Being one of the top 10 places to visit in Malaysia, Melaka or Malacca is one city you must not miss to go if you ever have the chance to visit Malaysia. At about 150 km south of Kuala Lumpur, Malacca is one of the 4 heritage sites of Malaysia inscribed by UNESCO. Featuring tremendous historical architectures and cultures inherited by the Portuguese, Dutch and British, Malacca is also a perfect destination for travel photography.

Spending a holiday in Malacca city centre is especially relaxing with a lot of fun. Most of the travel attractions in Malacca are concentrated in “Melaka Raya” or Malacca city centre. What you need to do is to  grab a camera in your hand and start strolling down streets after streets in the city and fire photo shots after shots.

First tourist spot to visit in Malacca is the red architecture of Stadthuys Square. It was constructed by Dutch in 1650 as residence of Governor with the Christ Church next to it, and is now the “Museum of History and Ethnography“. It’s best to capture the colourful buildings and fountain with the morning sun shining towards it.

Behind Stadthuys Square is the ruins of Fort A Famosa and the abandoned St. Paul church on top of St. Paul Hill, built by Portuguese nearly 500 years ago in 1511.

Beside the church stands a statue built in 1952 to commemorate the famous spanish jesuit, the late  St. Francis Xavier.

Hungry? Hire a special bicycle trishaw decorated with flowers to take you to Jonker Street not far away for the special chicken ball rice. After the lunch, take a slow walk down the Jonker Street which is also famous for its antique goods, souvenirs, local street foods, and beers at bars.

Take plenty of photos on Malacca’s heritage architecture as you walk. Also check out cultures and foods of the local Baba Nyonya community. Further down at Temple Street, Cheng Hoon Teng Temple is one of the oldest functioning Buddha temples in Malaysia and grandest temple in Malacca.

When it comes to evening time, no better place to have a seafood dinner other than the Portuguese Settlement, especially grill fish at riverside. From there, you can experience the culmination of Portuguese culture in its full splendour and colours.

This would end a perfect getaway trip to Malacca with full colours. – Travel Feeder, your ultimate guide to Malaysia.

Now is your turn Florence! I’m finally updating the travel photos of my previous travel to Florence, Italy. Following the introduction of this beautiful city of Tuscany last post, here is another snapshot that I took in Florence.

Some EXIF info: Photo taken with my Nikon D60 and my old Tamron SP10-24mm  Ultra Wide Angle lens. Shutter speed 1/320s and Aperture F9.0. Focus distance was set to 10mm (with both sides being cropped). ISO 100. Auto White Balance. No flash fired and no exposure being compensated with Matrix metering.

What captured in the photo was the main entrance door arch of the Duomo, the highest structure being constructed in Florence, which shows the height of the entrance. It also demonstrates the brilliant craftsmanship of ancient Roman civilisation during the Renaissance era.

For more exciting photos of Florence tourists sights, subscribe to my RSS feed or keep watching this space for more updates! – Travel Feeder, your ultimate photo travel guide to Europe

Apart from Venice, the next Italian city that I found myself falling for is the art, historical and cultural capital of Italy, Florence. One of the UNESCO’s World Heritage Site, Florence is the capital city of Tuscany region in the central Italy, and it is much adorable than and a far cry from the rest of Italian cities with its rich historical and cultural heritage. Florence is known as the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance with its strong influence in ancient Italian art and architecture. Two of the greatest sculptors in Renaissance era, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vince, were born in here.

Florence is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in the world with River Arno splits Florence into new and historic sections of the city. Spending at least a few days and staying in one of the luxury villa in Florence is surely a great idea to enjoy your vacation here. When we first arrived at its main rail station of Santa Maria Novella (SMN), and walked out from the station, we were already in the heart of historic Florence. All within walking distance, city attractions could be easily explored one after another. Among them, the Duomo Cathedral is definitely the dominant icon, being the highest building in Florence. Climbing up its 460 steps of spiral staircase to the tower top, we had the best panoramic view of the Florence cityscape. Next up would be the Accademia Gallery. I was more than willing to queue up for 45 minute just to get in there. Why? Because the original David, the greatest sculpture done by my favorite sculptor Michelangelo, was housed inside there!

