Friday 2 December 2016

Roadtrip with a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge

We took Noah our 18 month old for his first road trip to Gandikota, a beautiful hill fortress 300 km from Bangalore city. We started from Bangalore at 6:30 am and in an hours time was out of city limits and cruising down Bangalore Hyderabad highway.
Roadtrip to Gandikota
Blue Sky and an Empty Highway 
Family Roadtrip
Lil Noah, Neeti and Me 
gandikota roadtrip
Soon we were off the wide national highway 
Since we were travelling with the little one we made a lot of pit stops on the way, the below image is from pit stop number 2. We stopped at a small tea stall in a remote village to ask for directions
roadtrip with my one year
Tea Shop Pit Stop 
Just before reaching Gandikota there was a very bad stretch of road, the asphalt had been ripped off and there was just rocks, mud and dust. Yes we ended up taking the worst road possible, bad job navigator !
Bad roads in Kadappa
And then there was no road 
We reached Gandikota by 1:00 pm and went straight to the fort but it was too hot so we decided to have lunch at a resort close by. The resort( not much of a resort) is run by the Andhra Tourism Department and is quite poorly maintained but there is nothing else anywhere nearby other than some tea stalls so.. 

We thought we will stay at this resort but when we saw the condition of the place decided to look around for another place. 70 kms from Gandikota is a town called Kadapa where we found another Govt run hotel Harita Kadapa. We decided to try our luck with that. It was nothing fancy but clean, very spacious but basic rooms. 
gandikota fort kadappa
Narrow passage that leads to the main gates
We were back at the fort by 11:00 am the next day. The pic above is the main entrance to the fort, you can drive your vehicle inside for about 800 meters but the road is very narrow and we got stuck for some time waiting for a on coming car to pass.

gandikota fort ruins
Charminar Tower at Gandikota
Charminar at Gandikota painted yellow 
The fort was built by Kapa Raja way back in 1123 and was later reinforced and made more impregnable by  Pemmasani Thimma Nayudu. Gandikota was under the Pemmasani for more than 300 years and played a vital part during the Vijaynar and Qutub Shahi periods.
Jamia Masjid Gandikoa
Jamia Masjid
 The Fort complex is made up of  thick stone walls surrounding the entire fort and inside lies a small village, a prison building, a large granary, a mosque and 2 beautiful temples.
Madhavaraya temple in Gandikota
Madhavaraya temple
Behind the fort is a huge canyon with a river passing through it, the view from up here is breathtaking! for this reason Gandikota is known as the Grand Canyon of India. The best time to see this natural beauty is around sunset as the rocks will be nice and orange and the greens around will contrast them beautifully.
Gandikota Grand Canyon
Gandikota Canyon
Gandikota Selfie
Gandikota Selfie 
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Camera Review
I bet a sun set would look amazing from up here !

Gandikota Fort
We went exploring outside the fort 
Mommy Love 
road trip in hyundai i20
Noah getting some shade 
My primary travel camera is a Fuji XE-2 which I kept aside this time since I wanted to test the camera on my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. I must say the camera performed extremely well especially at low light, I have listed down the pros and cons of the camera at the end of the post.
My Gear - Fuji XE-2 & Canon 50D + Tokina 11-16 mm F2.8 Ultra Wide Lens
My Gear - Fuji XE-2 & Canon 50D + Tokina 11-16 mm F2.8 Ultra Wide Lens  

Selfie Time 
We explored the fort and its surrounds for about 2 hours and started out journey back home. And this time we asked around for the beast toad to take to Bangalore and avoided the bad stretch of road. the drive back was lovely the weather was good and traffic was less, we made good time and reached Bangalore by about 8:00 pm. I would highly recommed anyone who is interested in photpgraphy to take this trip, you can take amazing landscape shots by the canyon or some street photogrpahy in Gandikota village or cover the ancinet fort ruins. You also pass though a lot of scenic spots on the way and back to Gandikota.
Fuji Xe 2
Fuji Girl 
Bangalore travel Blog
Way back home 
Late lunch at a road side dhaba 

Noah happy to be at the wheel
This trip was like a trial run, we wanted to see how our 1.8 month old would react to spending 6 hours in a car and we were pleasantly surprised . He actually enjoyed the trip a lot and did not fall sick and had a blast running around in the wide open grounds of Gandikota
Our trip ended with a beautiful sunset  

The camera on the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge really lived up to the hype, some of the best things about the phone were :

  • Focus was super quick ! faster I have seen on a cell phone camera . My son was running around all over the place and the S7 was able to lock in focus on almost every shot.
  • Low light is king on the Samsung Galaxy S7 , with its fast aperture of 1.7 combined with optical image stabilisation the phone can take some awesome low light shots 
  • Awesome depth of field with the 1.7 Aperture, you can really blur the background with this one
  • The camera can handle high dynamic range very well and I shot all my images on auto HDR mode 
  • Nice front facing camers with a wide angle lens 
  • The slow motion footage this camera produces can even beat the iphone  
Some things I did not like about the camera:
  • If you zoom in on a picture you can see that there is a lot of software sharpening going on 
  • Most of the images have a warm tone but this can easily bee fixed in post 
  • Tapping the heartbeat sensor on the back of the phone can be used to take selfies but most of the time my fingers kept searching of this sensor  and i ended up missing the shot
Hope you enjoyed this post, I will be uploading one more article on Gandikota with the pictures I shot with my big camera pretty soon. 

