7 and half minutes of smooth
just for wordless Wednesday 🙂
Exif love:
banged this one over the head real hard to remove that blue colour cast inherent to the Lee bigstopper 🙂
D750 coupled with 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f/10 and Shutter Speed: 433.9s
ISO 100
out front – Hoya CPL, Lee Graduated 0.9 Filter and the Lee bigstopper filter
1 juicy leaf, 2 tart plums, 3 juicy strawberries…
I took this shot for tickles, we have a book called the hungry caterpillar, of which I am sure there are a few variations, ie counting etc but this one we have which belonged to Chaos, counts to 5 and then turns into a beautiful butterfly. It also has a little puppet where you can put your finger in to make the the little puppet caterpillar wiggle around (which tickles loves)… in my case its my little finger since the authors clearly did think about catering for those with larger hands ;( c'mon people equal equality 😉 lol..
I saw this caterpillar going gangbusters on this leaf and in the space of several minutes he had nailed the entire leaf and was heading for a second helping! I thought it a great supplement to our hungry caterpillar story at home and i am sure it will become a useful midnight settling tool 🙂
Exif love:
single shot
D750 coupled with 55mm f2.8 micro @ 55mm Aperture: f/22 and Shutter Speed: 1/60s
ISO 800
Up top: SB600 flash unit
out front – a fat grub and a leaf
view large to find the yowie, he’s in the blurry bit
There’s this mountain up the coast called Middle brother, that’s the name given by Captain cook anyway, I am sure the Birpai people have another name for it, as story has it, it was named after one of the brothers killed by the witch Widjirriejuggi. Anyway back to the point, its the site of a state forest which has been logged a bit over the years, I suspect its survived moreso than other surrounding state forests due to its limited access and rather hilly terrain.
I have been up there once before and there is place in there called the Bird tree, which by all accounts is one of the largest surviving black butt trees around, the tree it self does not appear that big, but when you look at the volume of wood thats in it (these have very thick trunks) you can see why its probably considered so large, this is also the reason for its desire as a timber product over the years, lots of yield in each tree I guess.
I do digress tho, whilst driving up this mountain, in the wet I saw this awesome stand of relatively young trees 30 or 40 years I guess which were covered in mist and positioned nicely for a pano shot, this is not the shot of them unfortunately 🙂 i drove right past because it was so wet and I was on a bit of deadline, i did however promise myself to get a shot of them or similar on the way home. I did finally get to the Bird tree and I did not take a picture there either… because it was absolutely pouring down rain and I was already soaked cause I had to move a bloody large branch off the road to get through. Did i mention that after looking on the NSW environment site that they say 4wd vehicles in the wet only 🙂 oh well.. i did get out eventually 🙂
Onto the picture, this is off a similar location further inland on a equally slippery ass road, i spotted some very similar gums (same sort of age, quite young really) growing in a gulley and thought yeah I ain’t gonna miss these ones, hence got out took a few shots. It turned out alright, however it was not until I got home I realised one of the frames was slightly blurry from camera movement…bummer, its still alright but it annoys me when that happens – oh well just another excuse to go back 🙂
I should have used ISO 800 just to get that shutter up a bit more..
Exif love:
D750 coupled with 24-70mm f2.8 @ 16mm Aperture: f/6.3 and Shutter Speed: 1/40s
ISO 400
out front – no filters, just trees, yowies and mist.
This is the pastel paradise that is….Kurnell and the sydney container port, I am surprised the security guards from the port were not here hassling us about pointing our cameras in the direction of the new container terminal 😉
you can see +Rodney Campbell 's version over here:
https://plus.google.com/102418874970398612673/posts/1PAZqprvmpH
Exif love:
D750 coupled with 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f/16 and Shutter Speed: 60.7s
ISO 100
out front – Hoya CPL and Lee 0.9x Graduated Filter
its a long walk home when the location is crap and the sunrise even crappy-er 😉
Some-days it just ain't on and on this day it was certainly not on, however on the bright side whilst walking back +Rodney Campbell noticed this curvy path which begged to be photographed, all we need now is a real model (no offense Rod) and some sweet light
Exif/setup love:
D750 coupled with 70-200mm f2.8 @ 200mm (thanks +Cameron Fong ) Aperture: f/4 and Shutter Speed: 1/400s
-0.3EV
ISO 500
and tripodless
I do get a lot of questions from people regarding the processing and filters on many images (not only mine), I do understand why since when I standing in the same spot as them and they fire off a few on their smartphone and then the comment comes as why their images are so different, ie you must Photoshop them 😉 or have filters
So here's a recent image , no filters, yes it is processed (albeit minimally and not in photoshop lol), however every image out of a camera has some form of processing – I only found out the other day my smartphone had beauty face turned on.. i was wondering why i had the glamour glow look whenever I took a smartphone selfie 😉
So, its a 3 shot panorama, handheld, no filters (ie they funny things out front) and processed in Capture NX2
View large and check out that detail in the rock.
