Gathering

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view this large and count the kangaroos – perfect for those with super panoramic view across multiple monitors:)
Life at 300 mm.

So, here i was, stuck in the car after volunteering to drive Tickles around while she slept, you know, never wake a sleeping baby etc, thus a little drive thru the countryside proved interesting and also an opportunity for some good recon of locations for the day when I have lots of time and the kids have grown up 😉

I did find a awesome old barn, a sweet dead tree conveniently positioned and a cool windmill in the perfect position for some southward facing star trail action. However, on the drive back i noticed this lonely big tree up on a ridge and a bunch of what I first thought were cows, however after slowing and further inspection it became apparent it was a bunch of grazing roos. Now this tree was a long way away and with the car now stopped there was a real danger of this baby waking up, however i could not let a lone tree like his go un-photographed…ya never know it might not be there next time 😉

So with some sneaky sneaking i popped the boot and got the 300mm lens out and whacked out a several vertical frames to stitch into a pano, after only a minute or so I turned back to the car and who was peering out the window with a big grin on her face ? yep thats right.. tickles, that was the end of that, I quickly ducked back into the car and took off, luckily she went back to dream land for another 20minutes, especially since it was boobie time and well.. i ain't no good in that department 😉

This would have been spectacular at sunset, however sometimes you gotta just take what you can get, this was pretty well at midday.
Techie data:
D7000 with Nikkor 300mm f4 @ 300mm- Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: 1/750s
ISO 100
out front – one tree, some grass and a bunch of funny roos.

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and I always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Why you can never trust a Cheetah

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'cause they are cheat-ahs 🙂
Our guide Graham had all the awesome 'dad jokes' 🙂

This animal could bore a hole in your head with that stare! let alone what it could do to ya with that set of teeth.

Techie data:
D7000 with Nikkor 300mm f4 @ 300mm- Aperture: f/4 and Shutter Speed: 1/6000s
ISO 400
out front – thankfully a freaking fence 😉

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and I always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

The final Moments

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like a baby drifting off to sleep
Ya might as well view this large since it really should be viewed in full pano glory 😉

I never was much of a kid person 😉 however one of the defining moments for me was (and still is) holding my child (and not so recently version 1 – Chaos) and rocking her to sleep. I love the moments as I gently rock, pat and sooth (i am pretty good at that now 😉 ) and every now and then I catch her eye and a sly smile erupts from her only to have her bury her face in my shoulder – I know sleep is close – this reminds me of the final moments of a beautiful sunset before it disappears for another day. Sleep tight little tickles.

As for Chaos, when she goes to sleep now, its like a tornado going thru the house 😉 (in a good way of course) I guess I'll have to photograph one of those soon 😉

There was not much in the way of clouds this day, however the small amounts of clouds and the classic QLD evening turned on a very nice show of warm and cool colours all within the space of several minutes.

Techie data:
3 shot bracketed panorama (3 sets of 3 images, manually blended together)
D7000 with Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8 @ 17mm- Aperture: f/11 and Shutter Speed: 1/1.5s, 1/6s & 3s
out front – nothing but some light fog

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and I always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Salamander Bay Mangrove

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lonely tree
This location gave me flash backs to Beachmere QLD – located just inside the entrance to Port Stephens this little stoic magrove was hold it's own against the gale force winds, which btw ruined my long exposure shot ;(

D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11.5mm- Aperture: f/16 and Shutter Speed: 1/30 of a second
out front – LEE 0.9 Graduated filter and Screw in HOYA circular polariser

Multi-selector

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I finally got jack of my multi-selector button on my camera intermittently working, after a few screws removed and the problem is quite apparent. So, anyone got access to Nikons spare parts ordering? 😉 I am sure if I tag Nikonaustralia i'll be barred from Nikon service for life for attempting a repair myself 😉
It's safe to assume that I have typically used the down button on the multi selector most since this is one that has worn substantially. The good news is that the with some cleaning and contact reno's things are working again (except for my down button – but I can live with that)

Galaxy Bounce

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smile.. your on camera Galaxy

I could use all the cliche terms and phrases like ..there must be life out there, one in a million..billion? blah blah blah.. buts its freakin Monday and my jaw is killing me from my dentist visit – on that note, I gotta say dental care in this country is pretty good value really, when you think of the technology they have at their fingertips (and have had for quite some time) in terms of instant x-rays, Local anesthetic etc its pretty amazing that you walk away for a few hundred bucks 😉
anyway that never makes me feel any better when the dudes pointing a horse sized tranquilizer needle in my mouth :), its all good tho, just a few renos on a few old fillings.

