In Conversation Amongst Chaos

My test of the 20D continues…

A visit to Chinatown last evening in search of pictures founds hordes of people thronging the streets in search of festive goodies for the upcoming Lunar New Year. One of my favourite techniques for photos in crowded places is to adopt a high angle to spot interesting pockets of activity. Coupled with a slow shutter speed setting, I love the way the moving crowd gets motion-blurred but yet with the main subject kept relatively sharp because of their relative lack of movement. And all this “special-effects” without ever the need to resort to Photoshop filters 🙂 It goes to say that the camera needs to be tripod-mounted and the shutter triggered with a remote/cable release (I just got my RS-80N3 for the 20D) to get the best results!

“It’s Not Easy Being Green…”

I finally got my hands on a Canon EOS 20D Digital SLR after resisting the temptation to get one for the last few months. Andy Gray’s take on 20D vs 300D helped, as like Andy, I was previously a user of a Canon EOS 300D although I must say that he owns a lot more great lenses than I do! Initial impressions of the 20D has been very good, although there are some things with my 300D that I miss: Zoom Browser’s auto-renaming when transferring files from the CF card (the 20D comes with its own File Viewer Utility which is less intuitive when it comes to file transfers), CaptureOne’s support for 20D RAW files (the 3.6 update that covers the 20D has been delayed time and again), the 300D’s cheap cable release for slow shutter shots (will have to get the RS-80N3 later), and the battery grip (the BG-E2 for the 20D has had notorious reviews for problems and bad design).

Still, I had fun testing out my new toy this morning while at the Botanical Gardens. The above is just one of the test shots that I did. Taken with the 20D mated to a Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO Super Macro II lens. More new shots to come in time…

“Operator, Get Me An Exit!”

Something semi-abstract this time round… While going through some of the pictures that I took while on my drive-up holiday to Desaru, Malaysia last August, I came across this interesting backlit/silhouette study of telephone stands by one of the beaches on the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia. The colours and the lighting attracted me first. With some help from mum and CY, we started making abstract shots of hand silhouettes against the brilliant backlit green of the stands. This shot is one of my favourites that resulted from the exercise 🙂

The title should be familiar to those who have watched the Matrix 😉 Of course, the green here is also consistent with the Matrix theme 🙂