Fashion...

Wow, i think it has been ages since i last went for a fashion shoot! Guess it was about half year ago... I still rem vividly the time when i first started out in photography, never even know that there was such thing as public fashion show! Kinda hard to believe right?? hahaha.

Thinking back, the time of shooting fashion is pretty fun! Besides the great colours of the clothes, different textures, beautiful models do play an important part too!

Here are some shots i got just now. :)

SCC Rugby 2008

Wow, i was at the SCC rugby event on the 1st and 2nd Nov this year. Unlike the previous few years, tickets are needed to enter the event at Padang. However this ticket is nothing compared to the stuff one can see during the event. Lots of action when players tug, pull, push, drag....you name it, you have it! For me, i love this annual event as i get to shoot lots of action sports photos! My favourite!

Here are some of them. :)

More can be found at my pbase gallery:

http://www.pbase.com/lsr792000/rugby_2008

14th Sep - My 29th birthday!

Hohoho... Its the 14th of Sep again. Well its my birthday today! This year is very special for me as my dear dear has planned a surprise for me!

Actually my dear dear has already mentioned in her blog about this surprise but she didnt expect me to read her blog before today. Hehe as a result, i came to know that she has something up her sleeve. But the thing is, she dun wan to tell me about it!

She turned up in front of my house this afternoon! Guess what she got in store for me??

These are the mini cakes she has made herself!

Beautiful arent they? Wow, makes me bu4 she2 de2 eat them leh! They are so colourful, with mini M &M topping with a thick lahish layer of dark choco on them! Beneath the choco is the delicious banana cake! SOunds really good right? Haha i will keep 5 for myself, the rest i will share with my family. Hehe

The most interesting part is there are a total of 9 mini cakes and they formed the words "HAPPY BDAY"! Oh boy, it is so thoughtful of my dear to do that! And she has woke up early on sat morning to buy the ingredients (bananas) and again woke up early this morning to start making the mini cakes! Dear dear you are the best!

I ate one just before my dinner! It tastes realllyyyy good!

My mama cooked my favourite dishes for me tonight.... chicken wings, potato with egg, fish, vegetable, cha siu and corn soup! WOw i ate till sooo full.

I had my birthday cake after dinner. It was a choco cake from Begawan solo. I chose the choco cake cos i think it will taste nice. Its quite good, just abit of creamy.

Usually every year, i will either spend with my friends or have a simple cake at home. This year is very special as my dear dear and mama have both cooked great stuff for me to eat! My dad and bro bought me the cake!

So happy!!!

Bird photography

Wow, it has been really quite a while since i last posted. Hehe. I am into a new type of photography recently! Guess what is it???

I never knew i will really go into this area of photography cos

• It requires a great amount of time to wake up early in the morning
  


• Under the sun for several hours



• Expensive lens to give you the highest quality images
  

ABle to guess what is it? Its BIRD photography!

For this kind of photography, you will need the following:

• A dslr (haha, needless to say) (one which has about 5fps should be suffice for most needs)



• A telephoto lens (get as long a focal length as you can afford) (300mm is a minimum)



• A flash extender (to be mounted to your flash light to extend the flash coverage distance)



• A sturdy tripod with a Wimberly head or sidekick (at such long focal length, any movement will result in camera shake and blurry images) (Wimberly head / sidekick is for panning and tilting)



• Lots of memory cards! (believe me, there is only 1 chance to get that perfect shot, keep shooting!)
  
  

Here are some of the shots. Enjoy!

More can be found at my website:

http://www.pbase.com/lsr792000/wildbirds

Photography Basics 3: Lens selection

Wow it has been a while since i have last posted. Finally got the chance at home today so faster post it! This week is a holiday week for me as i will be starting a new job next week. :)

Ok back to this topic. Oh by buying a dslr, it means that money has to be spent on buying lenses. Unlike conventional compact cameras which come with built in lenses, dslr does not have such luxury. Huh?? Dslr is so much more expensive as yet it doesnt comes with lenses??? Well, thats a fact. Think it in this way, by having the option to use whichever lenses to suit your needs aand achieve the photographic effects you desired, why not?


Lenses are widely classified into 2 main categories:

Primes - Essentially these are fixxed focal length lens. Fixed focal length simply means that it is NOT a zoom! Generally these lenses are lighter, better optical quality (because of fewer glass elements inside them) and faster (allows more light to enter e.g. f1.4, f1.2, still rem these terms?)

Zooms - I am sure i do not need to explain this right? Zoom lenses cover a range i.e. 16-35mm or 70-200mm. These lenses tends to be heavier, poorer in optical quality as compared to primes (however, nowadays, zooms is closing tthe gap with primes in this aspect), slower (doesnt allow as much light in as the primes).

Both Canon and Nikon offers a wide variety of primes and zooms to suit the needs of photographers. There is no hard and fast rule to say "i will only use primes" or "i will only use zooms". It really depends on individual needs. I have myself covered with zooms and primes.

My experience with buying lenses was initially i tend to buy zooms. Covering from 16mm all the way to 300mm... Wow, that is really very expensive back then! Total of 5 lenses! But after a while, once you kinda know what shots you like to take best, you will focus and keep only those you want. For me, i am left with a zoom 28-75mm (for street shots), 50mm (for portraits), 100mm (for macro) and my beloved 300mm (sports + birds). WHat if i need those lens which i do not have now? Well, there is always people online who lease lenses, you can easily loan from them for a small charge per day!

Photography Basics 2: DSLR selection

Up till now, if you notice i have yet to mention anything regarding the camera selection. I shall cover in this topic.