This image is from a recent run to the stockton dunes, which btw the way is due for another visit very soon 🙂 The image was was the last of the evening at this spot before making the long walk out with +Rodney Campbell and +Suren J. To be honest I really only bothered taking this pano image 'cause +Rodney Campbell was taking so freakin long with his fishy images 😉

Techie love:
8 odd frame (non-bracketed) panorama 🙂
Stitched in PS CC.
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm- Aperture: f/2.8 and Shutter Speed: 21.4 seconds
Iso 3200
out front – nada.

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Cliff Glow

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In the space of 5 or so minutes the light on the cliffs changed from (https://plus.google.com/100975265940134223422/posts/TjrckK8cvha) pastel pinks, purples and blues to more warm orange tones – this is one aspect that I love about sunrise, the variety of colours and conditions it can throw at ya.

3 frame (non-bracketed) panorama 🙂
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 13mm- Aperture: f/16 and Shutter Speed: 3 seconds
out front – LEE 0.9 Graduated filter and Screw in HOYA circular polariser

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Rodneys Log

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(don't take that outta context)

After spending half the morning rearranging the driftwood on the southern end of Newport beach for +Rodney Campbell , we finally had a log in the water with some level of decency about it (the previous attempt only got another larger log halfway to the water;) )

Even with the foreground interest , it was a real struggle to capture something worthwhile, the colours where pretty bland and it was one of those sunrises with a band of cloud across the horizon but not blocking alot of light – hence leaving a really high dynamic range scene (even with grad filters).

This image was composed with the warm sun (with alittle accentuation) to the right away from the bright part of the morning and of course with the ever moving 'rod's log', which shortly thereafter departed this position bound for better things

Exif/setup data:
D7000 coupled with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @11mm Aperture: f/19 and Shutter Speed: 1.5s
out front – a wet LEE graduated filter 0.9 and screw in circular polariser

As always, I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed.

Swimming with the Clouds

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life in the blue
After another fairly cloudless sunrise with very little colour, it was best to continue the series of blue long exposures, this particular image was taken on the way home from a Sunrise session at Newport where +Rodney Campbell had turned me into a lumberjack to adjust the composition of some overly large size bits of wood 😉
The surf was fairly pumping by this time and it was well and truly high tide.

3 shot Panorama
Techie data:
D7000 with Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8 @ 55mm – Aperture: f/16 and Shutter Speed: 68 seconds
out front – LEE 0.9 Graduated Filter and Hoya CPL.

As always, I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed.

Clive for the win

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Australian Parliament in quadtych glory
View large to find clive.. i mean the dude cleaning the pond..
Politics is actually quite interesting to watch now that old Clive is invloved, just imagine if Gina was in the house too, being a political reporter would be a barrel of laughs!

Nicely done Clive, Canberra stays cold for at least another week before we can start heating things up:)

Its been awhile since I have squeezed out a quadtych, this one had next to zero thought and never were any of the shots intended as a triptych or anything, hence the lack of flow – however I do like the colour mishmash that is created between the frames.

Basically four shots over the space of 30 odd minutes, form the left is a predawn to the right where the sun is just about to peek over.

4 shot Portrait orientation quadtych..
Techie data:
D7000 with Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8 @ varying mm – Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: less than 1 second
out front – LEE 0.6 Graduated Filter

Pony Rides

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Here is another rant from me – pony rides are great, kids who don't have access to the country and horse etc absolutely love them, its great to go to a fair or markets and be able to get a pony ride (for the kids not me:) ), now, how much should a pony ride cost ya? well, i think its probably not even the actual cost more the value for money, this particular Pony ride cost me 15 bucks , now thats a bit steep I reckon, but hey.. for a good ride and to see a smile on my girls face makes it worth while..but…and a big but..the ride lasted for a couple of minutes at best..one lap of the shed, if it had been two laps and 5 minutes, i would be hey thats cool.. but one lap sheesh man…I barely had time to snap a few shots..
Ok.. to give them the benefit of the doubt it could have been busy time or they did not have many ponies..but nope, not busy and lots of friendly ponies parked ready to roll. :-/

All that said.. they probably have public insurance which takes up $13.95 of each ride 🙁 and on the flip side its probably very expensive to run a riding school.

and..chaos did enjoy it, your worth it beautiful girl.

