Stairs to Imbiah Point, Sentosa

Located next to the Beach monorail station, these beautifully lit stairs go up to a garden (with crazy ceramic mini waterfalls) that leads to Imbiah Point. I thought it was an old fort or a restaurant, but no, they're just stairs (actually a ramp). The small domes at the top are part of the garden.  

The "Sky Loft" sign is for a rooftop bar and restaurant at the top of the iFly indoor skydiving (vertical wind tunnel) building on the left (beyond the edge of the photo).

• Nikon D600, 24mm f1.4
• At 24mm, f5.6, ISO 1600, 1/30 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Auto contrast, straighten

The extreme bright and dark areas means that it is easier to use manual exposure (moving the camera a bit, would change the automatic exposure by a lot).

The lights are LEDs that change color, so I waited and took photos every few seconds to get the different colors. Decided later that the yellow lights looked the best. 

Reflections at Keppel Bay

New condominium near Vivocity. Elegant curvy design, one of the most beautiful condos I've seen. I was lucky to get the sun in this position, where it reflected off the glass and brought out their texture. Half an hour later the reflections were gone.

Sentosa cable cars are in front of the building. I waited a few minutes to get an interesting pattern of cars. The red and yellow cars are Angry Bird cars.

http://reflectionsatkeppel.com/

• Nikon D7000, 55-300mm f4.5-5.6
• At 165mm, f11, ISO 100, 1/500 seconds
• Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Crop, auto contrast, fill light

Picasa's auto contrast helped a lot in incresing the "punch" of the light. The long distance and water vapour from the sea, created a gray veil over the photo.

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.

Old Shophouses, Erskine Road, Chinatown

There are a significant number of old two-storey British colonial shophouses in Singapore, but few have the uniform color of this row along Erskine Road. This is opposite the Buddha tooth relic temple in Chinatown. 

The shophouses make an interesting pattern but are too plain to stand on their own. I was waiting for a brightly-colored car to pass by, had to settle for these pedestrians. I had an appointment nearby and was out of time. Felt a bit strange, standing so long by the side of the road with my camera. Luckily this is a tourist area.

• Nikon D7000, 55-300mm f4.5-5.6
• At 122mm, f11, ISO 100, 1/180 seconds
• Aperture priority with -1.5 compensation, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Crop, auto contrast, fill light

Stand back and zoom in for the telephoto perspective to compress the shophouses together. Set f11 for depth of field, -1.5 exposure compensation because of the black background.

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.

Tua Pek Kong (Da Bogong) Temple, Kusu Island

You need to get on a boat to visit Kusu island. There isn't much on the small island. People go there mainly to visit the temple.

The temple is built half over water.

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

• Nikon D7000, 35mm f1.8
• At 35mm, f2, ISO 1600, 1/15 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Straighten, crop, auto contrast, fill light, glow

Standard night shot. Aperture wide open, maximum ISO that you can tolerate. Unless you want to use a tripod. Manual exposure and adjust exposure based on the LCD playback.

Deepavali Light Up, Serangoon Road, Little India

Photo was taken on the night before Deepavali. Note the huge crowd crossing the road.  

A lot of people are now calling the celebration Diwali instead of Deepavali. I don't know why.

• Nikon D600, 28-300mm f3.5-5.6
• At 135mm, f11, ISO 6400, 1/30 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Crop, straighten

For a shot like this, you want to zoom in so that the lights are compressed together due to telephoto perspective. The problem with that is that you get shallow depth of field at the telephoto end, so you need to stop down the aperture. The problem with that is that it is night, so you don't have much light.

Luckily, today's high-ISO DSLRs come to the rescue! Push to ISO 6400. No problem. Either that or use a tripod.

For uneven lighting like this, manual exposure is best. Check the exposure by playing back the image on the camera's LCD screen.