Sunrise and Food Photography Practice Session

This is my second attempt to take sunrise photo this year.  I tried once in late Jan this year, at Punggol Beach.  However, it wasn't successful as the clouds blocked the sun, so i only saw the sun when it was quite high up in the sky.

I attempted it again today.  Set my alarm clock to 520am, so that I can washed up and get ready to wait for the taxi at 6am with the fellow CS shooters.  We reached the Esplande at 620am, and there was already a few of them there, and I happened to bump into D who i met at Botainic Garden.

The organiser was very nice to give some tips on how to take sunrise photo..However, one of the tips freaked me out a little.  He told me to do a mirror lock, which i had never tried before.  I did it, set up my tripod, looked at the watch, 635am, nice blur sky.. When i shot and tried to preview my photo on the camera, i saw nothing.  I tried a few times, still nothing!!  So i thought my camera Tom (By the way, I called my camera Tom) died on me!  After which, I realised it was the setting...so when i disabled that, everything went back to normal..phew.  But by the time i was ready, it was 650am..oh no..running out of time..

Sunrise was again disappointing.  The sky was cloudy and I couldn't see the sun.  It was behind the flyer.  And because of the hiccups, it shortened my magical moments.  I think i have to go back again.

Right after the sunrise shot, i went to McDonald to have my breakfast before heading to my food photography practice session.  I love Mcdonald, they give you a sense of home when you are overseas, and they are 24 hours! 

The teacher is JY.  He taught me how to use different lightings for the food, gave some tips for food photography, and also how to display the food.  On top of that, I got the chance to try the 100mm F2.8 L IS USM.  This was a mistake, because it just sold me into it.  In total, I tried 3 cameras and 2 lens today, Tom, my 450D, 7D and a 5DII.  I love the sound of the 5DII (Me and my shallow preference! haha!) and the grid on the 7D.  Canon, did you hear me? :-)
Beside the 100mm, I also tried a tilt lens. It was quite difficult to use..not sure how to tilt! haha

These are the photos from the sunrise in Punggol Beach:

Surprisely there were fishermen, at 630am.  Seems like they were there whole night..

Sky is getting brighter..Can you tell the difference?

The only bus in.

Photos from today's sunrise. 

Incomplete Marina Bay Sands..I think it will look gorgeous when it is completed. 

This was using 2 flashes.  At first we were using 3 flashes, and probably too much light as we have the daylight coming in from the windows.

This is taken using the 100mm F2.8 L IS USM.  I am falling in love with the lens, obessed taking a lot of close up of the strawberry.

Trying different angles.

Guess what is this? :-)

Da-Da..is a cake! Haha

McDonald Big Breakfast

 It was a very fruitful session.  Look forward to the next session by JY :-)

Changes in church

I went for my networking meeting today, only to receive a shocking news, on the reorg of the church.  To cut long story, Senior Pastor is going to reorg the church such that there will be mixed cells (Now cells are homogenous), and under his immediate LN network (Now called team), it will have to be lead my married couples.  Because of that, there are some single pastors, or pastor whose spouse are not serving at the same level are being "demoted", and SP "promote" a few spouse of the Pastor, to be at the immediate LN team.

Because my pastor is one of those who is affected, I am asked to the meeting.  This really shocked me.  Suddenly a pastor who i respected and love a lot is no longer in leadership, only to be replaced by someone less competent.  Of course one can always argue that God can use anyone, and in the Bible, He did use people who are seen not as competent.  Understand, i totally understand.  But i just cannot accept the fact that some joker will be at the same leadership position, who was once filled by someone that I respect so much. 

This is bad.  I thought following Jesus should be the simplest thing.  One God, one Bible.  Why did it become so complicated?

Flash Outing

I had a good session on trying out how to use the flash.  Thanks to Michael, Alvin & Sky, I learned something new about using flash. 

Some sample photos:

Using a yellow background

White background:

This photo was using 3 flashed, 2 580II flash, one on my camera body, one of the left, and 1 430II on the right.

White background.  Different effect.

I focused on his body

Can you see that now I focused on his face?

Buffet 2 - Oscar @ Conrad

Buffet again!!!  This was my second buffet in consecutive 2 weeks, don't ask me how i maintain my weight!
I went to Oscar with high expectation, with the price tag of $58+++ per pax, I would expect it to be much better than Ellenborough cafe.