Exif love:
D750 coupled with 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f/9 and Shutter Speed: 1/50s
-0.3EV
ISO 200
out front – nada but rocks and bigass cliff
view large and find that cow 😉
I had just emerged from some pretty thick forest on a very wet and muddy road, i had not passed another car for the last half an hour but was instead greeted by a bunch of dairy cows across the way. It really was quite a away 🙂 this shot was taken with the 300mm lens and consisted of about 16 portrait orientation shots, it was cropped pretty heavily from there but still is pretty enormous, the fog made it quite challenging to achieve a good autofocus and the pressure was on since the rain was getting pretty heavy.
Due to the rain I took only one set of images for this scene and jumped back in the car and almost got bogged since I had pulled over into a pretty soft edge. Thankfully the old falcon did not let me down, with mud flying and wheels spinning and a fist in the air I gave those cows a farewell 😉 well they really did not care i guess…but makes for a better story 😉
Exif/setup love:
16 portrait orientation images stitched and cropped
D750 coupled with 300mm f4 @ 300mm Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: 1/640s
ISO 250
Out the front, mist, mud, cows and rolling hills
enjoy the freshness
I think its a Tallowood tree, I saw this tree many many years ago and the only thing that has changed…is the moss, its got a little less than before…oh there was also some more bush litter (branches leaves etc) but really… all those years could have just been a few days for all I know. As cliche as it may sound, time really does stand still in forests like this, time in the scale of humans anyway (unless they cut it down)
I took a number shots of this tree, i bracketed this particular frame thinking that I may need to blend the images together to achieve the full dynamic range, however the D750 did a pretty good job with a single shot, and this particular moment had some nice filtered light thru the trees and a small amount of fog rolling through the undergrowth..
I did get a few strange stares from the bushwalkers as I stood in a mozzie infested creek amongst the forest tree litter, but for once, my mozzie repellant worked… i only got bitten about 100 times rather than a million 😉
Exif love:
D750 coupled with 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f/16 and Shutter Speed: 3s
ISO 100
out front – Hoya CPL….
Its great to see more public awareness of this cancer that affects a large portion of the male population, whilst I have enjoyed all the Breast Cancer awareness campaigns , ie the pink Dash-8 and pink water bottles etc its good to see this type of cancer awareness get some airplay… get it, aircraft.. airplay ..ok that was a bad 🙂
I do reckon they could have done a better job on that Moustache tho..c'mon +Qantas I wanna see a real set of handle bars on it 🙂
Exif/setup love:
8 Landscape orientation images manually stitched
D750 coupled with 70-200mm f2.8 @ 280mm Aperture: f/5 and Shutter Speed: 1/2000s
ISO 200
EV -0.3
Also had the 1.7 TC attached too.
Some days it feels like there are monsters hiding in the shadows just waiting to pounce
On a lonely drive across the hills of Comboyne , through many muddy roads and intermittent rains showers I noticed this small tree perched on the hill. It looked so vulnerable sitting there almost encased in the fog with the large trees looming behind, seemingly wanting to take its place on the ridge.
Only moments after taking the picture(s) the ridge and tree disappeared and the rain caught up with me…
This image is a panoramic image made from 3 frames, something I learnt with this image and scene was that when +Adobe Photoshop (or i guess any other stitching software) attempts to stitch the and blend the frames its does a good job except it never quite gets the blending right in that pea-soup grey area and results in banding, not particularly evident until contrast is added. It kind of makes sense , blending a gradients would be quite tricky. Thus a future note – I am not sure how to avoid it, but in teh post processing one thing that minimises the telltale signs of it is to locally reduce the clarity or midtone contrast in the banding area.
Exif love:
D750 coupled with 300mm f4 @ 300mm Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: 1/500s
ISO 250
out front – a ridge, a farm, a tree and some fog 🙂
So, here I am cruising up the freeway at a very respectable hour of about 8am… gentlemen's hours I say 😉 when I see the turn off to Somersby on the left, I thought.. yeah sure I need a break from driving (albeit I had only been driving for less than a hour:) ) and what better place to stop then the quaint Somersby Falls.
Its only 10 minutes off the freeway so its pretty hard to argue with! however.. and a big however, once I get the camera out.. the hours just race away 🙂 Hence, whilst approaching the falls thru the lovely Central Coast hinterland I kept saying.. max 5 compositions, max 5 compositions 🙂 ..that should keep me on schedule..
