Digital Photo Tips

These are photos taken from my bedroom window. Sometimes, the sky is so pretty and breathtaking, you just have to shoot it.

The sight of the Penang State Mosque Minaret. I wonder if there are people who climbed to the top of the minaret or is it only for technicians to adjust sound system?

A bigger picture because I was using the 18-200mm Nikon VR lens.

The guy at the camera shop loves to tell me “Just use P and everything is adjusted for you.”  Yeah, he thinks I am a total moron who will never learn anything about Manual setting or understand the F numbers.  So, I normally use P or the program mode for most of my shots on the Nikon D40.

This is the kind of photo I get with a P setting on a hot afternoon. Over exposed, too bright until you do not see much details.

Frankly, I hate taking photos during hot afternoons because I do not want to end up becoming tanned. When I first got my camera, I was so crazy about taking photos until I ended up looking several shades darker. Now, I do not sacrifice my fair skin anymore. Usually, it is a shoot and run without bothering about the camera settings.

However, if I take a little time to adjust it to Aperture priority, or the A setting, I do get a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. The first phot and the second photo are taken within a minute, with different settings.

So, moral of the story is to play around with the knobs.

Sometime back, we stopped in Ipoh for dinner.  Ipoh normally has such lovely sunsets.  I am not sure why but whenever we ended up in Ipoh, it is usually sunset and I have that special, romantic, mediocre, old town feelings.

Maybe it is the old buildings that make the place so rustic.  The shops are all very old and very lonely kinda look.

After filling our stomachs with the Ipoh famous taugeh chicken rice and getting our salted chicken and ducks, we will hit the highway again.

We know home is just one and a half hour away and everything become so beautiful.  These photos were taken from our moving car and I have heavily adjusted the contrast, saturation and whatever buttons are on my iPhoto photo editing software.

An orange flower from our apartment garden. The good thing about point and shoot camera is we can take quickie photos without fuss. Just whip it out of the pocket or handbag, twist it to macro mode and shoot.

No fuss with changing lens or squatting down to get the right angle. Nice. Photo taken with Nikon P4.

This cannon ball tree is an interesting plant. It has these cute little pink flowers which look very exotic. Those petals will fall on the ground and the pink petals look breathtaking beautiful all over the green grass.

If you click on the photo, you can view the 1600 pixel and note the intricate details of the flower. I have taken photos of the cannon ball tree and the cannon ball flowers back in 2005 and posted them in my food blog. But every time I see them, I just love the macro shots.

The middle part looks like corals, don’t they? This is a flower which has dropped to the ground. If the flower is still on the plant, usually there are lots of insects sipping the nectar.

So, do hop over to the Penang Botanical Gardens and shoot some of these flowers while it is still blooming.

This is the cannon ball plant. It has long branches and the fruits look like bald heads. I tell you, if you suddenly grope in the dark and found those fruits, you will think they are bald heads hanging from the tree.

PLEASE WATCH OUT FOR SNATCH THIEVES WITH TAILS! If you are at the Botanical Gardens, do not bring anything that looks like foods. Do not leave your bags around. Be alert for monkeys who snatch your bags. I was squatting down on the grass, carrying a backpack and concentrating on the flower when I suddenly realised there are grunting sounds behind me. A pack of 5 monkeys were aiming at my backpack.

Maybe you can tell the monkeys, “HOI! Balik lah, ini negeri Pakatan Rakyat lah!”