Bridge over the Marina

Keppel Bay Vista bridge by the Marina at Keppel Bay. Interestingly, I was not allowed to take pictures of the boat at anchorage with the Reflection @ Keppel Bay in the backgound as a self important security guard stopped me and informed me that "pictures with DSLR are not allowed for security reasons". In my mind I thought that I should go back, use a quality point and shoot, stitch up a high resolution panorama out of 20 images and post it on the net... While we had planned to have a meal at the Marina, we changed our plan as we were clearly not welcomed.

Little Guilin - Singapore

Little Guilin at dusk.

Aiming for the sky

Cannon at Fort Siloso.

The National Library

Another shot at the interesting architecture of the National Library of Singapore. The "wings" structures (left) are engineered to block direct sun and yet let light and breeze pass through. A method to keep the building cool in quasi equatorial climate. 

The Fort Gate

The Fort Gate, from an unusual angle. Fort Canning Park, Singapore.

Chinese Garden - Singapore

The two little pagodas and the setting fun fighting to pierce through heavy clouds.  We could hear the thunder and observe flashes of lightning. Altough the rain did not show.

The interior staircase of the tall pagoda.

Garden by the Bay (2)

After a brief shower, the lens of the camera could be pointed up before the sky turned too dark.

Garden by the Bay (1)

These metal trees come to life at night with their lighting constantly changing.

The village of Saas-Fee in the Swiss Alps

 

The sun is peering over the mountain.

Chinese New Year is slithering in

Welcoming the year of the snake.

Xmas light up - Singapore

Last week, the streets of Singapore were lighted up for Xmas. It seems thought that some savings were made as I thought that the decorations were less impressive that the previous years. It might be because Marina Bay was lighted up for the first time and budget had to be streched a little.

View from the tree top bridge

The view over the forest canopy from the tree top bridge in the McRitchie Reservoir Park is quite impressive. However, even late afternoon (the bridge is locked after 5pm), the contrast between the shadows and the still bright sky is too wide to be captured properly by the sensor of a camera.

All conditions were then met to experiment with HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. For the resulting image above, 5 pictures were taken of the same scene at different shutter speeds (correct exposure, -1 stop, -2 stops, +1 stop and +2 stops). They were then merged in Photoshop using the HDR function, which mixes the exposures to achieve a more neutral tonality across the image.

When the exposures are taken, best is to have the camera on a tripod with trigger by cable release. For this particular image, the camera was hand held and the hanging bridge shaking slightly... By far not the most favourable conditions. Then focus should be manual, camera on aperture priority (to avoid change in depth of field between the shots), white balance fixed (not on auto) and, preferably, ISO should be kept low (as HDR photography tends to create background noise). For Nikon camera, when auto bracketing is used with release on continuous, the number of shots selected in the auto bracketing series will be taken automatically. It is then not necessary to change the shutter setting between each shots.