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  • Fish-eye’s Bug

    I mentioned perhaps a week ago that I had taken delivery of a wide angle and a fisheye lens for mobile phones. I have been waiting for the opportunity to give the fisheye a go as I love the distorted reality they offer – as well as the potentially useful capacity to record ~180 degree vision in one shot.

    Armed with my Galaxy sII, and a busy day of chores and shopping, I kept the lens in pocket (and you cant say that about many lenses, especially in jeans pockets! I spotted a nice old VW Beetle in the carpark. That alone made me want to take a snap (I’m quite the fan of nice 70’s and older cars). Standing out with all its curves, the fisheye gave it even more of a sense of warpage.

    Really this is more of a fun snap testing a lens than a serious image – but for many/most of us, that’s part of photography. I must say I was impressed with the lens (it cost next to nothing) and accessories like it really do open the door of possibility even more for mobile/smart-phone photography. Whilst I still rather have a dedicated unit, I have many friends and colleagues who only use their mobile cameras now – and why not. The equipment does help the image, but its the user and their creativity behind the lens that makes something amazing or not.

    I cant recall if I have linked to it before, but for those interested, check out the Mobile Photo Group for some photographers who have really picked up and gone with this as their primary tool.

  • Country Life

    Coming home from a team afternoon out with work I snapped today’s image ‘Country Life’ from the passenger seat of the car. I have been giving a few of my older digital cameras a run this week, today being the Fujifilm Finepix J15fd. A very basic 3x point and shooter, I recall purchasing it as it came with an underwater housing, and is/was very compact for what it had to offer. Although a basic model, with a tiny sensor, and occasional struggle getting focus (comparing to the likes of my GRD and Nex), I do like the slightly sharp and saturated images it offers out of the box. Its one of those digital cameras I have no hesitation using in a ‘at risk to camera’ areas or when a basic documenting of the trip, without workable quality is needed.

    Snapped in the Rodney District, just north of Auckland, I love and envy the real country surrounding the little house at the centre of the image has. Only edited for size for posting, the Fuji didn’t let me down in capturing the colour and tone I was looking for as we whizzed by in the car.

  • Sky, Earth and Sea

    Today is the first day in some time that I have be dissatisfied with all the shots I took when out on a walk. I thinks its something that happens to all of us at times. I had taken out an older digital camera, and with the light being a bit challenging, it struggled to get focus on some of the more interesting shots I threw at it. Coming home I selected about five for post editing, but just couldn’t get any to work.

    Feeling a bit stuck, I pulled out a shot I took earlier in the week of Motutapu Island. Cropping heavily and pushing contrast and saturations beyond usual limits, I have tried to give the image more of a ‘painted feel’ than a photographed image. I’m not sure if I pulled it off, but tomorrow is another day and will bring us another image!

  • Land Ahoy

    Making the conscious decision to take the Nex and Jupiter 8 out for some after work shooting today, I found myself struggling to get anywhere before dusk set in (I thought I had said summer was coming). Coupled with a blistery cold wind and temperature I cast my eye out to the ocean, which looked/felt to have a storm brewing.

    Snapping some images I tried to capture the cold isolation the ocean can arouse, and imagined the relief of early discoverers as they sighted land in the distance.

    Taken from North Head, on the North Shore of Auckland – its a great spot (but dress warm on cold windy days) to get a panoramic view around Auckland and its harbour.

  • The Epiphytes

    The other week I took a journey through Smiths Bush. To one side of Smiths Bush is a main highway, and on the other side of that is what I assume is the far ‘lost section’ of the bush. A very short 5min walk from one end to the other, its mostly used by school kids as a short cut from their school to the nearby road I suspect.  In saying that, it was well kept and void of any rubbish and litter some might expect to come from a bush area so close to a school.

    Being such a short walk I started scanning a little closer to the ground and trees, looking for something to get a shot of. Like the larger Smiths Bush, the trees were full of an array of epiphytes- mostly way up in the canopy, well out of detailed reach of the 28mm Ricoh. Across the trunks of several trees however sprung a collection of smaller leaved plants. I framed them up and caught today’s image.

    Using Gimp, I then pushed the contrast and saturation up one level each and resized for the web.