Ride with me to Glenorchy (Part 2 of 4)

And following up from Part 1 of my road trip to Glenorchy is this video below, where I process the photos I took on that extremely moody and windy day!

Daily Photo – Exploring the Hong Kong Opera House

I have a trick I do in China when going into places I’m not supposed to enter. This is a good example… this is the new opera house that is still under construction. I peeked inside from the street and thought it looked incredible. There were some security guards and stuff, so I casually walked up to them and said, “Don’t worry, I’m with the government.”

Exploring the Hong Kong Opera House

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2018-03-14 03:16:39
• CameraILCE-7RM3
• Camera MakeSony
• Exposure Time0.5
• Aperture6.3
• ISO200
• Focal Length16.0 mm
• FlashOff, Did not fire
• Exposure ProgramManual
• Exposure Bias

Using the New Lightroom

I have a love/hate relationship with Lightroom. It’s more of the latter, really, and not enough of the former. But, I do like how they moved the Dehaze tool upwards. I use it quite a bit more now! Today’s video for passport members shows the best-use-case scenarios for it.

Now that the Dehaze tool has bubbled up to the top, I’ve been experimenting with it more and more. In this video, you can see how it works SOMETIMES with these rather hazy photos from Hong Kong. Well, in some cases, it is amazing. In others, it doesn’t look so good.

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Daily Photo – Hong Kong Without the Haze

Of the successful de-hazing shots from Hong Kong, this is one of my favorites. I never thought I would be such a fan of government housing, but these buildings do make for a great tableau! I left a little bit of haze in there because I think it helps to add a sense of depth to the image. I had to zoom in there close to see what was happening on that sports field. At first, I thought it was baseball… but baseball is not popular in China (it is in Japan). It’s two soccer fields, or football as they call it in most of the world.

Hong Kong Without the Haze

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2018-03-16 00:16:35
• CameraILCE-7RM3
• Camera MakeSony
• Exposure Time8
• Aperture6.3
• ISO200
• Focal Length141.0 mm
• FlashOff, Did not fire
• Exposure ProgramManual
• Exposure Bias+2

Wild Wild Country Documentary

I just finished watching this docco on Netflix; wow was it interesting! Even though I was just a kid when this “cult” was in the news, I have no memory of it. Anyway, watching the documentary reminds me of how unorganized hippies can be. I think the original notion of the commune was actually a pretty good idea, especially because it was voluntary and self-contained.

The whole idea seems pretty Burning-Man-ish. At Burning Man, we often sit around the campfire and wonder what it would be like if “this” existed for 52 weeks rather than 1. Well, it does require a bit of organization and governance by clever people. This documentary is a really good example of a good idea with rather bad organization.

Another aspect that occurred to me is the danger of the ego of the leadership. I’ve never listened to any of teachings of their leader, as there was a scant amount in the documentary. But it’s clear that some of the leadership started to take themselves and their identity a bit too seriously and that is when everything started to unravel.

Daily Photo – The Financial District of Hong Kong

I only spent four days in Hong Kong, so I tried to be as photographically productive as possible. Being the quintessential introvert, I have chosen not to live in big cities so it’s a treat when I get to visit them. Nothing wrong with living in big cities, of course, as I know extroverts get a lot of energy from cities that never sleep. I enjoy them too, but only for short visits. Hong Kong has all sorts of different districts, and this is the financial hub of it all. I’ve been working on this new processing technique that you see here. I’ll put together a how-to video soon and share it with you.

The Financial District of Hong Kong

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2018-03-12 23:57:36
• CameraILCE-7RM3
• Camera MakeSony
• Exposure Time2
• Aperture4
• ISO250
• Focal Length70.0 mm
• FlashOff, Did not fire
• Exposure ProgramManual
• Exposure Bias+2

Passport Early Look

I made a post-processing video for Aurora HDR users on how I worked on this shot and Passport Members get an early look. It was a lot of fun to work on! I’ve actually been saving this photo until I got back into the studio because I wanted to take my time working on it.

This incredible housing complex in Hong Kong was just asking for a photo! If you want to know where this is, check here on Google Maps. You may notice my final photo looks a bit different than what you see in the video below. I made a few more adjustments after the video ended:

1) I lightened up the upper floors towards the back of the complex. I felt they were a bit dark.

2) I desaturated some of the extreme yellow. After I looked at the shot, I felt it was too yellow and orange in some spots.

3) I made the canvas WIDER and stretched out the side-parts wider so that it seemed a little less narrow.

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Daily Photo – Beautiful Hong Kong Government Housing at Night

Hey, when it comes to government housing, it’s hard to get more interesting than this! We had a long day running all around Hong Kong and exploring with my new friend Simon. He was a great local resource to show me some of his favorite spots. I think this was my final shot for the evening before we decided to go off bar hopping together! And for you Passport Members I hope you enjoyed the post-processing on this one.

Beautiful Hong Kong Government Housing at Night

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2018-03-15 02:44:23
• CameraILCE-7RM3
• Camera MakeSony
• Exposure Time8
• Aperture10
• ISO400
• Focal Length24.0 mm
• FlashOff, Did not fire
• Exposure ProgramManual
• Exposure Bias

Best Rooftop Bars in Hong Kong

I came across this amazing List of Rooftop Bars in Hong Kong. I marked most of them on my personal map and will see how many I can visit and photograph while there. If you like city-photography, these are often some of the best places to go take photos!

