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| Sunset Photo Contest: Who submitted the best photo? |
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| Total Votes : 6 |
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chuckm
over 300 messages posted
Joined: 11 Apr 2005
Posts: 343
Location: Vancouver, BC
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 Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 8:12 pm Post subject: Romantic Tropical Sunsets, Lamma-style |
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The current small group of sunset photos in the Lamma blog makes me think that Lammaites (especially folks in YSW) are particularly well provided with spectacular views as the sun goes down. The stuff of romantic movies!
Perhaps it's been done here before, but I'd like to suggest a contest to see who can capture the most spectacular sunset. No photo touchups should be permitted, although image cropping would of course be ok. It would be added incentive for those of us who dream of living there some day 
There are those who would say that capturing sunsets is dead simple, but I would beg to differ ... capturing spectacular sunsets takes good timing, ideal conditions, a decent camera and good taste in composition (so that lets me out).
Just a thought from afar.
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Guy MIller
Over 1,000 messages posted
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 1156
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 8:47 pm Post subject: |
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Oh dear, this could open a whole new can of worms - now you'll have Guy Miller posting sunset pictures all over the place.
If you have an image of banks of photographers lining the shoreline & hilltops of Lamma, think you'll be mistaken. Think I'll be up there on my own, but sure you'll still get flooded with photos. Even though I haven't really done many scenic pics before.
The prize for the winner ? I'll donate a bathroom & toilet set if I've got any left, but I'll win anyway as the sole entrant, so it's a bit of a mute point.
Great idea, lets go for it !!!!
BTW, nice pics from L-B.
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Lamma-Gung
Site Admin, Webmaster, Lamma-zine Editor
Joined: 01 Aug 2002
Posts: 5631
Location: Yung Shue Wan
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 9:05 pm Post subject: Re: Romantic Tropical Sunsets, Lamma-style |
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| chuckm wrote: | | There are those who would say that capturing sunsets is dead simple, but I would beg to differ ... capturing spectacular sunsets takes good timing, ideal conditions, a decent camera and good taste in composition. |
Well, I beg to differ.
All it takes is being at the right place at the right time, switching on your camera, setting it to "Sunset" mode, pointing it in the general direction of the sun and pressing that little button at the top of the camera...
Voila, award-winning sunset shot!
At least that's what the camera adverts want you to believe, to get you to rush out and upgrade your camera to the latest Bontempi Gigapix Fandango i-Bamboozler with 88 automatic sunset and night modes...
Good idea to run a sunset photo contest. I've organised a My Lamma Photo Contest about two years ago. But even though there were many sponsored prizes (some of them up to HK$2,000), expert judges and several months of ads & promotion, I got very little response from Lammaites. So I'm not too eager to organise it myself again on a grand scale.
But actual SUNRISE shots are much rarer as few Lammaites get up that early. I shot just a handful myself over the years (see attached photo), but tons of SUNSET photos, a few of them half-decent:
Lamma-rama 2002; Sha Po Village Nights
But this forum is a good place to run a little contest in a simple & informal way. You're all welcome to post your best sunset and sunrise shot! Or email them to Lamma-Gung@Compunicate.com for posting! After getting a number of pictures, we'll simply run a poll to determine the winners!
Let us see YOUR sunrise/sunset photos, shot on Lamma itself or from outside Lamma but showing the Island in the shot! I'll find prices for the best one in each category!
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Last edited by Lamma-Gung on Sun Jun 26, 2005 9:09 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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chuckm
over 300 messages posted
Joined: 11 Apr 2005
Posts: 343
Location: Vancouver, BC
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Guy MIller wrote: | | Think I'll be up there on my own, but sure you'll still get flooded with photos. |
Yes! Flood away! 
(says he who is rather envious of good photo skills) . Besides, it'll get English forum traffic moving again 
Given that it would seem you can get decent views even from a YSW bar or two, wouldn't that keep you from getting too lonely as you soldier on? Can one capture good sunsets through a decent alcoholic haze?
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Lamma-Gung
Site Admin, Webmaster, Lamma-zine Editor
Joined: 01 Aug 2002
Posts: 5631
Location: Yung Shue Wan
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 9:17 pm Post subject: |
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To avoid another flood of pictures from Uncle Guy, even surpassing the record subtropical thunderstorms of the last few weeks, there's an obvious rule:
The moderator of the forum and the poll cannot participate.
