Chinatown Mid-autumn Festival Lantern Light-up

Lantern wall at Pagoda Street entrance to Chinatown MRT train station.

I spent the evening, walking around Chinatown, taking photos of the lanterns strung across the roads. My favorite photo turned out to be this one, taken as I was going home. 

• Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
• At 18mm, f5.6, ISO 6400, 1/350 seconds
• Program mode, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Straighten, crop, auto contrast

ISO 6400 wasn't necessary, could have done fine with ISO 1600. I was using ISO 6400 to test how it looked. Have been using ISO 1600 for a while, am confident that the image quality is good enough. Now trying to build up some experience with ISO 6400 under different situations.

I was on manual exposure most of the time but I switched to auto because

• These lanterns were brighter than the rest of the area.
• With so many lanterns, exposure was even across the scene.
• People were walking to the escalator and I didn't want to stop and block them.

Mid-autumn Festival, Lantern Light-up, Clarke Quay, Singapore River

Celebrating the mid-autumn festival. When we were kids, we called it the mooncake festival or the lantern festival.
 
This is one of twelve 2-meter high electric lanterns, depicting the twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac. Looks like a horse. The fabric-over-wire construction is similar to the construction used in toy lanterns carried by kids during the festival. 

Outside the Central, Clarke Quay. Didn't know the light-up was so elaborate. Was there for something else, brought the lightweight 35mm f1.8 just in case I saw anything. Wasn't expecting this or I would have brought another lens.

Vacation photo trick - adjust your position so that the sign showing the name of the place, is in the background.

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8
• At 35mm, f2.8, ISO 800, 1/250 seconds
• Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Straighten, crop

Exposure was surprisingly simple. As long as you fill half or more of the viewfinder with the lights, the automatic exposure should be accurate. Should work with phone cameras too. Lots of light, so the shutter speed will be high and you won't get blurred photos. Lots of light means easy work for the autofocus too.

Cathay Cineleisure Orchard

Famous cinema multiplex off Orchard road. Mandarin Orchard hotel is in the background on the right.

I have some hazy memories of the old Cathay cinema that was torn down years ago, to make way for this modern cineplex. I'm a bit of a movie buff, so I hang out at theaters a lot.

The bright colors makes it easy to create an interesting photograph. The challenge lies in cropping out distracting details from the edge of the frame, to create a neat composition. I zoomed out a bit to give me some margin to play with, and edited the exact crop later on the PC. 

• Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
• At 52mm, f8, ISO 100, 1/250 seconds
• Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Auto contrast, crop, shadows

The D7000 has an unfortunate tendency to over-expose in bright sunlight. This has been pointed out in a number of online reviews. I had to use Picasa's shadow function to reduce exposure one stop.

Two Boats Under Clemenceau Bridge

I've seen these boats running in the evening, with one or two passengers. Simple, cool, slightly retro look. I'm guessing that these are private charter boats, from a hotel or something.

It's the double image of the twin boats that make this photo work. A single boat would be less interesting. Nice earth tones, with the orange floats adding just the right dash of color.  

Clemenceau Bridge is between Clarke Quay and Robertson Quay.

• Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
• At 30mm, f8, ISO 400, 1/60 seconds
• Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Auto contrast

Technically, this is a simple shot. Relatively even lighting, so the camera's auto exposure works well. Set f8 to get enough depth of field so that all of the boats are in focus.  

Racing Boat Crew, Singapore River

Looks like a training session for the oarsmen. Under Elgin Bridge, next to the New Parliament House. Happened to be in the area, was lucky to get this shot.

It's the glow of the setting sun that makes the photo work. The photo was taken at 6:15pm. A few minutes later the sun was blocked by the surrounding buildings and subsequent photos were bland.

• Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
• At 105mm, f8, ISO 400, 1/180 seconds
• Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Crop, auto contrast, fill light.

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.

Marche Restaurant, VivoCity

Taken from the open roof of VivoCity. The curved glass walls form an interesting shape, which works well with the yellow indoor light and the blue evening sky.

Building in the background is the Harbourfront Centre.

• Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
• At 18mm, f4.8, ISO 1600, 1/8 seconds
• Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Crop

The sky evens out the exposure and allows the camera meter to work correctly. If the sky was black the camera would have over-exposed and I would have had to switch to manual exposure to compensate.