In an age where everything good should also be very quick, Mobile Phones are the perfect embodiment of our newfound impatience driving remarkable technological advances. The progression of the mobile phone camera from a blurry little addition to being the main feature today is astounding. It reflects how much we have come to expect from the nifty devices we carry in our pockets. With the phenomenal rise of mobile apps, and our burning desire to instantly share what we are seeing and experiencing means we demand more and more from our smartphones. I never imagined a day would come where I’d carry a proper tripod to shoot from a palm-sized phone. But that’s what I’ve been doing this past week.

Asus recently released a very sleek Zenfone 3 that’s built for photography. As a travel photographer, with features like Low Light, a competent Manual Mode and additional features like Super Resolution, I couldn’t wait to give it a try. After all, almost half the pictures I post to Instagram these days are taken from my Zenfone 2 Laser and I absolutely love the convenience of shooting and sharing on the go.

Let’s look at some of the features of Zenfone 3 camera as I hunt for secrets of Chennai, a city that never fails to surprise me with its eclectic history.

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The lighthouse at the far end of Marina beach was a fantastic place I found while looking for Chennai’s hidden secrets. At the edge of the fishermen’s colony, I waited to the heavy traffic and used an additional ND filter to take really long exposures of the bright night. Even though both the traffic lights and the lighthouse light was excessive, the ND filter I held in front of the camera helped in getting smooth and bright streaks. (For those wondering, I used a Hoya 8-stop ND filter in front of the mobile camera with my hand.)

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Royapuram, now at the periphery of Chennai has the distinction of having the first railway station of south India. It was opened in 1856 and is the oldest surviving railway station across the country today. Home to the fishermen community, Royapuram harbor and the beach side is filled with colorful fishing boats that set sail every morning and the coastline is littered with breakwaters that offer great views of the ocean and the land. It was hard to walk on the gigantic rocks but once I found flat rock at sunset, I set up my tripod to test the waters, figuratively!

To me, the biggest purpose of a Manual mode is to take long exposures. Using a 13-Second shutter speed I was able to get the lovely glaze over the ocean and I was able to capture the evening’s cool ambience by manually choosing a lower temperature instead of the warm colors the auto WhiteBalance was picking. Manual mode wasn’t a cursory addition; it actually gave me good control on how I wanted to capture the image.

The large aperture on the Zenfone 3 camera comes very handy. The f-stop goes as low as f2.0, which means there’s plenty of light reaching the sensor even at low lights. The sun was already down and the city lights were just flickering to life yet the camera was peacefully able to capture the scenery in a little less than 1 second.

Zoomed in view of the boy from the image above

{ Manual Mode ~ ISO 50 | f2.0| 10s }

The normal images resolution in Zenfone 3 is 23MP but it’s quadrupled for the images shot in Super Resolution mode. This creates incredibly detailed photos that retain as much information as possible and you can crop the parts later or you could just zoom in and look for the finer details. The picture in the inset to the left is a cropped version from the hi-res image above.

This is where things get really interesting. I was curious how it would behave in near black darkness. The upper limit of Zenfone 3’s shutter speed is 32Seconds, which means I could technically capture the galaxy with this on a clear night. Anyway, I couldn’t even see the waves clearly in front of me. It was here that I was genuinely blown away by the featured Sony IMX318 sensor’s capabilities. In that pitch darkness, the sensor was struggling no doubt but it was able to figure out the focus by itself and you could see the magic happening in the live view. There’s also the option to manually focus and I tried that with great results.

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While Chennai’s Marina Beach is the most popular, locals flocks to Elliot’s beach in Besant Nagar than the overcrowded Marina. By the time I arrived at the beach, it was already dark. There was no ambient light apart from the brightly lit Ice Cream cart. Noticing a hawker selling those colorful blinky toys, I set up the camera to get the light trails as well. To get full use out of Zenfone 3, I’d reckon a tripod is a must!

