How to have a good time at Angkor

First thing, get a good tuk-tuk driver, because you will be depending on him to get you around.

I was in Cambodia for a week-long trip recently, and thanks to my sister who went there just before me,  I managed to find a good tuk-tuk driver for my Siem Reap leg.

Sra Pon was my man for four days. I know I will be calling him up the next time I got to Cambodia! (which may be quite soon)

© Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

He's sincere, helpful and best of all, he provides free bottled water on his tuk tuk! Can't beat that, really. And his prices are very reasonable -- I didn't need to bargain at all.

If you are interested in engaging his services, he can be reached at srapon(at)ymail(dot)com.

When instant photography was still called Polaroid

I've just published a post on the ST Blog about the return of Polaroid.

A reader posted a short video of his Polaroid project on my ST Blog post. It's worth a quick look!

My rediscovery of Polaroid started when my mum dug out my Polaroid One from a closet. I believe it was a free gift when I bought my Sony point-and-shoot digital camera back in 2003. I quickly forgot about it then.

The Impossible Project could turn out to be something like Lomography -- low-tech but cool and a little overpriced -- because the one of the brains behind the Lomo Society is one of the two behind the Impossible Project. But with a pack of ten Polaroids going at over US$20 now, I doubt it can get any worse. That's what I hope anyway...

Chanced upon this flickr stream when I was searching for info about Polaroids, there are some nice photos there. The photographer, Kat White, actually published a book on blurb.com, and it seems to be selling quite well too!

A brief respite

Apec leaders' week is over. Remedial training is over. The year is almost over. And I'm on course for a couple of days...

Let sleeping dogs lie... © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

Btw the course is called PhotoReading, but it's nothing to do with reading photos. It's a photographic reading technique that I hope works. Because it promises up to a whopping 25,000 words a minute. I could use some of that.

Night market in Nanning

On my last night, I visited local night market with a few fellow journalists. Haven't been to a night market for a while, I realise!

Fancy some roast dog? © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.


Some roti-prata-like dish with fillings... © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.


Stinky toufu... © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.


Jackfruit to counter all that oil. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

We sat down and had some chee cheong fan-like dish. Probably the least oily dish among everything offered there...

Boy I miss the night markets in Taiwan though, it's much more fun walking around and munching on something. Here you have to sit down to eat anything.

Nanning station at 5.30am

Somewhat a continuation from the previous post. Last week, I collected the remaining two rolls of my film shot during my trip to Guangxi. Took a little longer because I pushed the two rolls to ISO 800.

Because of the tight schedule, we took the night train on our way back from Guilin to Nanning, where we had to attend the last day of the China Asean Expo. The train was quite comfortable, though I had difficulty sleeping because of some monstrous snoring from a neighbouring bunk. Nanning was the final stop, and almost all the passengers got off here.

Waiting for someone? © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

Pouring down the stairs © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

Ticket checker at the exit © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

Outside the station © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

There were so many cabs outside the station, I wish I'd took a shot. But we were in a hurry to get on a cab back to our hotel, where a nice hot shower and a comfortable bed awaited.

While the results weren't exactly disastrous, I think I'm unlikely to try pushing colour film again, unless I have no choice. The Portra 400VC, which was used for the shots here, turned out slightly better in my opinion. Will need to do some prints to do a proper comparison though.

A little Nanning & Guilin

I was in China again last week for work, and this trip was significant for me because it was my first chance to truly use my newly acquired Nikon F6 SLR.

It's an amazing camera to say the least -- the ergonomics are simply perfect for my hands. Some comments I read online say that the settings on the camera are complex, but about an hour fiddling with it (with the help of the manual) was all I needed to get everything in order. And after figuring out how to load the film properly (it's been a while), I was all geared up to put the camera through its paces.

Perhaps because of HCB and Ansel Adams, I had always associated film with two things: street photography and landscapes. And maybe fine art photography as well. While I hope to do all three with film, street photography is where I start.

A friendly motorcycle cab shifu I met in Guilin. I wanted to chat a little more with him, but had to re-join my tour group. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

One thing I liked about using the F6 is that my favourite lens, the AFS 60mm f2.8, becomes a "normal" lens -- the field of view is close to that of the human eye. Normal lenses have always been popular for that reason. And it's a comfortable focal length for street, as it's wide enough to capture the surroundings and long enough to give some object-background separation.

A little boy and his grandma, outside a park in Guilin. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

It's quite funny when I would lower my camera after taking a shot to look at the back. But sorry, there's no image review in film, even on the most advanced bodies! I find that it wasn't really a handicap, partly because I trust the F6's metering and partly because that's part of the reason why I decided to turn to film. And the initial results are encouraging.

An old man at the jetty in Yangshuo. You can pay a few yuan to take photos with his birds. On hindsight, perhaps I should have paid to take a photo of him! © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

One thing that surprised me was that it's not easy to find film in China nowadays, even in a relatively less developed place like Guangxi. I was lucky to have a photo store near my hotel in Nanning, which sold Kodak Max 200 and Fuji Superia 200. But by the time I arrived at Yangshuo's West Street, I had run out of film. I was immensely relieved that I finally found one photography equipment shop at the very end of the street.

A little girl in a shop along Yangshuo's tourist trap, the West Street. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

Actually halfway through my short trip to Guilin, I desperately wanted to buy some B&W film, mainly for the Liqiang cruise. But that proved elusive. I will be stocking up on the Tri-X's next time round! Have already found out where to buy them at a reasonable price in Singapore.

Going "full frame"

By some accident, I found myself the winner of an ebay auction for a Nikon F6 just over an hour ago.

Let me explain myself...

I bought my Nikon D40X when I was in Japan almost two years ago. Now, Japan is practically photography equipment heaven if you live in Tokyo, because there are so many branches of the two big chains, Bic Camera and Yodobashi Camera around, and they display their camera gear freely for anyone to feel and try. The bigger stores, in particular, even had most of the Nikon and Canon lenses displayed for you to try as much as you like (without walking away with it, of course).

The camera bodies, though, where displayed in all the stores for trying, if I don't recall wrongly. The D300 and D3 didn't feel that impressive then, though their price tags were astronomical to me at that point of time.

That was the time when I first handled the Nikon F6. Even before I first picked it up (not sure when exactly, but it must have been early 2008), I was shocked by the price tag -- over 260,000 yen (about S$4k)??? For a film camera??? Isn't film already obsolete as hell??? Who would buy something like this???

Yet at the same time, I also thought to myself: once I become skilled enough in photography, film is where I would want to be. I'm not sure where I got that from, but it's always been at the back of my head. Getting the Nikon F6, which many believe will be Nikon's last film camera, will be a mark of my progress in photography.

On a certain level, I think I have learnt enough about using a camera to move on to that stage.

But there was another push factor -- I am certainly no master photographer yet. I have been spending many hours on the computer processing my photos over the past three or four years, perhaps a little more. I'd been doing that even when I only had my Sony point-and-shoot, which finally died on me when I was in Japan. And when I moved on to shooting in RAW and processing them in Capture NX 2, the time I need to process photos on my 4-year-old X41 got longer.

I already spend about 10 hours a day at work staring at the computer nowadays. Should I be doing the same thing when I'm home? In a way I had become a slave to the computer.

I guess I'll end here, I get ahead of myself. I need to go make payment for my F6 first.

In the meantime, take a look at this article. It's well worth a read, even for people who started out with digital like me.

ただ、君を愛してる (Heavenly Forest)

I had been introduced to this movie by a friend quite a few months back, but finally sat down to watch it yesterday afternoon. When I first searched around for information on the film, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the super cute Miyazaki Aoi (宮崎あおい) was the lead actress, though I don't think I actually noticed that the male lead was Tamaki Hiroshi (玉木宏) who appeared in the extremely entertaining Nodame Cantabile drama series.

Anyway, the plot has something to do with photography, which is why I'm licensed to post this here. Ha. University freshman Makoto meets an eccentric, child-like fellow freshman called Shizuru on his first day in school. Makoto begins to get fascinated by her and snaps a photo of her stubbornly trying to cross a road where cars never seem to stop for pedestrians.

The first meeting

They soon become friends after Shizuru, the more outgoing one of the two, initiates conversation with him on campus. That very day they both explore a peaceful forest close to their campus. There they found their sanctuary, where Makoto inspires Shizuru to pick up a camera too and start taking photos with him. However, Makoto likes another girl in school, and the love triangle develops...

