Category Archives: My Hobbies

Photo Shooting at Singapore Night Safari – No Flash, Hand Held, Total Madness

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Knowing that I will visit Taman Safari Indonesia next week, I managed to purchase the perpetually sold out Nikon zoom lens and wanted to give it some practice at our Singapore Zoo or Bird Park during the long weekend.  I stared at the sky everyday and willed the rain to go away, without success.  So one evening I took my Nikon D700 with my new lens and headed to Night Safari, alone.

I have totally underestimated the challenges ahead.  Before I left home, I was very pleased to finally leave the flash gun behind since it is morally irresponsible to shoot these lovely animals with flash.  Flash photography has been a steep learning curve for me; shooting moving wildlife hand held with no flash in near pitch dark and less than ideal light source is very hard.  It is hard to describe unless you try it out yourself.

I have seen many visitors gave up after some test shots (all black, grossly under exposed).  Looking at my LCD, they were amazed at what I took; but I was less than thrilled by the results of this trip.  Sorry guys, I promise to do a better job next time.  Perhaps with a monopod and a different setting.  Below are 28 pictures selected out of close to 500 shots I took that one evening (no Photoshop, no cropping).  I have put in some captions to better describe the condition.  If the OVI player moves too fast, feel free to mouse over it, click pause, and manually forward the slide.

After the first few auto shots, I was stunned by the result (in a negative way no fault of Nikon).  Bear in mind that I have just invested don’t know how many years of my future Christmas present budget into this one lens, I stood still trying to figure out what to do next.  Auto focusing option is out because it was too dark for my camera.  The animals kept moving and the shuttle speed could not be too low.  Some animals kept moving towards and away from me and I had to keep changing the composition (i.e. zoom) and the focus.  Basically my left hand was busy with the two rings on my lens.  I have to go for full manual mode anyway because it is not a question of getting the right exposure, it is a question of how low you can possibly tolerate.  I learned as I shot.

Most of the shots I was shooting at a focal length of 200mm (widest aperture of 2.8 for all).  That works out to be an ideal shutter speed of 1/200s for hand held condition (please let me know if I talk rubbish)?  VR – vibration reduction – can slow down the speed for 3 stops for those who have steady hands (I leaned towards stationary objects whenever possible) and I had to go even lower than that.  Most of the shots, I used a speed of 1/15s.  Some I manage to up it to 1/30s.  Still, it is very hard to get a good shot with that speed at 200mm.  I tried to get a better ISO whenever I could but rarely could I go below 3200.

I had no prior experience nor read anything on manual setting prior to this trip. Most definitely, I have committed a lot of laughable mistakes.  My last manual focusing practice session was when I was a very small boy.  I did the best I could and figured the above out through experiments on the spot that one moist evening.  How glad my scientific mind kicks into action when I need to make my art works.  As always, all online and offline feedback is welcome.

Nokia N96 Test Drive Episode 3 – Coffee Break Spanish

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Orhhh … Look at this dreamy picture of that one true beauty, don’t you want to … take one home?  I love listening to podcast on the Nokia Nseries.  It enables me to download video and audio episodes in the morning wirelessly through my home network way before Apple has figured out how to implement wi-fi connectivity into their over-hyped, overpriced products.

And as this lifestyle continuous, years later today, I am counting on my Nokia N96 to save me from failing an examination that I cannot fail.  If you notice, I have not been blogging about my Spanish class lately.  Onto level two, though it has not really gotten that much tougher than Beginner 1, my poor foundation seems to have cracked under the weight of these 10 new lessons.  There was no examination at the end of Beginner 1, but there will be an examination at the end of Beginner 2.

Having an examination, in principle, is a great idea.  Who would practice music without a gig?  Would would treasure a computer game without the long wait, long queue, and 8 flights of stairs up?  Who would study … without an examination?

I cannot fail my Spanish examination because:

  1. Everyone including Cynthia will move onto Elementary 1 …
  2. … while I have to repeat Beginner 2.
  3. And I will miss my old classmate a lot …
  4. … have to re-take the examination again.
  5. And pay an extra S$323.

¡Qué horror!  Time for more green bottle mental booster!

One evening, I was really stressed out.  Cynthia has started listening to a podcast channel called Coffee Break Spanish while I was still staring at the two Spanish books I have bought, but haven’t started reading.  OK, my strategy certainly was not working.  An idea struck me, how about subscribing to that channel that seems to have captivated Cynthia using my new Nokia N96?

The process was so simple that I banged my head onto the table for my procrastination.  I took out my phone, navigated to the podcast application, and entered the phrase Coffee Break Spanish onto the search bar.  And voilà!  80 odd episodes to be downloaded onto my phone with a click of a button from this award-winning beginners’ Spanish show.

Both Cynthia and I love this channel because the pace is good and the presentation of the materials is interesting.  We have gone through 10 episodes in details listening to the Spanish teacher Mark working with his student Kara.  The episodes are packed with exercises for the listeners to orally practice with Mark and Kara, interesting long dialogues to practice our listening, and they do seem to interject the Spanish culture into their materials whenever possible with interesting guests from Spain and Mexico origin.