By sitting at one of the many open air cafes at Piazza Della Signoria, not far from the Duomo, travelers not only could see many of those famous sculptures around the square, they can also do some people watching (which was in fact a local culture). A replica statue of David could also be found here.

For my wife who loves leather bags and wallets, San Lorenzo open market is a ‘must-go’ market. We spent hours in there to buy some of those high quality local leather products such as shoes, bags, wallet that preciously made in Firenze.

In the evening, we walked along the River Arno, the main river of florence and Tuscany. We came to the Vecchio Bridge, the oldest and most famous bridge that spanning across the River Arno. There are shops selling jewelries, arts and souvenirs. In the evening under the setting sun, it just looked marvelous in yellow colour.

When the night fell, we took a bus up to the hill top at Piazzale Michelangelo. It is the best viewpoint to Florence city skyline. I set up my DSLR onto a tripod and shot endlessly! Another replica of the David statue could also be found at the Piazzale. Check out other the frugal ways to explore Florence during weekend.

Florence is also the starting location for visiting other highland cities of Tuscany, such as Sienna and wine producing area such as Chianti for the Chianti Classico wine. If you are a wine lover like me, staying in one of the Tuscany villa and hopping the vineyard after vineyard for some wine tasting can surely let your hair down.

In fact, Florence offers much more than that. The local foods always make my mouth water! I couldn’t help but to try the local cow stripes, gelato, as well as the local Florence steak dinner, with a glass of Italian Chianti Classico wine as well as some breads with local Extra Virgin Olive Oil. – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel guide to Italy

If you haven’t submitted your favourite Food or Fashion travel photos to Airasia’s Travel 360° onboard magazine, hurry up! Today is the last day for submission to the first of 3 rounds of photo contest which runs from January until March to be in the running to win free Airasia flights and accommodations to Hong Kong!

I’ve submitted a couple to try my luck. Why don’t you submit yours if you think it’s much better than the one above? For more information, check out the official Travel 360° contest page. Who knows? You could be the one who win! – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photography guide

I’ve been talking about this lens and showing too many photos taken with it since I used it for my travel 3 months ago, but I’ve never posted any review of this Nikkor 10-24mm Ultra wide Angle lens. Since I love it so much for travel, why not? So here is the short review of this Nikon’s best ever DX format ultra wide angle lens, after using it for 3 months. This is not a review of a new product from Nikon. Nikkor 10-24mm UWA lens have been around in the market for more than 2 years now, but it is still the latest UWA lens for DX-format DSLR from Nikkor until today.

If you are looking for a Ultra Wide Angle lens for your Nikon DX-format DSLR, Nikkor 10-24mm is the best you can get, in terms of compatibility. You can rest assure of its compatibility to your Nikon DSLR since Nikkor is from Nikon itself. Some of you may argue that image sharpness, distortion and speed of focusing are more important in choosing a UWA lens, but those who have read my story on the problematic Sigma 10-20mm F3.5 UWA lens will definitely agree with me. There are sharper, less distorted and faster third-party UWA lenses around in the market, like the Sigma or Tokina, but what’s the point if they can’t focus accurately and reliably with my Nikon D7000?

I should extend the title of this write up further to be “My points of view towards the Nikkor 10-24mm UWA lens, as a photo hobbyist cum traveler, after a 3-month-usage“.

Specification Highlight of Nikkor 10-24mm f 3.5-4.5G ED AFS

A solidly built zoom lens for DX-format DSLR, Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED variable Aperture ultra wide angle lens offer an ultra wide 110° picture angle, which is ideal for travel photography to capture dramatic landscapes, landmarks, architecture such as cathedrals and castles and more. I used it to capture travel attractions from a much closer distance, just be able to be in front of huge crowds. With two ED glass and three hybrid aspherical lens elements, Nikon Super Integrated Coating (SIC) and the exclusive Nikon Silent Wave Motor, this AF-S DX NIKKOR 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED lens delivers the exceptional image quality and fast handling that defines NIKKOR optics. It works with all Nikon DSLR, with or without built-in focusing motors (good news for D3100 and D5100 users).

