Southern Star Observation Wheel

Today I was fortunate enough to be able to go out and enjoy the festivities of the long weekend on Australia Day, in particular at Docklands. There are bands, attractions, people and lots of stuff to see.

Sand Sculpture at Docklands

Check out the sand sculpture to the left for example, isn’t it amazing? The description said that it took 1 tonnes of sand to make this sculpture, incredible. Also to our surprise, this piece of art can withstand 3 days of rain!

While I was strolling about the complex and taking a few photos, I suddenly remembered the thing about cameras that most people do not really understand how to use, and that’s the metering mode. I have this sudden jolt of idea to put this up in this blog when I took the picture of the interesting entertainer on the right.

Horsemen Underexposed

The picture of this funny “horsemen musicians” was very dark when I previewed it. I was using aperture priority mode (I control the aperture the camera decides the shutter speed) with matrix metering. That’s when I immediately remembered to change the metering mode in my camera to fix this. Of course there is another way to avoid this kind of problem by ensuring the right direction of the light source, checkout the “Frequently Missed Items” post.

A quick look at the metering modes

At the very basic level, most of modern cameras would have: matix metering, centre weight metering and spot metering.

When using matrix metering, the camera estimates the amount of light needed to capture an image by averaging the light intensity in different parts of the image. So if you have a camera with say 15 dynamic areas metering, it means the camera basically divided the current scene into 15 areas and uses them to average out the light needed. The downside of using matrix metering is when the subject is dark and the background is very light, the camera is fooled into thinking that there is enough light needed, like the horsemen underexposed picture.

The solution that I decided to use is setting my camera into centre weight metering where the camera uses the centre part of the image as an average area of reference for its calculation. You can normally see the area used for the centre weight metering calculation through your viewfinder; ie. the round marking in the middle.

Horsemen Centre Weight

After using that metering, there result is as “Horsemen Centre Weight” picture. The camera is no longer fooled by the light background.

Another more accurate solution is the spot metering, with this activated, the camera relies on a certain point in the scene as the point of reference. Normally this can be seen in your viewfinder as the smaller circle or the square right in the middle of the scene. I used this metering to take a picture of the band below. The scene was tricky because the subject moved around and most of the background was very light.

Band Underexposed

Band Right Exposure

I locked the spot exposure on one of the band personnel, compose the scene and took the picture.

More festivities

Mini Children Tennis

As I moved on, more interesting attractions are scattered along the area. Even the excitement of Australia Open can be felt here, from the big screen and from the children playing.

I’d have to say that this area has become much more alive than it used to be a few years ago. Lots of shops, restaurant and of course the Southern Star Observation Wheel are now in business. With the weather as nice as today, it was indeed a great day out for recreation!

Docklands Shops	Festivities at Docklands
Melbourne Sunny day

I guess I’ll start of the 2009 post with a little bit of my short trip to Indonesia. I went to a small town of Pati in Central Java to look for something different than the capital city Jakarta. Of course, while there is not much modern entertainments like those large shopping centres, pubs, etc. This town has its own unique appearance.

The buildings remains the same as it was when I went here a few years ago, time seems to go slower here. If we look at the picture of the houses, those are the typical house + shop buildings.

Among other things however one of the best activities that I did was hunting for food. My favourite would be the traditional food called “Nasi Gandul”.

Its most prominent characteristics is having to place the food on top of a sheet of banana leave, giving the dish a very traditional look. I’m not quite sure what part of the cattle is the meat , all I know is that this food taste great and I love it! By the way, this is why we have to bring our camera everywhere including restaurants, so that we can take a picture of those different looking foods.

That was all exciting, unfortunately there are some sad aspect of this city (probably throughout the nation); it is the fact that most of the historical and old buildings are not being cared for. Take a look at the picture below, this was the once great looking sports hall, now a “ghost” looking hall.

From this city, I then moved on to a village, kind of rural suburb area I guess; it was called Trangkil.

Trangkil Sugar Factory

This place was once one of the biggest sugar factory in Central Java during the time of Dutch Colonial. I went there because my Grandpa was one of the head machinist in that sugar factory. Let’s take a look of the few shots that I took during the visit:

Although looking like a worn out factory, according to the caretaker there, this factory is actually operational. Too bad they didn’t take care of the facility like it used to be, could have been a good tourist attraction, especially there are still a lot of younger visitors who are the family members of the ones who used to work here. The saddest part is when the caretaker said that the last remaining old building will be destroyed as well.

The factory visit was a great thing to look at a portion of the Indonesian history.

Photo Tips: In the dark places like the factory machines above, use high ISO settings and the highest aperture (eg. f/2.8) possible to ensure sharp result. If you use a zoom lens, use the lowest focal length.

From the visits in Pati I then moved to the Semarang city. It is much larger than Pati and more modern in a sense. As usual however, I prefer to visit historical places. I’d like to show you one of the interesting place in there, the Pagoda Avalokitsvara.

This is a realtively new place with great aesthetics. Maybe with a little bit more publication it can be a good addition to the city’s tourism. The pictures that I took here could have been better. The rainy day when I came here didn’t help with the photography aspect of the visit . Here’s a little bit more shots from the site.

All in all, I am delighted to say that my trip had been a wonderful one. Great sites to see, great historical view, great food and most of all great chance to take good photos!

In this post I’ll be talking about my recent visit to Bali, since there’s quite a bit to talk about, I have separated the story into 3 parts. Along the way I’ll be mentioning bit by bit here and there different photography explanation. As usual, all images are click-able for larger sample.

One of the thing that intrigues me most when I first arrived is their markets, which is one of the main tourist attraction around there thanks to the large amount of affordable “Bali culture” souvenirs.

Market mixed varieties

That picture above is one of the main markets around, called Sukawati Art Market. This market is visited by tourists from around the world, it almost seems that there are more tourist than locals in the area. I think it was truly one of the remarkable experience to be able to see so much merchandise. Here’s a tip that I kept remembering (and forgetting sometimes), every time we visit a crowded place like this, never forget to take picture of the place and crowd.

Sukawati Art Market is not the only markets out there being visited by many, this is one of the other markets that I have visited, quite an interesting structure I must say, the whole area was packed with different kinds of merchandise.

Crowds and Photos

Let’s just say that with all the excitement of this merchandise, it’s quite hard to stay focus and remembering to take a photo. The thing that captures my eye to take the picture on the right is the fact they are hanging display clothes on the ceiling of their extended roof. It gives the impression of a pattern, almost like the clothes are standing on top of the customers. Well, anyway, there’s always so many things to capture in this kind of places.

More on crowds…

Here are some other pictures depicting the crowds:

Colors of the market

The other aspect that interests me was the colors. There’s so many interesting colors in the market. Take a look at the vibrant colors that I took at the market.

The bags were taken in a different market. In many situation, especially when the situation is crowded and full of different things, there’s alwas interesting colors to look at and photographed.

Cultures and tradition

It was interesting to see that local practices are still being done; as seen in the picture, the young woman was giving her offerings. Apparently it was being done in a regular manner, a pity that I didn’t have the chance to find out what the offering was about and why it has to be constantly renewed.

Another apparent cultural merchandise in Bali Markets are masks , so many different kinds are sold all over Bali, not only in markets but also department stores. Well, we’ve just had a little taste of Bali market places and its beauty. Next time I’ll talk more about different places to look at and as usual accompanied with quality shots.

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