V & C Impressions

Almost Grey Nomads caravaning around Australia

Author: Vincent

  • The End of 2017, Hello 2018

    The End of 2017, Hello 2018

    Well here we are as the title says, in the final days of 2017.
    With the passing of one year, marks the arrival of the next. What will 2018 bring I wonder? We all have those reflective moments when we lament the passing of the last 12 months and then look forward to the next 12 months. Perhaps some of us will make some new year resolutions.
    Since this is a Photography blog, I will review the year 2017 and my hopes and aspirations for 2018 from my amateur photographer’s view.

    General

    Over the past 12 months, I have taken just under 15,000 photos, a good 5,00 taken on our Africa trip to Botswana and Zimbabwe. The trip was a long time coming and even though it did not go as anticipated (Visa problems) it still turned out the be a good trip and has left me wanting to go back there again. I still am occasionally looking and processing photos from that trip. During 2018 I will continue to review and play around with photos taken in previous years, it’s a good way to see if I’m getting any better.
    I have this year made a more conscious effort not to take so many photos, especially at workshops. I have found that going through 1,000 pics after a workshop is just too time-consuming, especially when there are minimal differences in a lot of them. I have also been trying to concentrate more on my composition in camera, I’m getting better, but still a lot more room for improvement. This will be continuing focus in 2018.

    Portraits

    I have attended about 9 portrait workshops this year, and while they have given me some brilliant photos with gorgeous girls I have felt that my model direction is lacking and that I have made minimal progress on this this year. I have been pondering about what has been holding me back in this area. I think it is a lack of confidence in giving direction, but also it is the lack of knowledge about how to direct a pose. Many photographers say you need to get the “look”, well I just don’t know what the “look” is. After the workshop when I am looking at the photos on the computer I can see the poses that work, but during the workshop looking at the pics on the back of the camera I can’t see it so well. More work needed in this area, and perhaps a different approach needed for 2018.

    Landscapes

    Including sunrise and sunsets. After having reviewed my past pictures I can definitely see some decent improvements, mostly in the technical area of photography, the biggest improvement is from having better equipment, mainly my investment in the NiSi filters system, also better techniques means when I get back home to the computer I am not getting so disappointed with basic mistakes. For 2018 it is going to be about getting out there more and getting the shots.

    Camera Gear (GAS)

    In late 2016 I decided to go full frame and move from my Canon 70D to the 6D. As the 6D was an old model then and the 6D mark 2 was rumored to be coming out in late 2017 I decided to rent the 6D until the 6D mark 2 came out.
    I was immediately impressed with the improvement in the images I was taking with the 6D. Using the same lenses, the images were sharper, more detailed and the iso performance was fantastic. But I did miss some usability aspects of the 70D, mainly the articulating touchscreen.
    When the 6D mark 2 did come out I was a little hesitant about buying it. It was not getting many good reviews as it was not groundbreaking in any area. After reading and watching many reviews and even thinking about changing to Olympus micro 4/3, (smaller lighter system) I did buy the Canon 6D mark 2. I concluded that once you buy into a system it is just too expensive to change, secondly the missing features on the 6D mark 2 which everybody was going on about did not really bother me, i.e no 4K video and no dual memory card slots, thirdly, many people were putting it up against the 5D mark4 or mark3 or the Sony A7r2, which I did not feel is a fair comparison as these cameras cost twice as much and are aimed at professional photographers.
    At the end of the day, it is a very capable camera, with an articulating touch screen and finally a wifi/bluetooth system that makes it easier to connect to your phone which is always a handy thing. For 2018 I am thinking about 1 lens purchase, Sigma 100 – 400 Contemporary which is getting very good reviews, it will replace my Canon 70 – 300 lens.

