Nix Digital Photography

I-City , The city of Digital lights

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:19:00 +0000

I-City, located at Shah Alam is famous with its enchanting LEDs lights. It is just a Technology park located on the outskirt of Shah Alam. At night the place comes alive with an amazing forest of man-made trees brightly illuminated with millions of colourful LED lights.

This photo, showing the ferry wheel is where the entrance is. Unfortunately the day I took this photo, the ferry wheel is not working, hence it was not brightly light up.

Congratulation to Nikon D7000 DSLR

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 13:14:00 +0000

The Nikon D7000 DSLR camera has recently received the European Advanced SLR 2011-2012 award presented by the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA).

Further in in April, Nikon D7000 DSLR was also the recipient of the TIPA Award 2011’s Best DSLR Advanced.

Some of the major feature found in the Nikon D7000 DSLR were the high image quality with very low noise at higher ISO, fast autofocusing and solid body. A semi-professional camera that packed with high-end features that it inherited from D300 and D300s

Congratulation to Nikon for producing such great camera.

Singapore Marina Bay, Centre Business District

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 13:42:00 +0000

This is the last part of the journey, to view the Centre Business District from out side of the hotel.

Night scene was awesome due to the colourful lighting from various building.

From far, opposite side of the bay !

That’s the last part of the story. Hope you enjoy.

Singapore – Marina Bay Sands SkyPark

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 02:22:00 +0000

Continue from my previous post, The Skypark, which is the most talk about structure for Marina Bay Sands. It has a length of four and a half A380 Jumbo Jet and is situated right on the roof top of the 3 towers, offers a spectacular bird eyes view of Singapore Marina Bay.

It has a Observation Deck, which offer a view from Centre Business District all the way to Sentosa island. Hotel guess get to visit the deck for free while guests needed to pay to get entry.

Next come along was the 150m infinity swimming pool, which only open for hotel guests. Facing the Centre Business District offers the most beautiful scene of Singapore, especially from sunset to sun fall.

Other then this, there are a few small Jacuzzi pools for family to get along and a beautiful green park, which give an relaxing atmosphere while enjoying the cool evening breeze.

Here are the rest of the photos taken, with lots of crowds in it !!

Singapore – Marina Bay Sands

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 12:57:00 +0000

The Marina Bay Sands is one of the most talk about hotel in Singapore. It is an architecture marvel which had changed the landscape of Singapore.

Google about Marina Bay Sands and you will find lots of information about it, including its premium room rates. Having a night there will be a dream come true for many average earner like me.

Well this dream did came true when I got a special offer to have 2 nights there with certain condition. So there was it 2 nights at the Marina Bay Sands with my family, a short holiday to Singapore.

Before the journey starts, we did lots of research about this place and through Google and blogs, this sound like an awesome place to visit and with that premium room rates, we are expecting something really 5 stars

So we drove all the way down to Singapore, with my Google map on hand and GPS running, journey to Marina Bay Sands is real easy if you are coming in from Taus (2nd link). However there was some confusion when almost reaching Marina Bay as my GPS and Google map show me different route.

Almost got panic there, so I switch to my instinct, which is look for the 3 tall towers. So there was it.. finally it was on the horizon and there was the exit from the highway as mention by Google Map.

As I go closer, I notice that the 3 towers wasn’t as tall as I’ve expected. Although it has 53 stories with a skypark on top of it, it still look kind of short to me. Well maybe that’s the power of advertisement, making something great look greater.

So that was I driving my old refurbish Proton Wira all the way to the entrance, I was greeted by some car jockeys. Being Malaysia, to pay SGD6 for per day per entry self parking while you are the guess of the hotel sound a bit ridicules but those jockeys does have some marketing skills that they manage to convince me to allow them to park my car for a price of SGD12 per day, unlimited entry. It was a big price to pay but it was a nice experience.

Each time when I need to get my car, they will kindly drove it up from the car park, and there was I noticing that most cars coming out of the car parks are luxuries cars except for mine, well that’s life and I’m happy with it.

Ok next to the lobby for check-in. Lobby was not as great as I have expected but they do have great hospitality, welcome drink was served to all guess who are waiting in line to check in. My check in was brief cause I arrived early. If I’m an hour late, it will be nightmare.

