Chingay Parade 2011, Singapore

The word “chingay” is from the Hokkien dialect, meaning “the art of masquerade”. Hokkien dialects are spoken in southern Taiwan and by many overseas Chinese throughout Southeast Asia.

The festival began as a neighbourhood parade with only Chinese elements in 1973. Today, the Chingay Parade has evolved to be the grandest street and floats parade in Asia, showcasing the rich, vibrant multi-culturalism of Singapore and exciting cultures all over the world.

The parade takes place on two evenings next to the Singapore flyer. I went there twice to catch some shots of the diverse people and costumes. Although there were thousands of people the festival and atmosphere was without stress and squeezing crowds. This is one – beside many others – of the positive aspects I noticed in Asian countries.

Botanic Gardens, Orchad Road and Chingay 2011, Singapore at EveryTrail

Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

The Marina Bay Sands is a luxury hotel with 2500 rooms and suites. It includes a SkyPark at the top of the three towers with an 150 meter infinity swimming pool, the world’s largest outdoor pool at 200-meter height.

It is one of the most complex structure ever built with distinctive sloping towers as steep as 26 degrees by internationally acclaimed architect Moshe Safdie. If you are interested watch the 10 minute video of Moshe Safdie which was part of the competition submission to the government of Singapore.

And I was not the only photographer that night…

The SkyPark is open to the public and from there you have a 360 degrees view of Singapore. Unfortunately the infinity pool is for hotel guests only. However the rooms are not that expensive as you might think. A night in a double room is about 240 euros.

Shanghai by Night

View to Pudong

NightGlow at Schwendisee, Ballontage Toggenburg

The 6th International Ballooning day’s Toggenburg were between Friday morning the 25th and Sunday 27th September 2009 at Alp Sellamatt above Alt St. Johann. The weather conditions were OK and Hot Air Balloons from round the world enchanted the sky in the valley of Toggenburg. We went for the famous NightGlow at the Lake Schwendi. Twelve Hot Air Balloons around the lake are “dancing” and glowing in harmony to the music.

Testing the Canon EF 180mm f/3.5 L USM Macro Lens on the Canon 5D Mark II

The big advantage compared to the Canon 100m Macro is that you don’t have to be that close for a 1:1 shot. With this lens it’s easy to shoot insects like dragonflies or butterflies because you can be at a distance of about 0.5 m. Below are some example shots. As you can see the blurry background is perfect…

Arosa ClassicCar 2009

The Arosa ClassicCar, a international car race from Langwies to Arosa was over the weekend of  10. to 13. September 2009. It is also called the “Monaco of the mountains”. It has grown in recent years, and is a event known across Switzerland and provides many highlights.
The event is listed in the national sports calendar (auto sport Switzerland) and in the international sports calendar of the FIA (Federation International de l’Automobile). Every year around 10 ‘ 000 spectators are expected.

We started at 7am to get to Arosa before the first race starts. The last part of the way to Arosa is the actual race track so we got a feeling of the race itself. Below are some impressions of this day.

More pictures are in the gallery.

Testing the MP-E 65mm on the Canon 5D Mark II

These are the first images I took with the new Canon MP-E 65mm lens. I read a lot about it and how difficult it is to focus because of the very shallow depth of field. And I must admit it is not that easy as I thought. Some pictures were taken with the MR-14EX Macro ringflash because this lens needs a lot of light. All pictures were taken without a tripod.

Panorama at the Säntis

This is one of my panoramas I took on the summit of Säntis. It is a merge of 14 landscape pictures.

 Click here for the large version.

Sunrise at Säntis Summit

This time in August the sunrise is at about 6:30 am. So we started at 5 to be ready for this event. The Mount Säntis is the highest peak in the Appenzell region (2502m).  From the summit you can see six countries and the view is breathtaking!

The easiest way to reach the top is by the comfortable cable car. It leaves every 30 minutes.
After taking lots of pictures of the sunrise we had a nice breakfast in the panorama restaurant.

The team (aka Members of the Zoom-Photoclub):

Impressions of the Fürstenfest 2009

More pictures are in the gallery