The main attraction in Pattaya is of course the beach. This 4km beach curves its way from Naklua Road in the North to Buddha Hill in the South. This is also where the famous Pattaya Walking Street is located.

Lots of deck chairs and umbrellas dot the beach. You can just sit around and enjoy the scenery, or get a massage right on the beach.

This is at the Southern end of the beach. Lots of water sports on offer here, and you can also hire a boat to visit the nearby islands.

As Pattaya is very densely developed, this is not the most beautiful stretch of beach in the World. But it is a very interesting location to explore on foot – due to the many hotels, B&Bs, pubs, restaurants, shops and stalls that line the road next to the beach. The numerous sidelanes that lead to Pattaya Sai Song (Pattaya 2nd Road) running parallel to Beach Road are also great places to explore for the countless number of interesting boutique hotels and lodgings.

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Returned from Kosciuszko National Park yesterday, where I spent a few days and nights backpacking. For a New Years Eve celebration, we stayed near Blue Lake, one of the five glacier lakes in the park, 1997 meters above the sea level, under billions of stars. Photograph above was shot soon after we finished celebrating New Year with Ilya Genkin.

Happy New Year!

© Yegor Korzh :: Travel Photography, 2011. Permalink No comments

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	Rome Apartment Villa Rental Parker Villas Roman Holiday A look inside the amazing apartment villa we rented in Rome for our stay. The apartment, called Roman Holiday is incredibly decorated, has tons of space for the entire family, fully appointed kitchen so we could cook meals every night that we didnt go out, and great for keeping snacks around for the kids. Apartment rentals save a lot of money when traveling with kids so you dont eat out all the time. This apartment was centrally located withing walking distance to most everything and is set right on Piazza Navona, one of the liveliest areas in Rome, a blast for the kids every evening. Highly recommended. More info at ParkerVillas.com	From: travelwithkids Views: 95 1 ratings
	Time: 01:30	More in Travel & Events

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Returned from Kosciuszko National Park yesterday, where I spent a few days and nights backpacking. For a New Years Eve celebration, we stayed near Blue Lake, one of the five glacier lakes in the park, 1997 meters above the sea level, under billions of stars. Photograph above was shot soon after we finished celebrating New Year with Ilya Genkin.

Happy New Year!

© Yegor Korzh :: Travel Photography, 2011. Permalink No comments

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March is one of the best months to go out and shoot seascapes in Sydney. You can get lucky to have some great skies and you don’t need to get up very early to catch 7am sunrise.

Download Bungan Head Rocks wallpaper for free for your screen size here: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1600×1200, 1920×1200, 1920×1440

© Yegor Korzh :: Travel Photography, 2010. Permalink 2 comments

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The passage way leading to the restaurant.

The beautiful restaurant interiors.

There is an outdoor deck that overlooks Pattaya Beach.

The food.

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Location: Bandstand, Singapore Botanical Garden (1°19’18″N 103°48’59″E)
Date: 8 October 2011; 9.50am
Camera: Canon 400D with Sigma 17-70/f2.8-4.5

Singapore Botanical Garden is one of the main attractions of Singapore. Quite often when one lives in a place, one easily overlook the local attractions that tourists from far afield come to visit. The Botanical Gardens is just one of those- I lives in Singapore but never pay much attention or visit the place unless I have visitors. However it is apparently a favourite of tourists especially the new force-to-be-reckon-with tourists from China and India. These tourists are no doubt attracted by the immaculately maintained gardens and its vast collection of tropical trees, flowers and plants. For locals, one of the favourite spot of the Gardens is the white octagonal shaped pavilion named the Bandstand which was erected in 1930. The Bandstand used to host military band performances in the past- now it is a popular spot for newly-weds to have their photos taken with their full regalia of wedding gowns.

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Find out what you can do and what you need to know about fisheye lenses.

I am addicted to wide-angle photography, its creative challenges and opportunities. Wide-angle lenses require rethinking your composition constantly. Eliminating clutter with a normal lens usually entails leaving it out of your frame, thus simplifying your composition. This is rarely possible with wide-angle lenses. Instead, you take advantage of their perspective, making distant objects very small. Eliminating clutter thus, requires moving around and changing your composition continually. 

