Yesterday was fun. Tracy and I decided to go for a cable car ride from Tung Chung to LanTau Island. I booked our tickets online and we saved close to 100 HK dollars by getting them online. It was a bit expensive, but I think it was worth it. We did it on a Friday, so there weren’t many people there. Tracy and I enjoy riding cable cars and this one is a pretty long ride. The sun was out but it wasn’t too strong. It was a beautiful day. As we entered the line to get on the cable car, my camera gave me the first of our unexpected surprises. It was not focusing. Both manual and auto focusing modes were not working. I played with it and shot close to 10 out of focus pictures. I knew it wasn’t user error, but nothing seemed to be working.
Finally the Lens Decided to Work
I have never had that happen before. The lens had not been used in maybe a year. Topically, I use my faster lens for video shooting. It seems that this 14 to 140 ( 28 -280mm equivalent) decided not to work. Whatever the reason, I am glad it finally worked. I didn’t bring any backup lens with me. Of course, the advantage of a super zoom lens is convenience. I didn’t have to change lens. This one lens covered everything. The disadvantage is background isolation. With a m43 camera, you are already on a smaller sensor than many other sensor formats. Accepting an F4 as the largest lens opening is definitely not ideal. There were times I finish I brought along another lens option, but over all I was happy with the results of this one lens.
Nei Tak Shan Trail
On the way up the mountain in the cable car, we saw people hiking. I was a little envious. Wow, that looks like fun I thought, but also I was subconsciously thinking Tracy won’t want to do that. Next on our list of unexpected surprises has to be the Nei Tak Shan Trail. After getting off the cable car, we walked around the market area and came to a building called Cable Car Discover Centre. Inside a kind man met us and showed us a physical display of the area mountains that actually lit up. He talked about 3 separate trails. The longest one was about 5 hours both of us immediately agree that we didn’t have time for that one. But we ended up saying yes to the 2 and half hour one. After putting a hand over a sensor to select the second trail (Nei Tak Shan Trail). A white line began to form around the mountain showing the path we would take and an LCD screen showed video footage of the trail being hiked. It was cool. Here are some pictures of the cable car ride.
Tracy went into planning mode and suggested that we get some food from the nearby Subway. I said okay. I like Subway. So we ordered and started out walk to the trail. The kind man said we should walk towards the Big Buddha and follow the Wisdom Path, so we did. Then we came to a large opening with a pavilion. We sat down there to eat our Subway sandwiches. It was all very laid back.
The kind man saw my camera and said I know you will want to take lots of pictures. He told me there were birds to take pictures of. I missed the birds. I took over 500 pictures and deleted about half of them. These were some of my favorites.
We recommend the cable car ride and the Nei Tak Shan trail.
It looks like a wonderful day!