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  • Black Swan

    With a nice and clear, but cool sky, we took a stroll down to Chelsea Park. Walking a few tracks I didn’t cover on my last visit I brought along the Sony Nex and its new telephoto lens. When I tried it out earlier in the week the low sun, combined with hand holding and limited wildlife made me want to give it another go today. Down at the bottom of the reserve is a large pond full of ducks, seagulls, shags, geese and a few swans – so I was spoilt for choice and shot images of each.

    I chose today’s image ‘Black Swan’ as I was drawn to the composition and the ripples of water softly emanating from the swan. In post production, using Gimp, I used the National Geographic filter set, making small adjustments to its use of sharpness, saturation and contrast. I also cropped the image slightly to remove the foot of the swan which interfered with the soft ripples of the water.

    I’m quite happy with the result, and the performance of the lens at 210mm.

  • Pink and Blue

    Each passing day sees more and more spring blossoms coming out on the trees. Around Auckland’s North Shore has seen a mass of these pretty pink flowers. I have been meaning to stop and capture them for the last week, so took the opportunity today when in Takapuna.

    Shot on the GDR IV, in gimp I slightly bumped the contrast up and resized for the web.

    I also took delivery on some fun mobile phone camera lenses today.A macro, wide angle and fish-eye, all found on ebay. A quick test suggests they are very capable for the price, so I look forward to the opportunity to get out there and capture something worth showing to you all.

  • Ice Planet

    I had noticed a number of macro images used in artistic ‘landscape like’ was when surfing around recently and had a bit of a muck around this evening with my own version of it. Starting with a macro shot of real landscape, at the beach, I went about creating a shot that would not necessarily look like a close up of water running down into the sea. Removing the background, pushing contrast of the foreground, adding a red smudge to the background, and a cross-processing filter to the lot. I result has a bit of a weird Martian landscape feel to it.

  • Into the Storm

    As I often state on weekdays, I just managed to get a bit of light after work on the way home. I had packed my Nex and its new lens into my bag, hoping to give it a test out. Whilst I did manage that, and got some nice shots (and some flat sundown ones) I wanted to post up something different to my usual nature/landscape. With the lens at 210mm I set about looking for some wildlife. It proved quite still and dull overall tonight.

    Just as I was heading back to the car a few seagulls approached and I managed to get off a few shots. With low light and a long lens the autofocus just missed a number of shots, but I did like this one of the bird heading ‘into the storm’.

    In post processing using Gimp all I did was push the contrast to make it look more menacing than it actually was. Shot at 210mm, 1/400sec at 1250iso the push also revealed the digital grain of the image. I’m a grain fan in photos (that old film appeal) so am happy letting it sit.

    In about 3 weeks I’m off to Fiji for a week, which is pretty exciting as I have never been there. My current dilemma is do I take a bag full of cameras and lenses, or travel more lightweight (with the added benefit of not carrying so much money investment!). I’m leaning towards taking my Ricoh GRD and my Rollei 35. I’ll also have my smart phone to hopefully post a snap each day also. When I went to the South Island last year I only had my Ricoh and Mju 35mm – I think the compact allows you to travel with ease and think more about how to capture the image. What do you all do?

  • Serenity in the Mud of Eskdale

    As I often do, I searched for a short bush walk to explore after work today. One great thing about the North Shore (or many areas of New Zealand really) is that you are never far from some form of nature walk. Heading towards the Birkenhead area I stopped at a place called Eskdale Bush. 10min into the walk and it became obvious that my flat soled leather work boots were not very well equipped for the completely sodden wet terrain. Dodging the muddy patches, I still managed to get ankle deep, remarkably without ending up on my backside.

    Mud aside, Eskdale Bush is a wonderful walk with numerous tracks one can turn into. Surrounded by the suburbs, there is no real risk of being badly lost. Just as I hit one of the lower and deeper parts of the bush I came across a small, possibly newly formed, stream. With the Ricoh set to 800iso I positioned as low and stable as the slippery surrounding would allow and followed the stream into the forest.

    In post production using Gimp, I felt a little lazy today and applied the ‘national geographic’ filter – one I often like the out of the box result with.

    After the loss of my Olympus Mju over the weekend, I took delivery of a cheap as chips Samsung Fino 140 pocked film camera today. Although nothing special it looks to be a very nice late model film shooter with a 38-140mm lens. I’m not expecting much, but am looking forward to seeing how it performs with some B&W film…that’s after I finish the film already inside it!