Kallang Aerial View

Aerial view of Kallang, looking south-west. Kallang MRT station in the center (you can see a train entereing the station from the lower left), Kallang river at the center top, Suntec City and financial district skyscrapers on the horizon.  

You can just make out the Marina Bay Sands and Singapore Flyer ferris wheel at the top left. Gardens by the Bay at top far left. Yellow rectangle at the center top is the Golden Mile Tower. Not many yellow buildings in Singapore. 

I was in an apartment, photographing my friend's wedding. 

• Nikon D7000, 18-105 f3.5-5.6
• At 24mm, f8, ISO 100, 1/250 seconds
• Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Crop, auto contrast, straighten

Lots of light, so set ISO 100 for low noise, f8 for good lens sharpness and depth of field, use aperture priority and let the camera take care of shutter speed. 

Natural reaction when photographing scenery, is to place the horizon in the middle of the photo. You need to stop and think about how you really want to frame the photo. I got lucky with this location. Problem with many scenery shots is that there is nothing interesting in the foreground. The LRT station makes this photo work.

Throw in some margin around the edges to be safe, you can decide the final crop later on your PC. I ended up throwing away 20% of the left and bottom of the photo.  

Bus Stop, Bras Basah Road, Night

The new bus stops have a simple design that blends in well with the urban environment. Older bus stops had a curved corrugated steel roof with yellow and orange stripes, which didn't look as good.

The bus stops are at least partially supported by advertising. You can see a red lighted poster on the right. There's also one on the left but it is over-exposed so there's only some red visible at the top. The two square panels at the center of the bus stop are bus service and schedule information (always up to date). The green and red LEDs at center-right are estimated bus arrival times, updated in real time, part of Iris (Intelligent Route Information System - http://www.sbstransit.com.sg/iris/overview.aspx)

Building in the background is the Rendezvous Hotel. I took the photo because they recently started lighting up the exterior of the building, which transformed the scene. School of the Arts is on the left, Manulife Building is on the Right, Singapore Management University is behind the camera.

• Nikon V1, 10-30mm f3.5-5.6
• At 10mm, f3.5, ISO 1400, 1/30 seconds
• Auto-everything
• Picasa: Straighten, crop

Using the Nikon V1 again. Handled this tricky scene on full auto, no problem. Didn't need any exposure tweaking in Picasa. Pleased with the high dynamic range of the photo - you can see details in both the dim areas in the bus stop, and the lighted signs and windows.

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.

Plaza Singapura Christmas Tree 2012

This is the first Christmas since the major renovation that was completed this year. You can see the new facade of Plaza Singapura in the background. Their Christmas tree is usually placed further to the right, but there is now a plastic pop art sculpture in that location. 

• Nikon D600, 28-300mm f3.5-5.6
• At 52mm, f4.5, ISO 1600, 1/15 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: No editing

It's good to get a sign or something showing the name of the place, into the photo. It's not just for informational purposes. The sign often adds an interesting visual element to the photo.

Take a few minutes and walk around a bit, look at the Christmas tree (or fountain or statue or whatever) from a few different angles and distances. You get better photos, enjoy your photography more, and train your observational skills.  

Orchard Road Christmas Light Up 2012

The traditional Christmas decorations along Orchard Road. This year's lights are red, last year's were blue. Maybe next year's will be green.

I don't know what the bird is. Maybe a partridge (in a pear tree), turtle dove or French hen.

Photo of the 2011 Light up is at
http://sgsnaps.blogspot.sg/2011/11/orchard-road-christmas-light-up.html

• Nikon D600, 28-300mm f3.5-5.6
• At 300mm, f5.6, ISO 3200, 1/60 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Straighten

Aside from the exposure (use manual exposure, check the LCD) and focal length (zoom in to collapse the lights together), the thing to watch out for is the cars on the road. Chances are that if you take one photo at random, the cars will look messy and will be distracting to the viewer. Take a few photos until you get one where the cars are neatly lined up and don't draw attention to themselves.

Backpackers' Inn Chinatown

I've come across small backpacker hotels before, but none as colorful as this one. Nicely integrates simple and effective advertising with a striking design.

It's in a row of old two-storey shophouses, located opposite Chinatown Point, in the heart of Chinatown.

Note the old-style electric fan at the top left, and the classic red letter box on the right.

http://www.backpackersinn.com.sg

• Nikon D600, 28-300mm f3.5-5.6
• At 28mm, f5.6, ISO 1600, 1/180 seconds
• Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Straighten, crop

Main difficulty with this photo was cropping out distracting details at the edges. I wanted to crop out the table and ashtray at the bottom but that would have cut off too much of the sign on the door. But I did manage to get rid of a lot of junk at the sides.

Back in the film days, you had to crop in-camera because cropping during printing wasn't practical unless you had your own darkroom. With digital photos and PC editing, it's better to zoom out a bit and give yourself some margin to crop later at your leisure.

Cropping is the number one way to improve your photos. Most of the photos that I see on Facebook would be improved with some simple cropping. Remove distracting details. It's simple.

One Raffles Quay

New high rise office building in the middle of the financial district. There are two towers (North and South), connected by a plaza. The towers are placed at an angle to each other, which makes for an interesting photo. The north tower on the left, is 50 storeys high. The south tower on the right is 29 storeys high.  

This was at 8pm on a weekday night. Looks like people here work too hard. Orange spot at the bottom right is an out-of-focus raindrop on the lens, catching light from a streetlamp. 

http://www.orq.com.sg/

• Nikon D600, 28-300mm f3.5-5.6
• At 28mm, f4, ISO 1600, 1/15 seconds
• Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
• Picasa: Fill light

Manual exposure for easy control, set maximum aperture and slowest safe shutter speed, then increase ISO until the exposure is correct (check on the LCD playback). This way you get highest image quality by using the lowest possible ISO. Use Picasa's fill light feature to brighten up the dark walls a bit.