Lake Erskine

Ever seen one of those mountain scenes with a beautiful mirror-like lake? Well I've actually had the privilege to visit exactly that in Queenstown, New Zealand. Lake Erskine is apparently a UNESCO World Heritage site that sits right on top of a mountain. In a word, it's breathtaking especially since it's only easily accessible by helicopter, and above a lot of clouds. The chopper landed on a narrow ridge on which I shot this photo. On the other side of the ridge is yet another breathtaking view:
Yes. This view. I think I've died and gone to heaven. In fact, the view is just so great it's practically impossible to shoot a bad photo. So here's another one:



Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 12-24mm f/4, AF-S Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Chopper Panorama

Here's a shot I took as a panorama but forgot about until I went through all my New Zealand photos again. :D Thing is that each photo in this particular series that I took for the panorama looked like it could stand on its own so I didn't really think they were connected until I took a long look at them recently. As far as my numerous panoramas go, this is one of my favourites, as the framing is just right -- there's some foreground interest, and a nice background of mountains and right at the corner on the right, a helicopter. Doing panoramas these days has become a lot easier -- I never put it on a tripod these days and instead just stand and shoot so the virtual horizon helps keep the horizon as level as possible as I pan across. After that Photoshop CS4 does all the work and stitches it all quite seamlessly. This is a 180-degree shot made up of 5-6 shots. Unfortunately, Blogspot's resizing of photos means that you can't really appreciate the photo at the size that's ideal. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6VR

Maori

This Maori was part of the troupe who performed the Haka. Just a nice portrait, I thought. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Busy bees

I often hear that shooting photos of insects with a 60mm macro isn't easy as the minimum focusing distance of the lens is so close that it will often scare away the insect you're trying to shoot. In my experience though, I've rarely had such problems -- I find insects are usually so busy doing their thing that they usually ignore you even when you get really close. I spent some hours shooting these honey bees collecting nectar and pollen from the lavender plants around the hotel and I literally came back with about a hundred sharp shots. The reason I shot so many was that the bees were so compliant that I could really spend the time just concentrating on getting a properly framed shot. I kinda like this one the best because it has a bee actually with its head in the flower while in the background, you can see another one in flight. I also have this shot:

I like the framing and the depth of field in this shot because the lavender stems seem to be framing the bee nicely. Nikon D7000, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8

Salmon of doubt

I was fascinated by this metal sculpture on the wall of the Heritage Hotel in Queenstown where I stayed. I wanted to shoot a picture to showcase the interesting (and surprisingly realistic) colours on the back of the salmon but at the same time, I wanted it to be an interesting photo and not just a record shot. I think I hit a good balance. Click on the image to get a closer look. D7000, AF-S 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Lake Wakatipu Pano

This panorama of Lake Wakatipu in New Zealand is actually the same balcony view as the one below this post, except taken at a different time and of course, made up of four different shots. I always resort to panoramas because I often feel that its difficult to convey the full majesty of a place unless you get a wider view. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Happy (Star) trails

I've always wanted to shoot star trails, and the clear skies in Queenstown, New Zealand afforded me this opportunity. The problem is that with digital cameras, there's one drawback -- to take a really impressive star trail photo, you need to leave the shutter open for several hours. However, with DSLRs, taking long night exposures is a two-fold problem -- long exposures heat up the image sensor quite a bit, and consequently results in noise, and on top of that, running the sensor that long, you risk the sensor being damaged from the heat. With the new Nikon D7000, I decided to risk it and leave the shutter open for a maximum of 10mins at f/8, ISO320. Ten minutes is all I dare -- my thinking is that the D7000 can shoot video for 20mins in one go, but with still images the camera needs an equal amount of time for its Long Exposure Noise reduction which uses dark frame subtraction (essentially the camera shoots the actual exposure, then closes the shutter and shoots another exposure of the same duration and removes noise from the first image by comparing the two shots in-camera). What this means is that for a 10min exposure, the camera's sensor is essentially running for 20mins. Contrary to what it looks like in this photo, the landscape was in almost total darkness and I could only focus by manually focussing the lens to infinity. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 12-24mm f/4.