Now to the room. This is where the wow factor comes in, cause seldom I with my family stayed at such luxurious room. The bathroom was really huge, Beds were big enough for all of us and the TV, it was awesome. My son spent most of his time watching that huge 42/50 inch LCD TV and that’s the only thing that could keep him quite. Lastly, there is a balcony in our room. Something you don’t really expect.

The Bath Tub

The Beds

I got to say, with the kind of price that I’m paying, the greatest of all is the room. It is so conformable and specious, something that was not easy to find in Singapore. Off cause some added values are the skypark and the 150m infinity swimming pool. I’ll leave this to my next coming post.

Well here are some photos of the hotel at various location, mainly at the lobby area.

This is where we had breakfast

Direction to the Casino, Expo and Shoppes, which is just cross the street.

Direction to all 3 towers, just in case you lost your way!

Chinese lantern in front of a Chinese restaurant

My two little one

Continue to Part 2 of the journey – Marina Bay Sands Skypark

Catching sun rays clouds

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Wed, 25 May 2011 12:50:00 +0000

To catch a sun ray clouds, sometime it takes a bit of luck when finding the right moment to shoot something interesting. Like this sun rays clouds. It was not there 5 minutes ago and its only stay there for a couple of minutes before is all gone.

I was at a beach with my kids for an evening stroll when visiting my in laws, sitting by the beach watching the normal sunset, all of a sudden, I notice this huge cloud covering the setting sun and all of a sudden, here were the rays, shooting out from behind the cloud.

Looking at it I quickly draw my camera and start shooting with varies exposure setting. I know I do not have a lot of time to play with my camera to get the right setting because I know the cloud will just float away anytime, so i shoot it in RAW.

Good thing about shooting in RAW is you can still edit the exposure even though it did not come out correct from the camera. So there was it, a little bit of tweaking at the RAW files, I manage to get the right exposure for this moment. The Sun Rays Clouds !

Landmark from Tasik Perdana, Kuala Lumpur

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Mon, 16 May 2011 03:54:00 +0000

Tasik Perdana situated in the heard of Kuala Lumpur is one of the most favourite place to visit by many. Most people will go there to do their morning routine exercise, other simple go there and enjoy the beauty of nature and fresh air.

This is also a great place to bring your family our for a nice relaxing weekend.

The last time i went to Tasik Perdana was about 20 years ago. Since then, many has changes. The beautification that has been done to this place was awesome. In just a short 1.5 hours of photo shooting, i manage to shot some interesting picture that was not there 20 years ago, beside the parliament building of cause.

This auditorium was there for a very long time, if not mistaken but now it has a new roof top and a well design seating

A well laid out garden, neat and clean

I don’t remember seeing this part of the garden, but it leads to a large play ground. The kids would certainly love this place

Very spooky. Wonder is there any hidden treasure around.

You just cannot miss this, The Parliament.

Just before the day is starts and the surrounding is just peaceful and quite

The are more photos which was not posted here simply because it not within this topic. You can easily check it out at my flick page here.

Pasar Malam in B&W

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:49:00 +0000

This were taken during a holiday trip to Cameron Highland. Headed down to the pasar malam for dinner and was pleasantly surprise to meet come of this hawkers, who are friendly and not camera shy.

Maybe they are used to being in front of the camera all the time, since many tourist flock to Cameron Highland during school holidays.

Not to mention, they do prepare nice hot snack foods, just nice for a cool windy evening

Hardworking makcik

Hardworking young girl making pan cakes

Pan cakes in the making

Un-shy

Macro flower photography with Tamron SP 90mm

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 14:04:00 +0000

Macro flower photography may seem like an easy task but when really giving it a try, you will encounter various challenges. In order to successfully make a good macro flower photo, good skills and technique is require, together with appropriate tools, and with a little bit of luck.

The photo you see here was taken during Chinese New Year in a shopping mall with limited tools and skill. I have to try out a few setting before I manage to perfect the shot. So how do I do it?

Before I explain on how I photography this picture, let understand what will affect the quality of your macro flower photography.

1. Movement

When come to shooting something in very close proximity, ie in macro or close up, a small bit of movement will cause blur images. Movement cause by wind, handshake or even the flipping of the shutter mirror will cause you picture to get blur. That is why a good steady tripod is important for macro flower photography.

