GRAND PRIZES:

1ST PRIZE: 3 DAYS 2 NIGHTS TRIP TO CLUB MED CHERATING (Worth $1400)
2ND PRIZE: HTC SENSATION SMART PHONE (Worth $838)
3RD PRIZE: HEALING TOUCH SPA VOUCHER (Worth $500)

WHERE TO GET POINTS
- Comment on this note and get your friends to like your comment
- Tag your favourite photo
- What makes you smile
- Word Challenge
- YeeHaw

I also had the pleasure of having the brand new Leica M9, Noctilux-M 50mm F0.95 and the Summicron-M 28mm F2.0 worth a total of S$30k to ‘test’ during their wedding.

I only had 1 day before the wedding to familiarise myself with the Leica digital rangefinder and the extremely thin focus of the F0.95 lens.

Started with the easier to handle 28mm.

Then I switched to the Noctilux 50mm which costs S$16k on it’s own.

Noticed the beautiful morning light from the window and got Fann to sit near it. Focus was really thin at F0.95. I could close the aperture down to F2.0 and get the necklace more in focus, but my Nikon 85mm F1.4 lens would have been able to easily do that at 10% of that price and would not achieve the beautiful bokeh (background blurring) that this image gives. At the minimum focus distance of 1 meter, the depth of focus is just a few millimeters.

If you move furthur away, focus becomes much easier.

F0.95 is too thin for fast moving events and would require the subject to remain at a certain distance for a while. Takes me about 4-5 seconds to get focused manually vs a split second on my normal camera. For the tea ceremony, I switched back to the 28mm and tested against a backlit window.

For more wedding photos of Christopher Lee (Li Mingshun) & Fann Wong (Fan Wenfang), head to http://bit.ly/christopher_fann

Performers entertained the crowd as they approached the Singapore Flyer

An interview with BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica

We watched other races in the afternoon like the Porsche cup.

Lewis Hamilton takes a lap before the race starts.

The Singapore Flyer had a cool party going on at the platform on the 1st floor with a huge screen to keep updates with the race.

Love the neon against the setting sky.

Lucky to catch the sparks .. pity about the fence.

I brought along the new Samsung ST550 dual LCD camera. And did a test in ‘Smart Auto’ mode while panning the camera. It handled balancing the flash & ambient light pretty well. I’m quite impressed.

Lewis Hamilton on his final lap winning the Singapore Grand Prix 2009.

Well.. 2008 in summary has been nothing short of wonderful for me.

LiveStudios has experienced tremendous growth and we’ve achieved 723 photoshoots in 2008 with November being the busiest month at 94 photoshoots in a single month. We’ve had good staff join us in the last year and we’ve given out our first scholarship to our senior photographer Gideon Lim. Mike Hoi our GM has also been rewarded with a share of the company making him a shareholder of LiveStudios. Our client list has also expanded so much I have lost count already. I couldn’t have asked for more.

Unfortunately the financial crunch has to hit.. but it’s inevitable in my opinion. The property prices and credit market has been inflated way too much. A downturn is the only way the market knows how to correct itself to normality. The good news is however I think the market has over corrected itself that it’s dipping down too much and will recover a little hopefully soon.

With that I wish everyone a gracious New Year..
Why gracious .. u may ask.. I guess I’ll share my thoughts in another post.