Welcome to Hanoi!

Sometimes it pays to look down. It's been a busy month for me -- I've been traveling since Chinese New Year -- not just back home, but to Vietnam and then to New Zealand. This little bit of detail was captured in Hanoi and only about the size of a coin stuck on the sidewalk . The city had just celebrated Chinese New Year and there's some remnants of confetti or something on the ground. I realised the potential of this shot the moment I looked down and saw it. The image is slightly post processed to increase contrast and cropped a bit to keep the little red Communist heart as central as possible. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Statuesque

The one thing about the D7000 is that the gamma on the camera's LCD screen seems to be set a little high. When I took this photo, it looked like the exposure was off so I bracketed quite a bit to make sure I got the exposure right. However, as it turned out when I viewed it on the PC later, the exposure recommended by the camera was correct even though it looked off on the LCD before. This is a statue at the front of t St Joseph's Cathedral, one of the few churches left in Hanoi. Converted to black and white in-camera. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Flowers

I believe this is a relative of ulam raja (cosmos caudatus) that grows in Malaysia as well, although the leaves seem smaller. They definitely can be eaten though. Getting down to the level of the flowers and using a wideangle, this shot makes it look like the flowers go on forever. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Concentration

I quite like this photo. Enlarge the photo and you'll see that this vendor has almost the same intense look as the painted portraits above his head. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Masks

Look closely and you'll see they're not really masks but serving trays made of bamboo and painted with an endless variety of different faces. A photo like this requires careful framing, and with a bit of cropping on the side I got the very symmetrical look I was looking for. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Sandals

Needs no explanation I think, except that it was shot at one of the many stores selling shoes and sandals on the streets of Hanoi

Temple detail

I can't even remember where exactly I took this, but I think it's somewhere around Hoan Kiem Lake. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Kids in motion

Another grab shot that turned out rather well. For this one, I knew the shutter speed wouldn't be that fast, so I panned the camera to follow the motion as best I could. The result is a photo with a lot of motion blur, which in this case, works. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Hoan Kiem Lake

This shot was taken by propping up my camera on a convenient electrical junction box and setting it on self-timer. There is still a bit of camera shake, but it's acceptable under the circumstances. By the way, Hoan Kiem Lake is one of the major centres of life in the city -- in the day there's a lot of activity and people selling food and souvenirs and at night it's a make-out haven. :) The name translated means the Lake of the Returned Sword, where as the legend goes, the King was bestowed a magical sword by a giant turtle to defeat his enemies. After the successful campaign, the King, as agreed, returned the sword to the turtle here. This temple sits right in the middle of the lake as a memorial. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Cathay Life

I like this shot -- it says everything. There's Hoan Kiem Lake in the background, two people kissing and a chair that says, "Cathay Life". High ISO shooting on the D7000 is pretty amazing -- this was taken handheld at ISO2500 and it looks pretty darned good considering. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Contemplation

This shot was taken at Hoan Kiem Lake as well. I noticed this lady sitting by a row of trees next to the lake and fired off a couple of shots. I don't normally take note of technical details, but for this shot, I intentionally shot at the 200mm end of the lens to make the trees look closer than they are. There is of course some post-processing going on here -- I adjusted the curves a little bit, then desaturated the shot till only a hint of colour is seen. Interestingly, the shot looks as if I selectively removed colour in particular areas, but in fact, it's all in colour. The trees were so grey and the lady's bag was so red that this level of desaturation made the trees look monochrome while there's stil a hint of colour in the lady.

Water puppets

Taken at the same place as the classic kitchen, this is a shot of the water puppets used in a traditional water puppet theatre. White balance here was quite tricky -- the default Auto1 white balance setting on the D7000 produced a slightly bluish shot, not what I was seeing at all. After fooling around with the settings, I found that the new Auto2 white balance (which is biased slightly towards warmer settings) produced the most pleasing result. I love the colour and lighting of this shot, although the little white sign really spoils it a bit. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Water puppets closeup

And here is a closeup of the water puppets. In a show, these puppets are actually immersed in a pool of water, with the performer stationed behind a bamboo screen, controlling them via a long pole connected to the puppet and hidden under the water. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR.