(ponies identity hidden to protect the innocent;) )

Holy softness and the stick of death

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welcome to the cotton-wool ball

I will be back for you little stick out in the ocean, i'll be back for my selfie 🙂 and its gonna be epic (unless i get washed off, then not so epic, just tragic 🙂 ) I need soem pole dancing moves, anyone know any good pole dancers that could give me some tips 😉

Single frame
Exif/setup data:
D7000 coupled with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @16mm Aperture: f/9.5 and Shutter Speed: 256.5s
out front – LEE graduated filter 0.9, LEE bigstopper and screw in circular polariser

As always, I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed.

The Stuttering Trail

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don't stare into the vortex
Damn I hate equipment malfunctions, well it was probably a operator error, however it does feell better to blame it on the equipment…on the topic on things that crap me off, writing a post on gplus and to only have it disappear by pressing the backspace button a few times or something, very irritating, you would think that google in therr wisdom (like in gmail or docs) would have an auto save function when writing a 21 billion word post, cause it gets a bit annoying having to rewrite it… 😉 oh also while I am at it, how about a input box that your can resize ? its like typing on your mobile phone when your actually in front of a bazillion inch screen lol.
rant end.

Star Trails are actually pretty easy to create, simply find a nice dark spot out on a moonless night and plonk ya camera down on a tripod. Point it somewhere in the vicinity of south and take a few shots every now and then, best to leave it and come back a few hours later, or better still come back the next and hope your camera is still there and some clown has not pinched it 😉

Adobe PS CC makes it pretty easy to create the image from the 14.5 billion images you took while the camera was sitting out waiting to be stolen, CC now has the Statistics function built in, simply load your images up in file>scripts>statistics and using the maximum option zap them together for some trail fun.
Alternatively just use the load files into stack option and zap(blend) them together using the lighten mode, don't forget to whack in your nice foreground shot.

The foregound shot can simply be a shot taken at dusk to get the scene nicely illuminated or you can get you torch out for some funky light painting. But, and a big but, if you do light paint (and this is very important and error that many make) be sure to do it off the camera position (at least a dozen steps away) and get low, this will help create texture in the scene (see here https://plus.google.com/100975265940134223422/posts/d5z6TCzuzRj) and give your scene depth.

techie stuff
D7000 coupled with a pre sand filled Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm- Aperture: f/2.8 and Shutter Speed: 40 seconds
ISO: 1250
out front – absolutely nothing buts lots of wind and plenty of sand.
to the left – white coloured LED torch.

Lovely jubbly and thanks for looking – I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Natural Death

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After looking at the remains of many of the trees in this part of the Stockton Dunes, it did dawn on me that there was at some time human intervention on alot of the trees, most trees had been sawn off – maybe that's why they banned camping on the dunes? people cutting down the nearest tree for some firewood 🙂

4 frame (non-bracketed) panorama 🙂
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 13mm- Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: 1/1.5s
out front – absolutely nothing but fresh air

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Climate Change

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view large in great parliament panoramic glory 😉
Ya'all will be relieved to know that I have completely sussed out why the Australian Government is winding back all the renewable targets and ensuring some form of climate change happens, in the form of global warming 🙂
You see Canberra, which is where the larger chunks of… our political members spend a large portion of time is..well, lets say it bluntly f@$#ing cold.. like ball hugging, white finger tear inducing cold, hence with a little extra global warming in a few years Canberra with be a relatively pleasant place to visit (well on a climate point of view anyway).

Anyway enough giggles, hopefully it will also give the AFP something better to do than follow around photographers at Parliament house, like shit man.. yeah I am gonna photograph the parliament with a tripod, DSLR and filters at dawn when there is absolutely no one else around for some suspicious reason 😉 damn, i mean google have already street viewed the shit out the place, I wonder if the AFP followed the google van around.? 🙂 anyway rantage over, it was fun having my chaperone there to keep me company 🙂

4 shot panorama view.
Techie data:
D7000 with Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8 @ 45mm – Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: 3 seconds
out front – LEE 0.6 Graduated Filter

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.