    Social Media

    This year I have tried to get more involved/active online. The result has been a negative experience for me overall, too much time wasted achieving nothing much with questionable results.
    Earlier in the year, I read an article by Andy Hutchinson on how people are scamming the system, as he says at the end of the article if there’s money involved some people will do anything to get it. Jimmy McIntyre also wrote an article about this subject explaining the negative effects it was having on him personally. While I don’t pretend to be of the same class and skill level as Jimmy, the same effect was starting to happen to me, especially over the last couple of months. I was getting despondent with taking pictures, processing or anything to do with photography, and also getting bored with all the pics coming through my social media feeds.
    For 2018 my social media activity concerning photography will be mainly this website, my Facebook page (Vincentcoxphotography) and maybe the occasional post to Instagram. 500px, or Viewbug or both may get the chop, Flickr, on the other hand, may stay. I’ve read that DeviantArt is an art sharing site worthy of having a look at.
    Of course, there are many other things to look at, post-processing, long exposure, architecture etc, the list goes on…….
    Looking forward to 2018 and all the best for everyone out there.

  • Castle Rumble Photo Shoot

    Castle Rumble Photo Shoot

    It was a scene out of the Rocky Horror picture show, well sort of. Lots of interesting characters, all with Castle Rumble.
    I had the pleasure of attending one of the better photo shoots this year hosted by Louise Davies. The shoot was organized for the support of the upcoming Australian movie called PATCHED. To find out more about this movie, have a look at their funding page here.
    A tremendous amount of talent and enthusiasm was displayed by the Models and the Makeup Artists. Lots of interesting characters and the Castle was an excellent location for this event. To find out more about Castle Rumble have a look at this link, I believe it is open to the public most Sundays.
    I had to use the flash for a lot of these photos, not being the most confident with flash I think the photos came out pretty good. It was also the first time I have used the 16 – 35 F4 L lens for this type of work, which in hindsight combined with the limited range of the flash the two of them work well together.

    Catherine the great
    Catherine the great

    Evil Witch
    Evil Witch

    Saw movie Villain.
    Saw movie Villain.

    Evil Villain
    Evil Villain

    Evil Villain
     
    This event will go down as one of the more enjoyable photo shoots I have done this year.

  • Long Exposure – Surfers Paradise

    Long Exposure – Surfers Paradise

    Last weekend we took a drive down to Burleigh Heads and Surfers Paradise to have a play around with my Nisi Filters. I was attempting some long exposure photography.
    This photo was taken mid morning, in bright sunlight with 2 ND filters stacked, a 10 + 6 stop. The exposure time was about 6 minutes, yes you read correctly, minutes not seconds. Good technique is required since every photo takes a lot of time to take.
    The main benefit of the long exposure time is the removal of moving objects. You don’t see many people on this beach but it is a popular place on the weekend so there was plenty going on.
    More practice is needed and careful attention to detail, one of my photos didn’t work out because the tide came in a washed around one of the tripod legs, sinking it while I still had 2 minutes to go on the exposure. That photo didn’t work out.
    I hope to do some more of this type of photography in the future.

  • Africa Holiday – Botswana/Zimbabwe

    Africa Holiday – Botswana/Zimbabwe

    Part 1

     It was with great excitement Catherine and I started our first adventure to the African Continent. This is going to be a Photographers/wildlife adventure with all the safari’s that are planned. A trip like this has been on the bucket list for the both of us for some time, so we were glad to be finally going.

    The holiday plans had a last minute alteration due to visa problems, so the itinerary turned out like this –
    7 days at Cresta Mowana Safari Resort, Kasane, Botswana
    4 days each at A’Zambezi River Lodge and The Kingdom Hotel, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
    5 days Perth, Australia
    From Brisbane to Perth, then Johannesburg, then on to Kasane, Botswana. About 17 hours in flight time plus waiting time at the various airports, total journey time about 26 hours.

