Another Waterfall

I was going through some older images the other night and came across this shot that I liked quite a lot. It was taken about a year ago up in the Tamborine Mountains near Curtis Falls and I remember at the time I was going through a HDR phase and was bracketing a lot of my shots. It turns out that I am not a huge fan of the exaggerated HDR look but upon revisiting the image and having gained a lot more knowledge in Photoshop I decided I would create a blended exposure out of the 3 images I took at the time. As it turns out I only used two of the images (the correct exposure and 2 stops underexposed) and combined them using layers in photoshop. I boosted a bit of saturation and gave it a minor adjustments curve but that is it.

Also for those out there with any experience I am thinking of purchasing Joseph Holmes DCAM 3 colour profile and was wondering what people had to say about it.

I’m off to watch the Tudors, lovin that show!

Early start

 

 

Hey all, sorry for the lack of posts this week and for not commenting on people’s blogs, it has been flat out at work with monthly reporting and at home as we are having some renovations done to the outside of the house before the baby arrives in Feb next year so there has been no time for photography this week.

This is a shot from Lake Burley Griffin looking east over the Carillion and out towards Russell and was taken just as the sun was rising. Without these clouds this shot would have been pretty lifeless so I was grateful that they decided to show up.

Starting to warm up here in Canberra, it hasn’t taken long for the green colours to be sucked out of the landscape, oh well I guess it was nice while it lasted and at least our dams are now over 50% full.

Last light at Lake George

Lake George is located about 20km’s north of Canberra, near Bungendore in NSW. I was out there chasing a storm over the Canberra Wind Farm (photo to come) a few weeks back and also managed to catch the last light hitting the surrounding hills. It was definitely a weird afternoon as directly to my left and behind me there was a huge storm front approaching which luckily held off until I was back in the car heading home. Mind you the drive home wasn’t that pleasant on the freeway, very slippery!

You may have asked yourself that it doesn’t look like a lake and in a way you would be right as Lake George has not had water in it for the best part of my life. I think that it would be cool if it was to fill up again but then again the consequences might not be great for the surrounding area.

This was only a quick processing job to get it on the blog so I might re-visit sometime to see if I can come up with something better.

Cooma in drought V2

I posted another version of this shot earlier in the year and whilst I like the shot I was never 100% happy with it as the original didn’t quite portray what I intended when I took the shot. It was taken on the late side of midday and right at the end of summer when the draught in this area was at its worst and therefore I wanted this picture to portray the stark and dry nature of the area and felt that the original was a little too much on the happy side of things.

I had the opportunity recently to exhibit some work as a part of my local camera clubs annual exhibition so I decided to have a second attempt at processing the image to make it closer reflect what I had in mind at the time of capture. I am happy with the result (I think it still needs a few tweaks) and it was well received by the public so I thought I would re post the image here. Let me know which version you like better?

The original can be seen here.

The Carillion

The National Carillion, located on Aspen Island in Canberra, was a gift from the British Government to the people of Australia to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the National Capital. It contains 55 bells and is played regularly throughout the year with its 50m elevation allowing its tones to ring out across Lake Burley Griffin.

Due to the Lake Burley Griffin foreshore reconstruction going on this angle was hard to get due to the large amount of fencing currently in place. From experience I can pass on that hurdling large fences in suit pants is not a good idea, but hey I got the shot.

Sydney Harbour

Another shot from my trip to Sydney last weekend. This one was taken just before sunrise from the banks of Kirribilli on the north side of Sydney Harbour. There wasn’t much in the way of cloud cover to create more interesting light but I don’t think it is possible to take bad shot of the harbour, it is just that beautiful.

Cabramatta

I’m back from my weekend up to Sydney and whilst the weather wasn’t to kind for landscape photography I still managed to get out and get a couple of shots of the harbour at sunrise and sunset (which I will post later in the week) and we managed to have a great weekend and fit a lot in to just two days.

Sydney is such a culturally diverse city, I love travelling to all the different areas and seeing what can be found there. This time around we visited Cabramatta which is home to Sydney’s Vietnamese community. It is amazing how they have made this area their own as it almost feels like you are walking the streets of Saigon (minus the motorbikes) with the bustling street activity and hawker style vendors. We managed to spend a couple of hours walking the streets where I managed to snap a few shots. This time I thought I would challenge my composition skills by using only the Nikon 50mm f1.8 and use my feet instead of relying on the zoom, please consider that I was suffering from a giant hangover during this visit so I have elevated myself to trooper status! We topped the afternoon off with a brilliant lunch at one of the many traditional Vietnamese restaurants.

I can’t wait to get back to Sydney as whilst I couldn’t live there I had forgotten how much fun it is.

Giant Fig

It is always a humbling experience taking a trek in one of Australia’s rainforests knowing that the beauty surrounding you is many many years old. I tend to find it hard to capture the beauty before me in just a collection of  photographs but still I try if only for a visual record for myself.

This shot was taken along the well worn track to Elabana Falls in the Lamington NP. I found the trees here amzingly beautiful, especially seeing as though I come from Canberra and these opportunties are few and far between. I am always amazed at the root systems that these things must have as a lot of them, like the one in the background, are leaning at some wicked angles.

I’m off to Sydney in a few hours so will hopefully have some photos to post next week sometime. I am interested to see what I come back with as there has been quite a few shots from there on other people’s blogs lately which I am sure will have influenced my ideas. Enjoy the weekend!

Nikon D3s Announced

‘Image courtesy of Nikon Rumors’

As previously rumoured Nikon has just announced the Nikon D3s,  a 12 megapixel update of the original D3 with a raft of improvements I assume that are aimed at the professional sports, press and events photographer. It looks like it will retail for $5,200 US for the body only. This thing is said to have decent image quality up to ISO 12,800 and at a push to ISO 102,400 which is pretty impressive and shoots at 9 frames/second in FX mode (11fps in DX).

For me the obvious thought still remains, Nikon is missing a body to compete with the Canon 5D Mark II for landscape photographers not willing to shell out the outrageous price of the D3x. I guess the Nikon D700 must be that good that it competes highly against the 5D Mark II. We all know that megapixels aren’t the be all and end all but for anyone looking to make large prints surely it provides a bit more flexibility in the editing room. Plus we have already seen that by adding pixels up to around that 20+ megapixel mark it does not degrade the image quality at low ISO’s where most landscape photographers shoot anyway. I assume that there will be a camera in this mold sometime however I think Nikon shooters will be waiting a while as Nikon would surely not want to undermind the Nikon D3x early in its life cycle. Plus Nikon have shown that they are happy to play things their way otherwise they wouldn’t have taken so long to go full frame digital.

For me personally, my D90 is only a year old and has a lot left to give me before it becomes obsolete. Maybe if I start selling a few more images the more megapixels would matter to me and I could justify the expense of a higher end body but by that time I am sure the D700x or whatever they call it will have been released.

Sunset over Black Mountain Tower

With all the crappy weather around at the moment the one positive is that we have been getting some nice sunsets here in Canberra. I was lucky enough about a week ago to have my camera and tripod with me to capture one of them after work. This shot is of one of Canberra’s most known landmarks the Telstra Tower (or Black Mountain Tower for those of us whop have been around a while) about 5 minutes after the sun had disappeared over the horizon.

I am off to Sydney this weekend with my wife and a couple of friends to eat some Chilli Crab and drink some nice wine so I am hoping to spend some time shooting the Sydney landscape. It is the first time I have been to Sydney in over a year and since I started this blog so I am looking forward to it. Hopefully I will have some photos to post here next week, so stay tuned.