The photo that made Shizuru's day

Besides Miyazaki Aoi (!!!) there is quite a bit I like about the film. Firstly, the characters get bonded through photography -- they spend many hours taking pictures and then developing the film in Makoto's darkroom at his place. (Photography will also play a part in the climatic ending. ) Crazy as it sounds, I have recently decided to move into film photography and am only waiting for a good deal on the Nikon F6 on ebay now to make that final step. So the film developing part somewhat resonated with me. One of the things I look forward to with film is spending more time away from the computer (post-processing), and the show just added some romance to it for me.

Another thing I like about the film is that there are actually no villains in the show. It focuses on the romance and interactions between the main characters. This may seem to make the plot simplistic but on the contrary, I think it brings out a lot more character development. The relationships built between the characters are sincere and touching. Perhaps it's a common feature of stories from the 純愛 ("pure love") genre. One of my all-time favourite drama series,　世界の中心で、愛を叫ぶ (Shouting love from the centre of the world), which drowns you in its melancholic beauty, also belongs to the genre.

Makoto's best friends from University

The pacing of the film was also perfect. Every scene advanced the plot, and there are no distracting side-stories along the way. While photography is a theme in the show, it never gets technical -- they don't even mention what camera or lenses they use. It's simply something the characters use. What matters is what they do with it, and where it takes them.

Tempted as I am to talk about the ending, I shall not spoil it for anyone who hasn't watched it. I won't say I'm completely happy with it, but I'm sure I'll come to terms with it somehow. Now to find the DVD...

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Note: All pictures were taken from http://www.cinemacafe.net/movies/cgi/17212/

I would have loved to provide a link to the film's official website, but it seems to be down. I'll check again and update if it works next time. The Japanese wikipedia page is here.

The first time I almost cried when looking at photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nyoroko/

初めて　ある写真を見ると　言葉にできなく　泣きほど　感動した。

Double exposure fun

I first read about how to use lighting with double exposures in Joe McNally's excellent book, The Hot Shoe Diaries, and had been wanting to try something out ever since. Unfortunately, my D40X doesn't have the function -- only models D90 and above have it.

Fortunately, Joan has a D90, and one day in August, we decided to just try the function. Here's a test shot.

Ok don't puke, it was just for fun. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

So a couple of weeks ago, when Joan had some good friends over for a sushi dinner, we thought it might be fun to try it out with everyone. Here are a couple of the pictures we managed to take, using just one SB800 as lighting.

Love rectangle. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.


Give me the money... © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

When Joan's friend Daniel suggested doing a "family portrait", I realised my folly of not bringing my SB900. But well, we always do our best and the end result wasn't too bad! But I had to cheat here -- as I wasn't behind the camera, it wasn't possible to do a double exposure and prevent any overlapping. So two exposures were taken and layered in GIMP. (I can't afford Photoshop)

We had 12 guests and two hosts at the party. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

Anyway I think GIMP is quite feature-packed, though it would take quite a bit of getting used to for the Photoshop user. Took me a while to figure out how to do masking, which was needed to black out some parts of the picture. But it works and it's free, and I'm really quite impressed. Just wondering why they don't have a "hand" function like PS tho... It's not that comfortable moving around the image using the scroll wheel...

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Note: There is however, a very useful Image Overlay function in the D40X, which is found in all recent Nikon consumer DSLR models. It is a sort of built-in HDR function that lets you put two images over each other. It is how, for example, I created this following image a few weeks ago, when I was in Beijing:

Tiananmen at night. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

Those of you who have taken pictures of a scene with a moon will know that the moon is very bright -- on a camera sensor, at least -- so when you expose such a scene, the moon will always be blown out. Hence the workaround, and it works fabulously for me!

Skate-Scooting Strobist

I had been wanting to take part in the Strobist.com Boot Camp II, but the themes to the first three assignments weren't easy for me to do. So when the last assignment (ie. my last chance) came and the theme was declared to be transportation, boy was I excited! I mean, I can possibly come up with something...

So while stoning during one of my recent remedial training (RT) sessions, I decided to actually think about what to shoot (instead of what to buy) for once, and came up with a couple of rough ideas. A phone conversation with Joan that night yielded the final idea.

