Beautiful Sunsets in Gensan

You're lucky if you can spot a gorgeous sunset, which can be elusive, because weather conditions don't always permit a nice, colorful sunset. I urge you to go out today and catch the sunset and appreciate the beauty it brings. You shall see some of the sunset photos I took. Keep in mind you don't need an expensive DSLR camera to capture the sunset. Use the camera you have or your smartphone's camera feature. Just point it and shoot. Then share your photos. Let your friends know you've captured one of nature's gifts.

The Golden Hour at Queen Tuna Park

The Golden Hour is the time of the day when the sun sits low enough in the sky and blankets the landscape in beautiful illumination contrasted by elongated shadows. If you're between your subject and the sun, you get stunning shots. I enjoyed a snapshooting excursion at a local beach.

Anyone in General Santos City should know this beach because it's too accessible. I'm talking about Queen Tuna Park. It's near the public market, and a lot of tricycles pass by the area. A lot of locals are reluctant to go there because they think the place is cheap and there are reports that miscreants are roaming the beach. But the area is free for the public. Anybody can go there as long as they watch their backs.

Anyway, I went there on a warm afternoon and was delighted by the scenery. I quickly turned on my camera and took a hundred photos, afraid to miss a moment, as the sun was coming down. I caught snaps of the sunset, sea vessels, fishermen in their small boats, and beach goers.

Locals should go to this place and just witness its humble beauty.

Here are some of the scenes I captured during my one-hour stay at the beach just before sun kissed the horizon.

Where Do Birds Go When It Rains?

On December 4, 2012, Mindanao was hit by a strong typhoon, locally called Pablo. South Cotabato, the province where I live in, was placed under Storm Signal Number 1. That meant a rainy, windy weather, but what we experienced was nothing more than an ordinary rainy day.

In the afternoon, I saw a few birds flying around the neighborhood, so I took my camera and captured a few photos. It seemed as though the birds were enjoying the rain.

A Brown Shrike on a grapefruit twig

The same Brown Shrike on a TV antenna

Two Sunbirds basking in the rain

A young Glossy Starling looking for ripe blackberries

Three Glossy Starlings enjoying the wet, gloomy weather

How to Photograph the Moon with a Superzoom Camera?

Superzoom point-and-shoot cameras are slowly gaining popularity over the years. They are cameras that look like DSLRs but are truly point-and-shoots at heart. They have DSLR-like functions yet have a basic 1/2.3” sensor. What makes them awesome is their long-zoom lenses that go above 20X. They have versatile capabilities that allow you to shoot wide landscapes and get close-up snapshots of birds.

Many enthusiasts use long-zoom P&S cameras to take photos of the moon. I own a Panasonic FZ47, a humble megazoom camera, which is the cheapest in its category. If you have other bridge camera, you can use it to photograph the moon.

Look at the phase of the moon. How you set your camera depends on the phase of the moon. A crescent moon is difficult to photograph without a tripod. A full moon, on the other hand, can be photographed handheld. I suggest shooting in manual mode. Zoom in your camera above 300 mm or above 10X, unless you want your moon to appear like a tiny disc in your photo.

A crescent moon 2-3 days before or after new moon can be photographed at slow shutter speeds of 1/4-1/10 seconds. You can use ISO 400-800, whichever allows you to come up with a properly exposed photo without the obvious noise. Small sensors are susceptible to image noise. You can use longer exposures (and possibly lower ISO) to expose the earthshine, the dark part of the moon subtly lit by earth’s reflected light.

4s ISO 100

1/4s ISO 400

As the illuminated side of the moon gets progressively larger in the succeeding nights, you can use faster shutter speeds, say 1/30-1/50 seconds at ISO 200-400.

1/50s ISO 400

The first quarter and last quarter moon has enough light to allow you to use shutter speeds faster than 1/60s at ISO 100-200. If you’re shooting handheld, make sure to hold your hands steady and shoot several photos so that at least one or two of them come out sharp. This is your opportunity to capture the craters on the moon nicely.

Last Quarter (1/80s ISO 400)

The gibbous phases and the full moon are easy to photograph because of their natural brightness. You wouldn’t need a tripod. You can shoot at low ISO (100-200) and fast shutter speeds (1/100s-1/800s). You can even go to Program mode and use Spot metering, which automatically exposes the bright disc of the moon quite well.

1/400s ISO 400

1/250s ISO 160

1/200s ISO 100

Should you go past the optical zoom? The Panasonic FZ47 only has 24X zoom, equivalent to 600mm on a 35mm DSLR. A full moon image taken at 600-mm looks like a small disc. If you want a larger moon image, you can go past the optical zoom and continue to zoom in until the moon covers a huge part of the LCD screen. Many point-and-shoot cameras have intelligent zoom feature that allow you to go farther than the optical zoom limit at lower resolution. Another way to make the moon bigger in your photos is through cropping. Set your camera’s resolution to 10 or 12 MP. Then crop your photos. Make sure to check the cropped photos if they look decent enough. Cropping can make image noise and artifacts to become more obvious. 

12 MP Image

cropped version of the same photo

Birds in the Neighborhood

Sometimes I get away from my desk to take snaps of birds flying around the neighborhood. Ever since I owned a capable camera, I have learned to take snaps of these flying creatures. Whenever they settle on a cable or a twig, I get the opportunity to take snapshots of them. So far, I have taken photos of 6 types of birds.

Chestnut Munia

Red Turtle Dove

Birding has become more of an addiction than a hobby. I get a certain kind of satisfaction every time I get a good photo of a bird. It’s not easy to take shots of these birds. You have to be not too near but not too far. I’m using a superzoom point-and-shoot camera with a telephoto reach of 600mm. With this camera, I can get good shots of birds like the chestnut munias or tree sparrows 5-10 meters away. If they are too far, I can only manage to get small, unflattering images of them.

Eurasian Tree Sparrow

Olive-backed Sunbird

I used to take bird photos using the Auto or Program Mode, but I’ve been learning to use the Manual Mode recently to get more precise settings. It took me a few months to gain confidence to switch to the M mode on the dial. But with the right settings, I can get really nice shots.

Asian Glossy Starling

Young Asian Glossy Starling 

Because birds like to move a lot, it’s sensible to use fast shutter speed. I can get sharp bird shots at shutter speeds less than 1/100 s. This fast shutter speed demands a lot of light. Hence, the best times for me to take photos are during sunny days. My camera can manage to get decent photos only up to ISO 400, so it’s extremely challenging to get good snaps during cloudy days.

Yellow-vented Bulbul

Becoming a Snapshooter

I never thought I would love to have cameras. Photography wasn’t something I wished to learn, but here I am writing this post.

My interest in shapshooting started when my ex-boss from Davao City spent her birthday here in GenSan. She and her family spent two days here. Together with a friend, I toured them to Sarangani Highlands, Plaza Heneral Santos, and Queen Tuna Park. We didn’t have much time to visit other places. Anyway, they had their cameras with them, and they took a lot of photos. I figured out that if I had a camera with me, I would have taken photos too and have my own photographic mementos too.

So, I decided it was time to own a camera. I didn’t know about cameras back then. My budget was only fit for a cheap gadget. My first choice was Samsung ES65, a cheap point-and-shoot thingy that I used for four short months. It was quickly replaced by another cheap model, a Canon PowerShot A495. Both cameras were classed in the budget category, but the latter took better photos. My father uses Samsung ES65 now.

I learned about taking snapshots with the Canon A495, a humble gear that runs on AA batteries. It’s the cheapest camera then, available at local stores for about Php 3,500. You really couldn’t complain if you’re just after a device that lets you take snaps. It became my companion for over a year. 

Point-and-shoot cameras are pretty easy to use. If you own a compact model, you probably like the fact that it’s really a point-and-shoot thing. There is no thinking about the settings. Many people who use cheap cameras just point them at their subject and press the shutter button, nothing complicated.

I learned to take pictures with my humble little guy. Most of my photos were random shots I took whenever I wanted to take a break from work. I would take snaps of my cute, little niece. My photos were mostly flowers, places, and small insects. The snapshots fill my Facebook account. I seldom post photos on Flickr. I did have a Blogger account where I used to upload photos, but it was compromised.

While Samsung ES65 was a downright terrible camera, Canon A495, on the other hand, had its share of downsides. One thing I used to complain about it is its sluggishness. It takes a while to get a shot. It’s okay if you’re taking shots of still subjects, but not if you’re taking shots of moving kids or animals. I had two pairs of rechargeable batteries for that little gear, but months of daily snapshooting exhausted both pairs. Soon, I will have to buy another pair, although I seldom use the cheap guy now.

If there were two things that the humble Canon camera taught me, those were pre-focusing and composing. It made me learn about things like ISO or white balance. I love doing macro shots with that camera. Some of my best close-up shots were taken with that camera.

However, the limitations were already overwhelming, and I was itching to buy another buddy, this time one that had a long zoom. The reason I wanted to own a long zoom camera is to be able take photos of the moon. It sounds silly, but that was really the reason. I get envious when I see photos of the moon on the internet.

So, I bought my third camera, a Panasonic FZ47, a superzoom camera with 24X optical zoom. A superzoom camera is what they call a camera with more than 10X optical zoom. Superzooms are becoming popular in the market of snapshooters and enthusiasts. They are also chosen by a number of travelers. Essentially, they are P&S cameras with long zooms. They are made of sensors whose size is similar to those of small compacts. Superzooms look like DSLR camera, but the image quality isn’t the same.

Anyway, having moved from a small compact Canon to a bulky long-zoom Panasonic, I was thrilled at the versatility of my new gadget. Also, it gave more controls, which made shooting in difficult situations a little more manageable. In four months, I was able to take thousand of photos, including those of the moon, birds, people, and places. I became an enthusiast, someone who would often spend weekends going outdoors to take photos of anything. With Panasonic FZ47, I learned to make finer adjustments of the aperture and shutter speed. I also learned how to shoot in the manual mode, something I thought I would never learn.

The Host during Mr. and Ms. GenSan Pageant 2012

I may never upgrade to a DSLR gear. The FZ47 is already too bulky for me that sometimes I feel like leaving it at home. DSLRs are bulkier than superzooms. I don’t think the superior image quality is worth all the weight, cost, and hassle. But who knows, I might get tired at the noisy images produced by my current snapshooting companion and find myself holding a bulky thingy.