Taiwan, Six Years Later...

The main island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa (from Portuguese (Ilha) Formosa, meaning "beautiful (island)"), is located in East Asia off the coast of mainland China, southwest of the main islands of Japan but directly west of the end of Japan's Ryukyu Islands, and north-northwest of the Philippines. It is bound to the east by the Pacific Ocean, to the south by the South China Sea and the Luzon Strait, to the west by the Taiwan Strait and to the north by the East China Sea. The island is 394 kilometers (245 miles) long and 144 kilometers (89 miles) wide and consists of steep mountains covered by tropical and subtropical vegetation. (from en.wikipedia.org)

This was when my six years of containing the photographer's side of me started to leak and consumed me. I bought my Kodak Z7590 in an Electronic Store located in Nova, Ghuangfu Road in Hsin Chu, Taiwan. I was flying back and forth in Taiwan since May 2005 till the second quarter of 2007. The electronics gadget there is far cheaper than here in the Philippines. Take for example the Kodak Z7590 that time cost me ~12k NT$ which is approximately 20k Php. When I checked how much they are selling the same camera model here, it's about 30k Php. SinceI grabbed my first SLR like Camera, I started shooting out in my apartment, in the garden of my apartment and I even travelled up north for 4 hours to go to Taipei where I captured the photo of Taipei 101 shown above. I didn't even bother the cold December temperature to capture the sunset view from my apartment.

It was also in Taiwan where I bought my first DSLR. My Nikon D50. I want to thank http://www.dpreview.com/ for their reviews which guided me well in choosing my SLR and Ruth (try to visit her site http://www.pbase.com/reflectionsbyruth), a new found friend in a photo site (http://www.bytephoto.com/). She gave me a lot of tips in completing my SLR set. My DSLR destroyed all the barriers I had in my SLR-like camera. I got a better quality of photos in many ways like a cleaner ISO 800 shots and at longer shutter speed. I loved Nikon over Canon because of it's ergonomics, other than that I think the two manufacturer is almost the same in quality of photos delivered. Nikon D50 has a better noise response than any Canon SLRs and Nikon SLRs by the way. Again I got my Nikon D50 at a lower price in Taiwan than how much I will get it here in the Philippines.

Then my journey with my new SLR begins. I want to start my journey with my D50 buddy in Taiwan.

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Park

Taipei 101

A Drop of City

photo of the week in bytephoto.com

taken at HsinChu Park Taiwan from the Top