Location: concrete tubes found near her home.
Photographer: Joan.
Lighting man: Me.
Model: Me???

And the transportation? A skate-scooter! I'd always wanted to try riding on one when they were all the rage many years ago, but never did. Here's my chance! (Ok, the truth is, we don't have a car, truck, bike, or any other mode of transport between us. Heck, even the skate-scooter was borrowed from a primary school student learning the piano from Joan)

Pondering over how to pose for the shoot... © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

Anyway the day of the shoot-- Sep 20 -- finally came. It was fortunate that RT was cancelled on this day, due to the Hari Raya holidays. And when night fell, we moved out from our HQ (Joan's place) to the location.

The tubes, which were lying on a grass patch next to a canal for reasons unknown, made for a superb location, esp. with the right lighting. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

We have two lights between us: an SB900 and an SB800. Since the SB800 is more powerful, I used it as the light in the distant set at full power (manual). This serves to create a sense of depth in the photo. The SB900, mounted on my Gorillapod on a metal beam that ran across the opening of the tube, behind the camera, bounced off the ceiling of the tube with the built-in bounce card up to illuminate the model (me). I used TTL for convenience.

Setting up the light. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

We used Joan's D90, and originally planned to use the Tokina 12-24 f4. However, turned out that it wasn't wide enough, and thank goodness I'd brought the 10.5mm fisheye along! The shot was taken from a very low angle. And we used a very high ISO (3200 to 6400) so as to make the distant light brighter.

The first variation, with the SB800 closer to me. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.


The final shot from the second variation, with the SB800 further away. I submitted this to the Strobist pool. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

As you can see I had a lot of fun with the shoot. Haha! And I am quite happy with the final product too.

Don't think I stand a good chance of winning, but I guess I can always hope for an honourary mention on the strobist blog...

Edit: Just an extra note, this was another instance when the fisheye saved the day... It's seldom used (maybe once in a month at best) but there are situations when nothing else can do the job, simply because it's so darn wide.

I think I will never think of selling it again to fund my impending camera body upgrade!

Boy in Deyang

I was in Deyang city, Sichuan Province to report on a school expansion project partially sponsored by Nanyang Technological University's alumni network in China about a week back. After the ceremony at the school (pictures to come), my group went to a streetside market to buy fruits back as souvenirs.

As the professors were busy stimulating the local economy, I spotted a cute little boy at one of the many fruit stalls lining the street.

My gosh! Such a cute little boy. He was apparently with his father, who was also busy buying fruits. And he didn't seem to mind the camera at all! So I continued taking a few shots of him.

That's him hugging his father's leg.

What's fascinating him to his right?

But my favourite shot was my last, after his father peeled an orange and gave it to him. Actually, it is my favourite shot for the entire trip, I think!

© Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

That was the last part of my trip. Soon after, we left on our minibus for the airport, where I filed my story for the day and took the flight home after a long trip. More to come...

My new Wishlist

1. Lensbaby Composer with Plastic Optic
2. Nikkor AF 105mm f/2 DC
3. Nikon D3000/D5000 to replace my ageing D40X
4. Another SB900 or SB800

Where am I going to get the money for all this...

Lighting up the Puchi Puchi

I wrote my first post for the ST Blog today, and to go with the article, I took three pictures of my Mugen Puchi Puchi toy. (You can find the ST Blog entry here.) This is just a quick note on how I lit up the photos.

All were taken from a top-down perspective with the AF-S 60mm micro at f11, 1/100s, ISO100 and with the SB900 off camera, controlled by the SU800. The items were placed on a black acrylic board on the floor.

#1


#2

Photos #1 and #2 were lit up in the same way. Very simple, the SB900, with diffuser on was positioned to the top right of the frame, propped on a small stool and pointing to the bottom left of the frame, parallel to the floor. I placed a white sheet of paper at the bottom left as a reflector. (Note that I didn't submit #2 for the article.)

#3

Photo #3 was much harder to light up. The problem is trying to light up the bubble wrap evenly. My first attempts were dismal -- the top right area was too "hot", while there was too much falloff at the bottom left corner. Eventually, I got the shot by moving my SB900 further away from the subject, increasing the flash EV compensation, and used a sheet of white paper to diffuse it instead of the diffuser cap.

