A new play toy

Tags

art, australia, Camera, Cinemascope, Color balance, Focal length, Mongolia, Neutral density filter, Nikon, photo, photography, photos, victoria

Fun time indeed. My new play toy (home-made $25 ND filter) has had its modifications by way of an old pair of tracksuit pants. Legs cut off, sewn together to create a blackout sock. Once pulled over the camera with style and flair, no light gets in and the pics come out very nicely thank you.

Here are the test shots taken today.

Out of camera (f25, 3:00).

And with white balance adjusted:

Not bad me thinks. Here  is another shot taken with the same settings and same, very trendy, tracksuit pants over the camera.

And  with white balance adjusted using View-NX2 (Nikon‘s file handling software).

And this is the same photo played with in Picassa with the Cinemascope affect added. I kind of like the effect and for a 2 second fix, it doesn’t come up too bad. The vignette around the top may be from my pant legs or from  a little bit of filter because of the 24mm focal length. I am yet to play with accurately focussing on any other focal length. That’s coming.

For fun I took a photo of one of the kids and their grandmother washing the windows. I swear they were moving around in front on the camera for a full three minutes. I have tried this one in a monochrome just to see and this is what I got. Must admit I have added a little touch of green just because I like it.

So, people really can disappear. Am keen to try a city scape now and see how that goes. The low light pics seem to get more camera noise than the bright lights, but not too bad given the camera in use. Oooo, playing is fun!

I’ll get back to more normal posting and stop boring you with this stuff real soon – I promise. 🙂

Oh, and here is a  cool time-lapse sequence shot with a ND3.0 filter in Mongolia by photographer Timothy Allen.

You can see his blog on it by clicking here.

PS: Happy birthday Frank!

Enraptured

Tags

Accipiter, animal, australia, bird, Bird of prey, Brown Goshawk, Flora and Fauna, Greenland, magpie, photo, photography, red rock, travel, victoria, Volcanic field

On our last trip we were literally surrounded by winged creatures. Looking down gave us the bees of my last two posts. Looking up gave us another delight – a beautiful raptor had come to check us out.

I think it is a brown goshawk but would welcome another opinion or confirmation. Until such time as I get told otherwise, I’ll go with this.

It soared over the fields checking out the tourists and the prey far below. It’s hunting grounds used to be alive with volcanic action, the last one lashing the earth with its fiery tongue some four millenia ago.

Today it is fertile grazing land and home to a multitude of rabbits and small furry raptor lunches. We have probably driven past this area a gazillion times but this time, we made the effort to stop and look at the Red Rock lookout.

It was an extremely windy and cold place, the kind of place I loathe. My partner was wrapped in a rug from the car and looking a lot like a shivering tartan souvlaki. I had on my rainbow jumper which screams to the world that life is great. The Accipiter fasciatus hovered over us seemingly oblivious to the winds which were buffeting us.

Finally it decided to leave us. On its way to a who knows where, a magpie decided to put on a brave show of attacking the bird of prey. The goshawk flew on, ignoring the worrying being dished out by the bird.
Does anyone know what raptors live in Greenland?

Life is good.

Nanna’s garden

Tags

australia, cold, flora, flowers, garden, Greenland, images, photographs, photography, photos, places, soringtime, spring, victoria, Warrnambool

Nannas do gardens well. And my mother-in-law (Nanna to my kids) is no exception. Being in the south of Australia in springtime gives an array of different colours. The flowers that thrive down here in the Greenland-esque cold are very different than those of my warm northern home.

If you click here or on the picture below, you will see a few of the wonderful ornaments which adorn the chilly outdoors of Nanna’s garden.