Smiths Bush

Searching the App store for interesting photo apps I came across ‘Pro HDR Camera’. Unlike a lot of mobile apps, Pro HDR does actually capture three seperate exposures to form a genuine HDR image.

Although I must confess I dont do much HDR at all, there is a lot of great photog’s out there who do, and if stuck without a suitable camera, this is a nice little app to have up your sleaves for the cost of a can of coke.

Taking a short stroll through Smiths Bush, it delivered great results from what would normally have either more blown out, or underexposed images – especially on a mobile phone, which tend to have low dynamic ranges.

At home none if the images I shot appealed to post up. Whilst great testers for the app, image content wise they didnt much speak to me. So – I clipped in my macro lens and visited the back lawn. I have not seen much macro HDR, so the daisy is my casual snap at it.

Im tempted to go back to Afterfocus again tomorrow. Its been my top vote so far. I did also play with Instagram today, but the prompting to share or where to share put me off it straight away im afraid.

Catch you tomorrow!

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.

Today’s image, ‘Dark Forest River’ came about from a second (with daylight and more time) walk through Smiths Bush today. Just before we entered there was a massive heavy downpour of rain, which resulted in some beautiful glistening, and flooded portions of the track. A small stream had widened quite a bit sine a few days ago and I took a few shots looking up it.

Armed with both digital and film, I managed to finish off a roll in my Rollei 35 today. I’ve been shooting the 100 as 800Asa, more for a push developing experiment as I have not tried that before. Fingers crossed I will have something to show you all for it some time later this week.

Using Gimp in post processing I first converted to B&W, then manipulated the image by squishing and stretching it a little and adding the black frame-lines to give us a bit of a ‘cinematographic feel’. I like the end result.

As spring slowly approaches the days are starting to lengthen out again. This still does not leave much light when I finish work, but left enough today for me to take a brisk walk around Smiths Bush in Northcote on Auckland’s North Shore.

It must have been about 5 years, possibly more, since I last went through the bush. It has turned into a wonderful local walkway there one could spend three quarters of an hour on a loop trail. The tall trees with mixed canopy, along with rotten fallen trunks really gives one the sense they are out in the bush/jungle.

Armed with my GRD and light fading fast, I captured a number of forest shots. In post processing in Gimp I played around with a few contrast and special layers, with the result being today image. When I get some more time I will definitely visit Smiths Bush again!

Tag: Smiths Bush

Macro Daisy – Pro HDR

The Epiphytes

Dark Forest River