Nikkor 10-24mm UWA lens can focus as close as 0.8 feet from the object, which adds flexibility and versatility to its usage that users could shoot some close up images with it (see the sample photos below). Similar to other latest Nikkor lensese, it also include a MA /A focus mode switch so I can overwrite the Auto Focus mechanism by simply turning the focusing ring without needing to switch to Manual Focus mode. Also the Internal Focusing (IF) design allows faster, smoother autofocusing and eliminates changes in lens barrel length for consistent handling. If you care about bogeh, eventhough UWA lens can’t produce much shallow Depth-Of-Field images, this Nikkor also offer 7-blades-diaphram which can render more natural out-of-focus image appearances.

Usefulness in Travel Photography

How about its usage? If you are an avid traveler who loves to capture attractive and memorable scenes on your travel, you’ll need one of this. I’ve been using ultra wide angle lens for more than half of my time on travel. I used my old Tamron SP10-24 for most of my photos on both of my Europe travels last 2 years. To further enhance my travel photos, I bought this Nikkor just before my trip to Beijing last year, and it rocked!

Taken with my Nikon D7000 attached with Tamron SP10-24mm UWA lens, on my travel to Switzerland.

Taken with my Nikon D7000 attached with Nikkor 10-24mm UWA lens, on my travel to Beijing.

The advantages of an ultra wide angle lens include its ability to capture the whole scene without having to move too much away from the object until there are too many obstacles from other buildings or visitors. Capturing the whole Taihe hall of Forbidden City in the above photo would not be possible without the Nikkor 10-24mm as I was standing at the edge of staircase down behind me.

Another advantage of using ultra wide angle lens on travel is its short focal length of only 10mm which enabled me to capture night scenes with ease, albeit having to use slow shutter speed of only 1/50s in above photo. I experienced in taking sharp photos with shutter speed of as slow as 1/10s! This is very useful if you don’t wish to lug your heavy tripod for whole day of travel!

Here are 2 sample photos taken with Nikkor 10-24mm from 0.8 feet, with both end of its zoom range. It shows the ability of Nikkor 10-24mm lens to capture close-up image of an object with reasonable size to fill up your DSLR sensor. Of course, you won’t get 1:1 reproduction as those macro lenses.

Eventhough this chewing gum was shot from only 0.8 feet away, ultra wide angle lens managed to create extra spaciness artificially.

By zooming to the longest focal length of 24mm, you can still capture a nice close up image of an object, with sufficient Depth of Field that is most welcomed in macro shots.

Performance if compared with Tamron SP10-24mm

If I were to compare this Nikkor with my old Tamron SP10-24mm, with the same variable Aperture range of f3.5-4.5 and is already great for travel photography, Nikkor 10-24mm produces images a tad sharper especially at the centre, with less CA distortion, and in a much faster way.

In terms of sharpness, Nikkor 10-24mm ultra wide angle lens is very sharp especially the centre of the frame. The sharpness will only fall off slightly at the far left end corner of the frame as seen in the above photo. Having said that, the Chromatic Aberration issue found in most other ultra wide angle lens is very well controlled for this Nikkor’s best DX-format UWA lens, which made the image softness issue at the corner seemed negligible. Most importantly, it focuses as fast as thunder and as accurate as pin point. This is much better than other manufacturer like Sigma 10-20mm f3.5, which eventhough produces slightly sharper image, but with only 50% focus accuracy (as experienced with 3 units from a local authorised dealer).

Conclusion

If you are a Nikon DSLR user who love to travel and take photos, and are willing to invest some decent money on a decent ultra wide angle lens, this Nikkor 10-24mm f3.5-4.5G ED AFS lens is definitely your best choice, due to the facts that it is 100% compatible with any of your Nikon DSLR and is among the best in terms of performance and built quality. – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photography guide