Saturday 5 November 2016

HONG KONG CLASSIC VINTAGE CAR SHOW 2016 - PART 2 Bikes


Photos of some of the cool vintage motorbikes at the Hong Kong Classic Vintage  Automobile Show 2016 . I have covered all the classic cars in a different post , click here for Part 1 of Hong Kong Calssic Vintage Car show.

Custom cafe racer Bike
Cafe Racer at the ET Custom's Stand  

Harley Davidson Softail Deluxe Motorbike
Harley Davidson Softail Deluxe 

BMW Vintage Motorbike R68
BMW R68

Norton British Classic Bike
Norton Cafe Racer 

morini motorbike
Classic Italian - Morini 3 1/2 Sport 

classic motorbike

Triumph Bonneville 750  Motorbike
Triumph Bonneville 750 

Triumph Bonneville 750
Another Bonnieville 

Ducati Super bike
Italian Stallion Ducati 1098

morini 3 1/2
Morini 3 1/2

British Classic Motorbike Norton
British Classic - Norton 

Custom Motorbike
Cafe Racer's 

Friday 7 October 2016

Hong Kong Classic Vintage Car Show 2016 - Part 1 The Classics

Hong Kong Classic is a vintage car show celebrating the classic cars of various collectors in Hong Kong. It’s a 3 days event complete with a music concert, nice beer , food stalls and a lot of nice cars. The event was held at Central Harbour grounds with over 150 classic cars and bikes and it was a really fun event.
Rolls Royce Phantom V 1963
Rolls Royce Phantom V 1963
The Phantom V was designed as the replacement for the Silver Wrath and only 835 cars were made between 1959 to 1968 making them very rare. This car was owned by some of the most important people in the wold ranging from British Royalty, Queen Elizabeth to pop icon John Lenon who had a funky paint job done to his rolls.
Corvette C3 Stingray
In Love with the Corvette C3 Stingray
Shelby Cobra
Shelby Cobra a tiny roadster with a big V8
One of the most iconic race cars of the 60's with a combination of American muscle and European design the Cobra kicked ass! Only about 1000 cars were built by Carrol Shelby thus making it one of the most replicated cars of all time.
Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud
Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II Drophead 
Aston Martin DB5 , 007, bond car
Aston Martin DB5 - The Bond Car 
 The Aston Martin DB5 was designed by Italian coach builder Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera. The car was made famous by its appearance in the James Bond film Goldfinger in 1964.
James Bond Car, DB5

Napier Railton
Napier Railton built in 1933
The star of the show, The Napier Railton from Brooklands Museum in England fitted with a 24-liter Napier aircraft engine; this was one huge car !
Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow 
Hong Kong Classic Car Show

Part 2 coming soon 

Friday 30 September 2016

THINGS TO DO IN DUBAI- PART 2

Malls of Dubai

Dubai Mall - it is one of the largest malls in the world by total area. It has a ice rink, huge aquarium, small amusement park and also connected to the world’s tallest building the Burj Khalifa. You can spend an entire day and not cover the entire length of the mall. It is also home to the famous dancing fountains best viewed from top of the Burj.   
Mall of Dubai


Mall of Dubai

IBN BATTUTA

Mall Go shopping at the world’s largest themed mall, inspired by the travels of explorer Ibn Battuta, the mall has been divided into four courts. China court, Indian court, Persia court, Tunisia court and Andalusia court. The mall is not just good for shopping the décor of each court is worth seeing. The Persian court has a magnificent hand painted dome, a Lion fountain is the center piece of the Andalusia court and pyramids in the Egyptian court.
IBN BATTUTA Dubai
IBN BATTUTA Mall
IBN BATTUTA
IBN BATTUTA China Court
IBN BATTUTA Mall Dubai

Global Cuisine

With over 100 nationalities living in this amazing city Dubai has become a culinary paradise; a melting point of amazing cuisines. From the best of fine dining Michelin star restaurants to amazing street food, Dubai has it all. I had my first bite of sushi and ate camel meat the very first time while in Dubai.
Arabian Food Dubai
Arabian Bread and Grill

Shakespeare Dubai
Fish and Chips at Shakespeare Cafe 
Buddha Bar Dubai
Dinner Date at Buddha Bar 
Irish Village Dubai
Bangers, Mash and Beer at Irish Village 
sushi dubai
Yo Sushi 
trader vic's dubai
Awesome Cocktails at Trader Vic's 

Atlantis, The Palm

Is a stunning sea side resort in Palm Jumeirah in Dubai. For those of you who haven’t hear of Palm Jumeirah, it’s the artificially created island made in the shape of a giant palm. Atlantis is one of the most iconic hotels in the Emirates and it’s a must visit. Not everyone can afford to stay at this ultra-luxury resort but you can defiantly visit the resort, have a meal in one of the many restaurants, and check out the aquarium or even spend a day at the water park. If you book in advance you can get a double room for about 350 USD.
Atlantis dubai

Dubai Marina

Dubai Marina
Dubai photogrpahy
One place that is a must see is the beautiful Sheikh Zayed Mosque, unfortunately I did not have enough time to visit on my trip. Have a look at part of Things to Do in Dubai HERE