Back to landscapes again!

Didn't update my blog in like ages already because I'm damn blardy lazy to write a lot and not too good at writting either hahaha

But anyway, about a month ago or so, I organized a landscape outing to Kuala Lukut with several of my friends, most of them being lowyat.net forum members. Had always wanted to come to this place after seeing some pretty breathtaking landscape pictures from landscape photographer, Melvin Tong who's work I admire a lot.

We had great fun during the trip, got my legs messy as the shooting spot was super muddy, got some cuts on my legs and my t shirt and pants dirty. What a day! But at least I got back with a keeper.

LOL yes, landscape outings ain't like portraiture shoots where you can get like 20+ keepers in just a 2 hour shoot. You're lucky if you can get like 3-4 shots for one session of landscape outing. That's why landscape photography is a field of photography that requires a lot of patience and timing. Many well known photographers like Mr Liew Wk make many trips to landscape locations just to get that one great shot, with the perfect weather condition and the correct tide (seascape) and just the right, dramatic clouds. So yeah, landscape photography isn't something that you can get it right the first time you attempt on it. So, there's no need to be really feel down if you don't get keepers on your first try! :)

As you can see, it was very low tide! High tide was probably around 8-9pm so yeah we got it wrong. Perhaps towards the end of the year, we can expect higher tide at around 5-6pm or so.

And for the picture above, I have to apologize because I didn't quite apply hyperfocal rule especially when you need to have the foreground and background to be in focus. I was quite blur that day as I totally forgot about the rule.

A shot of my friend as he was shooting the sunset towards the right. I personally like this shot a lot, maybe I'll try to do such shots more in the future :P

And that's probably it hahaha. Few weeks later, my friend and I went to KLCC to capture the Twin Towers. It's mostly to teach my friend (in the picture above) about the basics of operating a DSLR and the functions of each element, as he's still pretty new to the DSLR world.

I brought along everything but when we reached there I noticed I forgot my tripod head. FML

So, I had to rush back to my house (about 15 minutes away), endure the traffic jam on the way and take back the tripod head. FML

We were lucky that the lights of Suria KLCC were still on when we were there around 11.30pm. It's reported to off the lights at around 12am. So we started shooting.

And that's all for that day.

And just the last weekend, I attended a Landscape workshop by Mr Liew. He started off by showing a slideshow, teaching about the basics of photography which were aperture, shutter speed, hyperfocal length, basic compositions&ideas, and many more. And after that, we all proceeded to Pantai Jeram for a sunset shoot. It was originally planned for the shoot to be held at Sekinchan but the place had to undergo replantation and thus, the venue had to be changed. Another muddy trip! Unfortunately no, as there's really no need to go into the mud, though I would love to if it is well worth it!

Took quite a few shots, mostly just to play around with the composition. Bracketed most of my shots, but in the end didn't use them at all. Here's what I got:

So yeah, I'm pretty satisfied with what I got here. Using a Ultra Wide Angle lens, I'm able to exaggerate perspective by making the bridge as if it were really big and long. But in reality, it's a bloody tiny bridge! hahahaha!

Landscape Newbie Level

I've always enjoyed looking at landscape pictures over the internet, drool over them you might say. And the 'breaking point' was during the New Year celebrations where tons of beautiful firework pictures were posted all over the internet...but one picture really caught my eye.

That's when I knew I had to get a tripod and start looking into landscape photography. So I went over to gstrapinuse's shop in Millenium Square and bought myself a Beike Pro 471 tripod. The initial intention was just to grab the tripod and go home but "unfortunately" he had a 60x60 softbox in stock and also gave me a good price I got both together. So, I thought ahhhhhhh might as well get both and be done with it (I was also eyeing a softbox for quite some time now).

Here's the link to the tripod sales page: http://www.gstrapinuse.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=34_7&products_id=498&zenid=f0ecf1765a3709e4b6cc7879a0762b0b

It's a good sturdy tripod. The legs are by no means skinny, they are pretty big, strong and well built. Could be mistaken for a really pro tripod actually.

The ballhead on the other hand isn't that great actually, having some minor hiccups here and there. First thing, the metal plate doesn't quite secure well to the camera. Second, the tripod knobs aren't that comfy to tighten and loosen. There isn't much grip and the size of the knob being small doesn't really help much either. After a while of constant operation, my hands got sore and painful.

Anyway, just right after I got my tripod I went with my friend to Ampang Look Out point because I hear the view here of the city is pretty good. And the reviews were right! The view is magnificent!

We were actually fortunate to get that somewhere around 6 something as we went the wrong way!

So here's the shot. Took 3 exposures and merged in Photomatix Pro.

There were several good spots but the one I find best is in the Panorama restaurant. It's the highest point in Ampang Lookout Point which provides good composition. The other places I find a bit flat and there were some distractions from the trees/plants.

I decided to go HDR all out for the sunset shots since the sky was still bright and had good details. HDR is to get as much dynamic range of the foreground and background without having the sky being overexposed if one is metering the foreground for example.

Faced several challenges through out the shoot. Some of them were

1) Distractions of the trees(notice the picture above) which obviously could not be avoided at all. If I were to opt for a different composition, I would not have been able to get the same composition

2) Tripod ball head not steady (highlighted above already)

3) Misty/Hazy conditions <---- Can't be helped! Yes, the misty/hazy conditions didn't help at all. Lots of details were lost in the middle of the frame and in the background. Colours were a bit fuzzy as well.

Too bad I went at the wrong time. Better luck next time I guess?

Anyway, it was a good learning experience. It's not possible to obtain good results overnight so I'll try to learn a lot more about landscape shooting and try to attend talks/workshops whenever I can.