Despite the dark backdrop when the camera would’ve been fooled into brightening up the exposure and possibly washed-out the flowers, the capture was only biased 1/3 stop darker here as this Pentax would’ve already underexposed the image a bit.
The lens was already maxed out at 270mm (equivalent about 405mm) so the image had need to be further cropped in post for this composition. Quotation from the psalmist was also added in post.
This was captured with the exposure biased 1-2/3 stops darker to avoid having highlights in the prayer mantis blowing out. This was actually a 60 odd percent crop of the original capture.
A 1/2-stop of underexposure was enough to keep highlights and mute the dark undergrowth here as the Pentax had the tendency of already underexposing images a bit.
ALTThis tree at Changi beach seems to have gone on winter furlough when the temperature felt like 40 degrees Celcius (or 104 degrees Fahrenheit) here. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.
As this was taken with the lens tilted slightly downward, the horizon had dipped quite obviously in the original image. So in post, the Free Transform tool was used to bend back and level up the horizon. It had actually needed a 2.5-degree bend.
ALTStrelitzia Reginae screaming out for attention in the Flower Dome. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.
This was one of those rare occasions when I’ve seen these Bird of Paradise flowers crowding together. A few of the sepals were already showing signs of wilting when I spotted these. In post, they were cloned away with the healing brush.
ALTA poster girl who apparently couldn’t resist the temptation. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.
This was captured with a stop of underexposure to counter the tendency of this camera to overexpose in high contrast scene. When the image was brightened up in post, the noise level came up to some 29 that had need to be fixed.
The candy sampling lady was actually a poster stuck on the glass facade and door of the store. So there were vertical cuts where door met facade, with a couple of these cuts slashing across the lady. These were cloned over with colours of adjacent pixels.
ALTA prayer mantid closing in stealthily on a prey. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.
I would’ve preferred to capture this on the level of the insects but the surroundings didn’t permit that. In fact, the surrounding foliage in the original capture had virtually drowned out the prayer mantid and the fly.
So in post, the foliage was darkened a tad and greens were desaturated for the subjects here, the prayer mantid and fly, to stand out better.
ALTVisitors in a quiet corner of the Shiseido Forest Valley in Jewel Changi. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.
The original capture show more of the forest with the folks looking very small. This was a 60 percent crop of the original image. There was also a greenish cast because of all the foliage so the greens were toned down in post.
ALTFolks tucking in in style in Jewel Changi. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.
The original capture was actually rather flat, perhaps because the scene was too evenly lit. In post, the left and right ends of the image were darkened a little.
ALTAlstroemeria or Peruvian Lily residing in the Flower Dome here. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.
This scene won’t need the depth-of-field afforded by the aperture of f/11 but the lens performed best at this aperture. However, this meant having to push up the ISO to 1600 in order to get a decent shutter speed. The image quality at this ISO seemed good enough though.
ALTRed chrysanthemums making an impact in the Gardens by the Bay. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.
Coming from a 12-year old sensor, the contrast and colours produced at ISO3200 were surprisingly decent and better than expected. This was captured in raw though and converted into jpeg without tweaking the colours.
Helluva Times 