September | 2018 | Micro Four Thirds Site

Singapore is often referred to as a little island. Well, we have an even littler island called Sentosa which houses quite a few leisure/recreational activities.

In September 2018, there was a sandcastle event called the Sentosa Sandsation. This year was the Marvel edition.

Before you reach the sandcastles, you would see murals letting you know of this year’s Marvel theme:

The sandcastles are outdoors, but they’re protected by a huge tent, which is a good thing because it was pouring heavily the day before.

So firstly, the sandcastles are quite massive, and the gap between them aren’t that wide, so my trusty ultra-wide Panasonic Leica 8-18mm lens would be put to good use.

But as it was a very bright day with the sandcastles in shade, it’s challenging to get good photos of the sandcastles as the dynamic range is huge – the sandcastles are in shade and dark, while the outside of the tent was really bright.

I did bring along my small external flash – the Panasonic DMW-FL200L in the hope that it would add some light to the sandcastles.

But honestly, the flash wasn’t really powerful enough to brighten the massive sandcastles.

Anyway, so here’re the shots I took of the Marvel-themed sandcastles.

There was also a competition among artists from various countries. I believe the them was “Heroes”. Enjoy!

Panasonic GX85/GX80 ~US$490 / C$740 / £520
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Panasonic Leica 8-18mm f/2.8-4.0 ~US$1,050 / C$1,368 / £908
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Panasonic DMW-FL200L ~US$228 / C$369 / £220

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September 2019

In September 2019, the Sentosa Sandsation event was held again. This year, the theme was Star Wars.

The main challenge of taking photos for this event was that the subjects (the sand structures) were in shade of a huge tent, while the sun was blazing outside. This meant that if the camera was set at auto-exposure, the sand structures would be too dark, as the camera adjusts for the bright sun outside the tent.

From the photos I got last year, I felt some limitations to the flash I was using. It was not spread out sufficiently, resulting in the flash only hitting the center part of the sand structures.

This year, I used the Godox TT350o which could spread its light more widely, was more powerful and could take the rapid fire of flashes much better.

The shots I took last year also tended to overexpose the bright sun in the background. This year, I switched to manual mode and used the Shutter Speed to control the brightness of the background – faster shutter speeds to reduce the brightness, and vice versa. So I would take a few shots of each subject, adjusting the shutter speed accordingly.

I had recently upgraded my Panasonic GX85 camera to the GX9, but used the same Panasonic Leica 8-18mm lens which served me well last year.

I think I managed to get much better pictures this year, with more even lighting on the sand structures, and much more control of the exposure of the background. What do you guys think?