2. Lens

A good macro lens is one that cannot ignore to have if you want to venture into macro flower photography. A good Nikkor or Canon macro lens does not come cheap, but if you are a beginner and wanted to try out macro flower photography, an alternative is to use 3^rd party lenses such as this Tamron SP90mm macro. Personally I found this to be quite a magnificent lens, despite the much cheaper price compared to the Nikkor version.

3. Lighting.

Good lighting gives vibrant to your photos. For macro flower photography, it is always best to keep ISO as low as possible. This is to reduce image noise. Further, we like to have fast shutter speed when we photograph, this is to eliminate motion blur.

So back to my photo, when I took this shot, I do not have the convenient of having a tripod as I’m in a shopping mall. Setting up a tripod photographing display flowers will look a bit silly, further the flower were located indoor, which also means poor ambient lighting. All I have at that time was a Tamron SP90mm macro lens, a Nikon SB600 flashgun and two hands.

So in order to get this shot right, I have to rely on my flashgun to give extra boost for lighting and reasonable fast shutter speed to countermeasure for hand shake. General rule of thumb, shutter speed should be about 1.5 time of the focus length, ie for my 90mm lens, I need shutter speed of at lease 1/125 s.

Next I have to decide the aperture to use. Bare in mind that at close focus distance, wide aperture will give shallow depth of field. This is very obvious, as you will see smaller area of your flower to be in focus and the rest are all blur.

In macro flower photography, we need to give sharpness/focus to certain anatomy of the flower while leaving the rest out of focus. This helps make the anatomy to stand out further. In my picture, it will be the Carpels (center part of the flower). Therefore I increase my f-stop to as high as possible without loosing exposure. I finally come to a f-stop of 16 for this photo.

The final setting I used for this macro flower photo is as below

Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)

Aperture: f/16.0

Focal Length: 90 mm

ISO Speed: 400

Exposure Bias: 0 EV

Metering Mode: Center-weighted average

Light Source: Flash

The last bit of thing that I need to do before I press the trigger is to avoid camera shake from my body movement. So I apply a technique where you place both your arms closes to your body for extra support and hold your breath when you press the trigger.

This above macro flower photography technique was acquired through my own experience and many trial and errors. Hope you enjoy this tips.

For more macro flower photos, feel free to checkout my Flickr set Here.

By the way, do you love photography? and wanted to pursuit a degree in this subject? Learn more about Art and Design degrees NOW !.

2011 Putrajaya Hot Air Balloon Fiesta

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 04:22:00 +0000

The 2011 Putrajaya Hot Air Balloon fiesta has just ended last week. This year, the event was held during the school holiday, so it was just great for me as I can bring my family to this event without too much difficulty.

Last year I manage to catch the morning action with my camera but without my family, so they missed out all the great moment. This time, I make sure they wake up early enough and be at Putrajaya as early as 7am on the first day of the event.

It was an effort well pay off, cause on the first say, the weather was good and the release was successfully. Subsequent day was not as good as the first due to inconsistence weather condition.

To view my photo shots of this event, please feel free to head over to my Flickr account by clicking on the Flickr logo below.

Enjoy yourself there.

If you like to have some of my photo for your desktop or screen saver, feel free to download it from Flickr. High-resolution version will can given upon request.

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Window of Tranquillity

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 08:18:00 +0000

Previously I have posted my holiday trip to Pulau Redang, here a shot taken from the hotel’s restaurant looking toward the ocean.

With the traditional Terengganu style window frame, it help put the uniqueness into this frame. Hope you like it.

Photo is taken from Laguna Redang Island Resort

Sunrise from Redang

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:31:00 +0000

Being located at the east cost of the peninsula, it is a perfect place to watch the sunrise.

Woke up at 6.30am just to get myself prepare for this shot. Seems like there are many other who willing to wake up early just to witness such beautiful scene.

Photo for free - Colorful wooden sandals

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 04:41:00 +0000

Chinese has a traditional way of making wooden sandals and it has been widely used for generation, up till today. With its wooden base, it make a beautiful clark-ing sound as you walk.

This photo is free from your download. The downloaded version will not have the watermark in it and is in full resolution.

Download

Photo for free - Absent

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:06:00 +0000

Time for a break and make your self absent

Here’s another photo free from your download. The downloaded version will not have the watermark in it and is in full resolution.