    20170506_100258.jpg
    Our carry-on bags

    Above is a picture of our carry-on bags. 2 complete camera sets. The 2 big lenses we took are the Sigma 150-600 Contemporary, and the Canon 70-200 F2.8 coupled with a 2x teleconverter. These 2 lenses weigh over 4 kg by themselves. The cameras are Canon 6D and 70D. Also had the full range of lenses from 11mm to 300mm, ND filter kits, remote shutter release and also 1 flash.
    Also taken with us was the Canon G7x. We thought this would be a handy little point and shoot for those situations where the animals got too close and we don’t have the time to change lenses. Also handy for when we did not want to carry around the big cameras.
    A lot of camera gear and with the weight restrictions of carry-on bags we weren’t too sure how we would get along, in the end, everything was ok with no airlines challenging us.
    As soon as we arrived at the Kasane airport we knew the adventure would be starting, as the airport is one of the smallest we had been to, the terminal, if you could call it that was just a shed, the immigration form to be filled out had writing on it so small we had to ask the custom man to read some parts of it for us, and yes we did have our reading glasses on.
    The Cresta Mowana Safari Resort is very close to the Chobe National park entrance, about 15 minutes drive. From the resort, you can do 2 three-hour game drives (safari) per day, 1 in the morning and the second in the afternoon. The facilities at the resort were excellent, everything was clean and tidy, the food was good with plenty of variety to satisfy anyone.
    The main attractions at the resort are the safaris and the river cruise (afternoons only), which is like a safari but in a boat. You go up the Chobe River into Chobe National Park and look at the wildlife. It’s a bit more relaxing on the boat as you can move about, they also provide refreshments like snacks and beer.
     
    Vincent Cox - Botswana-MowanaResort_ 20170508-8910-Pano.jpg
    A view from the upstairs bar looking out over the Chobe River towards Namibia.

     
    Vincent & Catherine after the long flight
    Vincent & Catherine after the long flight

     
    In the next part I will go into more detail about the safari’s, and of course, post more pictures.

  • WordPress themes

    WordPress themes

    Since starting this of this website, I have been on a search for the perfect theme, with excellent functionality, especially when it comes to showing pictures.
    There are a lot of options out there, free ones (lite) and premium (commercial ).
    A lot of time can be spent searching and customizing WordPress themes. The problem that I am coming across constantly is that some themes don’t work correctly with all plugins. In fact, even plugins can conflict with other plugins.
    Photo gallery plugins are the worst culprits. The theme either has its own gallery implementation which invariably conflicts with the one you have already, or the gallery that comes with the theme doesn’t have the functionality that you want. Also getting your website to look like the demo is usually an exercise in futility, especially if going with the free (lite) version. Something will be missing from the configuration options (need the premium version), or they just don’t work.
    Of course, you don’t realize this until you are about 80% along in your website development, with only a few things to tick off the list, but that is when the fun begins. Plugins clash, theme functionality is missing. Searching the www for answers, get frustrated, change course.
    Here is an article about theme development from WPTavern. It basically says there is a lot of errors in theme development, and the review team can’t keep up. There is a new process getting under way so hopefully, these problem themes can be corrected before being set free.
    I think that if you are trying to set up a WordPress website, generally you have a few ways to go about it.

    • Get the theme and plugins from the same developer usually referred to as premium. quicker and easier.
    • Hire a developer.
    • Go free and learn to edit theme files. cheaper, slower.
    • Use another platform altogether.

    After saying the above statement, I still think WordPress and all it’s associated plugins/themes are awesome. Just be prepared for a learning curve, with a bit of perseverance, you can get a website you are proud of. Still, more work to go on here, that will happen over time.
    For those that are interested, this site is using –

  • Rear Synced Flash Photography

    Rear Synced Flash Photography

    So, what is this new-fangled photography technique?
    I’m not sure if it’s new, but it is the first time I have tried it out,  works pretty good if you can get the settings right. To set it up you just tell the flash to sync to the 2nd curtain. On the flash, this is indicated by the double arrow. Below is a brief overview of setting up the camera and flash.

    • Choose a location where the ambient light is behind the model
    • Expose for the ambient light
    • Aperture f2.8 – f4
    • Shutter speed 1/8
    • Adjust ISO to help balance the background exposure 1 -2 stops below correct exposure
    • Now introduce the flash and alter the power to suit
    • Lock focus on the model
    • When shooting, move the camera and take the shot

    As you can see the background is blurred, while the model is nice and sharp.

  • Camera Market 2017

    Camera Market 2017

    The camera market in 2016 shows a steady decline in mirrorless and DSLR sales. Looks like the smartphone camera is going to take over the world for the vast majority of the population, also some manufacturers may not be around by the start of the next decade.
    Read the full story or watch the video over at LensVid.com

  • Color Theory

    Color Theory

    Two articles I have come across this week concerning the use of color theory during post processing. Both articles are about what color combinations work well together, admittedly in landscape photography, the color of a scene you have taken a photo of should not be altered too much, but to make it more pleasing to the eye you have the ability to emphasize the colors that work well together.
    The more photos I look at online, the more I realize that some Photoshop work is needed to get that image to pop, it’s just finding out what to do and how. These two articles will help.

