River Cruise Boats Under Ord Bridge

Ord Bridge is at one end of Clarke Quay. It's an old bridge, built in 1886. Solid industrial design.

This was near noon on a Saturday afternoon. Peak river cruise time is in the evening, so these boats were taking a break. It looks like a lot of boats, but if you count them, there are only four. They do make a pretty pattern. 

• Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
• At 105mm, f11, ISO 100, 1/180 seconds
• Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Straighten, crop, auto contrast, fill light

Set f11 to get sufficient depth of field to get all the boats in focus. Lots of light. Not often that I get to use ISO 100.

Segways at Pahlawan Beach, Sentosa

Segway rentals from Gogreen ( http://www.segway-sentosa.com/ ) at Pahlawan ("warrior") beach on Sentosa Island.

I thought that the riders made an interesting pattern. 

• Nikon D600, 28-300mm f3.5-5.6
• At 190mm, f5.6, ISO 6400, 1/1000 seconds
• Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance, -0.5 exposure compensation
• Picasa: Crop, auto contrast

Got my new D600 this week. Testing out the ISO 6400 performance. Quite happy so far. The 23-300mm is remarkably sharp considering its high zoom ratio. Sharper than the equivalent (but older) 18-200mm DX lens.

With the high ISO performance of the D600, together with the zoom range of the 28-300mm, you can set the D600 at IS0 6400 and cover almost any indoor or night situation, and still get high quality images. 

I'm experimenting with setting a permanent -0.5 exposure compensation. I'm not sure that the D600 over-exposure problem is as bad as the D7000's, but setting some negative exposure compensation seems like the safe thing to do, no matter what. It's easier to correct under exposure later on the PC, than over exposure.

Food Alley at Smith Street, Chinatown

Smith Street is closed to vehicles in the evening. Chairs and tables are brought out to seat the customers of the food stalls (on the right). There are regular restaurants in the shophouses on the left. You can see the Shenton Way skyscrapers in the background. 

It's not crowded now (7pm) but the tables fill up fast after 7:30pm. Not just with tourists, lots of locals eat here. The street is about double the length shown here, the photo was taken about half-way down the street.

• Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
• At 45mm, f8, ISO 400, 1/15 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Crop, auto contrast

Stopped down the aperture to get enough depth of field for this perspective shot. Timing is critical, not just to get the right light, but also the right crowd configuration. I bought a cup of coffee and took a seat at a table, snapping a photo every few minutes. 

Orchard Central Shopping Centre

Orchard Central is located opposite Centrepoint. It's built over the old Specialists' Shopping Centre ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialists%27_Shopping_Centre ).

Saw the bright colorful lights and just had to take a photo. Main difficulty is getting a good angle and avoiding streetlights. 

• Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
• At 18mm, f5.6, ISO 6400, 1/30 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Crop, auto contrast

Automatic exposure would probably have worked but it's easier to make exposure adjustments with manual exposure. Could have used ISO 1600 with f4 and 1/15 seconds but I was testing out ISO 6400 to see the noise performance. 

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.