Met up with two old friends from my high school days yesterday. Just for fun we decided to do a photo shoot together with a new, old car that one of them bought; A 1970s Volkswagen Beetle! I’m not into cars but I could tell that this was a classic from a glance.
It is a true beauty although I didn’t feel entirely safe in it while on the roads back from our usual hangout place, Punggol Nasi Lemak Centre at Kovan. I believe this is largely due to the driver /grin.
The shot was taken using 2 Nikon SB900 Speedlights, 2 Pocket Wizard FlexTT5, a Pocket Wizard MiniTT1 and an AC3 Zone Controller. It’s unbelievable how convenient it is to do this kind of shoots with an AC3 Zone Controller. Why? Because I can control the power of my Nikon SB900s wirelessly; even when the flashes are out of sight!
Here are two of the shots we took:
The follow pictures will give you an idea of my setup:
To view more images taken with tiny (but powerful) flash guns, click here: Outdoors with Tech'one and my Nikon SB900s!
Met up with an old friend of mine to test out how my Nikon SB-900s fair as off camera flashes. It was great! It performed so much better than my old Vivitars. The flashes were triggered using a Pocket Wizard Mini TT1 with an AC3 mounted on it and a Flex TT5 as the receiver for each flash. This setup is pricey but it has a few perks.
If you use a flash or the Nikon SU-800 as the trigger, infrared light is the medium used to communicate with the receivers. The draw back of this is that you need to be aware of your line of sight as well as distance. Some people have also mentioned that the flashes have problems receiving the signals under bright light. I have yet to test that out and I’ll take their word for it.
A much more affordable work around is to use one of those china made triggers. I have been using the Yongnuo RF-602 wireless flash triggers for most of my shoots previously and it has yet to let me down. I even used it along side photographers using Pocket Wizard Plus II in forested environments while shooting for Red Bull Dark Knights. No problem. I dare say it’s probably the best choice as an affordable wireless flash trigger (maybe you can leave a comment if you know of another good flash trigger which as affordable).
Using the Pocket Wizard Mini TT1/Flex TT5 system has a few additional perks over the Yongnuo. Firstly, you can use the AC3 to control the power of the flashes remotely through radio frequency. Secondly, Speedlights can be set to work in i-TTL. Thirdly, you can fire your flashes at speeds beyond the usual X-Sync speeds.
Two Nikon SB-900s along with warming filters were used for all the shots. This allowed me to warm up the skin of the subject and give the skies the unreal blue though meddling with the white balance.
Pet photography is fun especially if you are a pet lover. I love pets! I love having them, cuddling them and playing with them. Especially small pets! Not really into cleaning the poop though. :D This is probably one of the reasons I prefer smaller pets.
I was tasked by Addiction, a premium pet foods brand to do a studio shoot for a series of pets some time back. It was exciting and an honor to be able to meet and work with owners of award winning pets. The shoot took 2 full days.
Here are some of the pictures:
Some of the others can be found here: Pet Photography Singapore
I’ve been asked a couple of times on how I did the shot of the PUG (the little dog)?
Here’s the answer:
- Glass for the subject to stand on
- White ceiling or paper to act as the background
- Some way to light the subject without creating any reflections on the glass
To give you a better idea of how it was done, check this out:
It’s far from glamorous I agree. That idea was more of an impromptu thing and I made used of what ever I could find in the studio as well as some manpower.
Well, good luck trying and have fun!
Hi Everyone! Wishing you a very happy Chinese New Year! This is coming a little late, I know.
I didn’t manage to do any house visits this year. Not even the reunion dinner :(
I have a huge backlog of pictures to process. I’m hope to clear all of last month’s shoots by mid next week otherwise everything is going to go out of hand with more shoots coming up.
Despite the entire backlog, I decided to go down to The Float at Marina Bay, Singapore to catch a glimpse of River Hong Bao 2011. If you have yet to check it out, there will be lots of festivities happening all the way to the 13th of February.
Here is another picture of Singapore's Skyline from the opposite side of Marina Bay: Singapore National Day (Fireworks)
When shooting scenes containing moving objects try using a long exposure.
Thaipusam is something I always wanted to capture, as a personal project but didn't because I always forgot about it. It's easy to forget since it's not a public holiday in Singapore and does not fall on the same date every year. It usually falls in January or Feburary.
So what's Thaipusam? It’s actually a birthday celebration of the Hindu deity Subramaniam. It’s a time for making and fulfilling vows. Devotees who have had their prayers answered will pierce their body, face and carry huge cage like structures (which I bet is painfully heavy) known as kavadi and make their journey. These structures are beautifully decorated! According to one of the devotees I spoke to, some participants do these 3 years in a row and some, for their entire life! Well, not everyone there does this. Some carry only milk pots.
To tell you the truth I was both physically and mentally tired even before heading down. I have been covering events and providing other photography services for a few days in a row and have hundreds of gigabytes of photos to filter through and process. However, I really didn’t want to miss this again. In fact, if I found out about this earlier, I would have headed down to Batu caves in Malaysia where they also celebrate this event. Maybe next year :)
I left home, at around 1130 pm and headed to Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple which is in Serangoon Road. At the back of my head, I was a little worried as I might have been a little unprepared. I didn't carry any water with me, had no idea about the route and the ending time of the event. I only knew that it began at 12 am midnight.
The crowd was pretty huge and there were lots of chanting going on, cool drumbeats and tons of smoke. I enjoyed the atmosphere tremendously and found myself grooving to the beats without realizing it. Time passed really fast as there were lots of photography opportunities. I made the journey to Sri Thandayuthapani Temple at Tank Road with the devotees and left for home in the late evening. From what I heard, the last group leaves to Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple at 6 pm. This is just something to note if you intend to check out this event in the future.
I highly recommend that you check out this event in the future if you have never done so before. I know I will probably do it again!
Here are some pictures from the event (Thaipusam):
If you are interested to check out Thaipusam in the future, here are some tips for you:
- Wear slippers! There are some parts of the temple where you can’t use foot wear.
- Have a plastic bag to place your slippers in and dump it into your bag. There will be hundreds of slippers outside the temple. You will probably have issues finding yours if you leave it there.
- Bring something to drink.
- You might want to equip yourself with a prime lens (85 F1.4 or 50 F1.4 perhaps) and an ultra wide angle if you are checking out the event from the beginning (12 am) as its a little dark. However, if you come in the afternoon, a prime lens is not really necessary.
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