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.

I Switched to Canon!

Behold! I've ditched the D3 for the Canon 5d Mark II. 21 Megapixels and HD video goodness.

Just kidding! This is AC's new baby sitting in my Optima hard case and Nikon gear. No, I'm keeping my D3 for it's sheer awesomeness. He brought this over when I was in SoCal so I got a chance to play with it. My first impression is that it is incredible. The picture quality is crisp and the amount of details surpasses my D3. He got a nice vertical grip with it, along with the 16-35mm L lens and the 85 1.8 (he went shopping!).  

Anyway, I haven't bought any gear yet but I did finally clean my D3 sensor and got rid of a speck of dust that was bugging me.  I'm still in the lookout for a nice small camera.  In the meantime, taking pictures with my ooold Canon Sd500 with a broken screen is a bummer.  I don't know how I can drop thousands of dollars in professional gear but am too cheap to get a cheapy point and shoot.  

Also, there is this awesome kids choir called PS22.  Check them out! 

Any

B+M Wedding - More Pics

Awesome soft natural lighting during my favorite time of the day to shoot.

The train.


Barb changed into a red Chinese dress for the reception.  This was the first dance.

I frequently peruse through wedding photography sites and blogs looking for some good tips and styles but I would say over half of the stuff out there is borderline crap, very expensive crap.  Personally, I think anything associated with weddings is a ripoff and that includes the pictures.  

Anyway, enough of my rant.  I must give credit to the D3 which was an absolute pleasure to work with (besides the weight).  It worked like a champ in low light and I love the colors.  I haven't shot a wedding with it before but I was very confident the pictures would turn out nice and if it didn't, I can't blame the camera.  Even though it makes my life a lot easier, I still have a lot to learn about photography.  I'll trickle more pictures soon.  

UC Irvine Graduate Class of 2008

There was a sea of people.


Here's me being hooded by John Dombrink.


This is an INCREDIBLE shot!

Saturday was my day to be on the other end of the camera. I'd like to thank all my family and friends for coming out on my big day. I got some wonderful gifts (some a little TOO good) and I'll be sending everyone individual thank-you cards soon but for now, this blog post will have to do. Thank you for all your support through so many years. Yes, I do feel bad for the ceremony part, which was extremely long and dare I say it - boring!!

Here are a few snaps thanks to Anisa, who received a serious crash course on how to use a DLSR but she had a little bit of help thanks to the incredible Nikon D3 - which didn't break a sweat going up to ISO 6400. I'll have a review of the camera soon. I'll also be showing a lot more pictures from that day and talk about my future plans in life in addition to photography.