Ri Jia Engineering Service Pte Ltd

Gosh, time passed so fast, is June now. A couple of weeks ago, I had a chance to shoot in a servicing and repairing workshop. I'm glad that I have this chance. It was fun and a fantastic experience.

Unfortunately, I picked the wrong timing. I choose to shoot on the Saturday evening. Most of the workers had went back and left only two people working there.

I planned to capture some photos like welding or grinding. Too bad everyone left the company. Well I can't interrupt them by asking them to weld something. They are still busy rushing their job!

I got my D700 with a lens borrowed a Nikon 50mm f1.2 from Robin. Thanks Robin! On the other hand, I got my Vivitar 28mm f2.8 as well. Both are very good lens. Two value buying lens, cheap and nice. Is just that both are manual focus lens, need some time to get use with it.

I have only 1 hour plus to shoot everything. The hardest part is, how many things will they do in this 1 hour?

Well, I got pretty lucky and got these shots.

Safety always comes first. You always need someone to protect everyone safety in the workshop. In here Guan Yin Ma play the main role to protect everyone. 

Ri Jia Engineering Service Pte Ltd is a workshop that service and repairs rotating equipment, such as pump and hydraulic gear. They do provide fabricating services. 

Is drilling time babe~!!! 

Accuracy and precision is very important. In this line, we are talking about 0.001 inch. 

So, do you know which size of drill head are you going to use? 

Does he look like yao ming? He is tall too. Haha...

Finally I took a HDR shoot of the workshop. Ush.... where is my wide angle when I need it!!!!!!!!!

It is so fun shooting there, but have to take care of safety in the workshop. Cannot simply touch the machines or simply walk around. Cranes lifting heavy stuff all the time, and everywhere!

I took off at 5pm when then call it an off for the day. Luckily the boss fetch me to the train station after the shoot. That place is like desert, you can hardly get a bus or Taxi.

I had a fun day! Definitely will do more shoot like this!

Cheers

Ting Jieh

Walking Tall - My new shoe!

As time passes by, things get older and older. This is the same theory applied to my formal shoes, after serving me for more than 3 years, it time has come. I still like that shoe, but I got no choice. I have to buy a new pair of shoe, else I'll be wearing a spoiled shoes to work.

In the same time, Andrew Chow, a friend of mine introduces me this brand, Walking Tall. Not just a normal leather shoes, but a "high-heal" leather shoes for men!! Without any doubt, I told myself:"I must try this one!"

So I went to their shop at Raffles Place, you can find their details in their FACEBOOK page.

I bought a black one with the shoe lace, and of course it comes along with an additional 1.5 inches height for me! Fantastic, now I'm taller with my new shoes!

Before I wear it to work, I spend a weekend to shoot my new shoe. Here are the photos I got for them. Enjoy!

A side view of my new shoe. Three exposures in this shoe, can you see it?

45 Degree 

A close-up front view. Looks tall, doesn't it?

Mixing up, and bokeh-ing the back one.

Another close up from front, but this time, I shoot both shoes. I love the shoe lace!

One more close up, bokeh-ing the shoe tips, and focused on the shoe lace. Hmm.. Looks like I like to place the object on the right....have to avoid this next time.

And finally, my favorite photo among all above. I just love this photo! On the other hand, although this is a "High-heal" for men, I still feel it is comfortable to wear.

Now, I'm taller and more confidence than before.

Special thanks to Andrew Chow and Walking Tall.

Cheers,
Lu Ting Jieh

Gatsby - Style as you like~

Rain, rain, rain, come again and again, non-stop raining during this weekend. Ended up I hide myself in my room and take a couple of products shooting.

This post I would like to share a few photos that I took with my roommate's Gastby. XD

Actually I spent two days to shoot these two photos. On the Saturday, I shot the Gatsby's Super Hard Styling Foam (silver colour) and I shoot the Gatsby's Long Keep Wax Spray (black colour) on Sunday.

Gatsby - Super Hard Styling Foam

Gatsby - Long Keep Wax Spray

Regarding to the Super Hard Styling Foam, it is in silver colour, cylindrical shape and very reflective. Not an easy task for me. I used two light sources, left and right each. In between, I used a white cardboard reflector to cover the darker spot on each side. 

Regarding to the Wax Spray, although it is darker in colour, but it is also very reflective. For this object, I change the direction of the source light; I use only single light on top of the object, and three white cardboard reflector. Two reflectors on the left and one on the right.

