Walking in the park

Many times we keep asking ourselves where to go shooting?

We have our cameras on which we spent hundreds if not thousands an d yetwe kept the gear in dry boxes which never see daylight (or moonlight) because there is no where to shoot.

Cameras are created to be used. I am very annoyed when one of my frequent blog posted pictures of the same scene but taken with different lens at different apertures!! What a total waste of time and bandwidth. There is no meaning at all to compare lens unless you are comparing a $100.- vs $1,000.- len otherwise the difference between decent lens are very negligible, more so when the comparison is through a blog. More so the price difference is so great, but then the result is expected.

We can compare the color rendition of Zeiss M mount lens with Leica lens. The Zeiss might be better in daylight, Leica might be better in indoor or low light. That is a reasonable comparison, but since so many people had done this before, why do it again, so it is still a waste of time and bandwidth.

Bear with me a little more, as I am very unhappy with some of the photoblogs recently. I am very annoyed when people keep posting pictures saying straight out from the camera! This is also meaningless as each picture should represent the vision of the photographer, be it the exposure setting, the color he sees, the mood he (or she) felt. By saying straight out from the camera, the interpretation of the photographer is gone, he is only showing what the camera can take, not what he can take.

So my friends, be free to make changes to brightness, saturation, sharpness of the pictures using Lightroom or Aperture and not to be enslaved by the myth of "straight out from camera", because it is as meaningless as saying I have not taken the picture, the camera did.

Went to Fort Canning park, a place which I had visited at least 3 times last year with friends and this time with my wife. The day is different, the companion is different, so the mood is different:

Saw this small plant grown in between the wooden fence and concrete. Originally wanted to convert to B/W but it does not work, so keep the color, but increase the contrast and brightness a bit to highlight the leaves.

The camera I used was a M4/3 camera with a long len, therefore the background is blurred, have to increase the brightness because of the yellow shirt, increased saturation, yet still open up the shadow to see the forehead a bit. OH, never forget to lower the clarity in lightroom. A very pleasing picture which is accepted by my wife. (never, never use your wife to test sharpness of the len you use)

A picture which I saw from afar, immediately recognized the shape, the contrast. The dash of yellow to remind us that it is not a set up shot. 

Very long telephoto shot (I think equivalent of 270MM) I took this from the top of the park pointing down toward the road, the road is in shadow thus forming a dark background, the strands of grass just pop up. (no leica, no zeiss, just pana)

Credit goes to my wife who spotted the lighter branches against the background, I have Ansel Adams in mind, but no even near, just trying. Have to increase contrast to get the lighter branches to separate from the background.

Until next time!