TRIP REPORT: The Best Camera is the One You Have With You – Exploring The Gardens by the Bay – Taking the Long Way to Singapore

The Best Camera is the One You Have With You – Exploring The Gardens by the Bay
Taking the long way (and back) to Singapore

What happens when you forget a memory card for your big camera? We go to the words of Chase Jarvis to get us over the photography hump.

In this adventure

• I needed a break
• 02:40 on the coach? Nothing changes, with Heathrow Terminal 5 and British Airways South Lounge
• BA776 London Heathrow to Stockholm Arlanda (Club Europe)
• An afternoon in Stockholm featuring ABBA The Museum 
• Off to Stockholm Bromma, AY840 Stockholm Bromma to Helsinki Vantaa with NoRRA (Economy Class)
• A Rapid Helsinki Transit and The Finnair Lounge
• AY099 Helsinki Vantaa to Hong Kong International with Finnair (Business Class)
• Transiting Hong Kong and Cathay Pacific’s The Pier Lounge
• CX715 (AY5855) Hong Kong International to Singapore Changi Terminal 4 with Cathay Pacific (Business Class)
• Into Singapore, IBIS Budget Crystal
• The Mercure Hotel, Bugis
• Boating around the Singapore River
• Exploring Hawker Markets and random fooding around Singapore
• The Best Camera is the One You Have With You – Exploring The Gardens by the Bay
• Up to the Marina Bay Sands Skypark…
• …and the fallout of a stolen and returned iPhone
• Back to Changi Airport the Pokemon Centre at the Jewel and Terminal 4
• 3K513 (AY6379) Singapore Changi to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi (Jetstar Asia Economy Class)
• One night in Bangkok and the Avagard Capsule Hotel, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi
• An early morning at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi and The Miracle Lounge, D Pier
• AY142 Bangkok Suvarnabhumi to Helsinki Vantaa with Finnair in Business Class
• Out of Vantaa Airport and into Helsinki… and a little beyond
• Holiday Inn, Helsinki Airport
• Early morning at Helsinki Vantaa Airport and The Finnair Schengen Lounge
• AY841 Helsinki Vantaa to Stockholm Bromma with NoRRA (Economy Class)
• The slow return to Arlanda Airport (with a military band)
• D84459 Stockholm Arlanda to London Gatwick with Norweigan Air Shuttle
• How to get home… coach or train?
• Sometimes, Simple Isn’t Needed… Or Wanted

For one evening, I wanted to go exploring around the trees. Thankfully, there are SuperTrees in Singapore at the Gardens by the Bay.

Getting there isn’t too hard – you can get there from Bayfront station and walk (as well as queuing for lifts or going upstairs) – or at the Gardens by the Bay station and again, walk.

The Singapore Flyer in the distance

People heading to and from the gardens

By the end of this trip, this was the last thing I wanted to see.

Bottom line – there’s walking. Just do it in the evening, when the heat and sun aren’t going to toast you into a piece of sweetmeat.

A SuperTree Grove. They’ll sprout anywhere where there’s planning consent and money. Mainly money. Planning consent… eh.

So why did I choose to go here? Well, there’s another excuse – tickets for the SkyPark were sold out. I would go there the next night.

I’d live to regret that.

As I wandered into the SuperTree forest, I reached for the big Canon EOS R I was planning to use and squeezed the shutter. It wouldn’t release.

Hmm. There’s only one reason that would happen. I opened the camera’s SD card slot, and unsurprisingly, there was no SD Card in the socket. It was chilling in the laptop’s SD Card slot.

The childish thing would have been to turn tail, return to the hotel, grab an SD Card and come back. That’s effort and time.

Nuts to that. I have a perfectly serviceable camera with me in my hand – an Apple iPhone 14 Pro. Can a two-year-old camera cut the mustard in compatible darkening conditions?

We go back to the magical words of Chase Jarvis – The Best Camera You Have is the one in have with you. 

With that wisdom, let’s shoot.

Let’s see. There’s not a lot of commentary here – just photos as I went along shooting and capturing video with the device.

Crossing over Dragonfly Bridge. Yes, there are Dragonflies. Well, fake ones anyway.

I used a mixture of applications to capture the content here – most were shot out of the standard camera app. The other app I tend to use is the ProCam, which has some useful tricks, as well as allows me to manage the exposure.

Although the iPhone camera array is excellent – I’ve found the post-processing and Apple’s auto HDR’ness sometimes not to my taste – and certainly, if I want darker shots, with popping out.

It’s the reason I’ve got to get around to trying Halide for iPhone, which ditches a lot of pre and post-processing of the Apple Camera and Computational Photography engines (and its computational photography, not ******* AI, GenAI or any other of that makarky).

Sometimes I just want to control the camera and not let other engines “optimise” my image for me. It’s also another reason why I like Canon’s Colour Science – it just works.

As I neared the SuperTrees, a performance was scheduled at 19:30 (with another an hour later). That was perfect for me to find a perch to enjoy the performance.

Yes, there’s an observatory. No, I didn’t go up as it’s not that tall if we’re honest.

With that, the performance started. Given it was Singaporean National Day a few weeks earlier, it was a rather… patriotic performance.

Here’s where to avoid the normal camera app – you can see the bloom from the cyan LEDs is causing a major glow around the lights.

Reds and purples give a similar, if slightly more manageable glow.

As for purple… sheeeeeeeeeshhh. Welcome to Blowout Central.

Sometimes few lights are better – even if you’re fighting motion blur

With more patriotic and mixed colours, the glow can be controlled.

As for the songs… well, here’s one by the power of YouTube shorts.

With the performance over, it was time to continue moving on. It’s also a good test of the camera’s low-light mode. Typically, you’ll need to stay still a second or longer, while the computational photography does its magic.

This can lead to some interesting effects.

We’re seeing a lot more of the clouds being brought out by the glow of the city. I’ve used Adobe Lightroom Classic to darken it a little more.

There we are

Try standing still for a second or longer with a DSLR or a Mirrorless beast – it’s why we have tripods. With in-built optical image stabilisation, along with computer trickery

Waking away towards the Gardens by the Bay station, there’s a chance to snap more photos with more natural light – again, with the darkness, you have to slow down and stop, rather than continue power walking through.

Overall:

Not having to worry about the weight of a big camera in your hand is a wonderful thing sometimes. It allows you to soak up the moment, rather than focus on the next shot.

Next:

Let’s make a mistake. And go up the Marina Bay Sands Skypark.

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