Sorry for the lack of updates, I’ve just been a bit depressed about the whole photography thing since my camera got stolen from the back of my car.

A momentary lapse in concentration and I left the camera in the car for a few minutes and it was gone.

I’ve NEVER left it in the car before…this was the first time, just plainly forgot for a couple of minutes, by the time I went back to the car it was gone, too late.

Better not to leave anything in the backseat at all, I’ve seen cars broken into for just a jumper or plastic bag even!

So if you own any kind of camera, laptop or valuable electronics do carry it all times.

Worst I’ve heard so far after having my camera stolen, some poor fella was at petrol station, filled up his car, just went to the window to pay, by the time he returned to his car all his kit was gone!

Another similar with laptop, just stopped at ATM to check his balance, came back and laptop was gone..

I’m not sure exactly how they ripped the window out but if you see the pic there is a small dent at the back of the window frame it seems they forced something up there very hard through the seal and behind the window so it shattered then ripped it out. The window couldn’t be smashed normally as it was tinted, they must be quite experienced at this.

You can see the ripped out window under the car.

The police said there is a gang in SS2 that run this operation.

Even a national photographer from Philippines lost his full kit in SS2 on a trip to Malaysia recently (1D with all lenses).

Crime rate is getting bad, careful where you park folks wherever you may live.

Ah well from a photography point of view perhaps it’s a sign to upgrade, D200 here I come?

Sometimes in street photography you can create some kind of extra feel just by changing the angle and making it a bit more interesting, play around, use different lighting, different angles, you might be surprised with the results.

Exposure: 1/200 Aperture: f/7.1 Focal Length: 18 mm ISO: 200

A friends son at the recent polo match, he was trying to get out of the sun, shy but cute little boy.

I like the black and white effect with the grainyness, gives it a old vs new kind of feel. I tend to like B&W for youngsters.

I used lanatirs method of effective black and white conversion rather than just desaturating

Exposure: 1/1600 Aperture: f/4.5 Focal Length: 70 mm Exposure Bias: 2/3 EV ISO: 1250

Also recropped with space at the right to give the little fella somewhere to roam in. Cropping kids very tightly makes them seem rather too stationary.

Personally I’d say when it comes to photographing landscapes and still life I’m already pretty good, I naturally understand the composition for buildings, scenery and things that don’t have facial expressions.

When it come to people, I’m a beginner, I rarely pointed my Canon A70 at people, shooting people was never very interesting for me, only during parties, then I seemed to have a talent for the candid shot, capturing the moment rather than cheesy smiles and pre-posed stances.

From this I branched into street photography, which is candid for me, to bring out the true feeling, eye contact is good but not in a posed way as demonstrated by Lanatir below, you can have a eye contact portrait without it looked manufactured.

I like to try and capture some kind of emotion, capture a peice of the moment, not just some people facing the camera and smiling over and over.

I like to feel something when I look at the picture, not just go next..next..next..

For me this the essence of capturing an event, the same goes for weddings, nowdays this style has a label it’s called photojournalism style..for me, I just call it real.

I like to use a narrow depth of focus to give a real pop to the subject.

You can capture many emotions in this manner, when people don’t expect it, boredom, frustration, happiness, laughter, waiting etc..

This is my first effort of event style photography with my new SLR camera, so I have a lot to learn still, these are just my few tips from past experience.

It’s good to use SLOW flash setting to make people stand out, and any motion in the background will be blurred.

I also like to frame the subject with other people, or some objects like a glass to bring them out and add interest.

These were all taken with a very cheap prime Nikon Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D AF.

They aren’t the best pictures in the world, but I’m just starting out..

I hope my learning journey can help you too.

All were processed from RAW last night, my RAW workflow is still a bit hit and miss, I need to work on that.

That’s all for now

You can view the whole set here.

Well better intro myself I guess, I just got into photography seriously quite recently.

I’ve been shooting with compact 35mm cams for a long time, probably about 20 years, but I never made the step into getting serious about and getting a SLR, or even moving the next stage along.

Within the last year or so I really got more interested in photography as Malaysia is such a wonderfully colourful place, the foods, the people, the temples, the cultural diversity..There is so much to capture here. As you can tell from my blog, I really love food and taking pictures of it..

I started finding the limits of my 2 year old Canon Powershot A70, the 3.2megapixels limited how big I could enlarge the pictures and the noisy/grainy pictures in the dark (high ISO) were disappointing, plus the limited aperture.

As I started to learn about all these things, I wanted a camera to match my new found skills, I shopped around a lot until I decided on the Nikon D70s, slightly above entry level, but not yet mid-level.

So my kit now consists of:

• Old Olympus 35mm mju:ZOOM 105
• Canon Powershot A70
• SE K750i Camera Phone
• Nikon D70s dSLR

I’ll be posting pictures from all of them, I’ll talk about accessories/filters etc later.

I’ve always been into landscape, food and sky photography, I was always pretty bad at portraits and ’street’ photography. I could capture events well, but not a single person or I never had the guts to take random pictures of people.

I’m getting better and I’m learning the art of portraits and street..

I went to Singapore to buy some stuff recently as it’s much cheaper there, it’s an awesome place for street photography, the bustling streets, the bright lights, the compact nature, you can move around easily.

I guess in the next few posts I’ll share my first efforts at street photography.

Here’s my first, I call it “Better Run”

As always, after the page had completely loaded, click the pic to view large.

You can find my pictures here:

Flickr Gallery
Old Coppermine (Will move all to Flickr eventually)

You can check out my favs on flickr here, most are from the A70.