Download

Architecture from the pass

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:10:00 +0000

“ An Old Looking Village Style Wooden Window”

Do such kind of architecture still exist in today’s modern living world? The beauty of simplicity, with its own artistry yet effective, not mention low cost !!!

Photo For Free - An Old Rail Joint

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 13:29:00 +0000

A close up view of an old railroad joint.

If you like this photo, you can download this photo for free at full resolution by clicking on the photo itself or click HERE. File size is about 3MB

Remember to drop me a comment while you are downloading it.

Laguna Redang Island Resort

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:11:00 +0000

Took the opportunity to have a holiday at Pulau Redang with my family, just to get away from city life and be fill with cool breeze, white sandy beach and crystal clear water.

Laguna Redang Island Resort was ideal for my family because it has a big swimming pool, and kids enjoy it very much. Only thing that we did not enjoy was snorkeling, which I missed the most.

Here are some entrance shot of the resorts.

From a distance

Welcome sign

The beach in front of the resort

Panoramic view, click on photo to view the actual size

Sleepy Kitten

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 05:56:00 +0000

A kitten knows what is comfort in life. This sandal is just perfect for her while she takes an afternoon nap.

Equipment : Nikon D60 with Tamron SP90

EXIF : 1/160s, f/3.2, ISO400

Pulau Langkawi Cable Car

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 03:54:00 +0000

Langkawi Cable car is one of the must visit when you travel to Pulau Langkawi for holiday. It is one of the most trilling cable car ride I ever has as it needs to travel a distance of 2.2KM from the foot of the hill to the peak of the hill.

The scene from the cabin was awesome and the scenery when reached the top was amazing. The most must see when reaches the top is this cable bridge, connecting 2 mountain peaks. It takes some effort to hike to the bridge but when you are over there, cross over it to feel the thrill of hanging in midair.

However, before you head over to Langkawi cable car, please check on the this website for further information Langkawi Online.com. This is because on certain time of the month, the cable car station will be close for routine maintenance. So make sure your travel itinerary does not fall into this date.

Here are some pictures that I love the most and was taken from the Top Station.

The Top Station

The Sky Bridge

Purple Tip Sebae Anemone – Nano Reef

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 10:46:00 +0000

This is a new live stock that I introduced to my nano reef aquarium few weeks ago. It is known as Purple Tip Anemone or Purple Tip Sebae Anemone.

Sebae Anemone is commonly known as the home for clownfishes (nemo). When ever you see a picture of a clownfish, you will see her sleeping comfortably on a Sebae Anemone.

Here are the picture of my Purple Tip Sebae Anemone, both from a distance and closer, taken with My Nikon D60 with my Tamron Sp90 macro.

This is what I mean when it become the home of a clownfish.

However it seems that the color of tentacles of this purple tips sabae anemone will changed to a dark red-brown, with purple tips as time goes by. Well I will have to see how it goes in a couple of months time.

Improving your chances in winning a digital photo contest

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 12:41:00 +0000

The greatest reward of being a photographer is to get your photos appreciated by as many people as possible. This is where photo sharing website such as flicks, social networking site and blogs play the roll.

However winning a digital photo contest or competition gives a much greater achievement for photographer. This is simple because expert judges which most of the time are professional photographers themselves choose the winner’s photo.

Being selected in a digital photo contest will help boost the confident of a photographer, in the same time raising the standard of their creation. It is like creating the best for the best. Therefore it is much encourage that photographer should learn to joint digital photo contest and see how's their creation fairs, and also take this opportunity to learn from other who are better.

Anyway here are some tips that will help you to increase your chances of being the best in a digital photo contest. Check out the following articles for further reading

"How to win a photography competition - 20 Tips from photo competition judges"

Test shot of red hibiscus with Tamron SP 90 mm

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Sat, 29 May 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Found a red hibiscus, fully bloom this morning in my garden. Immediately I took out my Tamron AF SP90mm mounted to my Nikon D60, on a Velbon tripod and start shooting.

For those who have done shooting hibiscus, the most challenge part is to have enough DOF. Hibiscus has a long stamen and by focusing the stamen will cause out of focus effect on the pedal. Here no matter how small your F stop can be, you still won’t get enough DOF to have the whole Hibiscus in focus.