    Ted Gore

    Color. When it comes to landscape photography, color has the power to both take a good image to great, or take that same image, and absolutely ruin it. Sometimes it is a very thin line to balance on, but absolute ruin can be avoided with a little knowledge of color theory. ……..

    Ted Gore Landscape Imagery

    Dave Morrow

    Light is the single basic ingredient required to create photographs. Without light, pictures don’t exist.
    Digital photography is the process of transferring light energy, carried by photons, into digital information, which can be processed and displayed by computers and cameras in the form of digital images.
    Light also contains the ability to produce color. Color is produced by specific energies or frequencies of light, known as visible light.
    Understanding color theory and creating beautiful images requires a basic knowledge of color & light.
    This basic understanding is essential for mastering all other aspects of photography, including shooting & photo editing…….

    Dave Morrow Photography

  • Moreton Island

    It’s Australia day (Jan 26), the time when most Australians take some time off from work, and head to the beach, fire up the BBQ, or just sit back and relax with the family having a few quite ones. My wife and I decided to join our friends on Moreton Island.
    Queensland has a number of islands off the coast which are easy to get to, some of them have bridges so you can drive to them, others like Moreton Island have no bridges, and no roads, so it is a 4WD only island only accessible by ferry.

    Heading out to Moreton Island
    Heading out to Moreton Island

    The ferry doesn’t berth at a pier on Moreton Island, instead, it just stops at the beach, in the sand. As I said 4WD only.
    Moreton Island beach
    Moreton Island beach

    The beach above is actually classified as a road. Police patrol up and down it on the quad bikes. Someone actually said the were breathalyzed.
    Moreton Island shipwrecks.
    Moreton Island shipwrecks.

    These pictures were taken towards the end of the day, there was a lot more people about earlier. Plenty of fish and thing to see, but watch out for the current, it will take you down the beach quickly.
    Moreton Island - heading back to Brisbane
    Moreton Island – heading back to Brisbane

    It was a great day, and certainly a place I would come back to.

  • HMAS Gayundah at Woody Point

    HMAS Gayundah at Woody Point

    On Sunday morning it was decided to go and do a shoot of the Gayundah shipwreck at Woody Point. We were after low tide and hopefully a nice sunrise.
    Low tide was good, sunrise, unfortunately, was not anything spectacular due to the heavy clouds. We made the best of what we had.
    I have been here before about a year ago, the first thing I noticed was the top of the bow was now broken, tilting backward. Just goes to show rust never sleeps.
    I think looking back that the heavily overcast morning set a somber mood for the pictures, which I think is fitting considering the way the ship is slowly disappearing into the environment.
    I’m not sure how far the stern goes down into the sand, but the whole thing is balancing on that point. I don’t think that will last too much longer.
    The crabs, though have made this ship home.
     

  • New Website Design

    After about a week, I think I have got his website molded into something I am pleased with. It has been a steep learning curve.
     I have been playing around with WordPress websites for years, all the while never being satisfied with the way they look, always something needing to be changed. I suppose it is that never-ending search, a bit like photography, for the perfect website/photograph which doesn’t exist.
    What one person thinks is great another thinks it’s so so.
    So, do I think this website is perfect, of course not. The gallery needs some more work, on the front page and the Gallery page, plus I also need to get more pictures up. There are a few miscellaneous items need fixing up as well, that will happen in due course.
    For those that are interested, here are some details about this website-

  • Sunflowers at Allora

    Sunflowers at Allora

    On new years eve, a group of us decided to drive about 2 hours out of Brisbane to photograph Sunflowers on a farm. It was very hot and humid, a test of character to be out in these temperatures taking pictures. It was worth the effort.
    A good day out despite the challenging conditions.

    Willowvale Sunflowers from Above
    Willowvale Sunflowers from Above

    This was taken after my climb up onto a silo.
     
    Willowvale Sunflowers
    Willowvale Sunflowers

    One of my first goes at using a reverse grad Nisi ND filter.