Marina Bay Financial Centre

View from Marina Bay Sands. This is a widely-photographed view. I zoomed into the skyscrapers for a more abstract image and to avoid the cliched skyline. 

• Nikon D600, 28-300mm f3.5-5.6
• At 180mm, f8.0, ISO 180, 1/250 seconds
• Aperture-priority, automatic ISO, center-weighted metering, automatic white balance
• Picasa: Auto contrast, highlights, color saturation

The original photo had low contrast because the photo was taken in the early afternoon under a bright sun. Picasa's auto contrast function cleared it up and an additional highlight boost brightened the photo further.

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.

Aerial View of Redhill

This is the view looking east, towards the city center. You can actually see part of the Marina Bay Sands hotel, about 1/4 of the way from the right of the photo (behind the vertical red and white construction crane), and two Shenton Way skyscrapers peeping out at the top right hand corner.

The trees at the bottom nicely balances out the photo. Canal at the bottom is the Alexandra Canal.

There are beautiful views all over Singapore. You just need to look for them. Better than photographing the same old famous landmarks that everyone else has photographed.

• Nikon D600, 28-300mm f3.5-5.6
• At 180mm, f8, ISO 100, 1/750 seconds
• Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Auto contrast, straighten

Set ISO 100 because of the bright daylight, stop the lens down a bit to f8 for depth of field, use auto exposure because the scene is quite evenly lit. Exposure is easy when you have lots of light to play with.

Color of the sky isn't the best but I didn't have time to hang around and wait for sunset. You take what you can get.

Marina Bay MRT Station

This is Exit A of the MRT station. Exit B is on the other side of the East Coast Parkway expressway, closer to the skyscrapers of the Marina Bay Financial Centre in the background. 

The underground MRT is actually a good way to cross the expressway on foot. Unfortunately you need to pay because the only way through is via the ticket gate. 

I seem to remember this station being called Marina South, not Marina Bay. But I could be wrong. Marina South is now a new station on the Thomson line.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Bay_MRT_Station

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_South_MRT_Station

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8
• At 35mm, f2.8, ISO 1600, 1/30 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Crop, auto contrast, fill light

Simple night shot: the difficulty is in finding the location. Set maximum ISO that you can tolerate, safe shutter speed to avoid camera-shake, then only stop down the aperture (for depth of field) if there is any spare exposure margin. Fine-tune the exposure later on the PC.

Singapore Navy, Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats RHIB

These two boats were seen at Marina Bay during a National Day Parade (NDP) practice. They are fast (over 30 knots) boats, used for base defense and boarding ships. Looks like a fifty calibre machine gun in the front, but not a Browning M2HB. The blue box next to the gun is the ammunition box filled with blanks. The cylinder at the top is probably radar.    

http://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/publications/cyberpioneer/news/2011/nov/02nov11_news2/02nov11_fs2.html

• Nikon D7000, Samyang 800mm f8 (mirror lens)
• At 800mm, f8, ISO 800, 1/500 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Crop, auto contrast, fill light.

Trying out the Samyang 800mm for the first time. Crazy lens. On the D7000 it is equivalent to 1200mm on a full frame camera. Manual focus, and even at f8 the depth of field is shallow because of the long focal length. Would have liked to stop down to f11 or f16 but it's a mirror lens, so the aperture is fixed.

DBS Marina Regatta

This dragon boat race was held at Marina Bay. DBS is a Singapore bank.

It looks like a traffic jam but it's due to the telephoto lens perspective compression. There's actually a lot of space between the boats.

• Nikon D7000, 55-300mm f4.5-5.6 
• At 300mm, f5.6, ISO 400, 1/180 seconds
• Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Auto contrast, fill light

The 55-300mm is a relatively cheap consumer lens, but I think the image quality is fine. Much better than carrying around a heavy 70-200mm f2.8. Save that for indoors.

Marina Bay Sands, Side View, Night

For a widely photographed icon like this, you want to try and get an unusual angle so that the photo doesn't look like a thousand other photos out there on the Internet. It just takes some time and some legwork. I hope I succeeded.

The trees at the bottom give an indication of how tall the hotel is. Singapore Flyer ferris wheel is at the bottom left. 

