Category: Monochrome

Black & white pictures

Striking A Bargain At Saigon Square

Striking A Bargain At Saigon Square
Saigon Square in Ho Chi Minh City was stocked with tonnes of fake-branded goods on our recent visit to Vietnam. All the big-name fashion brands were represented — some looked like the real deal, while others looked obviously counterfeit. I manage to find a high vantage point from a stair-case landing to catch the action. Colour balance and exposure was tricky. My 40D did a good job at ISO 1600. I converted the final shot to black-and-white for a more journalistic feel.

Arches@Erskine

Arches@Erskine
This was taken outside Scarlet Hotel at Erskine Road, Singapore. We celebrated our second marriage-registration anniversary with a dinner at the hotel’s restaurant after I read this review. I came across the above scene after our sumptuous dinner. Not having brought my usual kit/tripod then, the Canon S5 IS’s image stabilisation feature certainly came in handy, although this advantage was offset by its high noise level at ISO 400 (relative to my 20D). Thankfully, I have been able to reduce the noise in post-processing. I have also added a sepia filter-effect to what was essentially a monochromatic scene.

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Monochromatic Begonias

Monochromatic Begonias
After holding out for Capture One 4.0 for much of 2007 and trying out the beta that has at long last been finally released, I wonder whether if I should have made the jump to Adobe Lightroom earlier. Although my first test of beta 4 (for Lightroom) didn’t turn out too well, Lightroom 1.1 is currently luring me during my 30-day evaluation of the program. One thing I like is the ease which I can convert RAW to monochrome. The above is one of the Lightroom conversions I tried on a shot I took at the Botanical Gardens in Glasgow.