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1. DNA Tower in Kings Park offers majestic panoramic views of the city skyline, Swan River, the mountain range & the Indian Ocean.

2. Head to the beach! Swim, surf, sail, kayak or just relax & soak in the sun at Scarborough Beach, Cottesloe Beach or Mettams Pool.

3. Bring the kids to AQWA (Aquarium of Western Australia) for a first-hand experience of the region’s sea life!

4. Take a day out to explore the port town of Fremantle where cafes and outdoor markets are abound.

5. Swim with the dolphins at the seaside town of Rockingham. Fishing & crabbing are also available. Or head to Penguin Island for an up close with the Fairy penguins.

6. Indulge in some retail therapy at the city malls, King Street or at the factory outlet centre Harbour Town.

7. Sample local fares especially fish and chips in cafes by the river. Or opt for succulent, freshly-caught blue manna crab & seafood feast at Peel Inlet.

8. Spend a day or two at the Yanchep National Park, a favorite nature & wildlife attraction for both tourists & locals alike.

9. Feel as though you’ve stepped back in time as you wander the historic country towns in Avon Valley. Go rafting on Avon River!

10. Catch a ballet or an opera performance at His Majesty’s Theatre, the only Edwardian theatre in Australia that has been operating since 1904!

They’re not dangerous to humans, unlike the venomous Komodo dragons.

References: Malayan Water Monitor Lizard (Varanus salvator), Wikipedia.

(via DPReview forum post)

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Here are pictures of 8 of them. Some have been heavily PP to eliminate distracting backgrounds. All were taken with the F100fd.

vedd, the photographer, says:

I normally work with 9 exposures for all of my HDR images, ranging from -4 to +4 EV.

Regarding HDR post-processing:

Well, I shoot RAW when I took the bracketed images and then using DPP to convert it into 16bit TIFFs (somehow I prefer DPP output result more that other RAW converters). Once done, I feed the 16bit TIFFs into Photomatix and tone mapped it. I then saved the tone mapped output as 16bit TIFFs as well and made final touch up in Photoshop CS3. When I’m done with all the touch ups in CS3, then only I converted the images into 8bit Jpegs.

On camera settings:

Actually for 9 exposures I’ll be taking 4 sequence of bracketed exposures. This can only be done in Av or Tv mode (but I advice you against using Tv mode – DoF issues). In Av mode, once you’ve set the AEB, by default it will be at -2 to +2, you can further decrease/increase the EV to -4/+4 by using Ev button. But the downside is that, you’ll have redundant exposures at +0, -1 and +1 EV, so I’ll be deleting the redundant exposures to save space…

Off course when playing with EV in AEB mode, you need to take special care on the shutter speed – if at +3ev, you’re already hitting the 30 second (or 1/4000 second) mark, then there’s no point of going to +4EV because the shutter speed will still be at 30 seconds. When this happens I’ll be switching to BULB in M mode and calculate the exposure time manually.

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rfc used the Nikon D200 plus Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S Nikkor Wide Angle Zoom and Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom Nikkor lenses to snap these photos.

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I used to live near Beit Shean, Israel in the Jordan Valley. It used to get up to around 46C (118F) during the summer, and a few times got over 50C (125F).

I loved that kinda climate. I used to work outside all day long in the sun.
Dry, sunny every day and baking hot.

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The island is just a few minutes away from Sipadan island.

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(via Yahoo News, India)

Udaipur, known as the “Venice of the East”, was voted the world’s best city for travellers in 2009 in an online poll by Travel + Leisure magazine, trumping last year’s winner Bangkok.

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Despite Kenya’s unspeakable beauty and its recent victories against the anopheles mosquito, the country’s still-stinging corruption and political unrest confirms too many of the headlines we in the West read about Africa.

Bono on Ghana:

This is a country whose music of choice is jazz; a country that long ago invented a genre called highlife that spread across Africa — and, more recently, hiplife, which is what happens when hip-hop meets reggaetón meets rhythm and blues meets Ghanaian melody, if you’re keeping track (and you really should be).

… and …

Ghana is well governed. After a close election, power changed hands peacefully. Civil society is becoming stronger. The country’s economy was growing at a good clip even before oil was found off the coast a few years ago. Though it has been a little battered by the global economic meltdown, Ghana appears to be weathering the storm. I don’t normally give investment tips — sound the alarm at Times headquarters — but here is one: buy Ghanaian.

But a visit to Gurgaon, India in the last quarter of 2004 was a good experience.

That, and I got to stay in the very nice and classy Trident Hilton Gurgaon Hotel.

The hotel is beautifully designed (you’ll feel as if you were on an Indiana Jones set), service was top-notch, the room was luxurious and staff were friendly.

This photo was edited in Google’s Picasa program ( ) using its array of one-click image editing features, and subsequently resized and sharpened in IrfanView. I’ve just started giving Picasa a spin, and will have more to write about it in future.

Equipment used? Nikon D70 and the dirt-cheap, USD100 Sigma 18-50mm f/3.5-5.6 DC lens – I now own the more expensive Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 lens, but I have tons of nice pictures captured with the cheaper version.

Other Fun Things To Do In Gurgaon and Surrounding Areas

Top on the list is to have a cobra round your neck – something I’ve always wanted to do for a long time.

And this was in Delhi. Be careful with the pricing though – the handler will tell you that it costs, oh USD5 to hold the snake, and when you’re starting to really enjoy it, he’ll put the reptile round your neck and charge you $10 later.

By the way, the prices I mentioned were back in 2004 – you’ll have to factor inflation in if you go there now. The taxi driver took this image, and I’ll always remember him for charging me more than what was originally agreed.

This photo was taken with the Nikon D70 on a tripod. It was shot RAW, and the NEF file processed through Nikon Capture 4.4. Nothing was done except for resizing and sharpening, so I think I’ll go ahead and append the EXIF data after the image.

Exif data
Nikon D70
Focal Length: 35mm
Optimize Image: Custom
Color Mode: Mode Ia (sRGB)
Long Exposure NR: Off
2005/10/23 23:07:23.9
Exposure Mode: Aperture Priority
White Balance: Auto -3
Tone Comp.: User-Defined Custom Curve – I used Komin’s curve for this one.
Compressed RAW (12-bit)
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern
AF Mode: Manual
Hue Adjustment: -3°
Image Size: Large (3008 x 2000)
30 sec – F/10
Flash Sync Mode: Not Attached
Saturation: Normal
Exposure Comp.: 0 EV
Sharpening: High
Lens: Sigma 18-50mm F/2.8 G
Sensitivity: ISO 200