I like this kind of photography. It forces me to reconsider all my compositions and puts me on a much steeper learning curve. I also love the resulting pictures, since they differ so much from the way we see the world with our own eyes. 

Telephoto lenses are creativity inhibitors. Photographers at sports events never move. They “only” have to frame and shoot. Everyone can get the same shot, even when they stand a few feet apart. Creativity then boils down to the right moment and the right subject. 

Sigma 8mm

Looking for new ways to expand my creativity, I rented a Sigma 8mm lens and took it with me to San Francisco for the weekend. I rented my lens online from Borrow Lenses. The easy and painless process convinced me to rent my lenses before buying any of them from now on. 

The Sigma 8mm EX DG Fisheye lens has a remarkable field of view that lets you capture very wide images. I took this set of pictures in my backyard, comparing the 8mm focal length of the spherical fisheye to my Tokina 12mm lens, my favorite wide-angle choice, and a few others.

Comparing the Fisheye to the already super-wide Tokina lens, you can begin to understand how wide the Sigma lens really is.

I was excited to find out how this lens would feel in the city and how I could use its space warping properties to my advantage.

Day One: First Steps

The lens dazzled me with its super wide angle, when I discovered the odd mechanism of the lens cap. Removing the cap like you would on any other lens, still leaves the lens hood type of attachment on the lens. Leaving the cap on the attachment and pulling on the entire assembly removes the hood. Here is the product shot again:

On the left, you can see the cap with the lens cap adapter. On the right, you can see the lens. The adapter caused harsh vignetting, limiting the  image circle severely. This was an easy mistake to make. Fortunately, I caught it almost immediately. Opening up the lens fully, reveals that the glass actually extends beyond the metal barrel, a requirement of the extreme field of view. This is also the reason the lens cannot accept a straight lens cap or filter of any kind. 

I took a series of photographs in San Francisco’s Mission Dolores (Mission San Francisco de Asis). Here is one of the first photographs I took.

I was still thinking in terms of rectilinear lenses. I wanted to achieve a wider angle, giving little credence to the spherical distortions.

To find out if I could correct the distortions at the computer, I deliberately picked a subject where they would be evident very clearly. When I got home, I ran the image through PTLens, moving the sliders until everything looked visually correct.

The cropped image is usable, but the process stretches the corners. Cropping the right and left edges would leave me with an image similar to one the Tokina lens takes at 12mm.

I went to a few other locations on day one, including the Yerba Buena Gardens shown in the first picture of this article, where I chose to annoy guests at the tea lounge.

Interestingly, a fisheye lens opens up possibilities for the shy street shooters among you. With a lens this wide, you can aim far away from your subjects, while still including them. The distortions can even enhance the feeling of the picture.

Day2: Changing my Focus

My goal this day was to take advantage of the lens properties instead of trying to correct its “imperfections”. On my excursion to Alcatraz, I learned that this lens is terrifically adapted to photography in very confined spaces, when you need to include as much of the surroundings as possible.

The distortions of this picture make the room look much deeper than it actually is. Furthermore, you can see that the lines that radiate from the center outwards remain straight. You can use this to your advantage if you need to exaggerate the depth of an object while keeping its rectangular appearance.

Later that day I went to the Embarcadero Center to try out another idea.

Curved objects look especially appealing through the fisheye lens. The extreme distortions seemingly enhance the object and bend straight lines around it like a black hole bending light.

Additionally, you can use a fisheye lens to create curves. Photographing architecture, while pointing the lens upwards, creates weird looking images, with buildings bending inward as if they were made of gelatin.

Celestial photography is yet another aspect where fisheye lenses shine. You can capture the entire sky in a single photograph. If you position your camera near an interesting looking tree stump or rock, it will bend their features, creating an alien sky.

