Dubai and the Fuji X100S

First of all I would like to apologize to every reader of my blog for leaving you without a new post for such a long time.

Unfortunately my beloved and last Grandfather passed away some three weeks ago. As you can imagine my thoughts have not been with photography, my blog or anything relating this. I have been busy with other stuff.

Secondly I want to take the time and thank all you readers out in the World for taking your time to look by.

It is amazing where you are all from. I have had clicks from all over the World and it would be too much to list all the countries you are from.

I do realize though that without you readers this would not work out for me and I appreciate that with every post I write.

Let´s get down to what this post is going to be about. Quite some time ago my wife and I took some time off in Dubai. Of course I had my Fuji X System with me. That was the Fuji X100S, the X-E1 with my three lenses and the small EF-X20 flash unit.

The pictures in this post have only been taken with the X100S and my favorite jpeg settings.

All shots are jpeg´s straight out of the camera with no post processing at all.

At the end of my first Dubai post I wrote that I was going to tell you a little bit about the humidity in Dubai during our travel.

Well imagine it is a cold but sunny winter day and you have been outside wearing your sunglasses and your camera has been hanging off your shoulder.

After this long walk outside you go back to a nicely pre heated home and your glasses and your camera steam up and you cannot see anything anymore. Even the camera body and lens steam up and you just don´t dare to switch it on. Well that is what Dubai is like and on some days a little bit worse.

But the Fuji X cameras managed these conditions without flaws. All I did was to make sure not to switch on my camera as it was still fogged up. On some days I had to wait near enough one hour before I was able use it.

After relaxing at the pool for two days my wife and I took a taxi to the Burj Al Arab. The only 7 Star hotel in the world.

We had booked Afternoon Tea in the Sky Bar. This being quite an expensive cup of tea we did have high expectations.

This is the entrance to the Skybar

And we did not get disappointed. The service was nothing but marvelous. Anything you wished for was served.

After a glass of champaigne we were served a small tart.

Following this was a peace of veal with mashed potatoes

The Sandwich tower was great as well

Drinking a cup of tea without sugar just doesn´t work for me.

After eating enough sandwiches for two dessert was served. We had scones, clotted cream, strawberry jam, cakes and what not all. 

After enjoying all this food I had time to take a look at the magnificent view from the Skybar

Just some snap shots taken inside the Burj Al Arab.

By the time we left the sun was setting beautifully beside the Burj Al Arab.

What a nice evening it was. We had read lots about Dubai and most people wrote that one must go to the creek and the souks. Sort of a must see in Dubai.

And that is just what we did. We got the next Taxi and drove to the old town of Dubai. Boy what a contrast to the modern skyscrapers this was and of course still is.

We arrived about 30min later, got out of the cab and got hit by the heat and humidity. It felt like going into a sauna.

My camera steamed up instantly. What a shame it did. We walked through a very narrow path full of Pakistani people and no tourist to be seen. Damn that would have been the shot of my life. Stupid Dubai weather I thought.

The X100S which I had taken with me on this day cleared pretty fast so I was not left to long without a camera.

We entered the old part of Dubai and the X100S started to do what it does best. High ISO shots at night.

After a funny walk through the cloth souk where every man wanted us to buy "real" Dior handbags and "real" Rolex watches we arrived at the creek.

As we wanted to visit the gold souk which is on the other side of the creek we had to get a water taxi.

These are called Abra. You can find out all about them on Wikipedia if you search for the name.

This was one great adventure. It costs 1 Dirham per person which is about 20 Euro cent. You get on, wait until it is full of people and then off it goes.

This one was taken on the way to the Abra harbour.

This larger boat is called "Dau" which is purly for transporting goods along the creek

Awaiting the arrival on the other side of the creek

These are some shots from the gold souk. I must admit that a was a little bit careful with taking pictures. It´s not the place to stick the camera in someones face.

What a contrasty picture. A hard working guy from the street being overtook by No. 81.
You need to know that in Dubai the rule is this.
The lower the number on the licens plate the higher he is in the rank of Dubai.

Waiting for business.

And that was part 2 of our visit to Dubai. Next up will be some night shots from our hotel with the Walimex fisheye.

If you have any questions to Dubai or the Fuji X System drop a line.

And if you just want to write a comment please do so.

I do hope you enjoyed this long awaited post

Until then have a good day

Stockografie