Chinatown 2010 from Dawn to Dusk

Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year, and I wish everyone a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous Year of the Tiger! Strangely that reminds me of the character "King" that I play in the arcade game Tekken. The character in the game is a Mexican Professional Wrestler who dons a Jaguar Mask by default. Maybe I would be able to play the character better this year? Haha! Anyway I recently went for a walk in chinatown to soak in the festive atmosphere, and its a refreshing change from the daily routine of my day job. I decided to share some of my casual pictures of chinatown from dusk to dawn, with my trusty Tamron 17-35mm F2.8-4.

Dawn

To Be Continued with Dusk...

My plate of "Hokkien Mee" for dinner before I continue with the evening shoot.

Happy Lunar New Year 2010

I would like to wish everybody a Happy Lunar New Year 2010 in the Year of the Tiger! I have not been updating my blog lately but I promise there would be more to come soon... Cheers!

Happy New Year!

Its the New Year 2010 and I really hope its a better year for all of us! What's your New Year Resolution? Whatever is important to you in life, I wish all of you the best!

My little nephew, Baby Brandon during X'mas, coming to 2 months old.

Tokina 28-80mm F2.8 ATX-Pro

Guess what? I just bought a 2nd hand Tokina 28-80mm F2.8 ATX-Pro after selling my 2nd hand Nikon 28-105mm F3.5-4.5 zoom lens! The reason was I got it at a great price and I felt that I still needed the F2.8 in a standard zoom. Reviews of that lens has been rather mixed, but I decided to bite the bullet and just get it because of the attractive price. Initial testing seems to show a lens that isn't too shabby! Comparisons with its newer and very popular 3rd party lens competitor, the Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 would surely abound. I happened to own that lens before and I feel that the Tokina has a vastly better built and feel, it balances great on my D700, and the AF collar doesnt rotate when focussing. Sharpness wise, the Tokina loses out a bit to the Tamron, especially at the 80mm end, but not by a lot. The Tokina is definitely sharp enough for me even at wide open. Both have nice bokeh, but the Tokina seems to have higher contrast and saturation then the Tamron. It also focuses a bit faster than the Tamron. All in all a very decent walk around lens that I can finally put to use in my next event shoot! I went to the Chinese Garden for a trial run this morning so stay tuned for the uploads in a few days time!

A tree can symbolise Life on Earth. Here I try to showcase textures, perspectives and Bokeh.


A Portrait of this Handsome Young Man, taken indoors where the wide aperture helps. The AF was fast enough to capture kids who tend to be in constant motion!

Congratulations to Ben and Qinpei!

I would like to congratulate my cousin Ben and his wife Qinpei on the safe delivery of their baby boy Brandon today! I am very happy for them and that makes me officially an uncle now! Haha! These pictures are especially poignant as they were taken almost exactly a month before the delivery!

Nikon 35mm F2 AFD


Nikon 50mm F1.4 AFD

Wide and Tele showcase

The Nikon 180mm F2.8 AFD lens is able to churn out really shallow depth of field portraits, thin enough even to isolate full body shots!
Nikon 180mm F2.8 AFD: "Walk On By"

Nikon 180mm F2.8 AFD: "Lost in Bokeh"

Nikon 180mm F2.8 AFD: "Are you feeling Hot Hot Hot!"
Now we are talking about full body isolation and bokeh!

Nikon 180mm F2.8 AFD: "Sweet Smile!"

Nikon 180mm F2.8 AFD: "Wild Thing!"

Nikon 85mm F1.8 AFD: "Moderate Tele: Standing Pretty"


Tamron 17-35mm F2.8-4: "Mutabak Meal"

Tamron 17-35mm F2.8-4: "Graffiti"

Tamron 17-35mm F2.8-4: "Me and my Canon 5D"

Low Light Shot with Nikon 28-105mm F3.5-4.5 AFD

Brothers chilling it out and having an afternoon siesta in the kitchen after a hard day's work of following the groom.

With the Nikon D700 low light capabilities, who needs VR? Just kidding! Here is a shot taken in an extremely dimly lit restaurant setting of a wedding dinner. I was using the superb Nikon 28-105mm F3.5-4.5 AFD and Nikon D700 with ISO 1600 at least, taken hand held. No VR! Stunning low light performance by the full frame DSLR that I can never dream to achieve with the previous crop factor DSLR(D200) that I had.

