Tag: Beach

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!

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Surface of the Earth

Been a pretty flat out day and I have run out of time to write much.

Snapped this on my GRD IV on the way home today. In post processing I added several selective blur layers in Gimp and cropped to play with the sizing perspective a little.

More tomorrow!

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Long Bay Regional Park

One thing about New Zealand is you are never very far from the sea. Even inland areas are within a few hours driving. We actually have the 10th longest coastline in the world! Today’s image was taken on my Sony yesterday during my visit to Long Bay Regional Park. For anyone visiting the area, Long Bay is enormously popular in Summer as it has a long beach line and grassed area where families can set up for the day, groups can play sports, and all can cool off in the calm waters. It also has several bush and cliff top walks for those who don’t want to just laze in the sun.  To top it off, the park has a decent number of BBQ’s for cooking up some sausages, steaks or what have you at lunch time. If you do come in the summer, aim to come early as car parks, although a lot of them, become scarce by late morning.

 

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Lazy Day

Him or Me?

The day before heading off on holiday I posted about almost running into a seal dozing on the rocks. Here it is!

Applying the ‘national geographic’ filter in Gimp has actually highlighted it a little more. Take a few steps back and the seal really blends into the surrounding rock and sandstone.

On the side of lazyness for me, really just lazy on the camera shooting front.  I spent a decent amount of today sorting through parts of my camera collection – choosing what to keep and what to sell. I have amassed quite a bit of old film gear over this last year and a bit (after pledging not to get any digital cameras for 2012). I’m keeping cameras that are either a bit harder to come by, or have some sentimental value to me. I hate things just sitting on the shelf, never being used – better it goes to a new home to be used, like its creator intended!

Anyway, that’s all for today. Its daylight savings for us here in NZ tonight, so an extra hour of sun tomorrow! (well, not really, but that’s what they say…)

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The Standoff at High Noon

I had a planned day off today, with the intention to start to unwind from work before jumping on a plane tomorrow. It didnt quite all go to plan, but I did manage a walk along a beach called Waiake in the northern region of the North Shore.

As I passed a bunch of seagulls, not thinking much of it, three of the four suddenly stood up, squarked at me and came marching at me. I took a few steps towards them, neither of us backing down. Most of the time, unless you carry food, they try to keep out of the way, but not these three! Anyway, I got a few photos in and backed down.

At one end of the beach is a small island. At low tide, as it was today, one can walk around it. We had a beautiful sunny day and I sat down to relax on a rock. Every now and then I kept catching something in the corner of my eye, but when I looked there was nothing there. Then, as I was about to get up and leave I looked around, and just to the left of me, not more then 2 metres away was a seal basking in the sun, blending in perfectly with the surrounding sandstone. Once it realised that I realised it was there it stood up on its front flippers (I think that’s the term?) and let out a growl. I decided it was time to retreat, but did get a few shots of it as I left.

Photo wise, I used Gimp to desaturate all but red and cropped the aspect again. Shot was taken on the Sony Nex 5N and Jupiter-8 legacy lens.

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A Sunday Stroll

The weather looked like it would pack in my late afternoon today, so we got out the house for a beach stroll before it did (and it did just after we got home). I headed out with my GRD IV and R10 Ricoh’s – mostly with the intention to shoot film, but also to capture something for today’s posting.

It appeared many other had the same intention, and with the tide low we walked along some of the coastline, between beaches. Today’s image, from the GRD IV, was taken in its colour bleach mode. In Gimp I cropped in the black header/footer, re-boosted colour a little and resized .

When I got home I remembered I was going to try out my new Nex lens, but it will have to wait for another day now.

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Island Bay Wharf

Some more mixed weather again today with warm bright sun, followed by heavy cold showers… Spring is on its way!

A visit for work to Beach Haven took me past Island Bay Wharf. Testing my balance again in flat soled dress shows I worked my way down the muddy sandstone flats to the base of the wharf to capture a few shots.

With a white sky, the image improved greatly when I converted to black and white in Gimp.

I also took delivery of a new lens for my Nex (actually one new and one old), both longer telephoto zooms, one Sony and the other an old Minolta mount. If the weather is right I might try to take them out in the weekend.

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Kennedy Park Erodes

After being stuck inside all day, with OK weather outside, I took a stroll after work at a place called Kennedy Park, found on the coastline of the North Shore. As I got out of the car it started spitting rain, and the last of the days light slowly began to retreat. Walking through the park, on the cliffs edge, I sank up to my ankles in mud – it was pretty boggy. Following the coastal path I ventured down a long set of stairs to the beach below. To no surprise, the sodden land had given away in places, and I caught this image of one of the land slips.

Its not a totally unusual occurrence along the coastline, and as the multi-million dollar houses remove their trees for a greater view, the cliffs seem to give way more and more with nothing to hold them up. Even areas with trees will eventually give as the wild weather of mother nature washes away the mostly muddy sandstone cliffs of the area.

Initially shot in bleach bi-pass mode on the camera, I reduced in size and switched to Black & White in post production in Gimp. I think it gives the image a bit more dramatic depth.

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Cheltenham at Dusk

A misty rainy day today left the sky a washed out white, and the constant drizzle was less then ideal for my walk after work with camera in hand. I took a stroll down Cheltenham beach in Devonport from dusk to dark looking for some interesting images. Again with the Ricoh, I used my mini tripod, found some semi-sheltering foliage and took some 30-60second exposures with the lens stopped down. I love the effect long exposures have on the ocean, or moving water. As the sky was washed out I decided to convert the image to B&W in post processing, and cropped the image to give us more of a panoramic feel.

My new-old Juipter-8 arrived in the post today. It looks and feels pretty good, so I will hopefully give it a test out on the nex some time later in the week.

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The Old Boat

Wandering down at the beach with the tide out I came across a dinghy that had seen better days. I imagine its been anchored up and abandoned at some stage. The hull was full of water, so i’ll have to check to see if it even floats when the tide is in next time I visit.

Taken with the Ricoh, I got reasonably close up so the viewer can see the wear on the old vessel, but also so we can see its anchor line exiting into the sand/mud. Just a image that creates a quiet, end of day (end of boats life) feeling on a Friday afternoon.

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