The National Monument is one of the monuments in Jakarta erected to commemorate the Indonesian people fighting against the Dutch colonialist. The monument is located in central Jakarta, it is at the Lapangan monas (Monas square). The monument, with its unique style and is 137 m in height , was made of marbles with phallus form symbolizing the fertilizing. The flaming torch shape weighing 14.5 kg and is plated with 35 kg gold is placed on the top of the monument . The torch symbolizes the Indonesian people fighting for independence. The monument, erected at a 80-hectare land was officially  opened for public on 12 July 1975, is known as Tugu Monas.

If you notice, there is a man who carry a tripod in the low left corner of the photo. He is one of so many photographers in Monas that offer to take photo people with Monas as the background. There’s so many people with so many activities around here. I think I’m gonna spend my next Saturday afternoon in this place again. With my camera of course..

Photo Details:

• Exposure time 1/30 s
• F-number f/11
• Exposure program Aperture priority
• ISO speed ratings ISO 100
• Exposure bias value 0.00 eV
• Metering mode Center weighted average
• Flash Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode
• Focal length 17 mm
• Circular Polarizing Filter
• Canon EOS 450D
• Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di-II LD Asp IF
• Handheld

Last saturday, I went to Indonesia’s Landmark, Monas (Stands for Monumen Nasional or National Monument) with this beautiful girl named Eva Theresia. Monas is a 422 ft (128.7 m) tower in Central Jakarta, symbolizing the fight for Indonesia’s independence. Construction began in 1961 under the direction of President Sukarno and the monument was opened to the public in 1975. It is topped by a flame covered with gold foil. (source: wikipedia) I’ll publish the photo in the next post.

Ok, now about the photo. I took this photos around blue hour (around 6 pm) when we were sitting relax on the ground after 1 hour photo session. The sun had set that time and the park lamps were turned on. I noticed the lights would be a nice background so I turned on my camera and asked her to pose for me. I set the apperture value to its max 1.8, set the picture style to Romantic and then composed the shot. Voila, it turned out great! And what makes it even better is I didnt have to do some post-processing because the tone,  saturation, contrast was just right. Thanks to Canon Picture Style, the color adjustment was done straight from the camera. If you want to know what is Canon Picture Style you can read about it here.

• Exposure time 1/40 s
• F-number f/1.8
• Exposure program Aperture priority
• ISO speed ratings ISO 400
• Exposure bias value 0.00 eV
• Max. aperture value f/1.8
• Metering mode Partial
• Flash Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode
• Focal length 50 mm
• Canon EOS 450D
• Lens Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II
• Canon Picture Style: Romantic
• Handheld

Notes: It wasnt a self portrait. It was my friend.

Photo Details:

• Exposure time 1/250 s
• F-number f/5
• Exposure program Manual
• ISO speed ratings ISO 200
• Exposure bias value 0.00 eV
• Metering mode Partial
• Flash Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode
• Focal length 20 mm
• Handheld

In my opinion, I dont really like the composition. The background was really poor that you can see the building behind is still under construction. Another thing that I dont like is the lighting. It’s still under exposed except the letters STAN which is exposed by the fountain lamp. What I like from this photo? The letters’ reflection on the water surface. I caught it!

Some Notes:

• Always charge your battery before go taking photos. I’ve only managed to shoot few photos before I ran out my battery life. Slow speed technique surely consumes more battery life.

Photo’s Detail:

• Exposure time 30 s
• F-number f/11
• Exposure program Manual
• ISO speed ratings ISO 100
• Exposure bias value 0.00 eV
• Metering mode Spot
• Flash Flash did not fire, Compulsory flash mode
• Focal length 25 mm
• Canon EOS 450D X
• Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di-II LD Asp IF
• Tripod

The photo was processed with Adobe Photoshop using invert, hue/saturation to colorize, and level adjustment.

Click the first image below to see what the setup look like and the second image to see the original photo.

[View with PicLens]

Notes:

• The desk lamp is really helpful. I turned it off  and see what is the difference. Result: I couldnt find the focus.

