Tag: July

New York New York, Las Vegas

A popular photo spot opposite the New York New York hotel in Las Vegas. I had taken same photo some 12 years ago at the same spot. Compare to notice the advances in technology. I had to work a lot on old photo (shot with film camera and then scanned negative) to remove noise, get correct white balance and remove some blemishes on the negative. This time around you see pretty much exactly what came out of my camera (digital this time) with only cropping and color cast removal. Shot with Nikon D90 and Nikon 18-200mm VR lens without a tripod.

Bellagio, Las Vegas

A lucky shot in the fading daylight while we were having dinner in a outdoor restaurant opposite Bellagio. Believe it or not, I have not done any retouching on this photo beyond a simple crop and some noise reduction. The colors are as they came out of camera. I use +3 Vivid setting all the time. Shot with Nikon D90 and Nikon 18-200mm VR lens, handheld.

Forum Shops, Las Vegas

Forum Shops, Las Vegas. This huge shopping mall has magnificent views. We just watched the scene than actually shop here. It’s expensive! Shot with Nikon D90 and Nikon 10-24mm lens. This wide angle lens gives a typical wide-angle distorted feel to the picture. I used the Brilliance/Warmth filter to enhance the warm orange glow of the indoor lighting.

Harley Davidson Cafe, Las Vegas

This Harley Davidson sign with bright red, white colors was very interesting. In reality the colors came out slightly different than what I saw them there. I didn’t bother playing with the white balance settings later. Shot with Nikon D90 with Nikon 18-200 VR lens without a tripod.

Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas

Planet Hollywood and Paris. Two iconic hotels in Las Vegas in all their night glory. Shot with Nikon D90 without a tripod. The newer digital cameras are getting very good at high-ISO performance that you don’t need to carry a tripod for a decent photo. I have done some post processing to remove noise and boost contrast.

Northwest Forest

Northwest Forest. This is a post-processed photo, to increase dynamic range called high dynamic range (HDR). Human eye can see approximately 20-24 F-stops worth of light intensity variation while most digital cameras can only capture 8-10 F-stops. What it means is what we see in a real scene can never be captured on a digital photo as it is. But with computers we can combine multiple images captured at various settings (called bracketing) and increase the dynamic range. This technique is most useful when shooting a subject with bright background like sky, snow, beach. In a normal photo, you either get a very bright overexposed sky and properly exposed object or very dark object and properly exposed sky, but never both. HDR image can depict both objects properly exposed by combining these two (or even more exposures). Notice in this photo that I’m pointing the camera directly at the sun, but still the tree barks, leaves etc. in the foreground are properly exposed. In a normal photo you would see them completely black in such case. Table Rock Trail (near Molalla, OR), Summer 2010.

Spider on the flower

This photo was shot on a hiking trail (Angel’s Rest) in Columbia Gorge. I spotted this very small spider on the flowers trying to weave a web (look carefully you can see it too in the photo). Shot with Nikon Coolpix 4500 point-and-shoot camera. July 2003.

Macro Mode. Matrix Metering

Flowers in backyard

I like to shoot macro shots of flowers. Flowers with bright intense colors look very nice. This photo is interesting because the angle is different. Instead of the usual practice of shooting flower photos from top looking down, I put the camera below the flower “looking” up towards the sky. Shot with Nikon Coolpix 4500 point-and-shoot camera. This camera had a swivel back panel so I could compose the photo when the camera was held low near the ground looking up. July 2003.

Program Auto mode. Center-weighted metering.

Vancouver, BC Cityscape

Summer 2008. Vancouver, BC. A photo taken at sunset, from the SeaBus. You can see silhouette of the South Vancouver with prominent landmarks like the Vancouver Lookout. The shiny building in the foreground is Canada Place. This photo was taken from inside a glass window and there was some reflection of the inside lights that I have tried to remove but if you look carefully you’ll see that I’ve not completely succeeded.
Exposure Compensation: -0.7