Merry Christmas

In Singapore, we do not have a winter wonderland but we have Orchard Road Christmas lights up. The whole stretch of Orchard Road is lighted up with lots of different kind of lightings and Christmas decorations so it is a good time to bring out the camera to take some pictures. The streets are packed with people so it is quite a challenge to find a place to setup your tripod and to prevent someone accidentally kicking it! Everyone is doing the last minute Christmas shopping or just strolling along with their love ones to soak in the Christmas atmosphere and enjoying the lights up. Off course, there are many who are there to take pictures too.

Here are some pictures taken with my Nikon D700 with either a 24-70mm or a 16mm full frame fisheye lens. I have used ISO200, 1600 and even 3200 for some of the shots. Some of the pictures are taken with fast shutter speeds to freeze actions and others are shot with slow shutter speeds to create a sense of motion. Zooming techniques are also included to add some effect to an otherwise dull looking scene. In one of the pictures I deliberately include a bright street lamp in the composition to create a fake North Star!

The last few shots are taken with the 16mm full frame fisheye. The very last picture is shot with my camera mount on my tripod and sticking it into the center of the Christmas tree and trigger with a long remote cord to create a kaleidoscope effect. I set the lens to manual focus and set the focusing distance on infinity. Then use a small f-stop to increase the depth-of-field so I could get everything in focus.

Even though I spent about three to four hours on Orchard Road, I only managed to cover a super small portion of the whole lights up because the crowd is really overwhelming. I hope you enjoy the pictures and if possible kindly share with all of us how you spend Christmas in your country. Merry Christmas!