Zhenjiang Lantern Festival

 

 

As Chinese New Year comes to an end, another festival approaches. The Lantern Festival starts just after the Chinese New Year ends, and unlike Chinese New Year, this is a much more public and visually stunning time in China.

 

 

I had to go to this festival twice on consecutive days with two groups of friends, so I had a lot of time to walk around the festival. This was my first time shooting a lantern festival, and I initially thought it would be extremely low light, so I took one of my fast zooms and one of my Nikons with me to shoot at high ISOs. But I was so wrong. Shooting the lanterns is not really low light at all, as the lanterns themselves are extremely bright, and I found myself shooting at ISO 400-800 the whole evening.

 

 

The biggest problem with shooting any festival in China is always the sea of people that go there.

 

 

 

The biggest problem with going somewhere with friends is finding time to shoot. Friends are not so interested in waiting for a couple of minutes to let you shoot each time you see something interesting. I tried to shoot as fast as possible, but I could see that some of my friends were getting a little frustrated with me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the evening, we took a walk around the riverside, and I saw this traditional Chinese boat floating before the lanterns. I tried to do a long exposure, but I could only get a sharp image at 1 second. Handholding for anything longer than one second was impossible. By the end of the day, I was so tired from carrying my Nikon D3s and the Tamron 15-30mm F2.8 lens. It was a very heavy setup.

 

 

The second evening, I decided to take my Fujifilm XT1 and the Fujifilm 18mm F2 lens with me. Previously, I have said that I hate the Fujifilm 18mm R F2 lens, but I have been reading online that many people with the Fuji Xpro 1 love this lens, so I decided to give it another go. This combination made my camera very light compared to the previous evening.

 

 

 

Shooting with the Fujifilm XT1 was so much easier and lighter. I love my Nikons but they are not so convenient when walking around with your friends in a crowded place.

 

 

I really enjoyed shooting with the Fuji XT1 and people were not so intimated by the camera. I found the EVF to be very useful for once compared to OVF in the Nikons.

 

 

 

I really wanted a clean shot of this, but there were just too many people there. The only way I could shoot it without people would be to do a very long exposure, but we were not allowed to set up any tripods. After waiting around for about 20 minutes, my friends lost their patience, and I had to move on.

 

 

There were a lot of lanterns for children at the festival. Western cartoons were a big draw card for all the kids who dragged their parents to go and see it.

 

 

 

 

I had a lot of fun both days at the festival. Dealing with huge crowds is not easy and requires a lot of patience, but there is a lot to see and experience. Shooting with the FujiFilm XT1 was so much easier and made the second day much more enjoyable.

 

 

 

 

The Lantern Festival will end soon, but it is really interesting to explore for a foreigner like me. We just don’t see festivals like this in the West, and I enjoyed my time there. If you come to China in February, I highly recommend finding a lantern festival to explore. Many cities will have a festival in February to celebrate the Lantern Festival, so they should not be too hard to find.

Shaun