Camera
It has been a while since I last wrote for any Top 5 posts except “Top 5 travel attractions” on destination which are actually guest post by some experienced travel blogger around the world. When I was flipping through my photos taken in Europe last night, I could feel my excitement of visiting Europe still remained strong inside my mind. That was why I’ve booked another flight to Eastern Europe next year! 
But why is it so? Isn’t visiting Europe an expensive travel and always remained a dream to be realised by many avid travelers around the globe? Why I’m so eager to fly to Europe again next year?
These are 5 reasons why I should and all avid travelers should visit Europe now, I mean NOW!
- Euro currency had reached its new low level! Value of Euro has depreciated over 20% since January early this year, and it’s still dropping. What used to be expensive in Europe has now become reasonable! The cost of traveling to and visiting Europe is now 20% cheaper! Let’s do some calculation: If I were to visit Europe last Summer, my total traveling cost for 15 days was RM10,000.00 (USD3,200). If I’m traveling to Europe now for the same period, it would be RM8,000.00 (USD2,500) only!!
- Heritage sites in Europe are in danger of extinction! Major attractions in Europe are mostly inscribed as UNESCO Heritage sites. Over time, many of them are really run-down! European countries are spending huge amount of money restoring and maintaining those sites. You could see many of the restoration works being carried out everywhere in Europe heritage sites. What would happen to them in next few years?
- Global warming is causing more natural disasters! Pollutions caused by human are creating worse global warming and green house effect to our earth than ever before. This are causing more and more natural disasters happening each year. Global weather has also become unpredictable sometimes, it can snow in Spring or hit record high temperature in Summer. When I traveled to Europe last May, ash cloud was covering most parts of Western Europe. We had to play by ear when planning our itinerary. What would happen in future?
- Competitions among budget airlines has reached its new high! Budget airlines are ruling the air space nowadays where everyone is opting for cheap flight whenever they are flying. This uptrend has stimulated the booming of this sector of the aviation industry. Stiff competition among budget airlines helped in bringing the air fares down to even zero cost!
- Digital photography has reached its maturity! After 10 tens of its introduction to consumers level, digital cameras have now the ability of taking great photos that are comparable to films. Its advantage over the film is Digital cameras can take as many photos as you like, with just the matter of how many Gb of SDHC or Compact flash cards you are bringing along your travel. In my case, I brought 4 memory cards along my Europe travel and had taken over 4000 photos! In this matured market, we can now buy a DSLR system for as low as USD600 and still able to take awesome travel photos!
With the combination of above 5 top reasons, do you still sit back to think twice, or get up now and book your air ticket NOW? Read my recent Europe travel experience for more motivation! Or receive more of my upcoming Europe stories by subscribing my RSS feed or via email. – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog
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This snapshot tells you one thing. We had a clear sky and bright sunny day on 3rd day of our London travel! I captured this street view in Camden Town of London which is famous for its open-air Camden markets selling antique goods, clothing, rockers’ fashion, souvenirs and many other stuffs. Many local people (Hippies and rockers) as well as tourists come here to shop, dine and drink in Summer.
Imagine this: Can any camera capture anything in a dark without flash light?
Lighting is the single most important element in photography. No matter how expensive and advanced is your camera, poor lighting delivers dull colours, if not poor. Otherwise, if the scene or object is under good lighting, either natural sun light or deliberately arranged artificial lighting, any camera can capture it with good colours, if not great.
The above photo says it all. It’s just a snapshot with my Nikon D60 and Tamron SP10-24mm, when I spotted this beautifully lit row of shops in Camden Town. Without special setting and equipment, I was able to capture an impressive picture with striking colours!
Remember only this photo tips before taking photos: Is your subject under good and enough lighting? If not, try figuring out on how to provide more good lights onto it! With flash, reflector, or table lamp… – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog
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Progressively, I will pick and put up 5 best photos taken in each city on my Europe travel here which I love most (though the process takes a bit long ). Being first of the series, 5 photos were picked for my first Europe Travel city, London. It was challenging to decide which are the 5 as I took nearly 1000 photos in London. Final decision was interesting. All the following 5 photos were picked from bunch of photos taken on my 3rd day in London when we had the best sunlight of all. Another proof of how I love natural sunlight and blue sky… Here they are:
1) Tower Bridge, the iconic structure across River Thames of Great London. (Captured with Nikon D60 with Tamron SP10-24mm (same to all following photos) at 16mm focal distance, ISO100, Shutter speed at 1/320 with Aperture of F8.0). You can see the mixing weather conditions on that day from the dark cloud. We had a heavy rain and strong wind just 5 minutes before and bright sunlight 5 minutes after. This shot would be perfect without the dark cloud overhead. The best time to capture the best sunlight on Tower Bridge is in the afternoon at 5pm. The sun was directly on top of us when we were there at 2Pm.
2) The famous mosaic feature wall at Tottenham Court Road Underground station. (Lens’ focal length set at 10mm, ISO400, Shutter speed at 1/30 with Aperture of F3.5., handheld shot). Tottenham Court Road underground station is famous with its colourful mosaic decorations all around the tube. The lighting of the photo was uneven naturally due to the ambient setting.
3) St. Paul Cathedral, the famous West End facade. (Lens’ focal length set at 10mm, ISO100, Shutter speed at 1/250 with Aperture of F8.0). Another 1 minute precious moment of bright sun and deep blue sky in between overcasting dark clouds. Visit the St. Paul Cathedral in the afternoon if you want to capture the best natural sunlight falling on its West end facade.
4) Authentic street light post on both sides of Westminster Bridge. (Lens’ focal length set at 12mm, ISO100, Shutter speed at 1/200 with Aperture of F11.0., fill flash fired). There are more than 10 motorway bridges crossing the River Thames. Westminster Bridge is so significant as it is the connecting bridge from Greenwich to the the House of Parliament. Along this wide bridge there are this beautiful street lamp posts sitting at every 10m. Fill flash was fired to reduce the contrast from the harsh sunlight in the morning. We thought the weather was going to be good whole day but unfortunately, it rained 1o minutes later.
5) Priscilla, Queen of the desert Musical Theatre. (Lens’ focal length set at 11.5mm, ISO400, Shutter speed at 1/13 with Aperture of F3.8., handheld shot with -2/3EV compensation). London is famous for its many musical theatres at almost every corner of the city centre. This is only one of them. I love it because it was shot handheld without any supporting tripod. Thanks to the 10-24mm ultra wide angle lens and DX format camera, I was able to capture the scene without serious visible motion blur at slow shutter speed of 1/13s!
No special photographic creation as you can see here. All of them are merely travel snapshots I made during my travel to Central Europe. It was a rush tour around 7 cities mainly for only sightseeing. For first time visitors, it was a perfect itinerary of Europe travel to cover so many travel destinations in such a short period of only 14 days. Coming up next is my travel experience in central Europe. Stay subscribed! If you have not, subscribe my RSS feed or email feed now for free updates on my travel stories. – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog
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