At the human powered carousel in Elliot’s beach, I was keen on getting a clear shot of the operator yet also wanted to capture the motion. Now this is something I would’ve achieved easily with a DSLR. Surprisingly, Zenfone 3 wasn’t far too behind in producing a similar result. With manual focusing and a decent exposure time of 1/8th of a second, I was able to get this shot.

At Chennai’s Santhome church– short for St. Thomas’ church– I played with the camera’s low light sensitivity well after sunset. I was still shooting in Manual mode but even in M mode you can have the camera select its own settings. So I set up the phone on the tripod and pressed the shutter. For those who do not want to bother with manual settings after dark can actually let the camera work its low light magic by just setting it up on a tripod. As you can see, the image quality is remarkable despite such low light conditions.

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Pulicat is a historic port town 60 kilometers away from Chennai on the edge of Pulicat Lake and Bay of Bengal. A thriving Dutch settlement for centuries, all that remains today of its past heritage are a rather well preserved Dutch cemetery and the lighthouse across the lake. The cemetery contains 22 tombs of various influential people and is now under the aegis of ASI. However, Pulicat has shot to fame due to the thousands of migratory birds, especially flamingoes that descend upon the brackish lake’s waters during winters.

The previous evening, I arrived at this lighthouse located at the village of Pulicat near Chennai well after dark. With a 10-second shutter speed, the camera was nicely able to autofocus and it captured the scene with almost no noise. Quite impressive for a smartphone!

We arrived at the cemetery just as the sun was setting and using the HDR Pro mode, I was able to capture both the colors in the sky and the details in the tombs. The image is quite realistic to begin with and has retained details across the dynamic range.

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Low light performance is difficult to achieve, yes, but so is handling excessive light. This aspect gets forgotten frequently in smartphones and whenever there is too much light, especially something like city lights, the whole image goes for a toss with blown-out highlights. While using the Manual mode to get the action in long exposure shots, am pleased with the lack of worrying highlights in scenes with dynamic ranges. 

Also, another observation is that I was shooting continuously in hopes of capturing at least one stationary person before he slips away. I found that the camera was quite quick to move from shot to shot and there wasn’t any lag, which made sure I didn’t miss the rare moment of people being still for mere seconds before disappearing into the crowd. 

Summing up the whole shooting experience in few words – Excellent low light capabilities and swift performance. Also, keeping in line with Asus Zenfone’s winning USP, I’d say great features that offer total value for money!

Wired to ignore what we have readily available to us, we travel far and wide in search of the elusive as well as the obvious. But what should be really obvious is the charms of our hometowns and our villages, the beauty of our ignored backyards.

I've made it abundantly clear over the years that Himalayas may be my first love but it was Western Ghats that inspired me to take the offbeat path. But what about Eastern Ghats? I grew up in the shadow of these forgotten mountain ranges along the east coast and lived amidst them for almost 75% of my life so far. Yet, it never occurred to me to go back to these mountains once I started travelling. I've explored nooks and crannies of the country but I have somehow found it very hard to return home and explore the surroundings I knew so well. 

I remember watching the green slopes of seven hills of Tirumala covered in low hanging rain clouds during monsoons from the roof of my school in Tirupati. I distinctly remember elatedly counting the number of cascades that would trickle down the slopes after a torrential downpour. Back in Vishakhapatnam, I remember watching streams form out of nowhere after every squall or downpour. I have known this all along yet these memories were tightly wrapped up in some obscure corner of my brain, refusing to surface every single time I marvelled at the Western Ghats. They are certainly not the same, but older than the Western Ghats, Eastern Ghats are unique have their own charm. We do not crave for duplicates anyway. 

Also read: Colors of Venkateswara - A Trek in the Eastern Ghats!

Of late, I've been taking time out to explore Andhra Pradesh and I'm happy to report that I'm pleasantly getting surprised at how much awesomeness is hiding in plain sight. There is very little zero tourist infrastructure to be fair but I'm having fun anyway. When a recent assignment required me produce images on a short notice, I decided to chase monsoons in the wonderful vicinities of city of destiny, aka Vishakhapatnam. 

Here's a glimpse of the amazing landscapes that welcomed me around Araku Valleys and Tatipudi Reservoir. 

