Photography Bug

I don't know how it happened but everything happened so fast. We are smitten by photography bug.

I cant figure out the source of my sudden interest in photography.Maybe its happened because of our decision to do lots of travelling before starting a family hence resulting into taking great pictures of the places we travelled,or maybe almost everyone here in Singapore has a nice camera accompanying them and they trying to show their photography skills,or maybe because the other day my colleague showed me some great pictures which burst my myth that great photographs can be taken by normal human beings and you need not go to a studio to get a family picture(bit old fashion!!).I really cant say what triggered my interest in photography but now that I am bitten naveen also decided to go with a flow.

We decided to invest in a nice camera ,now here comes the confusion-which one to buy ? we have been doing some research for quite some time.

Its specially difficult to decide for someone like me who till now was confused about the zoom button in a normal digital camera.There are many options available around but when you are confused on which one is best, these options confuse you even more.

We decide to narrow it down. Cannon vs Nikon -the battle begins !!!

First we decided cannon 1000D then it was Nikon D3100 later Nikon D5000 and now cannon 500 D. See a amateur in this field will know my pain that how difficult its to decide when you have no idea what you want.

Most of them say its a personnel choice-"Buy the one which you are comfortable" But being a beginner its difficult to decide what we are comfortable in. We have one week to decide and we are leaving no stones unturned in figuring out what is best for us.

We are going to hunt down that perfect camera which we are comfortable with !!!

Till then I hope my interest in photography is here to stay.

I have posted some photos that was taken in St. John's island.

Though beginner I am proud of my ability to take such pictures(close ups,focus lock stuff !! aha I have already learned few technical terms :) )

Night Photography

My previous post was about fast shutter speed ,this one is about slow shutter speed . Shutter speed is often associated with exposure time i.e how long your camera takes to click a picture .

Fast shutter means less exposure and slow shutter means long exposure time . At night ,because of darkness if a picture is taken with fast shutter speed the resulting image will be dark hence the camera needs to be open for longer duration to take in more light . Longer the exposure the better.

One of the reason why we shifted to a DSLR was because we wanted to take nice pictures in the night . We were tired of blurry images that comes with a point and shoot camera ,not that you cannot take good night pictures with these cameras its just that we din't know how . The main reason why point and shoot cameras most of the time end up giving a blurry night image is because of the person operating it . To photograph in the night you should have a steady hand or else even a slight shake can have drastic effect, hence most people suggest using a tripod while taking pictures at night .

Kaula Lumpur at night


I personally find it very inconvenient to carry a tripod during sight seeing . But this time I did take a small tripod which came free with my point and shoot camera, it was very handy .

Below are the things we tried during our recent trip to KL

Taking pictures of light trail

The light trails can be best seen in a moving traffic ,for this you will need a tripod . I decided to shoot the picture on a over bridge near the traffic signal . If you don't like carrying a tripod have a small one like mine . I kept my tripod on the railings and held it firmly . The camera should be in 'S' mode with increased shutter speed, the more the better but I choose 10 - 15 sec which will do the job . When the shutter speed is set to 10 sec it means that when you click the snap the camera will take 10 seconds to show the pic .

During this time the shutter will be open and hence more light can enter through lens and the resulting image will be sharp. Since it takes 10 sec for a camera to produce the image its impossible for anyone to hold the camera that steady in the hand . Hence a tripod is used or if you can find a steady surface you can choose to place the camera there .

Some people also suggest using an external cord to click the picture to prevent any shake but I have no intention of taking so much of pain . I took some of them by direct clicking and some by setting up a timer . To photograph light trail in a traffic signal the timing should be perfect . I ended up taking 10 to 15 shots before I got a good looking picture .





Poor Naveen !! he waited patiently for me to complete my experiment . I am glad he put up with my experiments at 10 in the night with a empty stomach and whole day of sight seeing . Once you try it you realize its so easy to get these kind of pictures .

Getting sparkles in the night

The trick is same -- long exposure,slow shutter speed ,a tripod and bit a patience.From what I observed you can take sparkling pictures of street lights. Choose a nice spot from where you can see lots of bright lights.Place your camera on a tripod and take a snap with shutter speed set to 10 sec and then wait.

Petronas Tower

Less Exposure

More exposure(see the difference in light)

This is more easier and I was able to take good pictures with just two trials.

An evening with flowers

We visited the Singapore flower show held annually at Resort World Sentosa on its last day.Our main reason for visiting was to take some beautiful snaps of flowers.
On any other day flower show won't interest me that much but now it is different.We were keen to take pic so we were excited .When it came to flowers the place was below my expectation.There were sculptures of different animals like rabbit,hen , pig etc made of flowers but there were not many varieties of flowers.I couldn't find any exotic varieties of flowers ,maybe I had high expectations.But overall the flower show was pleasant on eyes.

Since this is a photography section I should be concentrating more on how we took pictures.After learning the basics of photography the next thing to learn would be- when to use what combination to get the best result.