Classic kitchen

This kitchen is kitchen is part of an old building in Hanoi. It's actually still used even though it's more of a showcase for tourists. Because of the extreme contrast between the bright and dark areas, I decided to turn on D-Lighting in my Nikon D7000, just to get a bit more detail in the shadow areas without overexposing the bright areas. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Bevy of bikes

Hanoi, like much of Vietnam, has more motorbikes than cars. It's not surprising, really, when you see how narrow most of the roads in the city are. Vietnamese do everything on their bikes, from sleeping to reading, and er...I presume other things. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Old world charm

I love Vespas. I've never owned one myself, but I've always wanted one. :) This was shot in one of the oldest houses in Hanoi. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Waiting

Bikes, even stationary ones, have multiple uses in Hanoi. This shar-pei (I think) is actually sitting there waiting for its bath at a small doggy grooming centre -- well to call it a centre is a bit of an overstatement as it's actually a small doorway in which three people are giving baths to a number of dogs. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Siesta

Yes, that's right, people in Hanoi even take Siestas on their bikes. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Gossip

Not a great shot by any means, but I think it has a "slice of life" feel, showing you what the streets in Hanoi look like, along with a nice Vespa (or similar scooter). This was surprisingly sharp considering it was a grab shot taken at the 200mm end of my zoom lens, which isn't usually all that sharp at that focal length. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Manga on the move

As I've said before, people in Hanoi seem to do everything on a bike, from having a siesta to reading. The colour yellow seems to be a popular choice for Vietnamese, and can be seen on quite a number of walls. This shot is so sharp that in 100% view I can clearly make out the shojo manga that the girl is reading. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

A concerto of cones

These little souvenir Vietnamese hats were on sale by a vendor on the street in Hanoi. This is almost a straight black and white conversion from the original colour photo, with a little bit cropped off the top for balance. I always have a particular fondness for black and white, and some shots, like this one, were intentionally shot to be converted to BW later. In this case choosing a wide aperture and going in closer will help to blur out the distracting background. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.6-5.6 VR

Ha Long Bay view

This is a wider view of Vietnam's Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage site near Hanoi. The Bay has a total of about 2000 islets, 775 of which are located at the core of the bay. Shots like this are always tricky -- the difference between the brightness of the sky and the sea is usually too great for a DSLR to capture all of it. What happens is that if you properly expose for the the land and the sea, the sky tends to overexpose. There is a fix for this in most photo editors like GIMP and Photoshop -- make a layer with an exact copy of the image then choose "Multiply" in the layer properties -- the result is that the layer will be used to darken the image somewhat. To lighten the areas you don't want to be darker, just use a soft-edged Erase tool and carefully erase the areas you don't want to be dark. You can also adjust the layer opacity to adjust how dark the areas not erased are. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 12-24mm f/4

Ha Long Panorama

This is a Ha LONG Panorama, gettit? :) Anyway, what trip would be complete without a panorama shot from me? These days I'm so used to taking panoramas that I shoot off a series of shots like this without needing a tripod. Just meter for one area, set it to manual exposure and then shoot away, trying to keep the horizon level while doing so. This time I'm actually trying out Microsoft's own Image Composite Editor, which can handle Gigapixel images and will even support RAW files that Windows 7 supports. It's free and if you're interested you can get it from here. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6.