I was expecting a quiet uninterrupted walk down to the falls however I did note several cars parked outside of the actual national park and thought.. surely not 😉 but rest assured, I was certainly not the only one who thought a Saturday Morning session at Somersby would be a good idea. Given the overcast conditions and the rain we had the night before I suppose it was not unexpected.
Onto the title, today, I was the fair weather photographer, I took the tourist option and only visited the most nearby falls, I have wanted to hike down to the next more secluded ones for sometime now, however given time pressures, not this time. So I was joined by probably half a dozen other togs who were making the best of the good conditions.
One gripe I do have though… to all those people who parked their cars outside of the park, clearly to avoid paying the National Parks parking fee… harden the hell up and spend the 7 bucks to support the organisation that provides the maintenance and upgrades to wonderful places like this. I have had alot to do with the NPWS thru work (aviation side) and damn they do a great job, from spraying bitou bush from choppers to airlifting in supplies to make paths and firefighting, you name they do it.. it ain't cheap. Whilst I also hate paying parking fees (note I have a annual pass) these fees do directly help the upkeep of the parks.
rant end – Righto, with that off my chest this image was one of my 5 compositions, in fact it was the first shot (falls) of the morning 🙂 I left here shortly thereafter and continued my drive up the coast, much more relaxed and rejuvenated for my visit to Somersby Falls. I will be back 🙂
Exif love:
D750 coupled with 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f/18 and Shutter Speed: 20s
ISO 100
out front – Hoya CPL…. and a composition to avoid the crowds 🙂
great weather if your a caterpillar.. or ..
D750 coupled with 55mm f2.8 micro @ 55mm
out front – leaves, water and caterpillars
Vertical Pano style
D750 coupled with 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm
out front – Lee Graduated Filter (0.9x) and Hoya CPL
So, its last week of the holidays and we are traveling through the Blue Mountains, yep, that world heritage area which is quite frankly just awesome – and I thought we should check out that little glen called, "Mermaids Cave", well you did not have to ask Chaos twice, its a tough challenge between mermaids and fairies but any combination is a winner with her 🙂 .
Mermaid Cave is a small alcove / waterfall located only 15 minutes from Blackheath as you enter into the Megalong valley.. and yep… its called the Megalong Valley.. cause.. its mega -long right 😉 anyway this little 20 minute bushwalk will lead you into the glen where there is a small waterfall and pond, I am not sure how the name came about but given its serenity and protected nature of the landscape I can see how it could be a haunt for the Mermaids (which i now get asked daily whether they exist.)
So.. Chaos and I had a little packed snack box with the plan to walk in and have lunch with a bit of an explore, its really not that far of a walk, but I am sure to a 5 year old it feels like a half day trek, hence the need for food supplies… and.. 'dad, we need to make sure we have enough water' man.. she is more safety conscious than me 🙂 We walk in and setup our little picnic at the base of the falls near the pond and I am tryign to get a nice shot of her with the falls when she says 'dad… dont move..its a lizard!!' so i don't move 🙂 but the next thing surprised me, this lizard, just a skink of some kind wandered around alittle then made a straight line for Chaos, who was sitting up on the rocks, it then proceeded to scoot past her foot and with only a fraction of a second hesitation climbed up onto her leg. It sat there as if expecting a free feed of biscuit or dried apricot (note the woolies brand, which are not Australian sourced btw 🙁 shame on you +Woolworths ). All the while Chaos is frozen solid, this is the girl, like most 5 year olds, could not sit still for 2 seconds 🙂 , after a minute or so and after what seemed a disappointed turn of the skinks head, it turned around and disappeared off – well as one would expect, this was the talking point all the way back to the car!
Hence, Chaos, you are the official Lizard whisperer 🙂
Exif/setup:
D750 coupled with 24-70mm f4 @ 24mm Aperture: f/2.8 and Shutter Speed: 1/125s
ISO 640
out front – Hoya CPL, the Lizard Whisperer and a lizard.
The world is interconnected through small veins, backbones and intermediaty tributaries, all working together to form the lattice and fabric of what is our world, our environment. The small telltale signs of deteriotation should not go unnoticed, just like a single leaf on a huge tree or the smallest frog in a universe of ponds they all have meaning when they stop or fall
Chaos and I found this leaf by the chickens at her school..we both thought it would make a nice picture 🙂
Exif love:
D750 coupled with 55mm f2.8 @ 55mm Aperture: f/18 and Shutter Speed: 1/60s
ISO 400
SB600 flash mounted below a frosted glass panel