Dusk is one of the most amazing moment for photography and to get a good picture at this moment is pretty easy if you know your basic.  First you’ll need a steady tripod, then make sure you are familiar with your camera &  system, the more you know the better your chance at getting beautiful photos as dawn fade away very fast, especially the best duration of ‘golden hour‘ is only about 10minutes at most;  You really do not want to be wasting your time finding a feature or setting of our camera.  So,  study your manual and understand your camera before you go out and shoot!

Generally, your will be shooting with a relatively long shutter speed to get the nice colors from the horizon.  In order to get the longer shutter speed we preferred,  we will be using low ISO together with a small aperture.  In this series of photos,  I used mainly Nikon 24-120VR, Nikon 18-35 and Nikon 50 f/1.4 on a Nikon D700.  Generally I used aperture smaller than f/5.6 to f/22 on some cases.   I’ve adjusted the ISO from 100 – 1600 depend on my subjects and the motion blur effects I wanted to archive.

Attached here with some of the photos I shot from a local theme park at Queensbay, Penang, there are edited with Adobe Lightroom 3.  Please feel free to comment or share them to your friends.

&. btw,  I am planning for an intensive class of Adobe Lightroom 3 for intermediate users,  do send me an email if you are interested.

&.&. btw,  if you are looking to turn your hobby into profession, please check this out.

Finally I have the time and idea to edit this set of photos, which was taken a long time ago, back during Chinese New Year this year.  Anthony was a schoolmate of me who happened to be working in Shanghai and met his soul-mate, Stephanie there in a land far far away.

They had a simple buy fun wedding in Anthony’s home town, which is pretty nearby to my neighborhood - Setia Pearl Island!

The wedding kicked off in the morning with fetching the bride, gate crashing and tea ceremony session at Sungai Ara, followed a church solemnization.  The reception is held at EQ ballroom.

I shot all these photos mainly with a 50mm, on a Nikon D700.  Some shots are taken with 18-35, and the rest with 70-200.  I picked and edited these photos on Adobe Lightroom 3.

Feel free to share them if you like, and of course, I am always open for wedding assignments.

Congratulation to Mr & Mrs Joseph Choo!  Joseph is a good friend of my since long time ago, and I am glad to be invited to his photographer for his ROM in Putra Jaya earlier this year.  We had a lot of fun shooting in Kuala Lumpur, and here are some of shots from the series!

These photos are mainly captured with Nikon D7000 & D700 with a few lenses.

Feel free to share this photos if you like them, or talk to me if you need someone to cover your big day!

I came to know this place, Wat Charok Padang from my buddy, Joo Liang.  It is an interesting place, a Buddhist temple built with a lot of glass bottles.  Located in Sik, Kedah, the temple is about 100km away from Penang Island, and is easily reachable using North-south Expressway.

It is frequently visited by many in the morning exspecially during Chinese New Year holidays.  As it was a casual family trip for me, I arrived very late in the afternoon and voila, an almost empty temple!  I did a few quick shots around the temple under the killing hot-sun before I continue my journey to Sg Petani to visit some relatives.

>> Click this to view more photos from the trip <<

The whole set of photos is taken with a Nikon D700 DSLR, my favourite 50mm f/1.4 and an ultra wide 18-35mm.

If you are interested to pay a visit to this temple,  the exact location for GPS is at 5°47.782N, 100°42.635E or view in google maps here.

Finally I got my hand on a unit of Nikon latest DSLR, the Nikon D7000.  Basically the camera is so hot that it was sold out the moment it arrived in the local store;  I am not going to write a technical review of this camera as you can easily get a very comprehensive review from the internet such as this and this.

My 1st impression with the camera was very positive.  At a low investment like this, you get a very solid camera, with lots of features and fantastic image quality!
In this round, I was invited by G3k Photography to a shooting assignment on 2nd of Jan, 2011 in a Ballet Graduation Concert held in Dewan Sri Pinang, Penang.

Paired with a single 70-200 f/2.8 tele-lense, I set up myself on the platform with about 100m away from the main stage.  I had a hard time getting a pin-on exposure as the stage lighting was arranged in a not-photographically friendly way.  The spot-lights was badly distributed across the stage sections with a lot of colors.

I’ve have no complain on focusing with the d7000’s new module as the contrast of the subject was reasonably good there, I only used AF-S (single shot) here and no continuous-shoot.  The WB was set to Auto in this case as the lighting and color themes changed too fast for me to coup up with.  As it is really dimmed in the stage main-lighting, I had to crank up the ISO to 1600 – 2500 ranges to obtain a shutter speed of 1/160s – 1/250s at aperture of f/2.8 – f/4.

I’ve shot in full resolution jpeg in camera, and had selectively cropped to a better composition.  Minimum color treatment was done, most of the photos from this series, was basically similar to the out-of-the-camera photos.  I also noticed the default Picture Control gave a slightly more saturated colors compare to Nikon D700. So I’ve tuned down a bit in the saturation from the ‘SD’ picture control, and crank up a bit on sharpness as usual.

The performances went on for about 2 hours,  I’ve captured about 400 over shots from the series, and have selected some of my favorite to share with you in the following flash album,

>> Click here to view them now <<

As usual, comments are welcomed and please do share with your friends who might be interested to my photographs.  The photo below is a closing shot I captured using Nikon D700 & 50mm.  As from you can see, the stage was flooded with a warm yellow lights with nothing else,  I am really having a hard time shooting the performances.

Thanks to Freezed.asia, I had a chance to share on Time Lapse photography with the members on 19th Nov 2010.
It was a short sharing session, and I managed to pull it through with some slides and time-lapse videos I liked.

Many thanks to all that come and support and I hope you learn something from the session.

Please check this one of the best Time Lapse video I found and shared during the sharing session,

Want to do your own time lapse but have no idea where to start?
Download my PDF guide of Time lapse photography and have a read and feel free to comment.

The club members will also be having an outing on 30th Nov 2010 for a time-lapse try out at Fly ver bridge near Komtar Penang.  For now, enjoy and stay tuned!

Updates:
The outing with the club members is a big success! I can see many videos floating in from the participants already in facebook.

Finally I visited Hard Rock Hotel Penang for the 1st time last month!  We were asked to cover a small engagement party there at Pizzeria by the pool!

It was truly a fun experience working with a bunch of party peoples!  They have rented a few rooms with an attached balcony,  you were able to access to the pool directly from the room’s balcony!  When I was there, the weather was wonderful and the timing was right on for the sun to set!

We quickly take the chance to shoot a few shots for the host on the beach!

The buffet dinner started with a touching vows from the host!  As I mentioned, the host and guests were a group of care-free peoples!  There’s non stop jokes and laughter everywhere!

And if you noticed, this was the biggest ‘diamond’ ring I ever shot till date!   Everyone went crazy and laugh non-stop when the groom proposed and shown it to his wife-to-be! While the host were kissing in the background, there’s something going on…

The buddy of the groom suddenly proposed to his girl-friend!  It was a surprise proposal plan that were carried out secretly within the band of brothers and no doubt it was a great success!  We have the second lovely couple in one party!

The wedding rings of the soon-to-be married couple!

Not forgetting the largest ‘diamond’ I ever shot!

They have also ordered a lot of funny cupcakes that features topless girl figurine and willies!  And everyone went crazy again when the host distribute the cakes to them!  Next they were having fun playing some games prepared by the emcee of the night.

And the losers get free drinks…!

Right when everyone taught the party was almost finish… there is the another surprise of the party!

The emcee was having his birthday on the next day, and they decided to do it earlier!  Look at how surprise the emcee was when the cake was brought out and shown to him!

and before we call it a day, we did a few of a informal group shots around hotel swimming pool…

I hope you enjoy these photos and if you would like to view more, I have selected and compiled them into a slideshow,

>> Click here to view the slideshow <<

The cinematic video taken by my partner will be ready soon and feel free to comments and share this to your friends on Facebook and twitter!

This is one of my commercial photography assignment done earlier for ATI College Penang, With only 1 and 1/2 day time slot for the assignment, I managed to cover the main campus, Penang International Airport and a few of Penang’s tourism hot spot.  It was truly a unique experience for me, as I get to shoot difference subjects in such a short time!

The above shots was done very quickly as everyone is complaining about the hot baking sun, the shot was shot right in front of the college main entrance!

A few shots from the kitchen, where the future chefs learned their basic here…

A few shots for student’s activities in campus.

The last shooting ground was a real life heavy traffic International Airport Penang,  as we only have permission for a really short session there, I quickly executed a few shots inside the airport with the helps of Air Asia Crews (former students of ATIC) and a shot on Firefly Air Plane just happen to land at the time.

I hope you enjoy these photos and do write me a comment!

For Penangnites,  if you pass by Burmah road from Komtar,  look to the right and you should be able to see the new campus for ATIC, they have printed some banners with my photos. 

If you are interested, here’s the ATIC’s corporate video done by a friend of mine.  The video was shot with mainly a D90 and a slider.

You can also get more info on what courses are available from ATIC by visiting their official website or facebook page.

Jeremy & Wynnie was a cheerful couple living in Perth; They have came back to Penang, to officially celebrate their wedding with friends & relatives from the hometown in Penang and to introduce their lovely daughter!

I’ve got to know Jeremy & Wynnie thru their wedding planner, Beatrice of Touching Heart.  They have chosen to have their ceremony in the G-Hotel, a wedding by the pool deck!

I had a great time shooting there as coincidently, one of my friend Darius is actually Wynnie’s god-brother!

During the ceremony, Jeremy & Wynnie introduced their lovely daughter to the guests as well.

We then had a great photo session with all the guest before the dinner, arranged by G Hotel in the ball room.

The dinner was a blast and everyone is having great fun!

Like these lovely photos?  Click here to view more moments captured from Jeremy & Wynnie wedding!

I took a short 2D1N trip to Cameron Highland with family last weekend.  As titled, I had a ‘bowlful’ of strawberries there!   Sadly though it was raining cats & dogs over there, so I din’t get the chance to go capture some regular tea-farm scenic; instead, I visited a few indoor farms and had fun shooting/eating/hanging there!

We stayed at Titiwangsa Hotel,  a twin king-sized bed at a super duper low price of RM 218 a night!  And best of all, the price includes a buffet breakfast & a steamboat dinner for everyone!  A step into the room, we were amazed by how spacious it is for such a good deal!  Will I be visiting the same hotel again?  Definitely yes!

A look of the delicious steamboat!  A treat for the freezing night!  After the great meal, we went for a traditional body massage right at the main entrance of the hotel for a cost of RM 60 an hour.  The massage was so-so and you can forget about it if you wish.

I’ve selected 80photos to share with you, for your convenience, the exposure info is included this round so that you have a rough idea on how I captured those.
Please feel free to comments and ask if you need further details!

>> Please click here for the flash album <<

For your info, the photos were captured with a Nikon D700, I swap between a 18-35 ultra wide angle, a 50mm, and a 135mm short tele lens.  The photos were then edited with Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta.