Shot with Leica M9 and Voigtlander Nokton 35mm f/1.2 ASPH V2. Shot at f/1.2, 1/45 sec at ISO 160.

Shot with Voigtlander Nokton 35mm f1.2 ASPH Version 2 with Leica M9. Shot at its largest aperture of f/1.2 and slow enough shutter speed, 1/15 sec at ISO 200, to blur the people walking in front of him. Shot last night in Chinatown.

Here is another one, a father and a son watching the musician.

I think I have fallen in love with Panorama Photography using my iPhone 4s. I shot this series in Chinatown this evening. I brought my mum who has been recovering well to see the vibrant Chinatown  before she leaves this coming Friday.

With lots of people moving, it becomes very tricky for the app to stitch. The same person may appear twice since he/she moves and may appear in the next image, hence confusing the app. But, that’s okay. It’s just a camera phone. I have the excuse. 

But hey, it’s still very nice to look at. Agree?

The place seemed to know I would take the photograph using my iPhone camera, made by Apple. See the sign on the right hand side. 

Enjoy the rest of the photos below. Have a great week ahead, everyone.

Everyone was waiting what move that guy with the hat was going to make.

I can’t get enough of shooting these in Chinatown as you probably can tell from my previous posts. I love shooting them playing these games. Their expression, and also those surrounding them, are priceless. They are competing, but they and the spectators are complementing each other to make a good photo for you. You just need to wait, wait some more and then click the shutter button.

Shot with Leica M9 and Voigtlander Color Skopar 35mm f/2.5.

I love the story of this image. Can you see the hands of those teenagers eager to get their ice cream? It was a good day for the ice cream man. You can’t see the complete crowd here, but there were about 80-100 teenagers standing around the ice cream man, eagerly waiting for their turn to get their ice cream. It was a hot afternoon in Singapore’s Chinatown. Those who were already in front stretched out their arm hoping to get first. I squeezed myself in and managed to be in front together with these lucky few. I pre-focused the lens, and shot from a lower angle without looking through the viewfinder. I really like the outcome.

Shot with the Leica M9 and Voigtlander Color Skopar 35mm f/2.5.

That f/1.2 just knocked out all those in the background. Shot on Canon 1D Mark IV and 85mm f/1.2.

His name is Robert V and he is my stranger no. 15. Robert came from Tasmania and spent his time traveling between there and Singapore. He is a member of the Singapore Urban Sketchers, a cool group who usually go on a monthly outing together to draw. When I met him, he was drawing a tea shop near the Kreta Ayer market in Chinatown.

“No, that’s not true. Everybody can draw. You just need to practice”, he answered me quickly when I said I couldn’t draw at all. Maybe I would try this cool activity one day. I will bring my camera with me in case I can’t finish the drawing. 

One thing different I did was that the photo above was shot using the Instagram app on my iPhone 4s. I have been enjoying using the app and may add a section on this blog to share the images. Stay tuned.

The guy in the middle fell asleep while the two men were concentrating on their game. Shot with Leica M9 and Zeiss Planar 50mm ZM f/2 lens.

This is the fourth installment of my Olympus PEN E-P3 review, the latest Micro Four Thirds camera from Olympus. If you miss the first three, check them out here, here and here. I shot the images here using the two kit lenses 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 and 40-150mm f/4-5.6. All photos here are the JPEG straight out of the camera with no post-processing. I just re-sized them for web viewing.

I mentioned in my first review, that I am not a fan of zoom lenses with variable apertures like the two kit lenses here. I like to control the aperture when I am shooting. I don’t want the lens to change the aperture by itself as I zoom in, as in the case of these two kit lenses. This does not mean that these two kit lenses are bad. It’s just my personal preference to use zoom lenses that have constant largest aperture throughout the focal length. The lenses can still give you great images. And unfortunately Olympus does not have option to sell you body only, so you have to get one of the kit lenses. 

I also mentioned about the option of built-in Art Filters in my first review. There are tonnes of them, but I like this Grainy Film Filter the most. It will automatically shoot in black and white for you, add some grains and the optional sloppy border. Cool huh. The black and white conversion may not be perfect, but it has good shadow and highlight. I like the contrast of its black and white conversion. You will see lots of them in this post, i.e. all those black and white photos. The grains are a bit too much in some of them, because the ISO was already high due to lighting and aperture (I couldn’t go to f/2 like when I used the 12mm f/2 lens) and the Grainy Film Filter added some more grains. Some of the black and white images are also over-exposed, but that’s because of user error, i.e. my mistake. I couldn’t see the LCD clearly when I brought the camera down to my waist level when shooting some of the images. I am interested to see how I can correct the RAW files when Adobe Lightroom has updated its RAW engine later.

So, if you are looking for a camera that can give you higher image quality than those compact cameras, this is one option for you. It’s really a consumer’s market now. We are all pampered by the many options of interchangeable lens cameras in the market now. If you don’t want the big bulky DSLR, but still want an interchangeable lens camera, you are living in the right time. Be grateful. 

Enjoy the images.

Shooting in Chinatown is super fun. Lots of cool subjects to shoot. Just look around, see and be prepared to shoot. I was watching people playing the Chinese chess at Kreta Ayer market when I saw this. I first  saw the man with the pipe and then suddenly the second man came into the frame with his banana. He actually had a bag of them with him. The first thing that came to my mind when I was shooting the images was the title of the blog entry I would write for this. I would write “Which one is healthier?”.

On a separate topic, I am happy to share that I think I am getting faster in focusing using my rangefinder camera, the M9. Still lots of areas for improvement, though. Learning never stop. But I am happy with it. The images here were shot using the M9 and Zeiss Planar 50mm ZM f/2.

Here is the other photo. Did you notice the banana is a different one? Can you tell?