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Lending a hand to a friend, I covered a dinner event and help out photographing the actual traditional Chinese wedding aka tea ceremony the very next morning.

The house function was held in Eng Ann, Klang. And the part being a local is that I met a lot of guests that have known me from somewhere else. Most were surprised to see me photographing and covering an event, as they have thought I held a different permanent day job. Oh well!  

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4. I’m impressed with the low-light capability of my aging D300. I had to shoot without flash in order to avoid red colour cast from the red tent, so I boost up my ISO levels.

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The entire album: Link

A long overdue post. 

Together with Zybisko14, we celebrated liyin‘s birthday recently at TGIF, PJ. All of us brought our own film cameras (mostly FM2ns), a variety of lenses, films, and a SB 900 flash (mine).

I was pleasantly surprised and frankly quite impressed when our films had been developed and scanned. Apparently, our guesstimates and manual settings of the SB 900 turned out to be correct, and the exposures were right on the spot. Of course the Fujifilm NPH 400 helped a lot too. Most of the time, we shot with our lenses wide open.

Some of these images may have ben shot by either zybisko14, liyin, or me. Can’t remember much on the details as we were really much into our craziness and zaniness, courtesy of our willing model. 

1. Zybisko14, intending to torture his dinner.

2. Look at the table! It’s practically full with our gears. 

Liyin was holding the only digital camera that day.

3. A feast of camera gears.

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5. With added salt and pepper.

6. This was worse than prying open an oyster or a clam. 

7. Yikes, only now remember to put on napkin.

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No cameras or lenses were harmed during our shot. Our next door tables and staffs of TGIF must have been bewildered by our crazy antics.

For more pictures:

1. http://zybisko14.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!60E1553A429B104!2036.entry

2. http://designerinpajamas.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/my-birthday-celebration-at-tgif/

Was called to assist a friend to cover a wedding at Overseas Restaurant, Jaya 1.

Most of the pictures here were minimally edited, limited only to cropping, levelling, colour balance and resizing.

1. The centre stage, where the night’s highlight was going to happen.

2. The groom with his bestmen (they were a real sporting bunch).

3. Sleepy flower boys.

4. The procession down the aisle.

5. One of the best men, also as the MC for the evening.

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7. The MC dedicated a song to the newly-wed, and spontaneously ended the song by inviting them to the stage.

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13. The bride, with her bridesmaids.

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16. It was really hard for me to fit in the whole group. Besides,  the group kept growing as one by one kept entering into the frame.

While busy composing through the viewfinder (to accommodate the large group), I accidentally broke a glass.

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The rest of the album: Link

A few pointers that I picked up:

1. There ain’t much to shoot during a typical Chinese wedding dinner, other than a couple of key events such as the procession and wedding toasts. However, these key events can be quite fast-paced. A photographer can easily be caught off-guard while changing lens or simply if he/she was stationed at the wrong side of the stage.
2. Hence, it’s always better to carry more than one camera bodies and to have a 2nd photographer to assist during a wedding coverage. We are beginning to pitch this idea to our future clients. However,  some budget or cost-conscious clients may not be too keen to paying for the extra.
3. Must reduce shooting human subjects with the 10mm end of my wide-angle lens, unless the subjects are well centered. Corner distortion at the 10mm end is quite severe, and it’s like stretching your human subjects through some kind of space-time continuum. 
4. Nikon system tends to be on the warm side, and as such white balance and ambient light must be adjusted accordingly.
5. Pump up the ISO to gain better depth-of-field. Not everything has to be bokeh, and group shots still demand sufficient DOF.
6. Shooting with mostly prime lenses is very challenging, but satisfying. You still can’t beat the convenience of zoom lenses, which I still lack in certain focal lengths.

Overall, this was a good and refreshing task as my last wedding coverage was quite some time ago.