We now know the different modes available and the basic definition of ISO,shutter speed and aperture(the 3 main pillars of photography).What differentiates a pro photographer from a beginner is when to use what combinations.

Till now we used to try all the modes all the time without actually knowing much about it. The main disadvantage with this is even if you happen to get a good picture you will not remember how exactly that picture was taken.So today we decided to use only aperture mode.

While taking the pic of flowers its necessary to highlight them so that background is blur.We choose a larger aperture (smaller f stop) and went near the flowers to take the snaps although everything was smooth .

Sometimes if you are too close to the flower the camera just refuses to click. Well after bit of research we found out that there is nothing wrong with the camera ,it behaves that way because it cannot focus.So in such cases we should use manual focus(we have to learn using that now!!!) ,or stay farther away from flower and try to zoom in rather than going very near to flowers,or buy a macro lens(this is an expensive option so its ruled out for time being).

The second problem was we were unable to focus where we initially set out to focus. I will explain this in detail because its been very irritating trying to fiddle with this feature.If I look in the view finder my camera has 11 focal points. If I press the camera button the focal point which is near to the object will blink in red indicating that the subject has been focused.But with flowers the camera was not focusing where I wanted it to focus that's why some pictures are not as sharp as we expected it to be but fortunately they are pleasant on eyes.

As a solution to this we figured out that we should enable only one focal point . This is done by selecting a pic marked as [ . ] in the AF option.It will take some time learning all this small details.

Below are some of the pic we took

These are very small flowers which were surrounding a tree. I had to bend down to take this shot.The light in the background is from the bulb which was lit at the root of the tree because it was getting dark.

40mm, f/5.3, ISO 100, 1/30 sec

Some variety of flower .




I don't remember how I took this pic !!!


35mm, f/5, ISO 3200, 1/25 sec

Twin flowers lit by background

55mm, f/5.6, ISO 800, 1/60 sec

This is a very interesting picture. I dint use any editing tools. I captured the bottom of the flower which was lit by bulbs placed near the trees and the background is the sky at noon.Sometimes it helps to take pic in different angles.

55mm, f/5.6, ISO 3200, 1/160 sec

We came across this flower accidentally.It caught my attention because it was single flower and odd one out among pool of tiny flowers.

18mm, f/4, ISO 720, 1/30 sec

Orchids are there everywhere in Singapore

55mm, f/5.6, ISO 3200, 1/30 sec

This structure was the main attraction. we could have taken pic next to it but there was a huge queue and standing in the queue was the last thing i wanted to do.

Logo of resort world Sentosa made from roses



Cute Rabbit






This is what I meant when I talked about focus.The center of flower is not as sharp as I had expected.

55mm, f/5.6, ISO 250, 1/50 sec





These were called illuminating mushrooms. you know why !!!

26mm, f/4.2, ISO 500, 1/30 sec

Experiments with Fire

I took these pictures of fire lit by coal and was surprised by how well the images turned out to be.


You can take the pictures with or without flash.Like in the below case the image taken without flash also looks good.


But people suggest taking pictures of fire with flash off as it will give a glaring effect.And in many cases like taking candle snaps ,turning off the flash will be a better option.

I kept camera in aperture mode and took some close up shots.



Below is a candle shot which I tried at home.

Photographing water droplets

It was raining heavily today so I decided to spend some time with my camera.I was reading some articles on how to take pictures of water droplets or water splashing.Most of the articles mentioned about having an external flash and tripod but I dint have any of these things so I decided to take photo of the shower.

Not bad for a beginner but I am not impressed yet.

Moreover plain water is bit boring so I decided to add some color. I blocked some water in the sink and added kumkum to it.The water turned bright red. Now all that was left on my part was to start the tap slow enough for water droplets to fall down at consistent speed.

Its not easy to take the picture exactly at the point when the water drops in the sink.Timing plays a huge role and be ready to get your patience tested. I placed a chair near the sink in the bathroom,switched of bathroom lights so that the room is dimly lit and must have taken over 100 shots out of which 4 to 5 came out decently.

I spent close to an hour setting up everything and taking the shots.I have tweaked their colors a bit by using editor.

Now the question- what setting should you use to take these pictures.

This is where shutter speed comes into picture.Put your camera in "S" mode.I have a nikon model so its S. I think in cannon its "Tv" mode.

Different nature of pictures can be taken with slow and fast shutter speed.
Slow shutter speed is mainly used for night photography and taking pictures of object in motion .Fast shutter speed is used to freeze the motion of a object.

Since the water droplets fall very quickly the shutter speed should be high (something like 1/60 ,1/125) so that when you click the picture it freezes the whole thing and water drops in slow motion.The aperture will be adjusted by the camera.When I took the pic the aperture varied from f3.5 to f5.6.
Also take the pic in a dimly lit surroundings with flash on.

I think you can achieve something like this with a point and shoot cameras by keeping them in "sports mode" .Never tried it though.