Singapore @ Night: Skyline + Happy 4th!

I took a little boat ride along the river - typical tourist trap - but I didn't expect to see this! The ride intertwined through the business district, giving a spectacular sight of the buildings. It was lit up very nicely at night and the weather was much cooler. I just had a field day snapping away. I felt kinda bad for the rest of the people who had point-and-shoot cameras. They were the nice models but I could tell they were struggling while I snapped away at ISO 3200 and 6400. As you can see, the images are very clean - and I'm not even a very good landscape photographer. (People, just invest in a DSLR and a couple of nice lenses, you won't regret it!) The beautiful scenery made it a little too easy. I might just blow one of these up and hang it on my wall. Next up is Hong Kong, which I know has a breathtaking skyline - it is so on. It was definitely worth lugging around the equipment and I'm glad I brought my D3 instead of the much lighter and portable D70s - it's a great camera, but it can't really hang at night with max ISO 1600 coming out grainy.

Anyway, Singapore is great. The only bad is the weather. But oh well, can I really complain coming from Texas??!! Also, happy 4th of July everyone (albiet one day late). I did get to catch some fireworks but I don't think it was for the US holiday, just something they do on the weekends here. No fireworks pics this year on this blog unfortunately, but you can look in the archives at last year's.

Slow Period ... Old Photos

I haven't updated this blog in a while and well...I haven't been taking any pictures lately. So, the next best thing is to dig up some old ones and fix them up. Here are a couple of pictures of me (top) and AC (bottom) taking pictures during our trip to Lake Tahoe last year. Seeing these pictures makes me miss the fresh air and relaxation.

Let's see...what else is new in my photo world. I bought a new flash bounce card which I haven't tried out yet. I am looking to buy at 70-200 lens - I was so impressed at Lynn's wedding and if I have the money, a new camera. I know it's not the camera that produces the nice pictures but the person taking it but I've outgrown my little camera. I'm looking for something with better low-light capabilities and faster/more reliable focusing. If you are reading this blog and have a DSLR camera, chances are your camera is > than mine...but that's ok :) What I will buy first is a little point and shoot camera. I'm deciding between the soon to be released Canon SD1100 or the Nikon S600. Personally I hate using the little cameras because they're so slow. What to do???

If I don't take any more interesting pictures soon I'm going to post a 'What Gear do I Use' post.

Huntington Library Children's Garden

I went to the Huntington Library Children's Garden today to shoot some landscape architecture but things didn't turn out as planned. Those pictures aren't a cool sepia effect but dead vegetation. Sadly, the unusually cold temperatures in SoCal caused all the plants to freeze and die. I originally wanted to get some shots of kids playing there but there weren't really any thanks to the overcast day and eventual rain. I took a few shots just to document the damage and just left.