• Nikon D7000, 24mm f1.4
• At 24mm, f2, ISO 100, 1/20 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Straighten, auto contrast

Thought I was at 1/30 seconds. Must have accidentally bumped the dial.

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. 

NTUC Income Kite Festival

I don't know why NTUC Income, an insurance company, organizes a kite festival; but I couldn't resist the chance of taking photos of colorful kites in front of the iconic Marina Bay Sands.

The festival itself is on the Marina Promenade, which is across the bay, a few hundred meters from the Marina Bay Sands. The main area shown here is for the general public. Another area is for invited, professional, kite flyers. 

I was interviewed by a local journalist, who was going around asking people why they were there. I told her that I just came to take photos. 

• Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f4-5.6 
• At 30mm, f16, ISO 400, 1/250 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: No editing 

Manual exposure because the sky was back-lit by the sky, f16 for depth of field, ISO 400 to allow f16 and is pretty much my default ISO for outdoor daylight.

It's difficult to get a nice mass of kites in a photo. They just have to fly up a bit and they are too small to be interesting. You also can't get too many kites in one place because the lines will get tangled up.

Underside of Esplanade Bridge

I don't know what caused the streaks on the concrete. Makes it look like natural rock, not industrial concrete. It's not sunlight reflecting off the water, because it doesn't move. 

I was quite pleased with this photo, thinking that most people wouldn't have noticed such a simple but beautiful image. Then I saw a friend who had just started in photography, take the exact same shot.

• Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
• At 105mm, f11, ISO 400, 1/30 seconds
• Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Straighten, crop, auto contrast

Zoomed all the way in to collapse the pillars together. Set f11 for depth of field.

School Band at One Fullerton

Not sure which school these kids are from. There were maybe five to ten different school bands on this Saturday afternoon. At least two played Smoke on the Water. 

This is only a few meters from the Merlion. Marina Bay Sands is in the background. Most of the bay is blocked by the Singapore River Cruise booth.

• Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
• At 25mm, f5.6, ISO 400, 1/1500 seconds
• Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Straighten, crop, fill light, auto contrast, color temperature. 

Should have stopped down the aperture a bit for more depth of field, but there's still lots of depth of field at f5.6 at 25mm. Adjusted color temperature to make the yellow sunset (5:45pm) reflecting off the hotel windows, more noticeable.

Window Cleaners, Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands

This is outside the "The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands" ( http://www.marinabaysands.com/Singapore-Shopping/ ), the long and low shopping arcade in front of the iconic hotel. The casino is here, not in the hotel. Half of the arcade is covered with a curved glass roof. These guys were spot-cleaning, and moved off after spraying and scrubbing a few panels, not doing a wash of the whole area. Keeping it clean must be a full-time job.

It's not so clear in this small version of the photo, but the blue safety harnesses that they are wearing are clipped to the rail, with two separate ropes. The two gray diagonal poles that stick out at the top are long-handled brushes, not a safety guard. You can also see the high-pressure hydraulic hoses that power the thing, hanging out near the joints, if you're interested in that kind of thing.

• D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
• At 92mm, f8, ISO 100, 1/125 seconds
• Aperture Priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Crop, auto contrast, fill light

I'm using aperture-priority more now, instead of Program, with the 18-105mm because with a maximum aperture of f3.5, it's not as easy to accidentally force over-exposure with a aperture that is too large for the shutter speed to handle. With the long 105mm reach, you also need to control depth-of-field more as depth-of-field is less at longer focal lengths.

One Fullerton, Night

Business offices and restaurants, right next to the Merlion. Some of the restaurants offer alfresco dining overlooking Marina Bay. 

Marina Bay Sands is in the background, shining lasers into the night sky. Fullerton Hotel is behind the camera, Fullerton Bay Hotel is on the right.

Web page is http://thefullertonheritage.com/?page_id=207

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8.
• At 35mm, f2, 1/30 seconds, ISO 800.
• Manual exposure, center weighted metering, incandescent white balance.
• Picasa: Auto contrast, straighten, shadow enhance (to darken the sky to hide the high ISO noise).