Spent two days for two photos, that is kinda lame. I got no choice, I'm still in the learning progress. In the same time, I tried to do some editing on the photo. Nothing much, just adding some font on it. Hope you guys like it.

Shot all these photos with my D90 and 50mm f1.8. Attached with an CPL filter. Mounted on tripod, settings around ISO 100, F11 at shutter speed 1/10.

Feel free to give any comments or critics.

Cheers,
Lu Ting Jieh

Vodka Series

Is been some time I didn't touch my blog, busy for a Convocation Photoshoot, my current job and of course my long wait Mini Studio! RAWR!!! Now I'm back with my mini studio!!

Although it is not fully equip yet, but is good enough to start some small product shooting. Slowly I'll add in more things in future. Here is a photo of all the things that I used to make my own lamp. Yeap, that it is! A light bulb with a aluminium

In this post, I will show you my shots for a bottle of Vodka. Basically this is my setup as shown below. Object in the middle, and two lights at the side. As you can see, the light is diffused with the cotton made oil filter. I kinda like this diffuser, it perform his job by diffusing light, it can hold high temperature and of course it is cheap, $1.50 for a pack, it comes with two pieces in it.

Here, you can see the white backdrop. It is actually a wooden stick on two "stand" that is normally used to hang clothes. Instead of hanging cloths on the stick, I clipped my mahjong paper on it. I used 3 pieces to make sure it looks solid enough. Else you will be able to see through it when the lights are on.

I have my camera mounted on a tripod and a 50mm f1.8 on it. I shoot at ISO 100, Aperture at f11 and shutter speed around 1/30. To make sure the lights does not affect the shoot, I took a pre-shot without any lighting except the natural lights. If the picture is absolutely black in colour, I assume it as the natural light does not affect my photo. Regarding to the white balance, it is pre-adjust before the shoot, with the lights on.

In between the shooting progress, I used two different colour of card board, which is black and white as reflector. Black reflector for white background and white reflector for black background. Here are the results.

For this photo, the black background is not dark enough, that is why it turns a bit brownish. In the future, I will need a 100% black backdrop and a 100% dark room to make a black background shoot.

White background and white object, give a very clean and simple feeling. I feel that it has a classier look than other colour combination. There is a mistake I did in this photo, too dark on the bottle cap and the old man logo. And the reflection is not that nice. I need a better reflective card in the future. The wordings, I just copy from the web. Woops....

Adjust to a much cooler temperature white balance gives a very icy feeling. I spray some water on it. So it looks icy cold. As it just came out from the fridge.

Placing the object in the center of the frame, create a stronger impact towards the object. It leads the viewer's sight directly to the object then only to the text around it. Meanwhile, there are actually two exposures in this shot. One is the bottle, and the other one is the bottle cap. Then I merge them in post processing.

Thinking out of the box, I copy five bottles of Vodka into one single frame instead of only one bottle of Vodka. Then I fill in different colour for each of them. This give you a total different feelings than the previous photos. I feel a bit old school in this photo. You can go to my flickr for a larger view.

I hope you guys like these photos. If you have any suggestion or comments, feel free to post it here. C & C are all welcome. Your feedback is most welcome.

Cheers,
Lu Ting Jieh

Chili oh chili~

Last week, I bought myself some Mee Goreng for dinner in the Ramadan Night Market. One thing I felt weird for that, they gave me four raw green chili to eat along with the Mee Goreng. Hmm... I'm not sure how am I going to eat that, and I don't really like to eat chili. So I keep it for my next photography practice.

This post, I will be sharing the photos I took with the free chili that I got them from Ramadan. I shoot these photos around 12-1pm on the weekend. Strong sunlight shining down directly from the sky. Without any question, I used my Mahjong paper as a diffuser, making the sunlight softer before it hits on my object.

Grabbing my D90 with my 50mm f1.8 lens on it. I took a shoot directly above my set. No reflector, flash and tripod involved for all the shoots. After a couple of test shot, I decided to add some props and a cut on of the chili with a knife, splitting it into half. Then I have the smallest size chili cut into small pieces. This makes the photo more interesting than before.

With my 50mm f1.8, I can't do much with it. So I added in my macro extension tube, trying to get some close up photos of the chili. With the macro extension tube, things became more fun. I took a few shoots hand held and that is it. End of today shooting. The weather is so hot, that I can't stand to make any more shoots.

