Tag Archives: bokeh photos

Testing out the Lumix Pancake Lens

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So I’ve joined the bandwagon of buying lenses for my camera. Sir Olympus, the white knight extraordinaire, couldn’t have been more pleased.

(Yes, I name my things – which is probably why I get attached to inanimate objects)

I sold off one of my two kit lenses yesterday. Heartbreak. Still waiting for a buyer for the other one, another impending heartbreak. But let’s focus on today.

Today, I bought a pancake lens for Sir Olympus. A Lumix 20mm f/1.7 to be exact. Do you know what this means? I don’t either. To me, it means that now I can take bokeh-licious photos!

Check these out. They made me forget all about the lens that got sold off:

The following photos were taken at Thai Express.

Doesn’t the bokeh look so good? Makes me want to invest in fairy lights now so that I can take pretty photos.

Mango Salad

My beef noodles, absolutely divine with chili padi

FP’s soft shell crab with rice

We also went to Cedele to satisfy a random cake craving. The cakes weren’t that great (too dry!) but they look good enough for photos:

This was a “chocolate nougat cake”. The best part of it were the tiny chocolate balls.

FP’s gula melaka cake. As exotic (and yummy) as that sounds, it was an utter disappointment.

But I guess these photos have proven what the Lumix pancake lens is capable of, and I am very very happy with my first lens purchase.

Personally, my favourite photos are of the cakes, and coming a close second/third is the bokeh shot ;)

Hoping this doesn’t snowball into an expensive habit, though I have a feeling I’m gonna have so much fun with it for more than just a little while.

:)

Diptych Fun

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So here are 3 sets of photos utilizing the diptych method. Once again, these photos were taken sometime back – probably in December 2010.

Unlike our usual photoshoots, these use natural lighting – which I think is awesome.

Interesting fact: For the first 2 sets below, which were actually from the same photoshoot, I was running a very high fever (almost 40 degrees celcius!). But like a boss, I pushed myself through it.

Diptych 1

Diptych 2

Don’t you just love my hoodie? It’s the Red Sea! So when I unzip my hoodie, it’s like I’m parting the Red Sea. Get it?

Diptych 3

This photo was taken at a post Christmas lunch at Fish & Co. No connection whatsoever between the two photos unless you want to consider my hunger to be the tying factor.

That’s all for this short post!

52 Weeks of Her – Week 14

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This was taken sometime back (on Halloween last year actually, way long overdue!).

It was pretty impromptu this shoot. I came over with a bar of really good dark chocolate for personal indulgence and he took the chance to utilize it into a photo.

He made me munch on the dark chocolate so that he could take some shots of the bitten chocolate bar (which as you can see did not make it to the final cut). Well to be fair, he helped out for a bite or two.

And then he made me smear the chocolate all over my mouth so that it has the “messy” effect.

I just want to say that dark chocolate is not supposed to be munched like there’s no tomorrow. At least, I do not consume my dark chocolates that way. I like to have it bit by bit and as and when I like to.

If I remember correctly this particular bar was at least 70% cocoa – considering I like my chocs bittersweet. So it was pretty bitter to have had to consume it in a relatively large quality over a short amount of time.

But alas, in the name of art – I sacrificed. Anything for a good photo :)

A Peek into Food Photography

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I’ve always loved food photography. I believe an appealing photo of a dish is not easily attained, but I do try anyway every time I dine out – with my humble point-and-shoot camera. Nothing professional of course, but I try to capture the very essence of the colour and presentation of the dishes.

Now bring FP into the picture (pun seriously not intended), with his dedication, photography skills, creativity and all his truckload of photography gadgets and you’ll get food photos so wonderfully captured, you’d become hungry just by looking at the photos.

As some of you might have known, FP got into a terrible traffic accident almost 2 months back (saving this story for another post) and he’s still in recovery right now. Because he’s in a much, much better state than he had been when it first happened, we’ve been doing photoshoots – just to spur our creativity and also, just for the fun of it.

We started with our normal photoshoots, but we somehow ventured into taking photos of food. When I say “we”, I meant: he takes the photo, while I assist in other ways to get the shot, hehe. It certainly doesn’t hurt that we both love food; exotic beautiful food. With both our quirky minds at work, it didn’t take much to create masterpieces such as these:

Click to see his write up for this photo

This was the first food-related photo he took. We’ve both been craving for hot chocolate for quite awhile, so I bought some hot chocolate and pastries for us to munch on (also to take photos of) and we ended up with this. That is a yummy cinnamon scone, and it’s even yummier when dipped in the hot chocolate. Gosh, you have no idea :)

Click to see his write up for this photo

This was a plate of delicious Pad Thai from Magic Wok. We also had Belacan Fried Rice and Mango Salad that day, but the Pad Thai became the star of the day. I was the one holding the fork up, just so you know haha :)

Click to see his write up for this photo

This is truly one of my favourites. Okay, so I’m biased because salmon sashimi is one of my favourite foods. Just look at this one. So fresh, you can see the “pores” of the meat. Yum, looking at it makes me want to have it all over again. Anything with sushi and sashimi (sushimi for short), you can always count on me to enjoy it. We so gotta go to Japan one day!

Click to see his write up for this photo

Another of my favourites because 1) I love macaroons and 2) I love that we used fairy lights for this shoot to achieve the Bokeh effect. This was actually a test shot that turned out nice and lively. I like how the Bokeh colours turned out so nice and makes it look like a real party scene. Macaroons were from De Paolo Gastronomia. This quaint little shop provides the best picnic all-Italian food!

This little food project we’re doing has opened my eyes to the world of actual food photography beyond my little pink point-and-shoot camera. It’s not that easy, with all the lighting stuff and post production but it is so rewarding when he has attained such nice photos.

I may be getting my very own DSLR soon. No idea how to use it, but I’ll learn from the best :)