Speaking as such, let me download the next 10 episodes now.  Wish me luck on the examination!  And you know me.  Pass or fail I will post out the results.  By the way, I notice that Nokia N96 has done a much better job in handling simultaneous download of multiple podcast episodes compares to its predecessor.  And it seems faster too.  I am glad that Nokia N96 comes with 16GB memory (+ another 16GB externally if you want).  I reckon it can fit all 80+ episodes nicely.

Related Tag: More Nokia N96 Test Drive Episodes

Clarke Quay is Lovely – Project Experiment with Nikon SB-900

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Clarke Quay holds a special place to my heart, it has always been since I first visited Singapore more than a decade ago.  The vibrancy, the color, the tourists, and when I was toying with a location for me to experiment my new flash unit Nikon SB-900, I thought of Clarke Quay.

To tell you that I know how to operate that flash unit would be a lie.  Half an hour before we stepped out of our home, I was busy going through the manuals and tips-and-tricks the first time.  I got the essential information – pretty much like most that I do in my life – and reckon that the best way to learn is to go out to the field and experiment.

This Nikon SB-900 is a large flash unit.  Attached it to my already monstrous tool make me look like an alien walking on earth with a huge laser gun.  When TK joined us, he was shocked by the size of my tool.  Oh well, I was shocked too.

So we had a Spanish meal – my first – at The Tapas Tree.  One of the staff whom we have not met before is a teacher from Las LiLas School, where Cynthia and I learn Spanish.  Cynthia was shocked that I initiated a Spanish conversation with her.  I was shocked that the lovely Spanish lady understood what I said.  And she gave us a 10% discount.  How nice.

We bumped into a couple who asked if I could take a picture for them.  I offered to send them the photo via email but I guess they were too drunk to response.  I think I got a bit better with the flash unit towards the end.  Keep practicing I guess.  If all (pictures) fail, at least we’ve had a lovely evening.

My First Ever SLR Photo Shooting Session – A Test Drive of the Nikon D700 at the Singapore River

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Love, can be nurtured.  I think.  I have been staring at my new Nikon D700 for quite some time wondering what I shall do with such a complicated, heavy, fine piece of equipment.  Today, I took it out for some test drive at the Singapore River during lunch.  I think I am falling in love.

When I was back, sweating and feeling a bit tired, I couldn’t hide my excitement and shared with one of my colleagues who is really into photography (and owns a D300) the first day in my life using a SLR.  Yes, all my life I have been a point-and-shoot guy.  Hence, pardon the amateur results and I am keen to hear your opinions (note: my personal preference are those wild and crazy colors).

I don’t think I am and will ever be a big fan of post production work on the photos taken.  Hence, all you see here are the actual results from the camera, with no modification except a simple resize and the addition of captions.  I am still trying to find my way as there are quite a number of settings that I can and do use on the spot.

PS. A big thanks to a friend of mine who was gamed enough for me to take a picture of her while I was doing street shooting during the lunch hours.

PS. When I told my colleague (who owns the D300) that it is hard to go unnoticed on the street carrying such a huge camera, he joked with me that he was used to carry big lens on the street.  And he stopped after realizing that he drew more attention from the men than the girls.  I thought it was a funny story he shared.

We Leveled Up At Las LiLas School – Now Onto Spanish Class Round 2

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Tres cosas importantes en la vida – which means 3 important things in life – to the Spanish are salud (health), dinero (money), and amor (love).  After our Spanish teacher Anna translated what salud means, I asked in all ignorance, “What about heaven?  ¿Cómo se dice “heaven” en español?  (How to say heaven in Spanish?)”  The entire class was silence and then bursted into laughter.  It was happy kind of laughter.  I soon joined them after realizing that salud means health, not hell.  Oh well.  I probably speak Spanish with a Singapore accent while Anna speaks English with a Spanish accent.  How come I was the only one who didn’t get it.

Now you get it?  By now you should.  You knew that I have enrolled the first Spanish lesson this July and since then, my journey has not been that smooth sailing.  If I was to redesign the Spanish curriculum for the English speaking people, I would list out a whole set of vocabulary that is common between Spanish and English (the word ‘curriculum’ is a good example).  And I would also create a list of words that are similar between the two languages.  Such as importantes versus important, vacaciones versus vacations, salario versus salary, familia versus family.  Imagine, all of a sudden, Spanish is not such a foreign language anymore.  Imagine, the level of confidence that I would have, that any English speaking person would have, after seeing that entire list of similarity.

Though I have missed the first class of this new season (because of that trip, you know which trip I am talking about), I am as determined as ever to do well and pass the examination with the rest of the class.  I love my class, I really do.  I don’t want to be left behind as the rest of the class continues to the next level.  These are fun people, people with interesting careers, and most importantly, people whom I look forward to meet every week.

This new season I am doing something different.  I think one way to learn a new language is to try it without thinking too hard about it.  Once again … ¿En la vida solo hay tres cosas importantes amor, salud y dinero?

Si, el mismo orden (yes, in that same order).