Therefore I choose to use a layer merge technique. By photography two pictures with one focused on the pedal and another on the stamen, merge and align in photoshop and apply some layer masking, I manage to increase the DOF to some extend and here’s the results.

Effect of shallow DOF. Something it works well if you know your composition.

This is taken with a white background. no major post processing, except for contrast & sharpen adjustment, cropping and texting.

Putrajaya Hot Air Balloon Fiesta 2010

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Sat, 15 May 2010 15:17:00 +0000

This post suppose to be up last month in April but due to my busy schedule, I got to do it much later.

Putrajaya had its 2nd Putrajaya Hot Air Balloon Fiesta this year and I manage to pay it a visit. Went there for 2 days, everyday, there are 2 session for the hot air balloon to lift off, one in the morning and one in the evening. Very unfortunately, the evening session was hinder by bad weather and many of the hot air balloons were not able to lift off.

Well the morning session was very much better and I manage to capture some of the activities, and I manage to shoot what I intended to.

It worth all the effort to wake up early and travel 50km to be here.

My Favorite

“May the force be with you”

2nd Putrajaya International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta 2010

My new lens, Tamron SP AF 90 mm

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Thu, 06 May 2010 02:05:00 +0000

After couple of months of research, finally I got my hand on this lens, The Tamron SP AF 90mm F/2.8 Di Marco 1:1. I’ve been told that this is a value for money lens and the image quality is superb either. It is a cheap and affordable Marco and portrait lens ! With just less then RM1500 with F/2.8, what else can you ask for ?

1st try on this lens does amaze me with it sharp and reasonably fast autofocus, especially when you mount it on a Nikon D60 body. White balance looks good. The only complain iI have is on the autofocus build in motor, it sounds rough compared to Nikkor lens, but then, for just 1/2 the price of a Nikkor lens, what do you expect.

I’ll post some photos later after fully learned about this lens, as it is a prime without VR, it require some skill adjustment to use it. Therefore stay tune for some results. If you are someone who are new to Marco photography and wanting to explore the Marco world without investing too much in equipment, try out this lens.

Here are some spec about this lens.

Tamron SP AF 90mm F/2.8 Di Marco 1:1

Model: 272E ()

Lens Construction (Groups/Elements) : 9/10

Angle of View : 27°

Diaphragm Blade Number : 9

Minimum Focus Distance : 11.4in.(0.29m)

Macro Magnification Ratio : 1:1

Filter Diameter : ø55

Weight : 405g (14.3oz)

Diameter x Length : ø2.8 x 3.8in.

(ø71.5 x 97mm)

Accessory : Lens hood, Case

Mount : Canon – Available

Nikon – Available

Pentax – Available

Sony – Available

For more detail, please visit Tamron official site

Why digital photography?

noreply@blogger.com (NIX Digital Photography) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:34:00 +0000

Just like to share some thought here.

The birth of digital photography has brought much convenient for people to capture the best photo they desired. It basically don’t cost any to take digital photos, and it does not need too much of skills to do so. Today’s digital cameras are designed such that it is easy to use and very user friendly. It is small in size hence make it portable enough to be carried around easily.

Digital camera can provide instant feedback once you take a photo. The photo playback function, let you review all the photos that you have taken and if you are not happy with them, it can be easily deleted and retaken. This allows you to keep trying until you get the right photos.

Printing of digital photos is much easier then before. Just select your best photos and send them to any nearby photo kiosk and you’ll get your photos in a short while. Alternatively you can choose to print it with your home color printer. Just connect your camera to the printer and press the print button and there you have it, your very own digital photos in hard copy.

Don’t like what you see in your photos? Edit it. Digital photography’s biggest advantage is the ability to edit, change and modify it. Don’t like the color, change it. Don’t like the exposure, correct it. All this can be easily done with a photo editing software, such as Adobe Photoshop or PhotoEditorX.

Lastly digital photography has the ability to share the photos you have taken with your love ones and relatives. Just simply attached the photos into your email and click on the send button. Just that simple! For a much more creative method of sharing, you can create a digital scrapbook of your photos, before sending it out or share it in social media website such as Facebook, personal blog or online photo album.

Apparently, digital photography has really paved way for making photography convenient and easier at the same time achieving high quality photos. It just shows that there's no other time to opt to digital photography than now.