London weather changes as fast as women mind. Don’t be surprise if you see bright sunshine minutes after a heavy downpour, and it rains again when you are still posing for a photo shot! This rapid change of weather and sunlight had restricted photo opportunities in London. Especially when you have limited time at one tourist spot and the sudden rain will surely ruin your photo session.

During my travel to London recently, we had 4 days visiting London. Out of that 4 day period, 1st evening was raining. The whole 2nd day was a cloudy and rainy day. We were lucky to have some bright sunlight on 3rd day but still cloudy. The 4th day was perfect but we were leaving in the morning. Basically the London sky during the period was overcast with thick cloud. How did I capture nice photos of London’s attractions then? White Balance (WB) is the answer.

Now is the 2nd question. How could we adjust the WB of our digital camera? WB exists only in digital camera. Digital camera converts analogue lights into digital colour. Different colours are being calculated digitally based on the white point the image sensor received. However, white will appear too yellowish under halogen and too bluish under fluorescent due to their different colour temperature from different light source. This is when the WB setting of our camera comes in. WB is a feature of digital camera to adjust its white point colour temperature to adopt the different ambient lighting so you can see the actual colour of the scene. Auto WB setting is the camera technology to adjust its colour temperature automatically to adopt different ambient lightings. However, AWB doesn’t always correct.

When the sky is overcast with thick clouds, the colour temperature is much lower than expected. In this case, AWB would adjust White point of the scene to a much higher colur temperature and the image will appear bluish than what is seen by our eyes. Take a look at the above travel photo which I took on the 2nd day of my London visit. It is supposed to be an attractive shot of the Victoria Memorial with Buckingham Palace as background. But the overcast weather had actually ruined the image with dull colour.

Firstly, the image is still slightly under exposed eventhough I had increased the Exposure Value by +1/3 stop. 2ndly, WB is out. This problem happened to many of my London travel photos. As I mentioned above, the rapid change of weather had made selecting WB of my D60 difficult. Switching to Daylight preset WB may be perfect for one shot but may not be for the next if the weather changed.

The same problem happened if we thought of selecting Cloudy preset WB for this scene but the complex ambient light from the overcast sky and pool water reflection had fooled the Nikon WB sensor and the image appeared to be much yellow than actual, as shown in the above photo. But some may prefer it as it shows warmer and more dramatic colours!

For these kind of weather in your travel destination, the best WB setting I would prefer is still be the AWB, if you are shooting JPEGs (If you are shooting RAW, forget about the WB setting as you can select the destined colour temperature at a later stage). Set WB setting to AWB and shoot all the way! Leave the colour correction at a later stage by adjusting colour temperature of the image with either CS5 or Lightroom 3, to whatever colour temperature you prefer…

The above photo is the result of what I adjusted during post processing with Photoshop. By increasing  the brightness and reducing the colour temperature, this was actually what I’ve seen for the Victoria Memorial of London, with also an increase in colour saturation.

Conclusions? WB setting is critical for photo shooting under one fixed ambient lighting, like studio or museum shooting. Pre-set your camera WB will easily produce a set of perfectly coloured photos collection that is ready for printing direct from camera. However, if you are shooting outdoor travel scenes, especially in a travel destination that have fast changing weather, like London in Spring, switch your camera WB setting to AutoWB. It would be easier and safer to shoot using AWB to get good result for most of the photos. Then play around the slider of Photoshop to adjust the image colour temperature, to what you prefer, not necessarily to what you’ve seen in actual. And this is the most useful purpose of adjusting White Balance. – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog.

Though it was not first found in Netherland, Tulips has now become the symbolic flower for Netherland. Due to some historic reasons since long time ago when Amsterdam was the main trading port in the region, Netherland is now the biggest exporters of Tulips flower in the world. However, Tulips has its blooming season limited only in Spring between March to May. This made witnessing the tulips blossom so valuable and attractive in Netherland each Spring.

I was so lucky to be able to witness the blooming Tulips in Netherland on my Europe travel last May. Some part of the field had already been harvested but most of them were still growing in the renown Keukenhof Garden. Here is one of them…

There were so many different species of Tulips grown in the garden and this was just one of them with striking deep pink color. Nothing special. I like the color and off course the tulips in this photo. I will post a lot a lot more tulips photos when I come to stories about travel attraction in Amsterdam next. So follow me closely on my upcoming Europe travel tips! - Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog.

