Sustenance

Sustenance, originally uploaded by edmundlwk.

I’m sorry if I haven’t been blogging lately, have been piled high with assignments since returning form my trip to the Netherlands. And now that I’ve completed by assignments, its exam time!

I’ve finally gotten into that pre-examination mood. No time to cook, no time for grocery shopping, no time for laundry. I’m starting to move into an unhealthy instant noodles and junk food diet and my sleep cycle’s getting pretty screwed. I can’t wait for this to be all over!

A Turk and Robin Hood over the weekend

It’s been quite some time since I last had such an exciting weekend- travelling around Coventry, eating lots, running for buses, getting shouted at by racist kids (not that I enjoy it but it does amuse me sometimes)…  I wish I could forget about school and enjoy my weekends like this all the time.

Ryan, my mate from my time as an officer cadet (who’s currently on an exchange in Istanbul) and Yi-Mei’s close choir friend (from Nottingham)  popped by Coventry to visit and thanks to them, my typical sad weekend life had some colour to it. We brought them to the nicer places around and outside Coventry, avoiding the Coventry city center itself since it was nothing to be proud of. Of course, knowing me, I went trigger happy with my camera  as we travelled. The best thing was that this time, I had Ryan who shared the same passion and followed suit in my snapping frenzy.

For now, here are some pictures taken of the beautiful sunset over Heronbank just before Ryan had to rush off to catch his bus.

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End of Term? The beginning of more work to come?

Looks like Term 2 has come and gone. After a hectic, sleepless, final school week, the so called Easter ‘holiday’ is finally here.

I haven’t been diligently updating my blog recently as I had 2 assignments due but it looks like I can finally put them away(!). However, there is  still little room for celebration since there’s another 4 more due after this ‘holiday’ totalling more than 10000words =( argh!  Well, at least despite my crazy week, I still managed to bring my camera out for one shoot (although it was just outside my door =p).

Putting work aside for now, I’m really looking forward to my Netherlands trip next Wednesday! I’ll be heading to Amsterdam (of course!), Hague, Maastricht, Giethoorn, Leiden and Lisse (for the Tulips Festival). Hopefully, there would be loads of photo opportunities and of course endless fun.  One strange thing (maybe strange is not the right word…) is that I would be travelling with group of 6, of which I am the only guy (should I consider myself fortunate or unfortunate? haha). I wonder how this would work out for me… Travelling in such a large group tends to make it hard for me to take my time to compose my shots since I can’t keep everyone waiting. Well, I guess I’ll just have to make the best of my opportunities…

Catching Last Light

Grass Slope

Canon 450D + Tokina 11-16mm f2.8
ISO100, 1/40 sec, f11, 11mm

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1645H. Ended a 2 hour long E-business and Value Chains lecture. As usual, the last lecture of the week always feels like the longest.

1700H. Noticed beautiful clouds across the sky, the sun is setting soon. Should I head out and catch the sunset before it vanishes into darkness?

1710H. Sat in front of my computer. Not really doing anything very productive. Need fresh air.

1715H. Grab camera bag. Fit on the wide angle lens. Battery and SD card? Check. Sling on lightweight tripod. Rush out of the door.

1725H. Snap..Snap… Snap

1740H. Colours in the sky- Gone. Head back home.

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Gravel Path

Canon 450D + Tokina 11-16mm f2.8
ISO100, f11, 12mm
HDR taken with three exposures: -2.0, 0.0, +2.0 EV
Processed in Photomatix and Adobe Photoshop CS4

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Crescendo

Canon 450D + Tokina 11-16mm f2.8
ISO100, f11, 11mm
HDR taken with three exposures: -2.0, 0.0, +2.0 EV
Processed in Photomatix and Adobe Photoshop CS4

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05/03/09 – It’s A Special Day

Being very new to photography, today marked a special milestone in my life.

I submitted two photographs for a photo competition organised by the university some time back and guess what?? One of them somehow managed to clinch a runner’s up position! Being my first ever attempt at a photography competition, this achievement certainly made me feel pretty good (even though it was just a small scale one). However, looking at the other entries, I felt that there were many other deserving winners which should also have been recognised for their creativity and efforts.