Window Light Portraits

Having done quite a few high key window light portraits recently, I had the chance to try out during this rainy weather, a more subdued lighting for a more melancholic mood. This time I have only the side walls to bounce light and the dim indoor lightings as a small source of fill light. I did not bring my Nikon 50mm lens outdoors this time, but luckily the Nikon 85mm F1.8 I had was sufficient to do full body shots in the cramp conditions. Auto WB performed surprisingly alright here. Here is a sample shot, more to be added when I have the time. To be continued...

Nikon 28-105mm F3.5-4.5 AFD

I bought a 2nd hand 28-105 F3.5-4.5 lens in excellent condition very recently. I took it out for a test run today. It is indeed a great walkaround lens for full frame DSLR, just like a swiss army knife of a lens. It even has a 1:2 macro mode that is very versatile. I did not feel it has any real flaws, other than that I wish it could go a little wider, and perhaps be a constant F2.8 but that is asking too much for such a budget lens! Sharpness and focussing accuracy was quite impressive in real world situations, colours are nice and neutral and this lens has very little distortion that I can detect for a standard zoom lens. The location I went today was at Bollywood Veggies around Lim Chu Kang area.

Sleepy Head

This shot was taken in D2XMode1 with Pre-set WB taken off the white sheets. Due to the cramped conditions I was using my favourite Nikon 50mm F1.4 AFD lens. Another of my favourite High Key shot.

Welcome Back! Save The Trees!

Now that I have got your attention, welcome back! Not the Haze, though... The hazy weather is back, thanks to the forest fires in Sumatra I guess... Keep an eye on the PSI readings, because the air quality may not be so healthy for outdoor activities. How can I do my shoots at Sentosa then? Haha! Anyway, here are shots taken there, with what else but my trusty Nikon 85mm F1.8 lens.

Stop man-made forest fires! Save the Trees!

Food for the Soul

Music is Food for the Soul to me. Other than great photography, I enjoy great music too. Both can evoke emotions so deep, and rekindle memories that they seem to bring you to another place, another time. I listen to a wide range of music, from Bach to the Beatles, from Jamiroquai to Diana Krall, and even from Prodigy to Pantera, depending on the mood. My old Marantz amplifier of about 10 years finally sang its swan song recently and so I decided to update my system, which is almost a decade old. First up was the excellent Monitor Audio RS1 bookshelf speakers. These handsome speakers were in rosewood finish and they sound fantastic to my ears at their price level. Detailed and extended treble, a very transparent midrange and a wonderful tight bass, perfect for my smallish room. For the amplifier, I got the Creek Evolution 1 after auditioning a few amps that I shortlisted with in my budget. It trounced the other similarly priced amps that I considered, so it was a no brainer. With that I knew I have secured the engine of the system. Besides being rather long in the tooth, my Rotel RCD-951 is working fine after all these years, and I have no other reason to upgrade it, other than to make myself broke! Just kidding! But its a great piece of equipment to be able to last as long as it did. If it did break down, I probably would not hesitate to get another Rotel CD player! I also changed my corroded interconnects with the Van Den Hul Integration. I wonder how it would compare with my old resident interconnect. It gave my many years of musical enjoyment, and it was the best sounding interconnect I could afford at that time, some many years ago. I thought I would let the VDH Integration burn in a bit to have a fair comparison. The moment I plugged in the VDH Integration, it has stayed there ever since. There was absolutely no fight. A wealth of detail begain to swamth me, and the awesome yet precise soundstage seemed to extend way beyond the boundaries of the speakers and walls. I described the holographic images as "ghosts", so errie was the midrange presence and transparency. These holographic imaging, especially percussions at the foreground, gave me a few scares while listening to music late at night, so realistic was the reproduction! Tonal balance remained quite similar with the old interconnect, but with a slightly more powerful and tighter bass and a bit more forward presentation. But as far as soundstaging width and especially depth, detail levels and separation and layering of vocals and instruments, the VDH Integration is my new top dog. Isn't it great when you can enjoy your music to the next level, where every music you play is a sonic journey and you can have your live performance right in front of you in your room or hall? It makes every CD I have worth so much more. Music is Food for the Soul. With a budget hifi, you can have good food everyday! Haha!