[Daily Photo] Cuiheng Pagoda 翠亨閣

This is Cuiheng Pagoda in "228 Peace Memorial Park", Taipei, Taiwan. It was a pity that the inside of the building was not open to the pubic.

P.S. 圖中對聯全文為「於兩間留正氣; 為萬世開太平。」

[Daily Photo] American bison

This photo of American bison was taken in Yellowston. We found hordes of American bisons on our way from the Roosevelt to the Northeast Entrance. They were having dinner at that time. The expression of this male bison was so cute (note his tongue is out).
Recently I learned from TV that the lives of bisons in Yellowstone are very harsh during winter. In winter, Yellowstone is covered with thick snow. The only food sources are in the areas near the hot springs and geysers. However, the grasses and alge in this area are poisonous, so the bisons were slowly poisoned by the food they ate. In addition, the sulfur in the air near the hot spring also poisons the bisons. It was summer when I took this photo. They all look so carefree and leisurely. It's hard to imagine that they will had a hard time in winter.

[Daily Photo] Heart Spring in Yellowstone

This is the Heart Spring in Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone. The spring got its name from the heart-like shape of the crater. There is also Lion Geyser located at the right center of this photo (the small, white hump with steam).

[Daily Photo] Rhein riverside

My friends and I were on a boat tour on the Rhein River in Germany, from Baharach to Boppard. There are many castles built along the riverside. The castle in this photo is a hotel (You can see the word "HOTEL" on the rock below the castle if you look closely). I hope one day I can stay in a castle hotel like this one.

[Daily Photo] Skeleton Man walking Skeleton Dinosaur

We were on Highway I-90 westbound in Murdo, South Dakota on our way to Yellowstone. I was sitting in the back seat of the car with my camera in my hand, ready to take a picture of something interesting on the roadside. And I saw this strange artwork. I didn't know if it was an advertisement or just someone's artwork. We didn't want to park our car on the roadside to take this picture, so I had to shoot inside the car which was moving at 80+ MPH. I'd like to talk about how to take a photo in this situation. The most important parameter is the shutter speed, if it is too slow, there will be motion blur all over the photo. I suggest using a shutter speed faster than 1/1000 sec. There are two ways to achieve this, using a larger aperture or boosting the ISO. Because I wanted to keep everything in focus, I boosted the ISO to 1000 and kept  the aperture of F9.0. By these settings, I had the shutter speed of 1/3200 sec. I also suggest using the lens with vibration reduction (VR) function to prevent blur caused by hand-holding.