No Compacts Allowed! Photowalk: Chinatown

The most recent photowalk that the No Compacts Allowed! Facebook group went on was to Chinatown in the evening this past Sunday. The plan was to meet up at the Millenium Gate on Pender next to Tinsletown and then wander around. We didn’t have much of an itinerary but it was fun nonetheless.

The turn out wasn’t bad considering the heavy dark clouds hang over Vancouver and threatened to rain but in attendance was of course myself, Brennan, Scott, Joel and Pedro. It was good to meet new people and wander around parts of the Vancouver that I typically don’t venture into.

So we headed up Pender towards Veteran’s Park at Cambie and Hastings. All my shots were pretty much hand-held at either ISO1600 or ISO800 using my Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II lens.

We wandered back towards Chinatown and hung out at the entrance to the Dr Sun Yat Sen Gardens. Here Brennan brought out some cheapo sparklers and tried to write his name with them.

The rain slowly started and we wandered towards False Creek and took photos of Science World, err I mean Telus World of Science. The area sure looks different with all the 2010 Olympic venues that have been built in the area.

So overall we spent a couple hours wandering the streets and taking photos. Night photography is fun as it makes you think about your shots in a different way. If you do want to do night photography make sure you can stabilize your camera on a tripod or some other sturdy surface. If you can use a timer for the shutter use it to help reduce camera vibrations on longer exposures.

If you’re interested in coming out on one of our Photowalks the next one will be during the daytime. We talked about having it Fort Langley next. Don’t worry, if you don’t have a Digital SLR and just a point and shoot, we still welcome you to come out and join us. It’s fun to walk around with a bunch of other photographers and learn some new tricks.