The great wall

This shot was taken with the intention of giving scale to the some 2000 amazing limestone islands that pepper the whole of Ha Long Bay. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Floating sundry shop

Having some foreground interest is always important in a landscape shot and I'm always looking for something in the foreground to fill a shot with. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 12-24mm f/4

Cave walk

The thing about taking cave shots is that it's difficult to shoot something truly interesting. Walking in the cave at Ha Long Bay, I noticed the silhouettes of the people walking past this area and quickly snapped a couple of photos. I think the almost monochromatic blue silhouette framed by the dark of the cave works better than having a bunch of gaudy colours (that caves are usually lit with) included in the shot. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 12-24mm f/4

Tendrils

Are you a landscape, people, fashion, nature or macro photographer? If you think about it, there are a variety of subjects open to the photographer if he/she just keeps their eyes open. For me personally, I'm interested in nature and macro photography.

This shot is a macro of a tendrils that my passionfruit plant puts out to help it creep up the fence. I spent a good hour shooting this with a single wireless flash positioned from the top. Lighting was simple but the trick is to angle the two tendrils in a pleasing composition. Nikon D7000, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8.

Sunset

This is one of the final shots I took at Sepang Gold Coast. The sun at this point had turned into a glowing red ball and I wanted to have an appropriate background for it. I snapped quite a few shots as the sun went down and this one is one of them. Nikon D200, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Silhouette

Sometimes there's just no time to think and you have to fire off a few quick shots. This was the best in the 3-4 shots I got of this kid playing in the sea. It would have been better if there was a larger spray of water, though. Nikon D200, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Crabby

This little fellow was taken at Sepang Gold Coast -- a place with a name that sounds more glamorous than it is (it's mostly a muddy shore). What you don't get from the scale in this macro shot is that this soldier crab (Dotilla myctiroides) is maybe only about half an inch in size. As with bugs, taking a macro shot of crabs is an exercise in patience -- you need to approach slowly and crouch long enough that they feel comfortable with you. Here's a closer shot:

I just didn't like this particular shot because the crab was looking directly at me, which I think would have made a better shot. Nikon D200, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8

Natural slide

This was shot at the Bukit Hijau falls in Kedah. Taking action shots is almost always a crap shoot -- the only way to even get one or two usable shots is to take a LOT of photos. Out of these usable shots, perhaps only one will actually be THE one. For me this is the shot -- there's a teensy bit of cropping at the top and bottom but generally the framing is what I wanted and there's a sense of movement in the motion blur yet the boy is rendered sharp against the blur background. There are a couple of things to keep in mind to increase your chances of a good photo however:

1. You need to pan the camera to follow the boy as accurately as possible as he slides down. Anticipation is also key -- you need to watch where the kids slide and you need to know when to press the trigger. I don't normally put the camera on continuous burst mode because most of the time, I will miss the critical moment that happens between shots. So instead, I tend to quickly shoot off a shot or two when I see the boy pass the area I've earmarked as the one which is likely to produce a cool action shot.
2. The other thing to note is that in dim lighting (such as in the canopy of trees in this waterfall area), the shutter speeds tend to be slow and if the speed is TOO slow, more than likely the subject will also have some motion blur even with the best panning technique. Therefore, I increased the ISO to about 320 or so (this is the highest I'm willing to use on my D200) and got shutter speeds that were fast enough to ensure my subject is sharp, yet have a bit of motion blur in the background.

Nikon D200, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

New design!

Hey sorry for the long periods between posts. What can I say -- life happened. The truth is that I've been as active as ever taking photos, but have not found the time to post them for awhile. However, now I'm back and although I still probably won't post that often, I'll try to put up as many as I can during my periods of inactivity at home. Anyway, as you've probably noticed, the whole website has had a redesign, thanks to some wonderful new templates on Blogspot. I'm not a web designer so I can't really be bothered to customise the site much, but I'd like to think I have a sense of taste and I know what I like. This particular template (see the designer's name at the bottom) seems to really fit my type of blog, and still keep the black border that I find important for photo display. Enjoy.