The photo competition was themed ‘Reality’ and I saw this as an opportunity for me to test my skills and gauge how much I had improved over the past few months since getting my camera. Searching through my recent shots, I identified two of my favourite photographs which matched the theme. One was a picture of a man and his dog, walking peacefully down a quiet lane while the other was a simple silhouette of a tree (each person was allowed to submit two photographs). Although it seemed obvious in my mind that it was linked to reality, I realised that somehow I just could not put those thoughts into words. I could list out a general idea of how it linked but it was just difficult fitting it all together. One of my reasons for starting this blog was to learn how to better express myself using words in situations like this… apparently it didn’t work. I then enlisted the help of my girlfriend and with her literary prowess, she managed to pen my thoughts into a bunch of beautiful words. As my girlfriend was the one who helped me with the descriptions, I insisted that she submit one of the photographs in her name (Which turned out to be the winning entry =) ). Initially, she kept refusing but she soon gave in to my pleas.

Watching her collect the prize on my behalf was quite a different experience. Well, you may ask why I wanted to do something so strange.  The truth is, as much as I wanted all the recognition for my skills as a photographer, I wouldn’t have won anything if not for her help. The submission was in fact a combined effort between both of us and she had probably played a larger role in the achievement than I did. The other entries were just as beautiful, just as creative, but what stood out for my image was its close link to the theme reality which was made possible by her (Thank you dear!).

-click on the images for details-
(I didn’t expect to win so I didn’t bring a camera and survived on my mobile phone cam instead)

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My (Our) winning entry – Simple Pleasures

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The other submission - Reality's Hidden Beauty

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Our little spot at the exhibition

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10933.56 Km and 13 Hours Away

It has only been about 3 months since term started and I’m starting to miss Singapore already. My family, friends,  the great cheap food and just that warm fuzzy feeling of being home. These shots were taken quite some time back. The first was during my Christmas break last december and the second picture was one of the first few shots taken with my DSLR last August when I still learning how to use it properly.

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Singapore’s Iconic Symbol – The Merlion

Better Viewed Large on Black

Canon 450D + Canon EF-S 17-55mm f2.8 IS
ISO100 @ 17mm (somehow the EXIF data is missing )

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A View of Bukit Timah Road
where home is just after the U-turn in front

Canon 450D + Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6  IS
ISO100, 13 sec, f6.3, 23mm

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Before and After – Exposure Blending

I think my sleep cycle is quite messed up. I’m sleeping at strange times like 4am in the morning and waking up at 12pm. A typical life of a student? Maybe… Healthy? No. Despite sleeping for 8 straight hours every night, I still wake up feeling lethargic. Hopefully fixing this sleep cycle problem will correct this as well…  It’s 1.11am now and I guess I’ll finish up this post and go to bed earlier tonight in an attempt to correct this irritating sleeping habit. Have to wake up early tomorrow anyway for a law seminar at 10am (damn!).

My intention of this post today is mainly to demonstrate the wonders of exposure blending (though I won’t be explaining how to do it due to time constraints – need to sleep!).  To sum it up, this technique basically involves merging together images (usually 3) of the same scene but taken using different exposure settings. This is sometimes necessary because there are often many photographic situations where the range of luminosity values between the shadows and highlights is too large to fit in one single exposure. To put this into context, when taking a shot of a building with beautiful clouds in the background, what you would often experience is a picture where the sky seems overly washed out while the building is properly exposed. You then think to yourself that maybe reducing the exposure would solve the problem but all you get in the end is a properly exposed skyline with nice clouds but an overly dark-looking building.

Film camera shooters often address this problem with the use of graduated neutral density filters which is basically a piece of glass (or plastic) which is darker near the top half  and this then allows the image to be nicely exposed throughout. Of course, many digital SLR shooters do the same and this produces great effects. However, since we’re in the digital age, why not take advantage of modern digital imaging and do this the digital way? With the help of images of different exposures, we can blend the nicely exposed clouds in one photo with the nicely exposed building in the other. Of course, this clouds and building scenario is just one simple example. Much more can be done with this simple technique. Better still, there are numerous programs out there which can even automate this process for you (one example being Photomatix which can also create HDR photos). Well, I hope I’ve pointed you in the right direction for you to do some of your own research in this area (if you are interested and I haven’t bored you to death =p). Here’s an example of this technique in practice:

Once again, more pictures from my trip to Macau last December…

Before:

After Blending:

Notice the additional details in the clouds and the building in the second image.

Note: This shot could have been better since it was taken with only one exposure (I didn’t intend to do the exposure blending technique when I first took the picture…). There are loads of tutorials online on how to do this both ways (multiple and single exposures) and they will probably explain it better than I do.

Happy exploring!

3 New Toys from Sigma (Warning: Geeky Content)

Interesting news! Sigma has just announced three new lenses which it will be adding to its product line-up. Is there any great significance?

