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  • Stairing up a Kauri

    Today was jam packed with car and motorbike repairs. No exactly as enjoyable as heading out to take some shots, but more essential at this point in time. ‘Stairing up a Kauri’ is another shot from Fridays trip. This particular tree in question is ‘The McKinney Kauri’. At an estimated 800 years old, its about 12m to the first low lying branch! Getting the whole tree into a shot meant going quite far back, even with my 28mm Ricoh. When I did this it looked like a well proportioned tree, and not really of the height it is. I like this shot as its both an unusual perspective, but also a common thing to do when you get up close to it. Although an argued point, when this Kauri was a little stick in the ground, New Zealand was just being settled by the Maori. The Children’s Crusade marched in France. The first permanent photograph was still half a century away!

    Shot on the Ricoh GRD IV, reduced for web size/quality in Gimp.

  • Fading Day

    A long day = a short blog today, but i’ll let the image do most the speaking. Hills or Wenderholm, 50km north of Auckland City. The Sun was getting low and the hills were covered in shadow. Also due to the angle of the sun, it was a tricky exposure (in addition to getting the snap from a moving car!)

     

  • Into The Jungle

    I took a trip to Parry Kauri Park in Warkworth today. Located about 30min out of Auckland it is home to a small Kauri forrest, some being a few hundred years old. Its quite amazing when you look at the shear size of some of these tress that can live for more then several millenia – todays being babies! Tane Mahuta, New Zealands largest Kauri is estimated to be between 1250 and 2500 years old! – thats a lot of generations of people.

    Local volunteers maintain a track that loops through the forest park. Its entirely boardwalk, which is good as there is a Kauri disease called Dieback that threatens our great trees that is spread through soil. If you come to visit the great forrests, please do wash your shoes with the spray disinfectant supplied at at risk areas. Anyway, walking through the park I took a number of shots, ‘Into The Jungle’ being todays chosen image. It was in a more open area of the walk – some of it gets quite dark due to foliage.

    On a busy day when I don’t have time to take a shot I might post another image from the park. A great stop to make when heading north.

  • The Great Wall of Mt Cambria

    So in reality, todays image is of no great wall, and not really a mountain either. I had been look at some photos of the Great Wall of China the other day, and the winding path on todays stroll reminded me of it. Now as far as a mountain goes, Mt Cambria, found is Devonport is placed between our two other volcanic cones, Mt Victoria and North Head. Unlike the former two however, Mt Cambria is little more then a elevated park now days. Once a small mountain in its own right, early settlers to Devonport turned it into a quarry, and did so from ~1883-1985.

    Taken on the Ricoh (as usual), I like images where paths lead away into the distance and you have to imagine where they are taking you next. Post photo I rounded corners and reduced in size, all in Gimp.

  • Evening Coastline

    Whilst I know my Sony Nex 5N is fine for taking long exposures, I had never tested out my GRD IV to see how it would cope. Being a much smaller sensor then a APS C (Ricoh is 1/1.7 inch) there is the general risk of noise and hot pixels more so then larger sensor cameras. I didnt have much time this evening, but headed out with the GRD and tripod in hand. Just out of the city, on the way to the suburb of Mission Bay I stopped on the corner of the road and clambered down the wall to the rock wave breakers. Setting the exposure to 60 seconds at 100asa, this was the result.Its motivated me to give it a bit more another evening and possibly invest in a remote shutter control.

    I must say, the Ricoh never fails to impress me for the size and type of camera it is. It has full manual controls and a fast 1.9 lens. It fits into your pocket, focuses fast and is built tough, as far as digital cameras go. The menu system is one of the best I have used also. Built in filters and effect options are not for everyone, but I think Ricoh have done pretty good with theirs – plus virtually everything in the setting can be tweaked. For many of us camera fans out there, image sensor size is always a hot topic. I think there are pro’s and con’s to the various different sizes. At the end of the day, capturing the image one wants to convey is what its all about isn’t it?