Photo Details :

• Exposure time 1/160 s
• F-number f/9
• Exposure program Manual
• ISO speed ratings ISO 100
• Exposure bias value 0.00 eV
• Metering mode Spot
• Focal length 50 mm
• Off Shoe flash, power 1/4 (GN:33 @ISO 100)
• Canon EOS 450D
• Lens Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

We used the same setup as in the video. Off-shoe flash bounced to a white wall behind the object, tungsten white-balance, tripod with manual focus. The only different thing was we use a bottle of water with tiny hole to make a waterdrop.

Notes:

• Timing is the key. You have to try to figure out when to press the shutter button.
• Various power-setting and angle of flashgun will result various effect to the photo. It’s fun to experiment.
• Towel! Make sure your camera is ok from the water splash.

Photo Details :

• Exposure time 1/250 s
• F-number f/8
• Exposure program Manual
• ISO speed ratings ISO 100
• Exposure bias value 0.00 eV
• Metering mode Spot
• Focal length 50 mm
• Off Shoe flash, bounced to white wall, power 1/16
• Canon EOS 450D
• Lens Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

Well, here we go. This photo was taken a week a go. It was a bright sunny day, as we expected. But I think it’s too bright, and around 8 in the morning the weather was getting hot. So we had to deal with the sun light, the hot temperature, and itchy-attack to our legs.

Notes:

• Some positions will cause a shadow in the model’s face. I had to put her face againts the sun to avoid the shadow since I didnt have any external flashes to fill it in.
• Bring some extra tissues -or towel. The hot weather makes the model sweat so easily.
• I edited this photo using photoshop to make a cold-feel. I dont know, I had tried various color tone: warm, vintage, lomo-effect, sepia, black and white, but I prefer this one. I dont know the reason, though.

Photo Details:

• Exposure time 1/400 s
• F-number f/5.6
• Exposure program Aperture priority
• ISO speed ratings ISO 100
• Exposure bias value 0.00 eV
• Metering mode Partial
• Flash Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode
• Focal length 50 mm
• Canon EOS 450D
• Lens Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

This photo was taken in the same time with the photo in previous post. I edited it to strengthen the point of interest of this photo.

Notes:

• I processed the photo using Photoshop with two layers – the first layer is in sephia and the second one is in normal color. I used layer mask and then revealed the original color from the second layer with radial gradient. Simple and fast.

Photo Details

• Exposure time 1/640 s
• F-number f/4
• Exposure program Aperture priority
• ISO speed ratings ISO 100
• Exposure bias value 0.00 eV
• Metering mode Partial
• Flash Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode
• Focal length 50 mm
• Canon EOS 450D
• Lens Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II
• Handheld
• Edited with Photoshop CS4

Some Notes:

• I have to underexpose the shot sometimes to keep the details of white flowers. Later, I can adjust the exposure in post processing (like I did in this photo).
• I used auto white balance for this shot, but the green didnt get right and turned yellow and the petal color turned from magenta to bright pink. Should I use CPL filter for this kind of shot? I should check it next time.
• Always shoot with RAW, if you dont have to shoot with JPEG. For above cases, I anticipate it by always using RAW format, so I can make some adjustments and corrections without losing some details.

Details:

• Exposure time 1/4000 s
• F-number f/2.2
• Exposure program Aperture priority
• ISO speed ratings ISO 100
• Exposure bias value -1.00 eV
• Max. aperture value f/1.8
• Metering mode Spot
• Focal length 50 mm
• Canon EOS 450D
• Lens Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

For the lighting, I turned off the room light and then I used my desk lamp again. I placed it on the front left side of my friend. But I think it wasnt enough to make a good exposure.

Some Notes:

• It wasnt a photos with well sharpness and color, so I turned it into black and white and played with contrast a bit in post-processing. I dont know if it’s too bright or not, but in my eyes it was good. Well, I think I need your help to give some feedbacks.
• I really like cropping to 9 x 5 or 8 x 5 in landscape format. It gives me a theater-view like, wide and long, something like that.

Photo Details

• Exposure time 1/6 s
• F-number f/2.8
• Exposure program Normal Program
• ISO speed ratings ISO 400
• Exposure bias value -1.00 eV
• Metering mode Center weighted average
• Flash Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode
• Focal length 50 mm
• Handheld
• Canon EOS 450D
• Lens Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di-II LD Asp IF