Obs Hill Photos Part 2

Photo of a plane flying over the North Shore. ISO: 200 Aperture: F13.0 Shutter 50"


Just a nice photo of the bridge. ISO: 100 Aperture F32.0 Shutter: 85"

Obs Hill Photos Part 1

Went to Observatory Hill this evening, which is just at the start of the Harbour Bridge on the city side. Took a bunch of photos and some came out looking very cool. I'll post a few at a time. This first photo was taken of the Warringah Freeway at 300mm, it’s about 3km away, and you can actually see the signs for the turn off to the Northern Beaches (click on the picture). ISO: 100 Aperture: F45.0 Shutter: 30"


This next photo was taken of the start of the harbour bridge with the southern toll plaza in the middle of the road. ISO: 100 Aperture: F27.0 Shutter: 30"

Next Project: Pinhole Photography

My next project is to start stuffing around with pinhole photography using the Dynax 7D. I’m going to be using a $10 T adapter which allows me to put a strip of foil over the front of the camera. The tricky parts will be making a hole in the foil small enough to let the right wavelengths of light in and then getting it on the adapter without destroying the foil. Thanks to the instant results of digital photos I should be able to get the focus and exposure right after a few tries, hopefully.

This guy here has managed to do it and the T adapter idea was stolen from him. To get the hole small enough I think I’ll just layout 10 or so bits of foil and poke a pin into it, then take the top most layer which still has a hole in it.

The T adapter that should be arriving soon, thanks ebay….

Shiny Car

I took this photo with my 75-300mm Tamron lens. I'm lucky enough to have breathtaking views of the Gladesville RSL car park out my apartment window. The reflections of the lights came out a little weird so I thought I'd share it. The number plate has been removed to protect the identity of a person who is very guilty of using the RSL car park, but probably innocent of other crimes.

Gettin into the Time Lapse

Here is my second attempt at time lapse photos, the first one i've already made into a gif which is waaay to big for posting. I did this one on my birthday and it came out rather well. It was really easy, just set the camera up to take a photo every 5 min for 100 frames.

A real easy way to turn time lapse shots into a GIF:

• Upload, export and re-size all the photos to 150px using Picasa.
• Open the first image in theGIMP (Photoshop for people with no money).
  
• Then open each of the files as a layer.
• Save the file as a GIF and let theGIMP take care of the rest.
  

Started at about 1pm in the afternoon and finished at 7pm. If you've got problems seeing the animation, click on the picture and open it in a new window. Apologies if you're on Dialup, go get Unwired or something, might just be quicker than waiting for this to download.

2 Different Looking Street Lights

These next two were taken from the overpass of the Pacific Hwy and Mona Vale Rd on the 20th of July. The bottom one came out really well, with two cars side by side coming up the hill.

For some reason, the expensive lens gives the street lights 14 little sparkly thingies and the cheaper Tamron lens only shows 6. I have no idea why, I think it has something to do with the number of bits of glass the light passes through, or something like that. Or perhaps that's where the money goes, extra sparklies on lights. I might call Dr Karl and ask him next time he's on JJJ.

Taken with my cool Knoica Minolta 17-35mm lens, lucky it came with the camera.
ISO: 100 Shutter: 30" Aperture: F32


This one was taken with my less cooler Tamron 28-80mm lens, but it did come with a camera bag.
ISO: 100 Shutter 15" Aperture: F32

I'm back and posting

Now that I have a cool new toy, a Konica Minolta Dynax 7D, and I've done a few things which I think are worthy of sharing I thought it would be a good time to revive the Southo blog. Don't get me wrong, I'm no camera expert, infact until I won the camera at an auction I don't think I'd ever even held an SLR camera. My rational behind all camera purchases thus far has been:

1. The smallest I can buy.
2. Everything automatic.
3. From real camera companies. (Sorry Sony. I think your cameras suck, but you do make a good Playstation)

Which left me with a great little Canon IXUS but very little knowledge of how real cameras work. But now I am starting to learn thanks to friends, the internet and ridicule from professional photographers ("gees, you're a cowboy" - to which I replied "thanks" but later discovered this wasn't a compliment).

So, without any further ado, I'll introduce you to my first ever shutter-open-for-longer-than-usual-night-time-photo:

















It was taken at the bottom of the IBM building in Sydney, looking out towards the north-west and I think it came out pretty good.