There’s a game called Bar Golf where you go out with your friends and have a golf-scorecard. You start at Bar #1 and the oldest person picks the first drink for everyone (like Champagne, for example). The number of sips it takes you to finish is your score for that hole. Then you go to Bar #2 (Hole #2) and the next oldest person chooses the next drink. And then I assume you see how the rest of the golf game plays out. I’ve never tried it, I can’t imagine finishing the front 9.

Daily Photo – Papua New Guinea Face Paint

Speaking of rooftop bars in Hong Kong, here is a gentleman from Papua New Guinea. I’d love to get back there with my new Sony setup. I think I could be even more productive. If I recall, I was using a Leica lens here which required a bit of manual focus time. I’m pretty fast, but not nearly as fast as Auto-focus. I missed a few little expressions here and there that I would have liked to nab.

Papua New Guinea Face Paint

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2015-10-13 12:21:25
• CameraILCE-7R
• Camera MakeSony
• Exposure Time1/3200
• Aperture
• ISO100
• Focal Length
• FlashOff, Did not fire
• Exposure ProgramManual
• Exposure Bias-0.7

A funny video from Hong Kong

I made this video a bit ago with Kai from Digital Rev. I’ve since switched to the Phantom 4 (See my Phantom Review), but this video was all about the Inspire 1. One funny thing that was not in the video is we were doing this scene where he was controlling the camera, and I was controlling the quad. Well, we kept getting massive interference! It was a real demo-meltdown. I contacted DJI later and they said, “Oh, well don’t stand so close to the other person.” I was like… well that would have been good to know, fellas.

Daily Photo – The Bone-city of Hong Kong

This photo reminds me of bleached bones for some reason. It was one of those foggy, dreary days that you sometimes get in big cities. I usually like my cities to be colorful and full of life. If the colors aren’t working out for you, just give them a little black-and-white treatment. I can even suggest my Lightroom Presets to help you out!

The Bone-city of Hong Kong

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2015-02-23 11:05:13
• CameraFC350
• Camera MakeDJI
• Exposure Time1/100
• Aperture2.8
• ISO100
• Focal Length3.6 mm
• FlashNo flash function
• Exposure ProgramProgram AE
• Exposure Bias

On Digital Rev

If you haven’t seen this, it’s pretty funny! 🙂 I was reminded of this because, during the filming of this show, I took the photo below… you can see Kai and I standing in that circle.

Daily Photo – The Landing Pad in Hong Kong

I don’t actually know the purpose of this circle. I don’t think it’s a helipad, but as you can see above, Kai and I definitely used it for one! 🙂

The Landing Pad in Hong Kong

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2020-07-09 15:27:06
• CameraFC350
• Camera MakeDJI
• Exposure Time1/100
• Aperture2.8
• ISO114
• Focal Length3.6 mm
• FlashNo flash function
• Exposure ProgramProgram AE
• Exposure Bias

Screenflow Pro

I now use Screenflow Pro almost exclusively for editing videos. It’s really great! It took me a while to get my head around using it for editing all video and not just screen capture. I used to use iMovie/Final Cut X/Premiere for editing video, but those are so clunky for the basic edit. Anyway, I really recommend it if you wanna quickly edit video. It’s easy, fast, and fun!

Daily Photo – Pai Zoomy

I spent an evening in Hong Kong with my friends Pai and Lee. We walked randomly around the city doing some bar-hopping. It’s very hilly there, so there are countless public escalators from point to point. I started a new technique where I set up the tripod on the escalator to do a long exposure to achieve this effect. It looks cool, but it’s actually really hard to set up a tripod on steps that are moving… but I did achieve Level 4 Tripod Ninja when I got this photo.

Pai Zoomy

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2015-02-05 20:35:11
• CameraILCE-7R
• Camera MakeSony
• Exposure Time6
• Aperture8
• ISO125
• Focal Length16.0 mm
• FlashOff, Did not fire
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias+2

Huge News! Check it OUT!

Now you can sign up for The Arcanum with Facebook too in less than 60 seconds! People have been asking for this for over a year… sorry it took so long! If you’re not sure what it’s about… just read a few stories here.

Quadcopter Racing

Have you ever seen this? Definitely worth a gander!

Daily Photo – Looking down on Hong Kong

Aren’t these all great shapes? Even though I was standing on the ground down there, I didn’t think it would look this cool. I was too busy trying to avoid those wires that are over the intersection that the electric buses use. I can’t imagine it would be a good move for the DJI to touch one of them!

Looking down on Hong Kong

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2020-07-10 13:22:09
• CameraFC350
• Camera MakeDJI
• Exposure Time1/50
• Aperture2.8
• ISO181
• Focal Length3.6 mm
• FlashNo flash function
• Exposure ProgramProgram AE
• Exposure Bias

New Tripod

I’m always experimenting with different kinds of equipment! Be sure to pop over to the Camera Equipment page to see my latest goodies

Daily Photo – Another Strange Selfie from Above

Look at me with all these selfies…two days in a row! I’m like a teenage girl, teehee. I’m a bit harder to spot in this one, maybe. I saw this awesome reflection under a building in Hong Kong one night, so I went exploring underneath it to try to find a nifty angle.

Another Strange Selfie from Above

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2015-02-05 20:37:13
• CameraILCE-7R
• Camera MakeSony
• Exposure Time10
• Aperture8
• ISO100
• Focal Length16.0 mm
• FlashOff, Did not fire
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias+2