Will be in HK by next week. Are there certain areas that are photography restricted? Or you can just lug around your gear and shoot anywhere? What about building shots?

HK is photographer friendly, it's only inside retail shops that it's not allowed. I hung my camera like a tourist on my neck and I even shot inside the MTR.

@ estan

Yes, HK is indeed photographer friendly. Didnt experience any "harrasment" when I was there last week. Same with Dave, I even had a number of shots inside the MTR and malls.:)

Good Luck! and have fun shopping! hehehehe

well and good. at least, i can be trigger happy there :p

thanx guys.

Yes... Go crazy!

Bring a tripod and remote shutter release. Pack your widest lens too...

Hey man I would say avoid the shops on Nathan Road unless you want to get ripped off! Sorry not a picture taking post here, but just in case you get the urge to purchase something, take my advice and ditch Nathan. Those guys are the worst and give Chinese a bad name.

I went picture crazy when I was at HK, took around 2000 photos, although most of them were souvenir shots. My friends and I practically took pictures of ourselves almost at every place we find interesting, airport, inside the aircraft, before entering the HK immigration area, inside the bus, MTR, MTR station signs, while crossing the street, in the middle of the street, inside the elevator, riding the escalator, cable car, tourist spots, malls, theme parks, parks, restos, our food, us eating our food, our hotel, on hotels that we were not even checked-in (hehehe), etc., etc., etc. :D And whats amazing is we were not prohibited even once from taking a photo. :D Thats how photography friendly HK is. :D

Hey man I would say avoid the shops on Nathan Road unless you want to get ripped off! Sorry not a picture taking post here, but just in case you get the urge to purchase something, take my advice and ditch Nathan. Those guys are the worst and give Chinese a bad name.

OT response: well the very first digital cam i bough was alsong nathan road...i did not know much about cams then and didn't do the necessary research so i was ripped off...paid almost 2x the real cost of the camera...but in the end that camera has served its purpose and continues to do so from time to time :)

@estan

Even if you don't intend to buy any gear, I would suggest a visit to 16 Kimberly road. It's where all the non-digital camera gear can be found. It's like walking through time.

Sinars, Roffrei, Leica, Contax... the stuff you may only hear your father or grandfather talks about when it came to cameras.

...but done shoot inside department strores if there are guards around, babawalan kalang naman eh other than that it's all go even inside the Airport

Visit Mongkok & Sham Shui Po if your in wanchai try 298 & Wanchai Computer centre

hi estan,

i was in hong kong in july and like ian, i was shooting everywhere so enjoy!

in case you need some gear, there is a shop ive been going to for the past 15 years. its called Suntek just on the street fronting marco polo gateway opposite the park. talk to alan, he will give you a fair deal.

cheers!

guys, thank you very much for those very informative tidbits that you've posted.

Dave, I'm not really planning of bringing my tripod and all my lenses. Its just heavy and I intend to make do with 10-22mm, 70-200 f/4 and either 50mm or 17-85 (hmm, probably ditch this instead and have the 50).

Gabriel and Paul, I might visit the shops and avoid/check out what you advised. Not really into gear and stuff for this trip but I'm actually looking at a descent graduated ND filter with holder. Cokin?

Right now, I do have 3 plans to chose from:

- be trigger happy and shoot and shoot and shoot.
- stick to a top 10 list that I referred from a guidebook and capture images based on this top 10
- stick to a specific theme that I can concentrate on like all buildings or markets, or people or temples, or all captures via 50mm, etc.

I still have a few days to ponder on though. hehehe...