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  • Storm Warning

    New Zealand has been hit with a mild weather bomb (depending which part of the country you are in) these last few days. Overall in Auckland we have only had a bit of high wind and low cloud. Yesterday this combined with a little light rain – nothing to get excited about.

    In between appointments I snapped this image down at Narrow Neck beach in Devonport using my Ricoh with a tweaked bleach bypass setting.

    Using Gimp, I cropped the aspect a little, removing some of the tree and more grey sky. I applied a light softening blur, slightly desaturated and lightly adjusting the hue. Lastly I added the rounded corners.

  • Wall of Colour

    As mentioned the over the weekend during one of my walks, I came across an old abandoned/condemned area which had had a lot of erosion and landslips. Some of the track had gone with it, but you could make out an alternate track that ‘adventure walkers’ had made, and I followed.

    Part of the fenced off area included a large reinforced concrete area, where today’s photo came from. Although there is a difference in my head between street art and graffiti, one thing for certain is its full of bright attracting colour. If it had not been for the colour, this area would have blended in with the bush.

    Shot on my Sony Nex 5N and the Sigma 2.8/30 lens. In Gimp I added black boarder and resized for the net.

  • Waiting for the Tide

    I headed out with an Olympus E-500, older model Four Thirds DSLR today with a lens of a 35mm equivalent of 140-600mm. Its been a while since I played with such a long focal length, and coupled with not being used to the E-500 had a mixed bag of success. I thought I had captured some great bird images, but upon getting home and looking at full screen, it look like I needed to up the iso to get the frozen images I was looking for. Never mind. I will borrow it again some time.

    Mixed success aside, and being several years discontinued now, I did enjoy the operation of the Olympus. I have owned in the past a few of their compact range for pocket shooters, but never one of their DSLR or Micro Four Third units. I think if I had not made some lens investment in my Nex, I would have looked at the likes of a EP-3 or E-M5. The sensor size is great for getting a big zoom.

    Today’s image ‘waiting for the tide’, after some cropping, was one of the ones I liked from today’s Olympus experiment.  As well as cropping I also pushed the contrast a few notches and applied a bit of sharpening.

    Back to a camera I am more familiar with tomorrow!

  • Portrait of a Sheep

    I managed to get out and about to several places with my camera today. First exploring some closed off cliff tracks, and then off to Cornwall Park for a around the base walk. Cornwall is full of cows and sheep (mostly sheep) and today’s image was of one sheep who came up to me to see what I was doing.

    Shot on my Sony Nex with my recently received Sigma 2.8 30 Lens (50mm equivalent), I am more than happy with the quality this lens produces, especially when you consider it is about the cheapest lens built for the Nex at this point in time (not counting the plastic holga’s and lenses with adaptors). The focal length is great and the overall size, although bigger then the 16mm prime, is still nice and compact.

    I also captured some interesting shots of a graffiti covered area on my closed off (fenced off to the public) walk, but will save them for a less active day.

    Baaa for now.

  • Above the Grass

    Down here in Auckland New Zealand we are still experiencing the changeable nature of spring. One minute it is sunny, the next rain. Temperature wise its mildish. NZ Band Crowded House once sung the song ‘four seasons in one day’. It really can apply here!  Its all a signal that summer is on the way though…I think…

    Shot on my Sony Nex 5N @54mm, ‘Above the Grass’ is a simple capture of these beautiful little flowers standing out in the green grass field.

    Aside from resizing, I didn’t do any post processing work on this image. I love the simple soft and peaceful summer like feeling it creates.