As the official moderator of this "Pictures & Movies" forum, Uncle Guy, I'm sorry that you're not eligible. And I should not be eligible myself either as I'm sponsoring a price as well.
So who else is left here shooting sunrises & sunsets? Anybody? ANYBODY???
Oh my, I might have killed this contest before it even got started, by disqualifying myself and Uncle Guy...
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chuckm
over 300 messages posted
Joined: 11 Apr 2005
Posts: 343
Location: Vancouver, BC
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 9:40 pm Post subject: Re: Romantic Tropical Sunsets, Lamma-style |
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| Lamma-Gung wrote: | | But actual SUNRISE shots are much rarer as few Lammaites get up that early. |
Gosh, I must bring my homebrew camera software and hardware with me when I spend time on Lamma. It automatically calculates sunrise times and makes time-lapse movies (and would work equally well for sunsets). I live on an east-facing hill and get occasional gorgeous sights as the sun comes up over the mountains. Morning fog can be particularly photogenic. The attached does NOT qualify for the contest, but perhaps will prompt others to try.
Ok, having stirred the pot ... how about photos of Rainbows? Lightning storms? ... but I digress ...
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Lamma-Gung
Site Admin, Webmaster, Lamma-zine Editor
Joined: 01 Aug 2002
Posts: 5631
Location: Yung Shue Wan
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 10:00 pm Post subject: Re: Romantic Tropical Sunsets, Lamma-style |
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| chuckm wrote: | makes time-lapse movies
Ok, having stirred the pot ... how about photos of Rainbows? Lightning storms? |
Well, that would be home page-worthy, as I've NEVER seen a rainbow or lightning photo taken on Lamma or featuring Lamma!
Anybody got one? How about any of Lamma's many professional photogs?
Sunrise/sunset time lapse movies! Great idea! I'll have to try that very soon as my camera can do time lapse shots. Then it's simple to collect them into a GIF animation. Where's my tripod?
Another nice challenge would be a 360-degree sunrise/sunset panoramic shot from high ground. Give me a few days...
While you're waiting (with bated breath?), here's a 180-degree sunset shot, stitched together from about 5 photos, via auto-timer and placing the camera simply on the seawall of the Sampan seafood restaurant right on the beach.
The photo was featured in my Lamma-zine Blog, Dec 7, 2004 and proves that Uncle Guy and I are NOT the only Lamma sunset photographers!
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My personal favourite touch is that it Included tourists watching the sunset and a fellow amateur photographer.
Click here or below for L and XL version.
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Last edited by Lamma-Gung on Sun Jun 26, 2005 10:17 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Guy MIller
Over 1,000 messages posted
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 1156
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 10:07 pm Post subject: |
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Hmmmmmph, can I resign?
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Lamma-Gung
Site Admin, Webmaster, Lamma-zine Editor
Joined: 01 Aug 2002
Posts: 5631
Location: Yung Shue Wan
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 10:20 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, you can resign and preserve your honour & dignity (at least what's left of it).
There's a prize to pay for being a moderator and having all this awesome power within your own forum as the head honcho!
But you're welcome to post your sunrise/sunset photos outside the contest in this forum, like myself above. But not more than ten photos, please? 
OK, lunchtime! Looks like it might be another potentially amazing sunset today. Blue sky, bright sunshine, scattered high Cumulus clouds, ideal conditions... But then, you never know till it actually happens...
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Last edited by Lamma-Gung on Sun Jun 26, 2005 10:24 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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chuckm
over 300 messages posted
Joined: 11 Apr 2005
Posts: 343
Location: Vancouver, BC
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 10:24 pm Post subject: Re: Romantic Tropical Sunsets, Lamma-style |
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| Lamma-Gung wrote: | | Another nice challenge would be a 360-degree sunrise/sunset panoramic shot from high ground. Give me a few days... |
I tried something like that and discovered how rotten a picture-stitcher I am. I never could figure out how to eliminate the seams caused by changes in colour balance as the camera position was changed.
BTW, there are two full-arc rainbows (i.e. full semicircles) in this composite ... the left-hand arcs are almost invisible. Taken at sunset from the front doorstep. Not Lamma, so not eligible for greatness
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Ingmar
Joined: 04 Jan 2005
Posts: 86
Location: Location, Location.