Image source: www.CanonRumors.com

The new Sigma 18-50 f2.8-4.5 DC OS HSM seems like a new alternative for people looking to replace their 18-55 kit lenses since it offers a larger maximum aperture (although not constant) and includes an image stabilisation feature. I can’t say much about its performance since it hasn’t been released but I’m guessing that it’ll compete directly with Canon’s 18-55 f3.4-5.6 IS (assuming they’re priced competitively). Specs wise, this still pales in comparison to the current mid-range power houses like the well-reviewed Tamron 17-50 f2.8 and the Canon 17-55 f2.8 IS both of which offer a fixed aperture and excellent image quality. It seems like new DSLR buyers will now have a new dilemma of whether to stick to the bundled kit lens or get this instead. That is assuming that this lens performs well and is not plagued by the common focusing problems Sigma has been notorious for.

Image source: www.CanonRumors.com

The Sigma 10-20 f3.5 EX DC is one lens which has particularly caught my attention. This lens seems to have been launched in face of the competition from Tokina’s 12-24 f4 and the 11-16 f2.8 (both were previously the only fixed aperture UWA lenses for cropped sensors in the market).  Quite a smart move by Sigma I must say considering the large number of photographers torn between the decision of getting the Tokina 11-16 for its wide aperture or the other UWAs in the market for their larger range. I can foresee the other manufacturers launching competing fixed aperture UWAs in the coming months but Canon might not see a need to do so especially since its 10-22mm has been so popular and it’s quite a relatively new lens.. Only time can tell…

What do you think?

Guess it’s no big deal to me since I already own both the Canon 17-55 f2.8 IS and Tokina 11-16 f2.8 and am extremely satisfied with both of them. The Tokina in particular came to me as quite a surprise as I never expected a third-party lens to perform so well (and I can’t find any fault with its build).

The first bit of Spring

Looks like those gloomy winter days are over, say hello to colourful flowers, leafy trees and happy smiley faces!

I took a nice slow stroll after lecture today and noticed something different – flowers were actually popping out from the once bare and ugly bushes. They were probably out some time ago but I never noticed. I guess I was just too preoccupied with the thoughts of assignment deadlines, postgrad applications and getting on with my daily routine, that I failed to notice the colours around me. I guess with this lovely weather, I should get out more and enjoy nature… (note to self: I should head into Tocil Woods soon for a nice stroll and some snapshots, heard great things about the place in Springtime)

Anwway, here are some shots I took around the vicinity of my accomodation:

It was getting dark and I didn’t have my tripod with me. Armed with my 450D and 50mm lens, I had to rely on my shaky hands and an ISO1600 setting to get these shots (had to shoot with my aperture wide open because of my limitations explaining the extremely shallow DOF in most of the images). The image noise levels were reduced in photoshop using Noise Ninja, an excellent noise reduction program IMO.

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Beautiful purple bokeh

taken with my 50mm lens wide open at f/1.8

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Some old leaves from the Winter

I quite like this shot… (taken at f/2.2)

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Purple Bushes Everywhere

(maybe just outside my accomodation..haha)

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Pink tipped Daisy

these things are sprouting out everywhere now!  (used the Raynox for this)

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Caterpillar-looking Plant

(anyone knows its name?)

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Rainbow Sneakers

okay, this is neither related to the plants nor to Spring, but it just has this happy feel to it =)

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Yi-Mei with her fantastic Panasonic LX3

Can’t life be more Colourful?

Was kind of in a gloomy, dull mood yesterday. I think my life lacks excitement and adventure. It’s just so routine, so standard. If only I could afford to just pack my bags today and go on a long trip into the wilderness. I’d like to trek through the Tibetan mountains, go white-water rafting in New Zealand, scuba dive around the Maldives, ride on camel-back across a desert. Being born into a society where you are pressurised to perform and ‘contribute effectively’, everyone is put through a ’standardised’ route. Primary school -> Secondary School -> Junior College ->(National Service) -> University and other Higher Education -> Work. There’s always this fear of diverting  from the norm, facing the unknown and starting your working life later than others. Maybe this can be attributed to the ‘Kiasu’ syndrome inherent in most Asians (the fear of losing out) and how I (maybe the majority of Asians as well) was brought up to think that a fulfilling life can only be achieved through a successful career and satisfying the material aspects of life (which kind of goes in tandem with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs where physiological needs need to be satisfied first before emotional ones). Or maybe this is not just resticted to the Asian culture, but is a widespread phenomenon in most developed countries (esp economic power houses), where people are pressured into producing results. I have no idea why I am in such a reflective mood today… haha.

Anyway, this mood seems to have a profound effect on how I decide to process my pictures today. Moody + relfective = Black and White?