Power of motion

I'd like to visit beaches with much larger waves than these.

It's over... all over.

What a luxury it is to be able to doodle on 1 photo for the whole night =)
Read on if you have such a luxury too...

After sooo many days of inactivity, i wanted something special to refresh this blog. The weather these days are dry and hot. While i do curse and swear at how much floor mopping i'll have to do, its also true that the sunset is a lot more colourful.

Exams are finally over, after less than 20 weeks of actual schooling (not counting test/break). Kindof feels like BMT, intense training/studying and stress and then poof... all the weight off your shoulders, but with the lingering worry of what's to come next.

I have no plans to go anywhere during the hols, but intend to do a lot more photography. Every shoot feels like a little holiday trip, especially those that i go solo. Its just you, and your way of seeing, unaffected by convention. I get to think aloud, commenting my own pictures and in a way, get to know myself.

While shooting this pic, i realised that i've changed a little in the way i compose. I am seeing it more as a painting than a picture. I ask myself questions like: If you were to paint this scene, what would you include? Colour or monochrome? How dark/bright would u paint this area.. stuff like that. Photography, with photoshop, gives me the power to make such decisions =)

Technical data: 5 exposures digitally blended. 2 GND8 stacked (results in the nice vignette at the top). Tokina 11-16 f11 at 11mm.

Dusty filters can surprise...

...but a rusty brain can only kill.

Sunrise-refreshed

Someone posted the previous version on her facebook =) So i clicked it again just for fun. Before i knew it, 4 hours of my weekend was gone. Click on to waste your day as well...

Viewing the previous edition on a calibrated screen looked very different. Too contrasty, over-sharpened, over saturated.. basically photoshop on steroids. The use of double GND also resulted in the background rocks devoid of detail, not doing justice to the scene i recall.

Now that i can run capture NX2 properly, i decided to give those NEFs another go. The final version is blended from 6 different files. Added a touch of warmth at the end.

Barking up the tree

This was an opportunity shot. I wasn't there to shoot chameleons. I just thought this chap's position allows for an interesting composition.

I was in WCP for cycling, trying to feel some wind from an otherwise hot and humid day. Although there is no autumn in SG, the amount of dried leaves and flowers is still substantially more. Stopped to have a second look at a particularly beautiful angle when i noticed this sunbather. Glad i brought my cam along.

The bigger version is a must see. I love the colours and details one can extract from shooting NEF.

Bankruptcy - Some people just don't care

Humans create their own problems. Let them die for all I care. As long as the sun still rises tomorrow, I will be here to embrace it.

Every sunny afternoon, these guys will be there for their spa. Always. I've made it a point to carry my camera with me today, and i think i'll do so more often.

Barely 200m long, this path to school never fails to surprise me. Rain or shine, there's always something interesting, if you've been observant enough. One day i shall stick a fisheye into one of these lizards' face. Until that day... For now, i'll look forward to school.

New stuff.

I'm gonna have a new lift soon! Ok, not THAT soon, and I've got to put up with quite some inconveniences as well.

Click on only if you have time to read my ramblings.

Been busy with my schedule of exams, school, tutorials as well as building up my new photo processor. I can now finally shoot and process NEFs in Capture NX! My old computer will just die when processing these 12mb files (which can expand to several times its size when opened due to all the caching involved using the notoriously inefficient software). Together with my new laptop bought from the uni fair, I bought a docking station and attached it up to the larger 20" screen. (sorry if u think i'm bragging a bit.) It's an LG L2000CP, using an IPS screen! In case you are wondering what's that, it's a technology used in LCD panels that has much better viewing angle and contrast compared to conventional screens. It can also display more colours (8bit compared to 6) The downside is its higher price tag, as well as slower response times.

Ok its not the largest screen, nor is it the best quality screen. In fact, it suffers from uneven backlighting which is noticable when u display a complete black screen in a pitch dark room. You will see that the edges are brighter than the center. (If you are looking for even more excuses to spend big money on a better monitor, try out this site.) The one BIG factor why I love this screen is its ability to tilt to portrait. I can have 1600 pixels of height for my pictures shot in portrait orientation, all that real estate dedicated to the picture itself, with the thumbnails, palettes all on my laptop screen. (dual monitor rocks!) And mind you, you'll need a 30" screen to have 1600 pixels height if you can't rotate, and a normal screen will suffer from horrible viewing angles when tilted vertically. Plus, its the cheapest available 8 bit panel.

Enough of the screen and back to the photos. When i first opened this file in capture, it literally jumped at me. Out of camera and unprocessed, the colour, contrast and sharpness were so real, so accurate. I was staring at my screen for a few minutes just "wowing". Of course this was partly because it was shot using a uber sharp tokina 11-16 stopped down to f8. But wow. I can literally "feel" all the texture on the netting, the steel chain... it is as 3D as a 2D image can get. Nothing beats Nikon's own software for opening NEFs for now.