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 11:07 pm Post subject: |
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| The best I could do in a couple of minutes. |
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chuckm
over 300 messages posted
Joined: 11 Apr 2005
Posts: 343
Location: Vancouver, BC
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 11:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Ingmar wrote: | | The best I could do in a couple of minutes. |
Ok, I'll byte ... how did you do that? I tried smudging the seams using Gimp, but that only made it look worse. I'm obviously photo-retouch-challenged.
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Ingmar
Joined: 04 Jan 2005
Posts: 86
Location: Location, Location.
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 11:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Photoshop- twisting reality for all of us! |
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Ingmar
Joined: 04 Jan 2005
Posts: 86
Location: Location, Location.
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 12:00 am Post subject: |
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| Here's a few of mine, though not strictly of Lamma! |
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Guy MIller
Over 1,000 messages posted
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 1156
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 1:11 am Post subject: |
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Ok - I want to stay as moderator - no way I can compete
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Lamma-Gung
Site Admin, Webmaster, Lamma-zine Editor
Joined: 01 Aug 2002
Posts: 5631
Location: Yung Shue Wan
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:29 am Post subject: Re: Romantic Tropical Sunsets, Lamma-style |
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| chuckm wrote: | | discovered how rotten a picture-stitcher I am. I never could figure out how to eliminate the seams caused by changes in colour balance as the camera position was changed. |
You can use various Photoshop functions to make the stitches less obvious, but the best way is not to need colour corrections at all. You need to shoot all the photos of the entire panorama with completely fixed camera settings, no automatic brightness, colour balance and other adjustments for each photo; same settings for ALL photos.
Then when you paste the photos together, there are no differences in brightness, colour balance, tone, contrast or anything else, as they have all been shot with identical settings, simple!
You either set them manually for the first photo or let the camera set them automatically for the first picture. Then freeze these settings for all the other shots in the same panorama, using the same ones each time.
Many new digital cameras have a "Panorama" scene mode which basically does this for you, even giving you some visual help in the viewfinder to make sure you get a good overlap and match between neighbouring photos.
And then there's special software for stitching panoramic photos together fully automatically, even vertically and in a grid. Just select the photos in the right sequence and click go ==> instant panorama!
Let me demonstrate with a panorama shot at the ferry pier this afternoon. Just a few minutes...
I missed the sunset today, unfortunately, as I got stuck in a bar after late lunch till after sunset, on a Monday! Yes, life on Lamma can be really tough...
But this is NOT my usual routine on a weekday, I hasten to add! I call it "research" with some long-time Lamma residents and I got several good new ideas and leads for Lamma-zine Blog stories...
And now I have to sit at these computer till midnight to finish my work for today and prepare for two meetings tomorrow morning in town...
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chuckm
over 300 messages posted
Joined: 11 Apr 2005
Posts: 343
Location: Vancouver, BC
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 7:49 am Post subject: Re: Romantic Tropical Sunsets, Lamma-style |
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| Lamma-Gung wrote: | | Many new digital cameras have a "Panorama" scene mode which basically does this for you |
*Sigh* ... it doesn't have a 'freeze settings' mode, so I guess it's time for me to toss my 4-year-old digicam already!
It eats batteries too quickly anyway 
| ...and wrote: | | ... unfortunately, as I got stuck in a bar after late lunch till after sunset, on a Monday! Yes, life on Lamma can be really tough... |
My heart goes out to you, living such a terribly deprived existence. 
.... (that's 'deprived' spelled with an 'i')
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Guy MIller
Over 1,000 messages posted
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 1156
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 5:04 pm Post subject: |
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L-B - maybe it's time you changed the "Lamma.com.hk" header & used one of yr glorious panorama shots 
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Lamma-Gung
Site Admin, Webmaster, Lamma-zine Editor
Joined: 01 Aug 2002
Posts: 5631
Location: Yung Shue Wan
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 5:47 pm Post subject: |
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That's a pretty good idea!
But I hope that somebody else will come up with a better panorama shot in this contest, for use as a header on this entire website?
Or I could change the header photo monthly or even weekly?
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zep
Flora & Fauna Moderator
Joined: 12 Aug 2002
Posts: 788
Location: Tai Peng
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Just to keep the pot boiling, typical "romantic" HKF ride home |
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