Hong Kong Nights

 

Hong Kong skyline from The Mount. Canon 7D, EF-S 10-22 @ 17mm, ISO100, f4, 3sec

Well, after a month on holiday we're back in Glasgow. The wallet's empty but my hard drive is certainly full. It's just about grinding to a halt with all the pictures on it. Now the task of sorting the wheat from the chaff. Should keep me busy for many an hour. In the mean time here are some night pictures of the Hong Kong skyline. It's a hard place to get amazing shots as the sky is rarely clear from haze as you can see from the above picture.

The daily light show "Symphony of Lights" where over 40 buildings light up in time to music.
Canon 7D, EF-S 10-22 @ 10mm, ISO100, f6.3, 8sec

Canon 7D, TS-E24mm, ISO100, f16, 20sec

Canon 7D, EF 24-70 @58mm, ISO100, f2.8, 1.3sec

Hong Kong Island

Canon 7D, Canon TS-E24mm f/3.5L II, f16, 20sec

Well, yet again the weekly blog has taken a slow turn. However goodbye wet and windy Scotland, hello Hong Kong and hello to cheap (ish) camera equipment, hello to a new 24mm Canon tilt and shift lens and hello no more converging verticals and to 50 megapixel panoramic shots like this one. The shift function is amazing. 3 shots taken at various horizontal shifts and stitched together in Photoshop. Because the lens keeps the same plane the whole time there is none of the bending of perspective that comes with wide angle lenses and therefore no information is lost. This is definitely my new favourite toy!!

Kotor, Montenegro

Well I've finally managed to get my camera out again after many months of studying followed by a period of life's bane, work. It has however, taken me to Montenegro for the first time and it turns out it's quite beautiful. The town of Kotor (a UNESCO world heritage site) lies in a bay surrounded on all sides by mountains. The picture above was taken from a fort on the hill above the town. The old city walls run from sea level all the way up to this point.

A view of the old town with the ubiquitous cruise ship in the bay.

Sun setting as we started up the walls.

The old city walls running up into the mountain.

Callanish round 2

Here's the best of the rest of my shots from last night

The sun going down on a beautiful evening.

The almost full (it was full moon's eve) rising.

A different view of the Callanish Stones.

It's pretty cool what you can do with a couple of torches. I took a load of shots at the Callanish stones tonight. None are edited, just as shot with long exposures, a mini Maglight and a 1,000,000 candle power torch. It's my first real go at painting with light and I'm pretty pleased with the results.

This is probably one of my favourites. Taken just before I packed up.
f5.5/Exp 120sec 10-22mm@17mm ISO100

My first attempt with the Maglite and floodlight. The moon was so bright you can see the shadows it casts in all the pictures.
f4.5/Exp 201sec 10-22@21mm ISO100

f5/Exp 157sec 10-22@19mm ISO100

f4.5/Exp 198sec 10-22@18mm Special prize for naming the constellation in the top left.

f5.3/Exp 53sec 10-22mm@18mm ISO100

An old cottage beside the 2nd circle at Callanish.
f4.5/Exp 174sec 10-22mm@13mm ISO100

I've taken plenty more which I'll probably load up soon.