Also, have you ever gone back to your roots to travel only to find something incredible?

It's been almost half a year already since I have packed my bags and left Bangalore for good to travel indefinitely. Since then I've been to fortunate enough to have seen some pretty amazing things and have experienced some unique cultures. I was planning to work on the go but with so many interesting things happening around me, it was really difficult to focus and write down stories as I had intended to. So I took a month's break at home after Nepal and finished up a lot of work that should allow me to travel for the next few months again.

Although, just before leaving home, Microsoft sent me a Lumia 830 to capture my travels and knowing how good the Lumia Cameras are, I jumped at the opportunity. I have only used a Samsung Galaxy mobile camera before and at best, it was just adequate. All these images are shot on Lumia and I'm in love with the 10MP camera. 

I will be hitting the road next week and will keep wandering for the next few months. There are some interesting things in store and I will announce as the plans gets confirmed. It's only fitting that before I begin traveling again, I look back on where I've been so far. Here are few glimpses of the amazing journey so far - from Ladakh to Kumaon and Arunachal to Nepal.

(All images shot on Lumia 830)

After the previous year's winter adventure of walking over frozen Zanskar, I never really thought I'd go back to that freezing land again. But an opportunity to track the ghost of the mountains was just too good pass upon. So, one freezing February morning I landed back in Leh. As it happens, Ladakh was the first place I went to after embracing a nomadic life. Ladakh is the only place I've come closest to calling home, I've been there 5 times already and without a doubt I'll be returning again. That's my happy place, apparently. 

I spent almost 2 weeks taking shelter under the roof of the world, witnessed my first ever proper snowfall which turned Leh into a magical dreamland in white overnight. I saw a glimpse of the ghost and ran into the amazing Dosmoche festival, a festival that marks the end of winter and welcomes spring. Ladakh, as it turns out, was the perfect way to begin a new chapter in my life as a nomad. 

Having trekked a lot in the Indian Himalayas, I thought I had seen the best of it and that no other place could be as amazing as this. But I couldn't have been more wrong. Nepal blew my mind and I didn't even trek! I should've expected nothing less from a country that has a lion's share of all the biggest mountains in the world. And the diversity was no less either. From the jungles of Chitwan to the higher reaches of Himalayas, one could easily spend years lost in the country. This time, I could only spend few weeks in Chitwan and around Pokhara but I am surely going to return to Nepal, to spend a lot more time and to trek a lot despite the high costs(which are totally justified btw). 

Assam always held a special fascination for me, but that was mostly because of the monster river Brahmaputra that ram amok in the monsoons yet inspired awe among others. But I had little idea on how rich the state was, biodiversity wise. I saw marshlands full of birds, forests full of amazing wildlife, tea gardens full of fireflies and on the whole, left the place more amazed that I thought possible. And yes, it was a whirlwind trip so I will be returning here as well. ;)

This was my first assignment as a photographer, I travelled along with a writer for one of India's leading travel magazines to cover Bhatkal as a destination. I was more excited about going on assignment as a photographer than the place, because this being in Karnataka, I thought I wouldn't really be surprised much. But what a surprise this place turned out to be, we hiked to a giant waterfall, explored some ancient yet little known ruins, got drenched in heavy downpour and had a great time in general. With travel, there's really no knowing what awaits you!

I am not much into property reviews as a blogger, but when Kosi Valley Retreat invited me, couldn't really pass on the opportunity because of they said the property is situated in an obscure valley with amazing views, hikes and rides around. That one week happened to be one of my best times in foothills of Himalayas. I never really thought much of the valleys hidden below the mighty snow capped peaks but this trip taught me a good lesson that the valleys are just as fascinating as the mountains.

This week in remote Arunachal was one of the challenges I was so glad to have taken. Spending a week with the Apatanis photographing their unique Myoko festival pushed me a lot out of my comfort zone and I think I might have a good body of work finally. Like I've said many times before, this is the exactly the kind of work I want to be doing much more in the coming months and this happened to be a very good step in the right direction.

So that was my very satisfying first half of the year in travels.