Love it or hate it! I have not yet made up my mind, but I do absolutely love the creative choices with round objects and cramped spaces. I also like the organic feeling of these pictures. The closer you get to your subject, the more distorted it will appear. The further something is from the center of the image, the more distorted it will be. This adds a completely new dimension to your creativity, something I will explore further in the future.

Just as wide-angle photography takes effort to master and challenges the photographer, a fisheye requires work and much more practice to understand it.

Having fun

I intended to do celestial photography todnight, but since the sky is overcast, I will instead show you my cat through the Sigma Lens.

I did not correct these images. I simply cropped left and right to eliminate the black border.

Borrow then buy

You can rent a lens at Borrow Lenses. They are a reputable company and have great prices. I usually buy my gear on Amazon.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=andreguntherp-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B000GE9SBM&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrhttp://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=andreguntherp-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B000GE8MF0&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

The kind folks at Amazon and Borrow Lenses share a tiny portion of their profits with me when you use the links above to buy from them. This helps me pay for the white space to share articles like this one with you, and for the coffee I drink while writing on long dark nights. The price for you will not change, but I appreciate the space and coffee. Thanks!

You can get an additional 5% off from Borrow Lenses when you enter this coupon: TECH5

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Pattaya Town is also quite a pedestrian friendly town. The roads are mostly 2 lane, and there are usually sidewalks for pedestrians. Unlike Bangkok where the sidewalks are often occupied by countless roadside vendors, here they are relatively uncluttered. Traffic is also not as heavy as in the big city. Somehow there is a seaside vibe that you can feel the minute you arrive.

Like most places in Thailand, the Songthaew is the cheapest and most convenient way to get around.

The streets are full of shops selling everything under the sky. Here they are not as obtrusive as in some parts of Bangkok.

View of Pattaya Town from the Pattaya View Point on Buddha Hill. It is quite spread out. The population here range from 200,000 to 500,000 – depending on where you get the figures.

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What is good here is the laksa – and for me the Foochow Noodles. I normally order the standard Kam Pua Mee, and a bowl of Pork Soup. What makes the noodles great is the generous lashing of rendered pork fat, and the bits of crunchy deep fried pork rind hidden inside that is so decadent !

The soup is also very tasty. You can order it with all the pork innards, or just minced pork and pork slices and veggie. They add a bit of Chinese wine to round out the taste, and it is no doubt augmented with plenty of MSG.

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Melissa’s bacon and chive toasted wrap

Vivek’s charcuterie plate

My spicy gluten free (almost vegan except for local honey) peanut sauce & noodles

Cheese vegetarian lasagna

Grishma’s jalebi

Tabitha’s macaroons with lychee creme

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	Sunset at Tahiti Radisson Tahiti Hotel Oceanfront Resort in Tahiti Sunset over the beach area at the Tahiti Radisson Resort. You can see Moorea island in the distance. Amazing sunsets here. Black sand beaches. Filmed during the Travel With Kids Tahiti production shoot. More info at www.travelwithkids.tv	From: travelwithkids Views: 37 0 ratings
	Time: 01:18	More in Travel & Events

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We had dinner there recently and this was what we had. Special Appetizer Platter. Mostly made with fish paste – taste-wise not bad and each item has a distinctive taste and texture.

Roast Suckling Pig. They do it differently here. The pig has been deboned – marinated, roasted and served whole. You eat the skin together with the meat attached. I must say it was very good – you can taste the crunchiness of the skin and the porkie goodness of the meat at the same time.

Grilled Fish – this is an unusual dish for a Chinese restaurant. Served with a spicy dipping sauce – this was quite good as the oiliness of the fish lends itself very well to the preparation.

Mixed Veggie – again slightly different from the normal – here they have included pumpkin and celery to the mix.

Prawns with Salted Egg Yolk. A different take on the buttered prawn – the prawns are deep fried and coated with powdery salted egg. It looks dry, but actually the prawns have retained their natural sweetness and succulence.

Rice with Chinese Sausage and Char Siew. This simple looking dish was surprisingly tasty.

Hoi Ting Lau has now cemented itself as one of the top Chinese restaurants in town. Definitely worth a try.

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