The main reflector remained but I propped up a white namecard below the Puchi Puchi to reduce the shadows there further.

It was my first time doing a product shot, and I suspect it could have been done better. But at least my makeshift setup worked this time round.

Maybe I'll try lighting up the Mugen Can Beer if I get it and post it here...

An adventure in Bollywood...

Bollywood Veggies, that is.

I was on leave from work two Fridays ago (July 24), and Joan suggested going to a farm for a breath of fresh air. (We all know how small Singapore is) She'd learnt about the farm through a friend, so off we went, on a early Friday morning into the Singapore countryside.

There is a free shuttle bus service that runs from Kranji MRT to the various farms in the Kranji cluster, but here's the catch: it runs every 1.5 hours only. We made it on the first bus at 9am just by a whisker, and got to the farm at around... 10am? (can't quite remember, too lazy to check) The bus driver was a man called Larry, and he was quite chatty, introducing the Kranji farms to us during the ride.

The owner, Ivy Singh, was a very interesting person to talk to. As we were eating our breakfast at the cafe (we were the first visitors that day), she told us of the farm's struggles to get started, her brushes with the law (she was due to appear in court the following week for some complaint filed against her by a gov agency) and how Joan and I have the same type of smile (lol). Then work came in the form of a group visit and she left us to explore the farm on our own.

Here are three of my favourite shots:

f16, 1/100s, ISO400. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.


f11, 1/60s, ISO100. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.


f5.6, 1/320s, ISO400. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

All taken with my trusty 60mm. The first two shots were taken with an SB900 to camera left. The third was taken with natural light. No tripod, so a relatively compact flash unit is your best friend in such a situation.

After a short 1hour-plus jaunt around, we sat down for lunch at the farm cafe (there were a few other diners around, surprisingly!). Had banana curry, bamboo leaves and papaya salad with brown rice. Nothing too fanciful but it was probably the healthiest meal I had in a while.

Shine Youth Festival J-Rock Concert

June 22 was the start of the 5th Shine Youth Festival held by the National Youth Council, and I was there to help Joan out. I didn't take any photographs in the day though — instead I helped out as a videographer. It was interesting but I think I don't quite cut it as a videographer yet. It's tough enough composing still images, what more moving ones!

Anyway, I did take some photos at the end of the day. So I took the Nikkor AFS 17-55mm f2.8 for a spin on Joan's D90 and had quite a bit of fun taking the J-Rock performances. The most exciting group to shoot was the last one I shot before leaving for the night, and here are three of my favourites:

© Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

I tried shooting with flash at the start, but after a while decided it was still better without flash, mainly because flash takes away the colourful stage lighting and turns everything into white light. Having a fast lens and a camera with high ISO performance surely helps in this.

I'm beginning to itch for more gigs to shoot... Hmmm.

PS. It's been a while since my last post... have been busy keeping up with work and adjusting to my new sleeping patterns. Sorry about it, I shall try to update a little more frequently from here on!

Grad Trip - Photo of the Day 36

May 27, the last day of my graduation trip. T_T

Some pictures:

A view from my room in the morning.


Signpost #1


Bus stops


A house by the river


Signpost #2. Wonder what it means!


Had a late lunch at a bagel cafe with Vicky. Her bagel looked more delicious than mine. Ha.

Photo of the day: a random snap just before I left the restaurant.

© Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

That was it. Left to get my stuff from Rita, and then headed to the airport for my long flight home.

I really enjoyed my trip. There is still much to explore and photograph in Italy and the Netherlands. I hope to be back soon.

Grad Trip - Photo of the Day 35

May 26, spent the better part of the day travelling from Rome back to Leiden. First a plane to Brussels, then train to Leiden. It's funny but I felt a strong sense of homecoming when I reached Leiden station.

After unloading my luggage at Rita's former residence (the landlord was kind enough to let us use the storeroom), we met Vicky for dinner. Had some nasi padang (haha), then headed to a nice restaurant for some Dutch pancakes. Some fellow diners:

I thought the pancakes looked like crepes. But they were nice.

Had a walk about town again that evening. Can't help thinking that I will miss this town.

© Lin Zhaowei, 2009.