Good news! Travel photo wallpaper calendar for August 2010 is now available here to download FREE! If you still haven’t got the  July 2010 wallpaper calendar, Download it first. As usual, 2 sizes are available here: 1920 x 1080 px for Full HD wide screen LCD and 1280 x 1024 px for conventional computer screen (or neither size is fitted nicely on your computer screen? Please let me know…). Choose either one to fit your LCD and download it here for FREE. Or you may want to download both. No problem. They are for my readers!

Download this widescreen version of 1920 x 1080 px

Download this standard version of 1280 x 1024 px

This travel photo was taken on top of the highest viewpoint of Piazza Michelangelo in Florence, Italy, during my recent trip to Europe. It was the best viewpoint in Florence city to oversee the city skyline of Florence. The dominant feature in the shot is the dome of Duomo on the right and the Vecchio Bridge at the far left side crossing the River Arno. Read my series of posts on my travel experience in Europe for more interesting stories of my Europe travel.

Again, this travel photo wallpaper calendar is free to download from here and there are more wallpaper calendars for other months coming up next. If you like it, please support me by dropping a note to say ‘hi‘ in the comment section of this post, or preferably, subscribe to this travel blog feeds via RSS or email for free updates, or, you may buy me a cup of coffee by clicking this

I’ve finally seen it! I’ve finally seen the original painting of Mosa Lisa! A portraiture masterpiece by Leonardo Da Vinci, Mona Lisa is one of the reasons why I was going back to Paris and Louvre Museum. I wanted to capture it with my Nikon D60 this round on my Europe travel and I satisfactorily did.

I shot it with my Nikkor 18-55mm mid zoom hand held and this is what I have captured. The original colour vibrancy of the painting to some extends faded away eventhough several preservation and restoration works had been carried out. I decided to restore it with the latest digital technology of PhotoShop Elements8 to get back the vibrant colours of the Portrait of Mona Lisa and this is how she looks…

Ever wonder why Mona Lisa is so fascinating to talk about, eventhough it was created way back in the 16th Century during the Renaissance? Being one of the most famous painting in the world, Mona Lisa (or Lisa Gherardini) is actually not popular for her beauty. Neither is the painting. What people discuss most on the portraiture is her smile, her gesture, her eyes and off course, the painter behind, Leonardo Da Vinci. Being one of the greatest artist, sculptor, engineer, inventor, scientist, mathematician and writer in the Renaissance, portrait of Mona Lisa was one of Leanardo final arts before he died in 1519.

According to the records, Portraiture of Mona Lisa was done in the Tuscany region of Italy and eventually brought to Paris in 1516. While some believed her husband Francesco del Giocondo invited Leonardo over to have a portraiture to his wife before their marriage, others reckoned the painting was started after the delivery of their second baby.

The best discussion on Mona Lisa is her eyes which would keep looking at you at any viewing angle (though I believe all portraiture are the same ). Her smile is also arguably the best of all where the famous ‘Mona Lisa’s smile‘ is coming from.

Whatever is it, with all the stories behind the painting, Mona Lisa becomes so popular among travelers and artists from all over the world who desperately hoping to see her in person. Where is the original painting located now? She is currently being hung on the wall inside the Louvre Museum, the famous travel destination of Paris!

Don’t get so excited though. She is highly protected by security and climatic glass screen and being rail guarded with securities that visitors could only see the 77cm x 53cm painting from 20 feet far away!

But don’t get upset as well. For Europe Travel Tips of the day: Taking photos of Mona Lisa is thankfully allowed in Louvre Museum of Paris. Just remember to bring along your long zoom fast lens and you can still capture it up-close!

Follow up next would be all my even more exciting travel experience and travel stories happened on my Europe travel. If you wish to get all my story updates, don’t forget to subscribe to my blog feed via RSS Reader or email, it’s free!

I just can’t wait to show more of my photos taken during the trip! See Ya! – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog.

I found out recently this photo viewer engine called Cooliris Wall is quite interesting and comprehensive. I’ve been looking for plug-ins to be added onto my blog to showcase all my travel photos gallery so far and this is one that I quite like. Check it out below:

I’m still working around to get it permanently featured in Travel Feeder though. Please let me know how it looks to you and any comments would definitely great to hear! Ciao! - Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog