behind the scenes

Sony A7RII – A Dynamic Range Beast for Landscape Photographer

November 13, 2015 In Landscape Photography No Comment

The new 42.4 megapixel camera is going to be landscape photographers best friend in coming years. Why? Because what its capable of!

As a landscape photographer myself, I always hunt for the best light in a day. This means sunrise and sunset is the most beautiful time in a day because its produce gorgeous colours during that time. But the problem is, getting the exposure correctly is always going to be a problem because the sky is always brighter than the foreground if you metering is at dead center. A classic way to counter this problem is by using a Graduated Neutral Density(GND) filter where it helps to balance the exposure nicely with a simple calculation.

But today, technology has made things little bit easier. Sony A7RII packs with a whole lot dynamic range that most of landscape photographer have been craving for.

Just to show some proof about what I am talking about, few weeks back I went out for sunrise hunting at Symphony Lake, KLCC. As the weather starts to get better here in KL, well at least after almost two month of thick haze from neighbouring country. And surprisingly, I was the only photographer at the scene that morning. Nothing bad about it, nothing bad at all. 🙂

So here’s the first light from that morning. Uncompressed RAW (I’ve updated my camera to the latest firmware which features the new uncompressed RAW file) file open with Adobe Camera Raw. Yes, I does look underexpose because I purposely shoot it that way for this test.

and here is what the camera is capable of. Be ready to amazed! I increased the exposure by 3 stops together with 100% boost on the shadow part. No artifacts or unwanted noise, hot/dead pixels or whatnot seen.

A closer look:
Ok, that’s it for now. Oh, quick note, those are only RAW files open in Adobe Camera Raw. I have not done any post-processing yet. Let’s hope I have some will to process it though. Lol!

Happy weekend everyone! Besok jom sunrise! 🙂

The Guardians of Glenorchy

June 13, 2015 In Landscape Photography No Comment

Being a landscape photographer, I used to sacrifice my bed time to chase the best light during sunrise. During my Autumn trip to South Island, New Zealand, I woke up at 4 in the morning and drove for about 30 minutes on a very tight and zig-zag road. Waking up at 4 in the morning and then continue driving can make you feel dizzy because your body is restarting. So it still need some time to reboot completely hence the dizziness. But everything was fine, we manage to arrive to the location safely. Arriving to the location, it was dark, gloomy and very foggy.

It’s very frustrating but being a landscape photographer also taught me to be very patience. I waited for almost 2 hours for the fog to clear up but the light was still not that great. And I just continue shooting and enjoying the morning breeze when suddenly a rainbow started to form just below the mountains in the back. I think it was a double-rainbow but only one had a strong glow.

The rainbow lasted for about 15-20 minutes before disappearing and the weather continues to get better. I couldn’t stop myself for a quick self-portrait with the willow trees! 🙂

Everyone seems to have a really good time despite the bad start. Here’s a series of our selfies from that morning.

The weather continues to get better and better. Here’s an image of sun shining through the famous Red hut in Glenorchy.

Check out my final images from this location here —> New-Zealand-Autumn-2015. Hope you guys enjoy reading this behind the scene story. Feel free to share and spread the love!

Until my next post then… 🙂

The Little Guy, Mangku Sakti Waterfall

March 10, 2015 In Landscape Photography 2 Comments

Hi everyone! So on this post I would like to share on behind the scenes of my Mangku Sakti Waterfall shooting. This waterfall is located near Sembalun village in Lombok tengah.

signboard

By far, this is the hardest place to reached during my Lombok trip. We had to go 3km off-road in a non-4wd vehicle and at about 2km we had a punctured tire, so we have to continue to walk the remaining 1km and believe me, it’s not an easy walk either!

After about 45 minutes of trekking up and down the hill, we reached the entrance to the waterfall. From there, it’s another 20 minutes of trekking to reached the waterfall! *Sigh*

Well, this is what we do, what we love to do as a landscape photographer. The harder it gets to reached to a location, the more excites we got! Although its pretty tiring! Lol.. :p

Here’s the final image….

Until my next post then..Assalamualaikum 🙂

How important it is to clean your photograph?

February 26, 2015 In Behind The Scenes 2 Comments

Hi everyone! On this post I’m going to share how important it is to clean up your photo to make it look more neat and professional.

As a landscape photographer, I often visit a place that have a beautiful views. But sometimes, the place is filled with dirty things like thrash, even your friends tripod leg. Lol! 😛

So, there are few ways you can removed these unwanted things. First you can do so during the shoot itself, but then you will get your hands dirty. Obviously you do not wish to get infected with bacteria by touching dirty things out there. Second option is you can removed it in Photoshop like I did, using the ‘Content-Aware’ tool. It’s easy to use but you have to do it gently and with patience otherwise you will get a bad result.

Here is the result for my ‘cleaning stage’. It looks more clean and neat right?! Happy trying guys!

Don’t forget to follow my Instagram for more behind the scenes of my landscape photography adventure!

Landscape Photography Adventure: Lombok, Indonesia

February 24, 2015 In Landscape Photography No Comment

Hi everyone! Just to share a short video from my Lombok trip earlier this year. I think I might need a newer GoPro Hero4(updated, bought a newer hero4 black edition). My Hero3 Black Edition is literally dying with the condition! 😛

Check out photos from this trip here:

The Awakening – Glorious Sunrise in Shah Alam

February 21, 2015 In Landscape Photography No Comment

A couple weeks back, a friend of mine asked me to join him to shoot the sunrise in Shah Alam. It took me about 15 minutes to arrive and I met abam Faisal and we was waiting for another friend to arrive. After waiting for a while, he still not turn up so we decided to proceed without him.

It started with a gloomy-grey-sky morning and I’ve taken a few quick random shots and then packed all my gears to called it a day. While we was walking back to our car, suddenly the sun has awakened at far end. We are both rushing to set up our camera quickly and luckily we managed to do that just in time! 🙂

Shots imported to my laptop using Capture One.

Import

Guten Morgen Kuala Lumpur!

August 24, 2014 In Behind The Scenes No Comment

It was so wonderful to start my weekend as early as dawn. While everyone else still sleeping, I went out and drove for about 20km to this location. At this time, not much of a traffic going on as it was still early so it just take me about 25 minutes to reached.

A little bit of behind the scenes 🙂

Regalia-Selfie-1

Regalia-BTS-3