Trip to San Antonio, February 22–24, 2012

I had a chance to revisit San Antonio again last month. I had a fantastic time the last time I was there. The Riverwalk, is absolutely amazing at night. The good thing about south Texas is that they don’t seem to have a real winter. Its almost always in the 50s-60s during the evening, which is great for talking a walk along the river.

 

This time however, I was on a business trip. The down side of this is that I am in a conference for close to 8 hours a day.

 

The up side is, I get to stay in a fancy hotel, and my meals are paid for, and I get to go out on the Riverwalk at night.

 

I got to stay at the Hyatt Regency on the Riverwalk, and I was put up in room 666! Being a fan of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden, I couldn’t have gotten a better room! I also have to say, the view from the room is fantastic. I slept with the curtains completely open and lights turned off. I wouldn’t mind going back there again.

 

A brief tour of Hyatt Regency, and into room 666! The view from the room is amazing. Go to 1:44 for the view.

 

I also had a chance to walk around the Riverwalk at night. Last time I was there, I did not have a good camera, or a tripod. This time I was prepared. Check my post on how to carry a tripod on the plane without having to check it in.

 

Serious advice for anyone wanting to take pictures of Riverwalk at night, make sure you have a tripod. The kind of camera you have is almost irrelevant. It’s the tripod that matters. I am not saying that a good camera won’t make a difference. It certainly will. But in order to make the most out of an ordinary camera, especially for night time pictures, a tripod is necessary. There is no way of getting a good shit with slow shutter speed without using one.

 

During my last trip, I inadvertently, snapped a picture, which turned out to be great. I had no idea I was going to get the kind of reflections I did, and I wasn’t even using a tripod!

 

I was using a Canon PowerShot SX20 IS, which is a great point and shoot camera, but it cannot be compared to a DSLR. This time, I was carrying a Nikon D3100 with a tripod, and god knows I tried to get a similar picture, but I couldn’t. The water was just never still enough! So I ventured out in the cold at 4AM in the morning to get a good picture, hoping that there won’t be anymore boats, but the lights were turned off. I returned disappointed.

 

Hopefully, I will have better luck next time.

 

 

I did however get some amazing pictures of San Antonio at night. Some of the pictures I took were almost exactly the same as the ones on the printed post cards, which made me pretty happy. I also had the chance to see a Lamborghini on the streets that night.

 

Here are some of the night pictures I took during my trip. Click on the thumbnails to see them on Panoramio.
 
Check out the rest of my album:

San Antonio - February 23, 2012