Light up my Life

Over the last few months I have had the pleasure of watching the Dubai Motor Yacht Club take shape. The club opened up for business a few weeks ago and at the same time they decided to turn on the lights. A rather alien like green illuminates the roof, the bridge is lit blue and there are little beacons of lights along the pontoons.

My favourite time of day is just after dusk when there are plenty of people in their apartments and the marina really seems to spring to life. I had some fun this evening with camera and tripod getting some captures.

Here is one looking down the Marina towards Ibn Battuta mall:

Here is another more straight on looking towards Jumeriah Late Towers. The 75 storey diamond trade centre in the background of the picture really sets things off.

This one I liked so much I have decided to make it my new blog banner.  I hope you like it.

All Around The World

A couple of years ago I picked up a little canon point and shoot which has served me well. It has now started to show signs of wear following its regular use and under closer inspection the pictures are clearly not as good as the Nikon D80 I use for more serious photography.

So a little search around the web for a more modern point and shoot camera but with the ability to provide excellent photos led me to a short list of three cameras. The new Canon Powershot G10, the spiffy Panasonic Lumix LX3 and the Nikon Coolpix P6000. All of these cameras offered super high resolutions between 10 mega pixels to 14.7 mega pixels and plenty of manual modes to exert control over the camera. A mooch around the usual suppliers in Dubai showed that the canon had yet to arrive on these shores so it was a straight choice between the Panasonic and the Nikon. The Panasonic build quality is a thing of beauty but the Nikon won me over for a killer feature. Built in GPS. This allows for automatic Geotagging of pictures when the GPS is on. When combined with something like Google maps or Google Earth I can now see exactly where I took a photo (providing I am outside).

I use Picasa to manage my photo collection and those that are Geotagged now have a little compass icon on them and when inspecting the photo properties I now see the following information:

GPS Latitude – 25 5\’0″N

GPS Longitude – 55 9\’0″E

Which illustrates where the photo below of Paul and Stewart was taken last week in Dubai Marina:

The reviews I have read on the P6000 basically says it takes a nice picture but the GPS really drains battery. I well be searching for a couple of spares this weekend but for now I am really impressed.

Super Zoomin'

I have mentioned before that since arriving in Dubai the number of photos I have taken has increased at a dramatic rate. This has also peaked my interest in photography. I was previously very happy with a combo of my little Canon 850IS as a “carry everywhere point and shoot” and the Sony R1 for anything more serious. Then I handled a friends Digital SLR in this case a Canon 350D….it was nothing short of a revelation. The sheer ergonomics of a camera that does everything instantly and a real viewfinder was marvellous.

The Sony R1 has an excellent lens and is capable of taking stunning photos – but it simply can not compare to the flexibility and speed of a Digital SLR camera. I was sold. After a lot of research on the web and more importantly going to a store and physically handling all the cameras with various lens options I chose the Nikon D80.

I wanted a camera with some “idiot” features which rules out the higher range such as a Canon 30D or Nikon D200. The Canon 400D felt a little small to handle for me compared to the Nikon D80, so it was a fairly straightforward choice. The downside of Digital SLR is the lens choice and sheer amount of accessories that are available are not only bewildering but become very expensive very quickly.

Over the last few months I have accumulated a good collection of gear. While no means complete meets most of my needs today. For those interested you can see the list of gear over at amazon.com here.

I had fun last weekend playing with excellent Nikon 18-200mm zoom lens. Here is a photo of a nice boat at 18mm:

Here is the same boat, moments later, with with the lens at full 200mm focal length – or “Extreeeme close up”- At 11x optical zoom this is more than twice the reach from my previous Sony R1

In the full resolution images it is actually possible to discern the cell phone and type of soda the passengers have. Remarkable.

It is quite rare to see many boats cruising around the Marina when last week there were suddenly three at once all looking to dock at the small jetty near where I live. Rather reminiscent of London buses:

It is a really fun hobby and I am now an ardent follower of the Digital Photography School blog to help improve my photography.

Panorama

Rather than write about the BBC documentary I thought I would post here my first attempt at a wide-angled Panorama. I am really starting to enjoy learning the fundamentals of digital photography and have recently entered into the world of the DSLR (my thoughts on the technology to follow).

Here is my first effort of a wide-angle (using a 10-22mm Sigma lens – wide open) shot from my balcony – the exposure could use some work (but it is fun playing):

Marina By Night

With the purchase of my small Canon Ixus 850 it has more or less relegated my rather nifty Sony DSC-R1 to dust gathering duty, particularly on some of the 4×4/camping trips I have been on recently. It is just so convenient to have close at hand due to its size.

After a lot of looking at the photos on Picasa – I felt that there was something “missing” from these photos. On first impressions they looked good – however on real inspection they were somewhat disappointing. So the other evening in an effort to avoid upgrading immediately to some form of Digital SLR I dusted off the Sony R1 and took a few night shots of the Marina. For me the results were startlingly. Here is my favorite and currently my windows desktop:

This and a couple of other photos I took can be found here at their full resolution. In comparison with the same picture taken with the compact canon (it is here )- the difference is basically night and day. The megapixel count is not too far apart (10.1 vs 7.1) – but you just can not beat great glass.

(Prediction – I will be writing something similar about a Digital SLR vs a fixed lens digital camera in the not too distant future)