutter at both sides of the buildings. I believe that cropping is the best way to improve most photos.  

Singapore Botanic Gardens, Tanglin Gate

There are quite a few entrances to the Singapore Botanic Gardens. The Tanglin Gate is at the south-east corner, the opposite end from the Botanic Gardens MRT station. The two side gates are for pedestrians, and are open until midnight.

There's an inscription on the gate that reads, "Connecting Plants & People since 1859."

• Nikon D7000, 24mm f1.4
• At 24mm, f2, ISO 1600, 1/15 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, incandescent white balance
• Picasa: Auto contrast, straighten.

This was taken at 8pm, so there's still a bit of blue in the sky (helped by setting incandescent white balance on the camera). The puffy white clouds are a happy accident.

The trees have different colors because those on the sides are lit by sodium-vapor streetlights, while the large tree in the middle is lit by spotlights inside the Botanic Gardens (I'm guessing quartz halogen). Together with the white gate, blue sky and white clouds, it all adds up to a pleasant mix of colors.

Water Taxis Docking at Marina Bay

Financial district skyscrapers are in the background, Marina Bay Sands is behind the camera. This was on a Saturday night, so photographers were out in force. You can see two at the bottom left of the photo. 

In real life, the actual scene looks about 4x or 8x darker. That's one of the attractions of night photography: you get to make the scene look better than real life. 

• Nikon D7000, 24mm f1.4
• At 24mm, f1.4, ISO 800, 1/30 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, incandescent white balance
• Picasa: Auto contrast, fill light.

Photo was taken handheld. With an f1.4 lens and today's high ISO DSLRs, you don't need a tripod. 

Lion Dance

Sar Kong Mun San Fook Tuck Chee lion dance troupe.
http://www.sarkong.org/

Lots of lion dance troupes in Singapore. You see them performing at shops and riding around in trucks with colorful banners, especially during Chinese New Year. Head towards the sound of drums, that's the best way to find them.

• Nikon D7000, 85mm f1.4
• At 85mm, f1.4, ISO 100, 1/1000 seconds
• Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, sunlight white balance
• Picasa: Auto contrast, fill light.

Set maximum aperture to blur out the spectators in the background.

The orange uniforms are fluorescent in real life. Couldn't capture that properly with the digital camera.

SuperStar Virgo Cruise Liner, at Harbourfront Cruise Centre

This ship is huge, bigger than most hotels and shopping malls. I couldn't believe how big it looked in real life. I'm sure that it's way bigger than any Singapore navy ship. 

Dark blob on the left is Sentosa island.

http://www.starcruises.com/newweb/our_fleets/cruise_ssv.aspx

• Nikon D7000, 70-200mm f2.8
• At 70mm, f2.8, ISO 1600, 1/30 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, sunlight white balance
• Picasa: Auto contrast, fill light.

Resorts World Sentosa, Night View from the Sea

 

View of the famous Resorts World Sentosa complex of buildings.

The long building in the front is the Maritime Xperiential Museum. It looks like a private museum, owned by RWS, not the government. In the background from left to right are hotels: The Michael, Crockford's Tower, Festive Hotel. Universal Studios is to the left, outside the frame.

• Nikon D7000, 70-200mm f2.8
• At 105mm, f2.8, ISO 1600, 1/30 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, sunlight white balance
• Picasa: Auto contrast, fill light.

For uneven lighting like this, it's usually best to switch to manual exposure and check the exposure from the LCD playback. I see many night photos that are too dark, the light meter thrown off by the bright lights. You want to get sufficient exposure for the walls of the buildings, which means over-exposing the lights.  

I normally set auto or incandescent white balance, but in this instance the auto white balance over-corrected with too much blue so I forced it to sunlight white balance.