With the advance technology nowadays, the gap between various models of dslr is narrowing. Unless you wanna print out your photos in really GIANT size, you will not need cameras with over 16 megapixels!

When selecting a dslr, i will like to share with you some of the tips. You need to know the following:

1) What sort of photography you like?

If you like sports in particular like i do, you need to consider the fps i.e. frames per second. The higher the fps, the more likely you are going to get that expression on the sportman's face in milliseconds!

2) Noise level at high ISO

Certain brand of camera is particular good at this. For example, Canon dslr tends to perform better at high ISO comparing to other brands. Having said that, this gap is dimishing with newer models of cameras like Nikon D3 etc.

3) What is the largest size of print you need?

As i mentioned above, i will say all the dslr is capble of giving quality prints up to A3 sizes. Unless you are into advertising and related industries, the extra megapixels is not necessary.

4) Note the size of the sensor used in the dslr!

More megapixels do not necessarily mean good! This is a misconception that is imprinted via advertising nowadays. You will need to take note of the size of the sensor in the dslr. Every dslr has a sensor size giving you a crop factor of 1, 1.3, 1.5, 1.6, 2.0 etc. The bigger this crop factor, the smaller the sensor! When we have more megapixels in a small sensor, it means more noise and your picture quality will be degraded! Do not fall into this trap!

5) Weight

One of the more important factor to consider when you are going for travelling. I am currently using a Canon 1D Mk2N. Wow, this camera suits my needs very well, but when comes to travelling.... It weighs like a brick! I am not joking! You will appreciate a smaller camera during travelling!

6) Many picture modes..

To me, i find the modes such as landscape, portrait, fireworks etc a kind of gimmick. Really, if you are going to use a dslr, you will want to explore to obtain the photos. These picture modes are simply pre program into cameras so that your photos will look good. However, you will lose the joy of experimenting! Can be frustrating in experimenting at times. I know, but keep trying!

Most IMPORTANT tip!

Always search online for feedback and reviews on the camera you wan. Try them out in the shops and see if you like the 'feel' of it. Ultimately, you are going to use it. Dun be afraid to bring a memory card such as a CF or SD card so that the images you shot at the shop can be viewed in your computer. Many times, the images look so good on the camera LCD, but when you view it on your PC, its not to your liking!

Photography Basics 1: Techie terms

Well, in this article, i will try to unravel some of the common terms used in photography. Probably if you are using the point and shoot camera, you will not be able to appreciate these terms as much. However, once you are considering in a dslr, these terms are a MUST to understand to allow you to develop further!


Aperture

"Is a hole or an opening through which light is admitted." - Courtesy of Wikipedia

Simply, an aperture is a something analogous to the pupil of our eyes.

Our pupil dilates (enlarge) when we are entering into a dark room. Why? So that more light is able to enter and we can see better in the dark! Similiar, when we leave a cinema, our pupil constrict (becomes smaller) so that excessive light does not enter our eye!

Easy right? Indeed, human is the one who invents the camera. Naturally the camera will mimic the way we behave!


Courtesy of Wikipedia


F-stop refers to the aperture of a lens. Take note, the smaller the F stop, the bigger is the aperture size! A smaller F stop e.g. f1.4 also means that the background of your photo will be blurrer as compared to a bigger F stop e.g. f22. This is because at f1.4, we have a shallow depth of field whereas at f22, we have a deeper depth of view.

F stops are as follows: f16.0, f11.0, f8.0, f5.6, f4.0, f2.8, f2.0, f1.4 and so on. Each 'jump' in F stop is equivalent to a factor of 2 change in light intensity i.e. doubles in this order!




Shutter speed

"Is the length of time a shutter is open" - Courtesy of Wikipedia

Shutter speed is in seconds. The faster the shutter speed, the higher probability of 'freezing' an object in motion. The slower the shutter speed, you can create the 'silky' texture of flowing water!

Shutter speeds are as follows: 1/1000s, 1/500s, 1/250s, 1/125s, 1/60s, 1/30s, 1/15s, 1/8s, 1/4s, 1/2s, 1s and so on. Each 'jump' in shutter speed is equivalent to a factor of 2 change in light intensity i.e. doubles in this order!

Hey, I notice that every 'jump' in F stop or shutter speed, we will have the same change in light intensity! Hmmm.. any relationship between these 2 terms? Yes, there is a relationship between these 2 terms. But i will hold the explanation till i explain the last technical term. :P




ISO speed

This essentially refers to the sensitivty of the camera to light. In old days when films are used in camera, each film has its own ISO speed.

The higher the ISO speed, the more sensitive is the camera to light. However the noisier the image will become also. The lower the ISO speed, the less sensitive is the camera to light. But the image will be cleaner.

ISO speed are as follows: 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200. Each 'jump' in ISO speed is equivalent to a factor of 2 change in light intensity i.e. doubles in this order!



Exposure

Photography is all about light.... How well exposed is the photo. A great photo has the correct elements of aperture, shutter speed and ISO.

In short E = A . S . I

where E = Exposure
A = Aperture
S = Shutter speed
I = ISO speed

Hence, by changing each term in the above equation, we can 'manipulate' the photo! Cool right?

Rem i promised to explain the relationship between aperture and shutter speed above?

E.g. Assuming i have the same ISO speed, if i am using an aperture size of f2.8 and shutter speed of 1/125s, i can use an aperture size of f2.0 (aperture size doubles) and shutter speed of 1/250s (becomes twice shorter) to obtain an equally exposed photo!

It takes some time to 'sink' this knowledge in, but once you master it, you are already halfway to success!