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Wat Gu (also written Ku, but pronounced Gu), an old Thai temple located on the banks of the Chaophraya River in Nonthaburi, Thailand, has been here for about 250 years. In 1880, a tragedy happened right in front of the temple. One of the queens of the King of Siam - Rama V, Queen Sunandha, was in the royal barge going up river to the rural palace north of Bangkok. The barge tipped and she fell into the water with her 1 year old daughter. She was also pregnant at the time. Under the strict rules of that time, only royalty were allowed to physically touch royalty - on pain of death. So, no one in her retinue was able to jump in to save her. She drowned with her children. The King built a memorial at this temple near where she drowned. The temple is also famous for its old chapel built sometime in the 1700s by the Mon people who migrated to this area. As I was wandering around taking photos, a monk approached me and asked if I would like to see inside the ancient chapel. He kindly opened it up and left me to take as many photos as I wanted. Lucky I had my RRS tripod in the car because it was quite dark inside. The inner walls are covered with ancient murals, some in quite bad shape but some quite distinct. You can see some of the photos here: http://www.peterwalker.com/watgu2015.html Shot with A7Rii with either with the 55mm f1.8 prime lens or the 16-35mm f4 zoom.

Since the 1970s, I have used Hasselblad medium format cameras. For the last 40 years, I have only owned 3 main cameras, well over a decade each. I made the switch to digital (and scanned thousands of my film trannies) when the CFV digital back was launched for the V series cameras. As my eyes aged, I switched to H series for the auto-focus and have shot a Hasselblad H4D-50 for the last 8 or 9 years. I am a quality freak - but not a pixel-peeper. But I recently realised that I am tired of lugging around such a heavy camera. For long walking trips, I have limited myself to carrying two prime lenses, which means a lot of lens swapping, awkward with a backpack. I have left the 'blad at home or in the hotel room on too many occasions lately. When I saw that the new Sony A7R Mark II shoots 42 Mpx 14 bit images, I thought it might make a "reasonable compromise" replacement for the 50Mpx Hasselblad. The Sony A7R Mark II is much, much, smaller and lighter. I can carry an easy-access camera bag, instead of a heavy backpack. I won't be as worried about theft, damage or rain as I am with the Ha$$alblad. The A7RII camera specs look good. Except, maybe, for the lossy compression on RAW files: which (a) may be changed in a firmware update and ( appears in shots that are heavily pushed in post. Which should not be too much concern for me, as decades of shooting 12 shot rolls of transparency film taught me to get it right before pressing the button. Some of the early sample shots from the A7Rii look great. Of course I don't know if the A7RII's 4.5 micron pixel pitch will capture light as beautifully as the larger pixel pitch on the big sensor of the Hasselblad. But, it'll be interesting to see whether the new Sony back-lit CMOS sensor can do better than the older Kodak CCD sensor for low-light low-noise capture. Will the A7RII's colour gamut be as pleasing as the 'blad? How will the lens range compare to the Fujinon Hasselblad lenses? So I've got an A7RII on pre-order from Amazon. I've bought the 16-35mm and the 24-70mm zoom and ordered the Zeiss Batia 85mm. I have bought the Sony E mount / Hasselblad V lens adapter to see if this system can bring my favourite lens, a Hasselblad Zeiss Planar FE 110mm f2, back to life - the best portrait / bokeh lens I have ever used. I plan to put the A7RII system quickly through its paces and make a judgement call. If it does not satisfy my appetite for quality, I'll quickly sell it while it's still a sought-after item. But, if the Sony A7RII is good enough, my H4D could end up at the back of my dehumidifying cabinet... Regards Peter PS. You can see some of my work at http://www.peterwalker.com

A recent a shot of Bangkok's skyline, last light of the day. A7II x Tokina 17mm f/3.5 RMC. Processed in LR, PS.