The buffet started with some drama.  I asked 2 waitress if I could take photo of the buffet, and I only started when I received their permission.  However, when I was happily taking my photo, another waitress came to stop me, told me no photographs allowed.  Disappointed, I took some food and went back to my table, since no one can stop me there.  I did not give up, and this time, I decided that I needed authority.  So I looked the manager, and I saw this man in another uniform, and figured that he was the manager, Ahmet.  He was very nice, and said that he would check for me, and indeed, he brought me good news, and I was happily snapping again.

Few things made Oscar better than Ellenborough cafe.
1.  Food quality and presentation. 
For a start, the presentation of the food was unique.  And there were more freshly prepared food.  For eg.  For their sahsimi, you can choose the fish that you want.  There were salmon, sword fish, tuna etc. 
Their oysters were the better quality one from France, not your usual oysters.  And they opened it for you on the spot.  In the dessert section, they had freshly prepared waffle and crepe and 6 different flavours of ice cream, you can choose either cone or cup, and varipus toppings, from chocolate chips to gummy bears! In the salad section, you can different dressings and olive oil, though i am not a big fan of salad.  And there were also 8 different cheese to choose from, such as Tomme De Savoie, Gouda, Le Brie, Etorki, and Emmental.

2.  It was also less crowded, enough people to sustain the business, but not overly crowded like Ellenborough, and most inportantly, no one starred at me! Haahaa

3.  Oscar had a friendly and helpful manager, Ahmet!

The only missing thing in Durian Pengat!

Overall:  8.5/10
Oscar's Café & Terrace
2 Temasek Boulevard

Lobby Level Conrad Centennial
Tel: +65 6432 7481

Buffet 1 - Merchant Court Hotel

Ellenborough Market Café of Swissotel Merchant Court, is famous for its Durian Pengat.  Durian pengat is like a mashed durian, looks ugly but is very yummy, the prerequiste is that you have to be a durian lover.  And when small Mich said go to ellenborough, I was dreaming of my durian pengat.
Here is it:  Does not look too good but it is good, you can taste real durian.

In a buffet, you can tell who is a Singaporean, a few traits include:
1.  They will be the one fighting for food, even though buffet start at 630pm, they will be afraid that the food will run out.
2. They will rush for the most expensive food, usually culprits include oysters, sashimi, seafood.  So Mich & I had strange stares from people when we were busily taking photo instead of fighting for the food.  They must be thinking that we were mad, or they were secretly happy that we did not fight with them over the oysters.

In case you are wondering why so many photo of the desserts, yes, you are right, I enjoyed the dessert more than the main courses! 

The carrot cake was very disappointing.  Chey Sua in Toa Payoh is still the best carrot cake!

Dinner buffet is $38++ per person.  With the HSBC promotion of 4 people dines, one person free, we paid $38 each.  Decent value considering the spread.  Not high quality food, but reasonable, which probably explained a full house on a Friday night!

Ellenborough Market Café

20 Merchant Road

GF Swissotel Merchant Court
Tel:  6239-1848

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Sunday! 

Ever wonder why such a holy day which marks the resurrection of Jesus after his Crucifixion on Good Friday became a day where we have the Easter Eggs and the Bunny?  Where did the bunny come from?

To me, Good Friday & Easter Sunday are days to remember what Jesus has done for us on the cross, his grace and his blood that was shed for us.  Sometimes I think that we do not deserve it, and God should let us die instead of sending His son to save us.  John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life"

We had an event to conduct this Good Friday, is called Thank God is Friday (TGIF).  Each cell have to have at least 2 TGIF events.  We are to invite our prebelievers friends, to watch a DVD named "The Best Bet" which is a testimony of a compulsive gambler, and to have simple sharing and food, it will be about 2 hours, and in a house setting.  My cell had 7 members including the cell leader.  One of them is new, one of them is always missing in action, so in reality, we had 5.  And I was really pissed when one of them, supposedly the co cell leader, did not participate the event, and her reason is that she is going for a dive trip!
She claimed that in the dive trip, she can reach out to 9 pre believers, so she went for the trip.

To me, it is plain excuse and crap and simply not respecting the church's direction.  It is just another excuse to have fun, since she is new to diving, and logically diving will be a more interesting choice than to skip the trip and to stay behind to do the TGIF.  The part which I was totally perplexed is she seems totally righteous about it which made me more bewildered.

Anyway, I had the event, not very successful since my cell member who was supposed to do did not invite anyone.  Nonetheless, I am happy that I did my part, and my friends saw the DVD and heard the testimony.  A seed planted, hope to harvest it one day.