Well, strobist or off camera lighting is not a new concept. It means to take the camera from the camera hotshoe and place it in a different position. Sometimes it means using more than one source of light. Digital cameras has made it easier for us to gauge our exposure immediately after taking a shot.
So what are the gear that we need , mainly

A Flash.  Personally I prefer a Nikon Speedlights for its portability.  The good thing about operating the flash in manual mode means we could still use …

I  do selective Pro Bono photography jobs. One of them is the Qingming Festival praying event organised by the Zhoujiaquan lion dance troupes. Most of these troupes operated on a non commerical basis. Their main source of income is to go around  performing “picking the greens” during Chinese New Year periods.  Since I am always interested in lion dance, I have been shooting this Qingming event for a few years.
This year the event was on 11 Apr 10. The weather was great but it got really hot towards noon. Of course the …

It used to be very expensive buying a photo from a traditional stock agency before the days of the Internet. Sock agencies had to publish thick catalogs showing the photographs in their library. The fees to license the use of a stock photo is not cheap too.
With the internet and subsequently microstock websites, all these has changed. You are able to license a photo for use for your website, brochure, annual reports  etc for a few dollars. For photographers, you will get paid by a certain percentage of the selling …

Mandalay
From Kalaw I would move on to Mandalay, where I have the most interesting encounter with a trishaw driver, Mr Win Tin. Mr Win Tin offered to drive me around Mandalay. I told him I would get him to give me a ride down to U Bein Bridge in the afternoon if he was still around when I came back after a walk around the town. I walked away thinking that he would not be waiting at the same spot after a span of a few hours since he could …

Inle Lake
 
 

 I was glad I visited the Golden Rock temple and happily I set off for my ride back to Bago (K2500) the next morning. This was the start of a backbreaking 16 hours bus journey to Inle Lake via Bago. I paid and another 500 Kyats to upgrade my seat to sit next to the bus captain. Was it worth the ‘upgrade’? Well my 1.78cm body frame could use whatever extra space I could pay for. Again, this was not a tourist bus but a local bus. Ninety percent …

The introduction of budget airlines has driven many travellers to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Myanmar is still considered as an exotic holiday destination to many. It is the same reason why I decided to visit Myanmar as a solo independent traveller.

Let see…how many manuals do we have on a camera setup?
Quite a few and here they are :
1. Manual or instruction booklet
I know many of us put this aside once the camera is out of the box.  DO keep it around as you may need to refer to it at one point or another on some of the functions. The 80/20 rule works here. You only use 20% of the camera functions for 80% of the time. For the other 20% of the time , you may need to refer …

It is good to print some of your photographs that you like into hard copies. They could then be displayed somewhere in your living hall or bedroom.
Not all photo labs are the same. Typically those (not all) found in HDB  estates that offers express service or charge low do not give good results.
Below are the few that I used before. Personally I prefer Fujifilm labs as their photos prints usually give vibrant colors especially for green, blue and red. No price is listed here so do check with the shops before committing to …