One thing I realized through this shooting, actually this macro extension tube is not that bad. It may not be as sharp as the macro lens. But it still allows you to get pretty close to the object. With proper lighting control, I believe it can get some sharp photo as well. I will try to shoot with the macro extension tube along with artificial lighting setup. Hope fully I can get some good macro photos.

Although the chili looks a little bit OLD, this is because I didn't keep it in the fridge. But do leave a comment on the photos if you feel so. C and C are all welcome.

Cheers,
Lu Ting Jieh

Ice-Cream Photography?

In my mind, I always wanted to make some photographs of Ice-creams. By just dreaming it, it is useless, action must take part in it ! If I do not take the first attempt, I will never learn how to shoot an Ice-cream. In this post, I will share some photos that I took during the weekend.

As a novice photographer, I need more time on styling and composing. If I use real Ice-cream, I will be wasting tons of money Ice-cream as it will melt very fast. I do not have confident to style it and shoot it in time.  In order reduce the cost, I replace with the "ice-cream" that will never melts: MESHED POTATOES! I learn this from reading books and articles online. 

It seems to be a almost perfect replacement. It will never melts, I can style it as a long as I want. although it is placed under the hot sun, it just wont melts. I can slowly compose and recompose anytime I want. There is only one thing to care about. The color will change after it exposed to the air for some time, but that is after an hour or more. 

Behind the scene, mixing up the meshed potatoes with color. We used 3 potatoes to make four scopes of "ice-creams". Total three colors, orange, yellow and green. One color each for the first three scoop, and a mixture of all three colors for the last scoop. TADA!! LIME, ORANGE & CORN flavor ice-cream!!!



Here comes the "ice-creams"!!! This is a test shot with only the camera and "ice-cream". To make it looks more real, chocolate topping were added.

All the photos were shoot outdoor. (Not a problem at all, as it wont melts)

Camera : D40x (I miss my very first DSLR~)
Lens:  Nikon kit lens, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6.
Others: Again, my favorite equipment, A4 papers as background and a piece of aluminium as a reflector. Last and not least, a very cute bowl for the "ice-creams".

Here are the final results of the "Ice-creams".

It does't look perfect but I'm quite happy with it as a first attempt. The progress if this experiment is very fun, and I've learn that, it is actually very good to shoot outdoor. Using the natural light, controlling it with reflector. In the future, I will add in diffuser for my shoot.

The largest problem I'm facing is how to style the "ice-cream" to make it more real. My crafting skills on the "ice-cream" is just not good enough. Second, the potatoes is just look too hard. Looks like I need to figure out how to make the potatoes melts in order to fake the faked ice-cream to look more real. Haihz.. complicated. I replaced the ice-cream with potatoes because it doesn't melts, in the same time, I want it to melt a little to looks real. Looks like, the best way is still shoot with a real ice-cream.

Before ending, I want to say thanks to my dear who is helping me all the way long and giving creative composition for the shots. Well actually some of the photos was taken by her!

Anyway, do leave a comments or suggestion. C & C are all welcome.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers,

Ting Jieh

The Queen of Fruits - Mangosteen!

Last weekend, I don't know from which part of my brain came out of this idea. Getting myself for a Mangosteen Photography session. There is one thing I must admit is... THIS FRUIT IS HARD TO SHOOT!

The skin colour of the Mangosteen is very dark in colour but the fruit itself is in white colour. It is not easy to have the light control on this fruit. You can easily have the fruit overexposed or underexposed due to the high contrast of the skin and the fruit.

And the other issue is the fruit itself is not nice. It is not as good looking as a strawberry. MUAHAHAHAHA. Forget that, just a joke. The second issue I want to bring out is, the colour of the fruit will change very fast. It will become yellowish very quickly. Just in a minute or two, you will start seeing the colour change.

This time, I have news papers as the background. Using natural light coming from the left side. After a couple oh shoots, I feel that the lights are not strong enough due to the cloudy day. My A4 paper reflector is just not enough for this situation. The light source is low, and the object very dark. So I intended to add in another light source from a Sunlight temperature light bulb to play around.

With the light bulb behind the A4 paper, playing with silhouette.

 THE QUEEN OF FRUITS! Shot with D90 + 50mm F1.8

Another shot with my D90 + 50mm f1.8 with natural light only. In this photo, we can hardly see the reflected light. Not very satisfy with this series. Have to do more research and learn how to shoot a better photo in this kind of situation. High contrast object and low light condition. There is another thing I had to admit is the composition. I need to do more homework on that as well as the light control. Do suggest me if you have a better idea. 

