Pinky Lips

Dendrobium ‘Pinky Lip’ blooming in the conservatory. Photo credit: Eleanor Chua.

This was taken at about the equivalent focal length of 400mm from the minimum focus distance of 1 metre. The jpeg engine of the Leica V-lux 4 processed this a little on the bluish side. But colours came out okay from the raw file.

Reflection Of Its Former Glory

The Clifford Pier as it was in 2016, a restaurant offering local fares to preserve the former pier’s past hawker culture. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.

Usually when shooting towards the light, exposing for the shadows would’ve consequently brightened things up a bit. But in this instance, the exposure wasn’t biased brighter to keep the reflection clear.

A Ferrari In The Grand Canyon

A Ferrari zipping around town here. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.

Well, not really … but the background did make me think of the canyon. Captured with the camera placed almost on the ground and tilted for that little extra drama.

Times Of Difficulty

Ominous clouds gathering over the Riau Islands in 2018. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.

Details weren’t that great as this was taken with a small sensor bridge camera. I had chosen reach over sensor size for the trip.

Beauty And The Beasts

Fiery ‘dragons’ drawing attention on Sentosa Island. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.

Despite having underexposed by 2 stops, this image had still come out brighter than this. In post, the areas beside the ‘dragons’ and visitor were darkened locally and then the whole image exposed to the right.

Rest For The Weary

A shelter for the hiker in a small forest on the southern tip of the island. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.

Small Talk At Dusk

Village kids watching the sunset together in the Riau Islands. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.

This was captured with 2/3 stop of positive exposure compensation to light up the kids but ended up with the sky being on the bright side lacking details. Sky details were restored in post through tweaking the mid-tones.

Another way of doing it would’ve been to photograph with an ND grad filter attached, not the round type but the square or rectangular one. With the latter, you could adjust the height of the filter to darken just the sky region.

Thinking Ape

An orangutan in deep thought in the local zoo. Photo credit: Eleanor Chua.

This was captured with the exposure biased 2/3 stop darker to preserve highlights, and then cropped a little to compose in post. Perhaps, details could’ve been better if the sensor were larger.

Raining Coals

Paul Cocksedge’s “Coalescence” stunning visitors in the Old Royal Naval College in London. Photo credit: Sarah Chua.

The lighting around this spot was rather dim. The Leica had to push up the ISO to 3200 to get a shutter speed of a mere 1/30 second. As a result, noise level in the shadows came up to some 20 odd. This was very conspicuous at actual size but seemed to look fine at this size.

Heart Of The Pipe

Dutchman’s Pipe blooming in the Hort Park. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.

This was taken with a compact all-in-one bridge camera with a 25-600mm equivalent focal length that I had found very handy especially when I could be using wide angle one moment and then super telephoto another. That had since unfortunately been shelved as its viewfinder had gotten hazy and I was more accustomed to shooting with viewfinders.

Waiting For The Tide

Fishermen getting a hard-earned break before the next tide in the Riau Islands. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.

Going Coconuts

Folks working heartily at their coconut store in the Riau Islands. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.

This was converted to monochrome in post. Mid-tones of the brighter areas were then darkened and overall contrast also tweaked a little.