Hong Kong Beach

As usual. this shot is a very atypical idea of Hong Kong -- it's a very beautiful beach with crystal clear water. Counter to what you think from the Hong Kong Tourism board adverts, Hong Kong is very rich in natural areas to visit and this is one of them. I can't tell you where this is simply because I can't remember hahaha. Shooting landscapes usually benefits from having more foreground interest than sky (although if the sky is interesting, then this rule should be reversed). Nikon D200, AF-S Nikkor 12-24mm f/4

Blur

This photo is interesting because it illustrates just how much depth of field affects the image. In this photo I really experimented with different apertures to really get the effects I wanted. The question is always -- does one use a small aperture and include as much of the flower and the background as possible or do I selectively focus and choose an aperture that isolates the subject more. There isn't an easy answer for this and it largely depends on the subject matter. I had considered an aperture where each petal was rendered sharp enough, but somehow the background was then too distracting, so I settled on this one. NIkon D200, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8. Below is a shot with a smaller aperture to render more depth of field. You decide.

Tai Mo Shan Panorama

It looks like it's starting to be a yearly thing -- me going to Hong Kong, I mean. As I've said before, the Hong Kong I see is completely different from most people's idea of Hong Kong (big, metropolitan concrete jungle) -- thanks to my environmentalist brother's job, I get to experience what a large part of Hong Kong is actually like. Believe it or not, the city is actually a very small part of the whole of Hong Kong, although the tourism board would have you believe otherwise.

Anyway this panorama is shot on Tai Mo Shan in the New Territories, one of the taller (if not tallest) peaks in Hong Kong, and a very nice picnic spot. Adobe Photoshop CS4 is actually an amazing tool for stitching together images -- it makes blending and correctly aligning the various images (in this case 5 images covering a full 180-degrees) extremely simple. Unfortunately, Blogger doesn't scale panoramas well and it compresses the shot into a very small ghost of the original so you can't really see how much detail and how large this shot is. Click for a larger (but still lousy) version. Nikon D200, AF-S Nikkor 12-24mmf/4

Bukit Tabur Pano

I haven't updated in awhile, largely because I've been on the daily grind of work for awhile. However I recently did take a hiking trip out to Bukit Tabur in Taman Melawati, Kuala Lumpur and took some photos. Bukit Tabur itself is a hill largely made up of quartz and is pretty interesting -- the moderately difficult and seriously dangerous trail means that the area is largely unspoiled even though it's smack in the middle of a housing area. The hill overlooks a lake which is a also a fresh water reservoir. As usual, when taking shots for panoramas, it's important to keep the exposure the same. As far as framing goes, I always try to frame the image by including some foreground interest, especially in the edges. Nikon D200, AF-S Nikkor 12-24mm f/4

Butterfly up close

Here's a tip-- much as we would all like to think it's possible, it's almost impossible to take a macro shot of a butterfly with available light. If the problem is not with shallow depth-of-field, it's a problem with the butterfly's movement, or the wind, or framing or focus. My solution for field shooting is this -- I turn on the wireless mode on my SB-600 flash, use my camera's built-in flash as the trigger, set my camera to f/16 or f/22, pre-focus, then hold the flash out and above the butterfly, hold the camera in the other hand then shoot away. Yes, this is an actual in-the-field shot. The detail is so good the scales that make up the butterfly's wing is clearly visible when you view the image at 100%. Nikon D200, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8.

Saying a prayer

Brigitte and I revisited this cemetery in Cheras to take some pictures and also to visit some of her relatives buried there. While I had been to shoot here before, I decided to try again and this time bring back photos that are different from what I had taken before. I don't think I have the previous photos on this blog, but I think I succeeded in the challenge I set myself, as the previous shots were more landscape while this series has more detail shots. Anyway a bit of info about taking this photo -- in this shot, what you have to concentrate on is not how the subject looks, but how the background appears.

Let me explain -- it's really important in a shot like this to have the background as UN-distracting as possible and one way to do this is to make sure it's as out of focus as your camera aperture will allow while keeping the subject sharp. Another way is also to look through the viewfinder and try different angles so whatever is left in the background is largely uniform, with little or no distracting objects visible. So here, I applied these two principles, using an aperture that would keep the subject sharp but the background blur, and also making sure that there were no other gravestones in the background to distract your eye from the subject.

Nikon D200, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR