Singapore Snapshots

Lion Dance

2012-02-24T17:57:00.000-08:00

Sar Kong Mun San Fook Tuck Chee lion dance troupe.
http://www.sarkong.org/

Lots of lion dance troupes in Singapore. You see them performing at shops and riding around in trucks with colorful banners, especially during Chinese New Year. Head towards the sound of drums, that's the best way to find them.

Nikon D7000, 85mm f1.4
At 85mm, f1.4, ISO 100, 1/1000 seconds
Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, sunlight white balance
Picasa: Auto contrast, fill light.

Set maximum aperture to blur out the spectators in the background.

The orange uniforms are fluorescent in real life. Couldn't capture that properly with the digital camera.

SuperStar Virgo Cruise Liner, at Harbourfront Cruise Centre

2012-02-17T21:17:00.000-08:00

This ship is huge, bigger than most hotels and shopping malls. I couldn't believe how big it looked in real life. I'm sure that it's way bigger than any Singapore navy ship.

Dark blob on the left is Sentosa island.

http://www.starcruises.com/newweb/our_fleets/cruise_ssv.aspx

Nikon D7000, 70-200mm f2.8
At 70mm, f2.8, ISO 1600, 1/30 seconds
Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, sunlight white balance
Picasa: Auto contrast, fill light.

Resorts World Sentosa, Night View from the Sea

2012-02-15T23:49:00.000-08:00

View of the famous Resorts World Sentosa complex of buildings.

The long building in the front is the Maritime Xperiential Museum. It looks like a private museum, owned by RWS, not the government. In the background from left to right are hotels: The Michael, Crockford's Tower, Festive Hotel. Universal Studios is to the left, outside the frame.

Nikon D7000, 70-200mm f2.8
At 105mm, f2.8, ISO 1600, 1/30 seconds
Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, sunlight white balance
Picasa: Auto contrast, fill light.

For uneven lighting like this, it's usually best to switch to manual exposure and check the exposure from the LCD playback. I see many night photos that are too dark, the light meter thrown off by the bright lights. You want to get sufficient exposure for the walls of the buildings, which means over-exposing the lights.

I normally set auto or incandescent white balance, but in this instance the auto white balance over-corrected with too much blue so I forced it to sunlight white balance.

Raintree, Bukit Brown Cemetery

2012-02-12T07:16:00.000-08:00

This photo shows the large raintree at the roundabout just inside the Bukit Brown Cemetery's gates. It's a popular meeting point for tours. It is located before the main blocks of graves, has room for parking cars, and is easily recognizable.

There has been renewed interest in Bukit Brown Cemetery ever since the government announced plans to slice off a corner to make way for a highway.

I joined one of the night tours conducted by a group dedicated to saving Bukit Brown from the highway ( http://bukitbrown.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/groups/bukitbrown/ ).

Nikon D7000, 24mm f1.4
At 24mm, f1.4, ISO 6400, 1/8 seconds
Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, automatic white balance
Picasa: Crop, auto contrast

Photo was taken at 7:50pm. You can see from the settings that it was already quite dark (you can just make out the yellow glow on some people, from chemical glow sticks). It doesn't look dark in the photo because, well, that's what cameras can do.

Later in the evening, I had to go down to 1/4 seconds and ISO 25600. Luckily I brought along a monopod.

Restaurants at Night, Holland Village

2012-01-18T08:58:00.000-08:00

Restaurants, bars and cafes along Lorong Mambong (Mambong Lane). It's like Boat Quay or Clarke Quay, lots of foreigners and yuppies. But without the river, and it's in the West of Singapore. Probably more expats and fewer tourists.

I used to walk to Holland Village from Buona Vista MRT, about one kilometer. Now there's a Holland Village MRT station on the Circle Line, which takes you right there.

Nikon D7000, Sigma 20mm f1.8
At 20mm, f2, ISO 800, 1/30 seconds
Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, automatic white balance
Picasa: No editing

Actual scene is about 2 stops (4 times) darker than the photo. With a fast wide-angle lens and today's high-ISO DSLRs, you can take evening photos like this without using a tripod. I could have pushed up to ISO 1600, gone down to 1/15 seconds. In other words, I had an additional 2 stops margin to play with if the scene was darker. Today's cameras are fantastic.

Central Fire Station, Hill Street

2012-01-14T04:45:00.000-08:00

Singapore's oldest fire station, located behind Funan Centre.

The fire station is still operational. I was standing there for half an hour, waiting for the right sky brightness. While I was there, three emergency vehicles deployed, at different times, with flashing lights and sirens: two ambulances and one fire engine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Fire_Station,_Singapore

Nikon D7000, Sigma 20mm f1.8
At 20mm, f2, ISO 200, 1/30 seconds
Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, incandescent white balance
Picasa: Crop, auto contrast

Critical part of the photo was getting the sky right. The light on the building from the streetlights is fixed, so you expose for that. The brightness of the sky changes, so take a series of photos at different times (every 2 or 3 minutes) until you get one where the brightness of the sky matches the brightness of the building. This photo was taken at 7:40pm.

Incandescent white balance was used to counteract the yellow street lights. Which also helps deepen the blue of the evening sky.

Singapore Management Universtiy (SMU) Concourse

2012-01-13T08:20:00.000-08:00

The Concourse is the basement passage underneath the Singapore Management University, connecting its various faculty buildings. There are study benches, shops, a canteen, and a link to the Bras Basah MRT station. It's open to the public.

It's a few hundred meters long, covering more than half the distance between the Dhoby Ghaut and City Hall MRT stations. I often walk along the concourse to avoid the sun and rain. You can see students studying, practicing dances, and doing other student things.

Nikon D7000, Sigma 20mm f1.8
At 20mm, f2, ISO 800, 1/30 seconds
Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
Picasa: No editing

It's the colored posters on the signboards that make the photo work. Other times I was there, the posters weren't that colorful and I wasn't tempted to take a photo.

Still testing out the Sigma at wide open apertures, instead of stopping down like I normally would for a perspective photo like this. Pretty decent depth of field at f2. I'm getting more and more confident with the Sigma.

Flower Dragon, Mandarin Gallery

2012-01-12T10:21:00.000-08:00

The Dragon year is the most auspicious year in the Chinese calendar. More babies are born in Dragon years compared to other years. Photographically, the Dragon year is good because dragons look cooler than the other zodiac animals.

Chinese/Lunar New Year decorations aren't as fancy or widespread as Christmas decorations. I'd say less than 20 percent of the shopping centers along Orchard Road have decorations outside. Most however do have some decorations in their atrium.

It's not so clear at this picture size, but there are flowers all over the dragon. I actually saw workmen sticking artificial flowers onto the dragon, a few days ago. It's the Water Dragon year this year (the animals cycle in a series of 5 elements), but I guess a flower dragon looks prettier.

Nikon D7000, Sigma 20mm f1.8
At 20mm, f2, ISO 200, 1/30 seconds
Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
Picasa: No editing

I chose this angle to squeeze both the chinese words on the left and the whole dragon, into the picture. I tried a flat side-on angle first but it didn't look too good, especially with distracting colored lights in the background. This angle closes up the spaces between the dragon and blocks more of the lights.

I would normally use f5.6 or smaller but I'm testing out the Sigma wide open, getting a feel for the lens sharpness and depth of field. Even at f2, the depth of field is surprisingly deep. The building in the background is only slightly blurred. This would not be the case with the 35mm f1.8.

Chinatown Chinese New Year Light-up (Year of the Dragon)

2012-01-04T00:07:00.000-08:00

The Chinese New Year light-up is from Chinatown Point (yellow building in the center, now under renovation) to Pagoda street. It's the year of the dragon, the red arches are a dragon (the head is on the left, hidden by the banner across the road).

For a photo like this, you want to cram in as many lights as possible. Which is why I went up to the pedestrian bridge to get both the dragon and the neon lights across the road, into the photo. Well okay, truth is that I just walked around and tried different angles. You can't always plan the best shot, you need to explore.

Nikon D7000, Sigma 20mm f1.8
At 20mm, f2, ISO 200, 1/30 seconds
Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, incandescent white balance
Picasa: Auto contrast, fill light

I was testing out the Sigma 20mm f1.8. If not for the large f2 aperture, I'd have to go to ISO 800.

Found out that I wasn't getting clear photos from it because it has a focus offset problem. By setting -4 focus offset in the D7000, the lens is much more usable and I'll be using it more often in the future.

With a wide angle lens, you've got quite a large depth of field, even at f2. For most scenery, you don't have to worry about the depth of field. But for this photo, the neon lights at the bottom of the bottom of the photo are too close and are out of focus. Luckily, that's not very noticeable.

Christmas Tree, Raffles City

2011-12-19T12:29:00.000-08:00

Raffles City is quite consistent: every year they have a Christmas tree at the street corner. The tree is different, but it's always a tree.

I don't usually choose unusual angles when taking photos. Seems to draw attention to the photographer's technique instead of the subject. But in this case a normal street-level view didn't look good. It was plain and boring.

This upwards angle looked good, but I also wanted the Raffles City sign in. Both to balance the photo and to document the location of the tree. Had to walk around a bit to get the right position.

Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
At 25mm, f4, ISO 800, 1/15 seconds
Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, incandescent white balance
Picasa: Auto contrast, fill light

For night shots like this, you usually set the aperture wide open, shutter speed to as low as you can safely handhold, then increase the ISO until the exposure looks good on the LCD playback.

Christmas Decorations, Mandarin Gallery

2011-12-09T10:27:00.001-08:00

The red lanterns are the Christmas decorations. They are LED lights that change color. I waited for the colors to cycle through one complete sequence, and decided that red was the best. I also took a few "safety" shots of the other colors just in case.

This side of Orchard Road (Ngee Ann City, etc.) is more fun to walk along (and take photos) because the pedestrian walkway is wider, compared to the other (Lucky Plaza, etc.) side.

Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
At 18mm, f4, ISO 400, 1/60 seconds
Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, sunlight (neutral) white balance
Picasa: Auto contrast, fill light, straighten, crop

The critical element in the photo is the red lanterns. So I exposed the photo for them, made them glow but not so much that the color was washed out.

This made the floor unattractively dark, so I increased the fill light later with Picasa on my PC. Fill light works great most of the time because it adjusts the mid brightness areas, but doesn't affect the very dark or very bright areas much; unlike the brightness or contrast adjustment in simpler photo editors.

Tangs Christmas Decoration

2011-12-01T18:27:00.001-08:00

The sign is about 10 to 20 feet high and is on the front of the Tangs building.

It's good to see a bible quote used as a Christmas decoration. I'm not religious but I'm all for not losing sight of where Christmas comes from (yes I know, Christmas is not really from the bible, but still).

The businessman who started Tangs was a staunch Christian. Tangs was well known for being one of the few shopping centres that did not open on Sunday. The policy was changed after his children took over the running of the business.

Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
At 38mm, f5.6, ISO 100, 1/4 seconds
Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, incandescent white balance
Picasa: Straighten, crop, warmify

Photo was taken with the camera on a tripod. With so much light, I could have boosted the ISO to 400, shutter speed to 1/15 seconds, and taken the photo handheld.

I set the color balance to incandescent because without it, the photo came out a stange-looking dark orange. But that corrected the color too much, made it colorless, so I used Picasa's warmify function to add back in some yellow.

Orchard Road Christmas Light-up

2011-11-30T18:13:00.001-08:00

The spiral decorations remind me of Tim Burton's movie, The Nightmare before Christmas.

I haven't bothered with photographing the Orchard Road light-up for years. Seemed too touristy and tacky. But I happened to be at Central and their Christmas display was pretty cool (see previous photo), so I thought I'd give the whole thing another go.

I think Singaporeans have gotten tired of images of Santa and reindeer too. Decorations are more abstract this year, which seems less tacky to me.

Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
At 105mm, f5.6, ISO 800, 1/60 seconds
Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, sunny (neutral) white balance
Picasa: Straighten

For most night scenes, setting incandescent (tungsten) white balance works best. It's like putting a blue filter over the lens, to counteract the too-yellow light in most night scenes.

The lights here are blue and are bright enough to neutralize a lot of the yellow light (from the sodium streetlights). I tried setting incandescent white balance and the photo looked artificially blue.

For this kind of photo, you want to collapse the overhead lights together to get a solid mass of them. This means zooming in with a telephoto focal length. Natural reaction is to place the cars in the center of the photo. You need to force yourself to tilt the camera up, so that you don't get a lot of boring empty road in the foreground of the photo.

Didn't need 1/60 seconds. Could have gone down to 1/30 seconds and ISO 400 (maybe blurred the cars a bit, but less ISO noise), but this is fine anyway.

Exposure is done by checking the LCD playback. You want to have some light from the cars and road, but without over-exposing the lights until they lose their color. In the old film days I would have metered off the road.

Christmas Display, Central (Clarke Quay)

2011-11-27T03:39:00.001-08:00

No Santa or tree. One of the classier Christmas decorations in town. Central is the name of a shopping center at the start of Clarke Quay.

Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
At 18mm, f8, ISO 100, 1/45 seconds
Aperture priority, center-weighted metering
Picasa: Auto contrast

Technically simple shot. Even at ISO 100 there was enough light to stop down to f8 for depth of field and image quality (many lenses are sharpest at around f5.6 to f8).

Toa Payoh Aerial View, Night

2011-11-21T18:11:00.001-08:00

View from one of the new 40-storey HDB apartment blocks.

The tall building on the left looks like a private apartment block (the white rectangular strip near the bottom is a swimming pool). The rest of the buildings are mainly HDB government housing.

Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
At 18mm, f5.6, ISO 100, 8 seconds
Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, incandescent white balance
Picasa: Crop, auto contrast.

Photo taken with a tripod.

I was with a few other photographers and one of them saw my photo on the camera's LCD display. He was surprised because it looked like HDR (high dynamic range - combining a few photos, taken at different exposures, together on the PC to get a wider exposure range). It's due to Nikon's Active D Lighting setting. I set it on High all the time. Makes a big difference for photos like this. Without it, the walls of most of the buildings would be almost black, the sky too.

Pasir Panjang Container Port Terminal

2011-10-28T18:31:00.000-07:00

The port is run by PSA (Port of Singapore Authority). The port is huge, stretching for a lot further than what you can see here. It is near Sentosa and Vivocity. This view is from Haw Par Villa.

Photos of scenery are usually not technically demanding. You have time to take the shot and there are no fast-moving objects or fleeting expressions to capture. Though sometimes you have problems with high contrast.

Getting good scenery photos is mainly being in the right place, and being able to recognize a good shot when you see one, even if it is just a small spot in the distance. This is why a telephoto lens is, surprisingly, useful for landscape photography. You can zoom in to interesting scenes in the distance.

Nikon D7000, 55-300mm f4.5-5.6
At 240mm, f8.6, ISO 800, 1/4000 seconds
Program exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
Picasa: Auto contrast.

Shutter speed is too high. I was chatting with a friend at the time, wasn't paying attention to the settings. Should have used lower ISO and stepped down the aperture a bit. Photo turned out okay anyway.

Official Graffiti, 222 Queen Street

2011-10-09T00:39:00.000-07:00

Along the side alley. This one is new, wasn't there a few months ago. I'm seeing more and more official graffiti around town, which is fun. Cars are usually a pain, spoiling the view, but this car and motorcycle add interest to the photo.

Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
At 18mm, f5.6, ISO 100, 1/125 seconds
Program exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
Picasa: Crop, auto contrast.

Bright outdoor photo, lots of night. Flat subject, no need to worry about depth of field. Medium toned (not too white, not too black), no need to worry about exposure compensation. Technically simple shot, set everything on auto.

NTUC Income Kite Festival

2011-09-06T07:02:00.000-07:00

I don't know why NTUC Income, an insurance company, organizes a kite festival; but I couldn't resist the chance of taking photos of colorful kites in front of the iconic Marina Bay Sands.

The festival itself is on the Marina Promenade, which is across the bay, a few hundred meters from the Marina Bay Sands. The main area shown here is for the general public. Another area is for invited, professional, kite flyers.

I was interviewed by a local journalist, who was going around asking people why they were there. I told her that I just came to take photos.

Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f4-5.6
At 30mm, f16, ISO 400, 1/250 seconds
Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
Picasa: No editing

Manual exposure because the sky was back-lit by the sky, f16 for depth of field, ISO 400 to allow f16 and is pretty much my default ISO for outdoor daylight.

It's difficult to get a nice mass of kites in a photo. They just have to fly up a bit and they are too small to be interesting. You also can't get too many kites in one place because the lines will get tangled up.

Night Festival

2011-08-31T22:54:00.000-07:00

Organized by the National Museum with some involvement from SMU (Singapore Management University) and SOTA (School of the Arts). This is the crowd watching the live concert on the SMU campus. Green pattern on the floor is from a projector.

Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f4-5.6
At 18mm, f3.5, ISO 6400, 1/45 seconds
Program exposure, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
Picasa: No editing

Could have gone down to ISO 1600 or 3200 but I wanted to test the ISO 6400. I usually use manual exposure for night shots due to the uneven lighting, but this scene was relatively evenly lit and I was confident that auto would work.

Istana Grounds

2011-08-31T00:03:00.000-07:00

The Istana ("palace" in Malay) is the official residence of the President of Singapore. It is located at the end of Orchard Road, near Dhoby Ghaut MRT station. The grounds and part of the main building are open to the public on most public holidays.

This is the view looking back towards the main gate, and Dhoby Ghaut MRT station. Plaza Singapura is out of sight, hidden behind the trees on the left. The grounds are huge, this is less than half of it. Note the blue shade at the bottom left. That's for the policeman standing guard.

Photo was taken during the recent Hari Raya public holiday. This is at about 10am. There were a lot more people later.

Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
At 105mm, f5.6, ISO 100, 1/350 seconds
Program exposure, center-weighted metering, -1 exposure compensation, auto white balance
Picasa: Auto contrast

I don't usually use exposure compensation, but the camera consistently over-exposes when metering grass or trees.

The couple on the right is important for adding balance and interest to the photo. The rest of the people are too small to be interesting.

Concert at Fort Canning Green

2011-08-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

Government-sponsored rock concert, Orange Ribbon Campaign (for racial harmony), featuring various local acts.

It's the colored tents at the back that make the photo work. The tents were snack food stalls. I was only there for a few minutes. The lady was singing a slow version of Billy Jean. You can just make her out on the stage with her guitar.

Fort Canning Green is right behind the National Museum. It is administered by National Parks ( http://www.nparks.gov.sg/cms/index.php?option=com_visitorsguide&task=parks&id=16&Itemid=73 ).

Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
At 18mm, f3.5, ISO 3200, 1/15 seconds
Manual exposure, center-weighted metering, incandescent white balance
Picasa: Crop

For dark scenes like this, set to wide-angle to reduce apparent camera-shake and to get maximum aperture from the lens. Shutter speed was set to 1/15 seconds as this is about slowest I can hand-hold safely (1/8 seconds sometimes works but less reliably). Increased ISO until exposure was correct, checking against the playback on the LCD screen.

Underside of Esplanade Bridge

2011-07-22T22:25:00.000-07:00

I don't know what caused the streaks on the concrete. Makes it look like natural rock, not industrial concrete. It's not sunlight reflecting off the water, because it doesn't move.

I was quite pleased with this photo, thinking that most people wouldn't have noticed such a simple but beautiful image. Then I saw a friend who had just started in photography, take the exact same shot.

Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
At 105mm, f11, ISO 400, 1/30 seconds
Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
Picasa: Straighten, crop, auto contrast

Zoomed all the way in to collapse the pillars together. Set f11 for depth of field.

School Band at One Fullerton

2011-07-17T06:24:00.000-07:00

Not sure which school these kids are from. There were maybe five to ten different school bands on this Saturday afternoon. At least two played Smoke on the Water.

This is only a few meters from the Merlion. Marina Bay Sands is in the background. Most of the bay is blocked by the Singapore River Cruise booth.

Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
At 25mm, f5.6, ISO 400, 1/1500 seconds
Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
Picasa: Straighten, crop, fill light, auto contrast, color temperature.

Should have stopped down the aperture a bit for more depth of field, but there's still lots of depth of field at f5.6 at 25mm. Adjusted color temperature to make the yellow sunset (5:45pm) reflecting off the hotel windows, more noticeable.

Articulated Bus

2011-07-15T10:20:00.000-07:00

Also called a Bendy or Flex bus, these are high-capacity alternatives to double decker buses. Not as cool, unfortunately.

The advertisement "Majulah! The Singapore Spirit" is the theme for the 2011 National Day Parade, which is held on Singapore's Independence Day on August 9th. "Maju" means progress in Malay. "Majulah" can be loosely translated as "go and progress." Which explains the use of "lah" in Singlish.

Nikon D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
At 21mm, f5.6, ISO 400, 1/45 seconds
Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
Picasa: Crop, auto contrast

I panned the camera, moving it to the right to follow the movement of the bus. This is why the trees and building in the background are blurred.

CHIJMES External Wall, Night

2011-07-14T18:55:00.000-07:00

Outside of the popular CHIJMES (former Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus) nightspot.

I'm glad that they kept the convent walls, but didn't think that the outside would make an interesting photograph (the inside is much more photogenic, http://sgsnaps.blogspot.com/2011/05/fountain-court-chijmes.html ).

Then I happened to be passing by one day, on my my home via City Hall MRT station, when I noticed that the perspective of the receding walls would make an interesting photo. And then this girl walked by and beautifully balanced out the photo.

D7000, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6
At 18mm, f5.6, ISO 3200, 1/180 seconds
Aperture priority, center-weighted metering, auto white balance
Picasa: Crop, auto contrast

Could have gone with a loser shutter speed and lower ISO, but I didn't have time to switch (was taking some photos at 105mm earlier, with stopped down aperture for depth of field).