I've been in Malaysia and Singapore for a while. Here are some pictures of Kuala Lumpur and here are a few highlights of Singapore.

This page contains a comparison of the monochrome capabilities of three digital cameras at varying ISOs.

21 Dec 2010: Starling in the tree outside my window. Taken with the 'new-to-me' Nikon D2x and 300mm f/4 AF-S, I am highly impressed by the quality of images this camera can deliver at low ISO. Focus is fast and accurate, colours are great, and the camera is built like a tank. The newer D300 and D700 bodies may have better low-light capability and better LCDs, but this machine is hard to beat especially since second-hand copies in good condition are now below £500.

20 Dec 2010: Sunset in the Fractal Forest. Frost on both sides of the window pane provided the depth of field, and the sun setting behind lit up the scene.

19 Dec 2010: Trip to the Art Gallery. A sneaky snap of the Hockney gallery at Salts Mill, Salt Aire. Galleries don't like photographers, but this image is of the gallery and not the art work. The image was purposefully left crooked and a crackled effect overlay layer was added.

18 Dec 2010: A view from the Chevin, taken with the D700 and 35mm f/1.4 AI-S and hand stitched from four hand-held images. The manufacturers spend a lot of money trying to sell new lenses, but apart from auto-focus this thirty year 'old' design still delivers a top-rate performance. Individual pedestrians can be seen crossing the roads over a mile away in the town below. On a more important note, my visa application was successful yesterday. Unless the government changes the rules again, travelling in Europe may be possible soon!

12 Dec 2010: The remote camera was set up to shoot birds feeding on this stump. Low light levels meant slow shutter speeds and dozens of blurry wing patterns, but then this amusing pair arrived. There are more pictures, but I really must try to keep to the spirit of 'Catch of the Day'. Apart from bandwidth considerations, limiting oneself to a single photograph instills discipline, clarity, thinking and improvement on ones shooting.

06 Dec 2010: Stop moaning and ride - Part 2. Experience suggested that I better get out and see the Christmassy landscape before it disappears (usually to return in January or February). The mini road trip took me up to Hawes through Kettlewell and Buckden. It was a bracing minus 9 C in places, rising to a balmy minus 5 at lunchtime in the sun. The roads here were cleared properly and a pleasure to ride, although the tracks were slippery. The views - unsurpassed! Thank goodness for heated grips.

03 Dec 2010: Stop moaning about the weather and ride. Whilst many are taking a day off claiming they can't drive their cars to work, it is possible to get about. I am still riding road tyres (Tourances - claimed to be on-off but suck even on a grass verge) mainly because BMW want £25 a wheel to change the tyres and I don't feel like going through the mission of changing them for TKC80s in the snow. My top tips for riding a motorcycle in the snow are... here (and a reminder to myself for next year - I will forget most of these!)

01 Dec 2010: Photography in a blizzard...

Snow fell throughout the UK during the last few days of November. This was the scene out the back window this morning. I passed my Life in the UK citizenship test yesterday, and it was more of a challenge riding in to the test centre than writing it.