UAE Trip - Part 4

Welcome to the fourth and final part of the “Trip to UAE” series. We started with my arrival at Abu Dhabi at night, then spending the next morning visiting various famous locations in Dubai (Palm Island, Dubai Mall, Burj Khalifa and its dancing fountain). That same night we managed to rent a Corvette C7 Stingray for 24 hours from Dubai and left our car there and drove back to Abu Dhabi to get a night’s sleep. Next day we drove to the top of Jebel Hafeet mountain in the Corvette, went to JBR in Dubai for lunch, then finally returned the Corvette and drove back to Abu Dhabi in our car.

All of this happened in the matter of 48 hours and I only had one other day to spare in UAE. In this post I will tell you all about what we did there. Hit the jump.

UAE Trip - Part Three

In the last part of our story, we stopped at the end of my first day in UAE; where we rented a C7 Stingray Corvette from Dubai, and took it home to Abu Dhabi at around 3am to spend the night and start the second day early in the morning.

UAE Trip - Part 2

In part one, we were still reviewing day one of the trip, and we had just found a good place to rent a C7 Corvette in Dubai, which was 30 minutes away from closing. Today we continue that story.

We canceled our JBR outing and chose to head to the dealer immediately before they closed. The trip to there should approximately take 30 minutes. For the first time in my life, I was about to drive a real Corvette, and a Stingray no less, so I wasn't going to miss this opportunity.

UAE Trip - Part 1

The entrance to Palm Island (if you don't know what that is, this is an island that looks like a palm tree from the sky, google it)

First of all, I have to apologize for disappearing suddenly. Besides the usual daily burdens, I am working on a long video series that is sucking any free time for blogging. I initially planned to make this post on two parts, but it seems that it will become three or more. We'll see.

I travelled to UAE for the first time in my life on the first week of April 2015. I didn't know what to expect regarding photography. And to be honest, I didn't want to concentrate on chasing photographic opportunities, and lose valuable time where I could be enjoying myself and having fun, so I packed accordingly. If you check my packing post, I chose to go with the E-M1 + 12-40 f/2.8 combo for the majority of the photos. I also added the Panaleica 25 f/1.4 as my night/low light shooter, added the Rokinon 7.5mm fish-eye for extreme-wide perspective, packed the 40-150 just in case, and finally I packed the brilliant Panasonic LX100 as a take-everywhere camera when I wasn't in the mood of carrying a larger bag.

Fisheye Fun

This will be a short post, remember the fisheye lens I bought a while ago?

I have been having some fun with it, and I want to share one picture with you here. We had a team outing at work a couple of weeks ago, and I was one of the event organizers (that's why -as you'll see- I was wearing a high visibility vest), I was also taking pictures for the day. I took the OM-D and three lenses, the 12-50 for group shots, the 75mm for candid portraits, and the fisheye for some fun.

The photo you see above was taken by mounting the camera on a monopod, raising it high above the net, and using my Yongnuo RF-603 trigger to release the shutter. I was shooting at f/8 and 7 fps (the camera can reach 9 fps, but then the image stabilization would be off). I wish the camera's LCD would tilt 90 degrees downwards (it only reaches ~ 45 degrees) so that I can see it from below. I composed the image as best as I can, then I watched the game and use the trigger when I thought there was good action. Some friend took a picture of me while I was shooting a different game, but it's the same concept.

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A Fish-eye, A Dell Monitor & Wireless Printing

The sexy looking OM-D EM-5, and the Bower 7.5mm Fish-eye

Today I want to tell you about three new gadgets that I've recently acquired. Hit the jump for the full post.

How to Bend SpaceTime (Tokina 10-17 Fisheye Review and Usage Guide)

The lighthouse bends as the distant building looms overhead, like a scene from Inception

In this post, we discuss fisheyes in general and we review the Tokina 10-17 fisheye lens. First, I'll show comparisons between rectilinear ultrawide images and fisheye images. Second, we'll talk about fisheyes.  Third, I'll provide some samples of how fisheyes can be used (aside from 'funny' shots).  Finally, I'll discuss the Tokina 10-17.