Kid's Nutrition

Sometimes I wonder how families cope with bringing up children, especially when both parents have to work full-time to achieve their 5C's.

How will the kids cope without their parents around to guide them? Will schools teach the kids moral values and cultural traditions? Do the kids do their homework? Who will teach them thrift, kindness, gratitude, and other character-forming values that schools do not teach?

Nagging thoughts aside, what about the children's nutrition? Do they have nutritious meals for lunch?

D70, kit lens@38mm, 1/60s@f/5.6, +0.3EV, ISO1400, AWB -3


So it was that I asked Toto, an Indonesian friend, to come up with a special spice mix that busy couples -- arriving home after a tiring day at the office -- could use to quickly prepare delicious meals easily.

She gave me a wet curry mix, said it could keep in the fridge for a month, and gave directions on its usage.

I tried the spice mix -- both wet curry and dry-fried using chicken thighs.

Hmmm...taste very good, but somehow not distinctive enough. Like other prepared spice mix one could buy from the supermart. I need a spice mix that tastes very good and yet not available in the market place.

I told Toto and Jean that if they could come up with a line of prepared spice mixes that taste distinctive and wonderful, I could structure a small business for them to handle.

Well, the search continues...

High ISO

I wanted to see if noise would be an issue for the D70 on ISO-Auto under indoor lighting conditions, such as that found in the Orchard Centrepoint shopping mall. I was also curious to see how the colors would turn out under my general everyday WB setting.

To reiterate, my D70 settings were AWB -3, Hue -3, +0.3EV, ISO Auto. All the shots were taken hand-held, and without flash, except for the shot outside Centrepoint -- to contrast the afternoon daylight exposure. None of the photos were post-processed for WB, and only USM was resorted to for sharper pictures. The series of shots are shown below:

D70, kit lens @70mm, ISO 1600, 1/30s@f8

Above was shot at MacDonald's. Noise depicted was well-controlled despite the high ISO used. The color nicely captured the ambience at the time.

Concerts and indoor live performances -- which frown on the use of flash -- usually have brighter stage lighting than the above. This implies I should be able to shoot such events with the D70 and kit lens without flash, at within a reasonable distance from the stage.

D70, kit lens @70mm, ISO1600, 1/40@f/8

Candid shot taken outside Cold Storage Supermart inside Centrepoint. Nice colors to my eyes.

Note that noise per se is more clearly defined in darker areas of the photo, such as the guy's pants, and the hair of the two ladies in the photo above. Areas that received adequate light were quite noise-free and smooth. See other photos below.

Does this suggest that noise is the result (= outcome) of insufficient light photons hitting the sensor? Will a more "sensitive" sensor be able to capture more photons at the same ISO setting and produce noise-free photos as compared to another sensor? Anecdotal evidence seems to suggest so.

D70, kit lens@18mm, ISO900, 1/60s@f/5.6

Centrepoint Atrium

D70, kit lens@31mm, ISO1600, 1/60s@f/5.6

Prima Deli at basement

D70, kit lens@18mm, ISO1000, 1/60s@f/5.6

Passage way to foodcourt behind Centrepoint

D70, kit lens@31mm, ISO640, 1/60s@f/5.6

Highly successful Peranakan pastry outlet established by Indonesian chinese migrant

D70, kit lens@31mm, ISO720, 1/60s@f/5.6

Shot a photo in the direction of daylight coming in from the far end..

D70, kit lens@31mm, ISO720, 1/60@f/5.6

..then turned around to snap another photo! Found that AF-C and AF-ON works well for me.

Overall, I am pleased with the noise performance of the D70 at ISO 1600. Noise seems well-controlled at this ISO up to 8x10" prints -- which serve my needs pretty well. I also believed my +0.3EV exposure compensation helped in producing pictures with noise well-controlled at ISO 1600.

For bigger prints without flash I would use a faster lens. Or wait for sensor technology to develop to a point where noise-free pictures can be produced at ISOs up to 3200. Which may not be far off.

Colors produced by my general everyday WB settings seem fine to me under the mixed lighting conditions at Centrepoint. The colors reproduced -- in particular the light quality -- seemed to capture the ambience of the places at the time the pictures were taken, at least to my eyes. Although some photos could benefit from a bit of WB fine-tuning in post-processing, WB was not tweaked for this series of photos.

D70 - Initial Setup

D70, kit lens @18mm, 1/60s, f/8

Killiney Post Office

Newcomers to the D70 are often dismayed with their first pictures out of the Nikon D70. "Why are the pictures so dark... And the colors so dull and drab?"

It need not be so.

D70, kit lens @18mm, 1/160s@f/8,ISO800

Bakery that is popular with the growing expat community in the area

In digital photography, white balance -- and an understanding of it -- is critical to getting good colors. Since the quality and quantity of light ie color temperature varies from location to location, you need to change and finetune the WB setting appropriate to your shoot.

For an introduction to white balance, click here.

For a more in-depth treatment, see Moose Petersen's excellent article on WB at nikondigital.org. He recommends you don't use auto WB, but experiment and set your own appropriate to the location. He has found for instance that Cloudy -3 comes closest to his everyday shooting color temperature / WB needs.

A WB setting more appropriate for our tropical sun is provided below. I use the following as my general everyday D70 setting, and has been pleased with the results so far:

White Balance: AWB -3
Hue: -3
Saturation: Normal
Sharpening: None
Compensation: +0.3EV
Color Mode: Ia (sRGB)

Sharpening is set to none because the in-camera sharpening -- owing to a small buffer -- is weak compared to NC or PS. For this series, Quality was set to jpg - fine, large and color mode to Ia.

Below are some photos taken at Killiney Road under the 4 pm sun with the above settings:

D70, kit lens @18mm, 1/60s, f/8

Killiney & Somerset Road junction

D70, kit lens @18mm, 1/60 sec, f/8

A family clinic at Killiney Road

D70, kit lens @18mm, 1/125 sec, f/8

Killiney Road view of Comcentre

D70, kit lens @22mm, 1/200s, f/8

Killiney Boutique & Spa

D70, kit lens @70mm, 1/320s, f/8

More businesses springing up in the area

D70, kit lens @18mm, 1/60s, f/8, ISO640

Pho Vietnamese Restaurant, Pho is a condiment for soups that is most popular in Vietnam

D70, kit lens @48mm, 1/250s, f/8, ISO200

Perfect kaya toast and egg breakfast at the popular Killiney Kopitiam

D70, kit lens @18mm, 1/30s, f/8, ISO1600

Orange Lantern -- afternoon lull

D70, kit lens @18mm, 1/250s, f/8

Pre-war Mitre Hotel being refurbished -- will it be retained as a charming motel?

D70, kit lens @70mm, 1/100s@f/8, ISO200

Devonshire & Killiney Road junction

White Balance

Most people have problems getting accurate white balance for interiors, especially under artificial lighting. As I love shop window displays, I decided to go to TSC Shopping Mall at Orchard Road to take some shots of the window displays inside TSC and try my hand at correcting white balance under artificial lighting ocnditions.

Now, most shop and window displays are attractive due to the special lighting arrangments used to bring out the merchandise featured. Using flash on the camera, I feel, would destroy the carefully arranged lighting setup created by the designer. Hence all my shots in this series were taken without the use of flash.

My settings were: D70 with kit lens, AWB -3, Hue -3, +0.3EV, Auto ISO, Matrix metering, Aperture priority, AF-S and AF-ON. Raw format was used for the quality. Pictures were processed in NC and PS for white balance, noise and sharpness.

High ISO Noisy?

I wanted to see if noise would be an issue for the D70 on ISO-Auto under indoor lighting conditions, such as that found in the Orchard Centrepoint shopping mall. I was also curious to see how the colors would turn out under my general everyday WB setting.

To reiterate, my D70 settings were AWB -3, Hue -3, +0.3EV, ISO Auto. All the shots were taken hand-held, and without flash, except for the shot outside Centrepoint -- to contrast the afternoon daylight exposure. None of the photos were post-processed for WB, and only USM was resorted to for sharper pictures. The series of shots are shown below:

D70, kit lens @70mm, ISO 1600, 1/30s@f8

Above was shot at MacDonald's. Noise depicted was well-controlled despite the high ISO used. The color nicely captured the ambience at the time.

Concerts and indoor live performances -- which frown on the use of flash -- usually have brighter stage lighting than the above. This implies I should be able to shoot such events with the D70 and kit lens without flash, at within a reasonable distance from the stage.

D70, kit lens @70mm, ISO1600, 1/40@f/8

Candid shot taken outside Cold Storage Supermart inside Centrepoint. Nice colors to my eyes.

Note that noise per se is more clearly defined in darker areas of the photo, such as the guy's pants, and the hair of the two ladies in the photo above. Areas that received adequate light were quite noise-free and smooth. See other photos below.

Does this suggest that noise is the result (= outcome) of insufficient light photons hitting the sensor? Will a more "sensitive" sensor be able to capture more photons at the same ISO setting and produce noise-free photos as compared to another sensor? Anecdotal evidence seems to suggest so.



Centrepoint Atrium



Prima Deli at basement



Passage way to foodcourt behind Centrepoint



Highly successful Peranakan pastry outlet established by Indonesian chinese migrant



Shot a photo in the direction of daylight coming in from the far end..



..then turned around to snap another photo! Found that AF-C and AF-ON works well for me.

Overall, I am pleased with the noise performance of the D70 at ISO 1600. Noise seems well-controlled at this ISO up to 8x10" prints -- which serve my needs pretty well. I also believed my +0.3EV exposure compensation helped in producing pictures with noise well-controlled at ISO 1600.

For bigger prints without flash I would use a faster lens. Or wait for sensor technology to develop to a point where noise-free pictures can be produced at ISOs up to 3200. Which may not be far off.

Colors produced by my general everyday WB settings seem fine to me under the mixed lighting conditions at Centrepoint. The colors reproduced -- in particular the light quality -- seemed to capture the ambience of the places at the time the pictures were taken, at least to my eyes. Although some photos could benefit from a bit of WB fine-tuning in post-processing, WB was not tweaked for this series of photos.

Killiney Road

Newcomers to the D70 are often dismayed with their first pictures out of the Nikon D70. "Why are the pictures so dark... And the colors so dull and drab?"

It need not be so.

In digital photography, white balance -- and an understanding of it -- is critical to getting good colors. Since the quality and quantity of light ie color temperature varies from location to location, you need to change and finetune the WB setting appropriate to your shoot.

For an introduction to white balance, click here.

For a more indepth treatment, see Moose Petersen's excellent article on WB at nikondigital.org. He recommends you don't use auto WB, but experiment and set your own appropriate to the location. He has found for instance that Cloudy -3 comes closest to his everyday shooting color temperature / WB needs.

A WB setting more appropriate for our tropical sun is provided by David Chin. Those without prior background in digital photography would find his approach to the D70 camera settings highly commendable.

In Singapore, I use the following as my general everyday D70 setting, and has been pleased with the results so far:

White Balance: AWB -3
Hue: -3
Saturation: Normal
Sharpening: None
Compensation: +0.3EV
Color Mode: Ia (sRGB)

Sharpening is set to none because the in-camera sharpening -- owing to a small buffer -- is weak compared to NC or PS. For this series, Quality was set to jpg - fine, large and color mode to Ia.

Below are some photos taken at Killiney Road under the 4 pm sun with the above settings:

D70, kit lens @18mm, 1/60@f/8

Killiney & Somerset Road junction


D70, kit lens @18mm, 1/60@f/8

Killiney Post Office

D70, kit lens @18mm, 1/60@f/8

A family clinic at Killiney Road

D70, kit lens @18mm, 1/125s@f/8

Killiney Road view of Comcentre

D70, kit lens @18mm, 1/160s@f/8,ISO800
Bakery that is popular with the growing expat community in the area

D70, kit lens @22mm, 1/200s@f/8
Killiney Boutique & Spa

Pho Vietnamese Restaurant -- Pho is a condiment for soups that is most popular in Vietnam




D70, kit lens @48mm, 1/250s@f/8, ISO200

Perfect kaya toast and egg breakfast at the popular Killiney Road Kopitiam

D70, kit lens @18mm, 1/30s@f/8, ISO1600

Orange Lantern -- afternoon lull

D70, kit lens @18mm, 1/250s@f/8

Pre-war Mitre Hotel being refurbished -- will it be retained as a charming motel?

D70, kit lens @70mm, 1/100s@f/8, ISO200

Devonshire & Killiney Road junction