Author Archives: stephen

The Singapore Air Show 2012

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F15-SG during the flying display

I was quite lucky to be able to attend the Singapore Air Show 2012, the placed i work was one of the sponsors but I didn’t ask for a pass so I was quite surprised to be given a free pass to the event.

I would suggest for those going to these kinds of shows go pay for a trade pass, its less crowded and during the air display there will be plenty of space to stand around to watch.

As with all air shows, photographers with major big lenses are sure to show up. I was lazy since I only brought my D7000 and a 18-105mm kit lens.

Saw some one trying to use a X100 I think to try and take pictures of the air planes. But he was trying to shoot through his sun shade.

Australian Roulettes - The best of the show

The best display came from the Royal Australia’s Air Force Roulettes, they did some major precision flying, they needed to make 11 fuel stops in order to reach Singapore due to the short range of their planes.

Our friendly Singapore Pilots at work.

Haha took this “promotion” shot of my friend leslie and the Boeing Dreamliner.

Chloe’s First Picture

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I’ve bought a Harinezumi, one of those small digital lomo cameras for Chloe, intending to let her just run around and snap and see what comes out from it. Last weekend was my cousin’s marriage registration (Congrat’s Shumin and Micheal!) and these are what’s seen through her eyes.

Copyright Superheadz website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s quite fun looking though those random snaps, most of the time she is just playing around with the camera pushing the shutter again and again while walking though the crowd at my cousin’s place. Haha maybe i day i will make a photobook of her pictures and give it to her.

 

My colleague said I’ve gave her camera poison liao, for her 10th birthday she will ask for a D8 SLR :)

 

 

My Photobooks buys from Page One!

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Page one @Vivocity is closing down, they have 50% off all books. There aren’t many photography books left but these are the one’s that i’ve got. I probably will do a review on them soon.

A nice big book by Mary Ellen Mark, looking forward to enjoying this.

This book caught my eye at the store, its about Kodak’s Colorama advertisement at Grand Central Station in New York. Since Kodak filed for bankruptcy, i guess I am just trying to have a piece of Kodak history with me.

There are a few books on Photobooth pictures around, (just go to amazon and type photo booth). You get Britney Spears, Val Kilmer and even Micheal Jackson in there, basically lots of celebrities who goofed around when they can’t be seen.

PS. The pictures are linked to the amazon page.

Scanning Color Negatives

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Recently my wife got some old negatives from her house, and I was telling her i will scan it for her since I have a film scanner but i mostly use it for my B&W stuff and slides, never did try to scan negatives before.

So i did a first scan, it looked terrible, there was an orange cast that was quite bad. A bit of googling around revealed that color negative scanning is not an easy job, different kinds of films produced different color cast that are time consuming and difficult to correct.

Some recommend using VueScan, because of its built in film type correction, it did well for certain films but generally need a lot more tweaking. I came across a post by Ben Anderson who recommended VueScan together with ColorPerfect. I read it and tried it worked quite well so below are the steps i am taking since both VueScan and ColorPerfect needed some cash and i don’t really want to buy both so I tried it just using my plain old Epson built in scanning software

I basically scan the color negative in positive mode (or slides) mode. I got an image something like this.

Then i followed Ben’s instructions basically by selecting under “Start” Color Neg and L mode.

And editing the grey point or white point (depending which is easier to find)

Edit the levels and using color balance to remove the rest of the cast.

And this are my results. Not too bad. The reason why you seeing the grid like overlay is due to Color Perfect being a demo version. The paid version removes the grid lines.

Update:

I tried scanning Kodak Portra 400 VC striaight out using Color Negative mode on my Epson. The results are actually quite good, needs abit of tweaking though. And a search online generally agrees that if you intend to scan your negatives you should use the Portra range especially Porta UC

Links
Ben Anderson Post on Vue Scan and Color Perfect
Color Perfect

Smile, You’re at the Sydney Opera House

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Smile

These pictures are taken at the Sydney Opera house, it’s quite a nice place to hand around, there are nice food nearby or you can just catch a ferry from Circular Quay out, not to mention you can see the Harbour Bridge from here. Opposite to it is The Rocks where a weekend market can be found there.

Above the rest

 

Whacha looking at punk!

The sea gull is a common sight everywhere! They are like our pigeons and sparrows, in fact i would say their numbers are much more. They seem to be everywhere!

 

 

Because it’s a tourist attraction, there is just so many people walking around, for the street photographer in you there is just so much to see and enjoy.

Cheese!

Tree

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Tree

Was walking around the newly opened My Waterway @ Punggol park. Nice blue skies in Singapore, don’t usually see them around. Usually in Singapore it’s pretty cloudy most of the time.