Instant HDR

Woke up early on 1st day of Raya and headed out hoping to get some sunrise shots.
But turned out to be terribly cloudy with no rise in sight.

Dug for my polarizer and Cokin graduated filter, and the result...



Instant HDR straight out of the camera.

31st of August

It is the 31st of August today, and it is a very important day.
So important it made it into the history books. Every year, without fail, people celebrate.

The LORD bless you and keep you,
the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you
the LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

Numbers 6 : 24- 26

Happy Birthday Mom.


I'm sorry Malaysia, you come second.



Happy Merdeka to you too.

The Correct Exposure

As photographers, be it a hobbyist or a working pro, you cant help but to pursue one key element in the building blocks of photography. Just what is the correct exposure?. Everyone's talking about it, magazines, forums, professionals, bloggers. Exposure is what makes and break a picture.

To 'gauge' the correct exposure, just look at the exposure meter in your viewfinder while taking a shot, and the histogram after taking a shot. If you don't know what the exposure meter looks like, I'd suggest you go back to your user manual, or just search online.

Or if you are a total knob. here is what it looks like.

Courtesy of www.dpreview.com

Ideally, you would want the metering to fall right in the center. As that is the perceived "correct" exposure.

But hey, here's where it gets all complicated. We are humans, and naturally we interpret things that we see differently from others. Your camera is made to "think" that thats the correct exposure. But you have the creativity in you to correct that.

Here's a classic case and point. You take your camera out for a walk on the beach and you come across this beautiful sunset. You raise it up to your eye, make sure the exposure is correct, and you depress the shutter. Taking a look at your view finder..

Errrr.

What happened!? its all over exposed, you cant see details in the clouds and colours are washed out. It is totally different that what you eyes saw.

Now why not increase your shutter speed by 2 to 3 stops?

"Correct" Exposure.

There. Looks a whole lot better don't you think?. I don't know about you, but this definitely looks better to me rather than the "correct" picture interpreted by the camera.

Here's another scenario, You see a nice patch of green and a beautiful sky, you proceed to take a picture of it. Once again relying on the camera's "correct" metering...

Most of you would just walk away with this shot.

Now how about using a higher shutter speed to under-expose the picture?

Under exposing by 3 stops and hitting the flash to illuminate the foreground.

Much much better.

So in short, there is NO correct exposure. The correct exposure lies within the person behind the camera. Don't be caught up in too much technical terms and jargon. Just take loads and loads of pictures, and learn.

Perhentian Island

Here's an island holiday worth going if you are within the reaches of Malaysia. Make a trip to the east coast, take a 1 hour boat ride and step off to paradise.

Art of liquid levitation

Row row row your boat gently down the the crystal sea

Anchor me out of harms way

I'm not odd, just not as refined.

Under the boardwalk down by the sea is where I'll be

After a whole day of lovely warm tropical sun, evening arrives to wrap up the day like icing on a cake.

A cheat shot. - Off camera flash to the foreground

Serenity

The star dances with the night lights.

If this all sounds a bit vague to you, the next 2 picture will pretty much sum up the entire thing....

Absolute bliss

Click here for the full panoramic image. blogger isn't too panoramic friendly

A feathery congregation

Went on a road trip one fine morning and got lost while looking for the place. So made a detour and ended up at the bird park.

And first thing that greeted me was a friendly and inquisitive (very) cockatoo...

I can see my reflection from that device that you are pointing at me...hmm.

motion of cleaning

On the way out, I was greeted by a trio of really cute owls...

*blink blink*

Overall. It wasnt bad. It's worth a visit if you haven't been before...

Things you find around your house

I'm sure all of you out there often find small little things around your house that you weren't aware it was there it was there at first. And you go like "Oh, where did that come from?".

Well.. here's what I found in my house today...

A mother cat that I saw a few days back

.....with a litter of...

oh-dear-what-am-I-going-to-do-with-them

Anybody interested in adopting cats?

before my dogs come back from their 'vacation'...

Is supporting Earth Hour

Shotbyming is once again supporting Earth Hour.

Turn off those lights for an hour to vote your support in creating an awareness that really matters.

p/s: Typing in the dark is really really not healthy for your eyes.