Cheers,

Lu Ting Jieh

Shooting fruits and water splash

This weekend, I'm trying to shoot something that I always wanted to try on it, which is the water splash. It seems to be easy, but it is not that easy to shoot when I try it myself.

As you can see from the first photo. I shoot this with my D90 + 70-200mm f2.8 VR1. An old and small fish tank, which I don't think the size is sufficient, but the thing is, it is FREE! My manager gave me that. Then you can see, I have two external flash at both side, triggered by the build in transmitter. Two A4 boxes, a stool, a drawer and a pail to support both flashes and the fish tank. And a mahjong paper as backdrop. Not a very complete setup, but these are what I have, in order to complete this shoot.



Do bare in mind, you need a few dry cloth to stand by. If there is any splash on your equipment, you can clean it off instantly. In the same time, you need a cloth to clean up the water drops on the fish tank every time before you take a shoot.

Here, I'm shooting at settings below:

Focal Length :70mm,
ISO 100,
Shutter Speed :1/200sec,
Aperture: f10.
Flash power: 1/2

I also used 1 piece of tissue placed on the right side of the fish tank to diffuse the flash. It really works for me. Huge different with tissue and without tissue. Reason that I'm using the internal flash trigger, the pop up flash is required to trigger the slave flash. So I bought one accessory, so call the "flash trigger". It is actually a pyramid shape constructed with mirrors with the pyramid head facing the pop up flash. So when the flash fires, the light does not travel directly to the object, but split to the top, side and bottom. With this, I can trigger my slave flash with the pop up flash without any lights hitting the fish tank directly.

After a couple of shoots, these are what I've got.

A single peach and the splash!

Triple peach in action!

Orange and the splash!

If you look closely at the photos, you can actually see that the lighting on the right side is much stronger than the left side. I guess the battery in the left side flash is running low.

With no doubt, I touched up the photos with Photoshop after shooting. My post processing skills are not that good, I guess people can easily see the mistake. But do make a comments or suggestion on that. No hard feelings.

Photos are not perfect, so I must have a re-shoot for the second round with a much complete equipment for setup. Basically, I personally feel that, a minimum of 3 external flashes are required for the shoot. Two on both side, same height as the water level, and one at the back to flash the backdrop. As I mentioned earlier, a larger fish tank is required.

Anyway, C & C are welcome from anyone. I'll gear up and learn more on lighting control and make the second shoot. Perhaps, I'll try more things like colored gel, different color background or different fruits/object.

=]

Cheers,
Lu Ting Jieh

First DIY Product Shooting!!

Finally I got my chance to play with my new toys as I had posted previously. I made two stupid mistakes, did not plan on how to set things up and did not bring my external flash. So I ended up spending more than half and hour to do the set up and make a instant bouncer for my pop up flash.

As you can see from the image below, this is the setup for my product photography shooting.
***Hopefully you can see the words in the picture***

I use a box as the backdrop support and a few pieces of A3 papers as backdrop. So it is does not show any transparentness.Then 2 main lights with diffuser at the side. At first, I thought of shooting with only 2 main lights and that is just not working. Without any choice, I had to use my pop up flash to add in more lights from the top. So I cut down the diffuser, and put an A3 paper on top as a reflector. As shown in the picture. 

In order to avoid direct flash, I instantly make a bouncer for it. So the light can bounce to the A3 reflector and flash on top of the product. It do helps!! A LOT!!!! Here is another two pictures showing the left and right side of the set up and another one when I turn on the main lights with the room lights off.

I started to shot with my prime lens, 50mm f1.8 which I can't really handle it for this shooting. So I change back to my kit lens 18-55mm which has a the shortest minimum focus distance, 0.18m among all my lenses.  Where I can place my camera real close to the object.

I tried to shoot at f8, where more people recommend to use. But I feel that f14 gives a sharper image when I zoom into the picture from my camera. Perhaps I should have shoot in both aperture and view it in PC. Never mind, I'll compare it again on the next shooting.

Finally, I set my camera to settings to ISO 100, f14, shutter speed at 1/6sec with pop up flash. And these are the results I've got! Not perfect , but I feel satisfy for my first product shooting. No serious image editing, only cropping, adding text and white balance to 5500k.

Will try different items in the future. Perhaps something much bigger or something that reflects light, such as glasses. Anyway, feel free to comments.

Cheers!

Lu Ting Jieh