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.
Author: Vincent
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Long Exposure – Surfers Paradise
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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.
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.
A view from the upstairs bar looking out over the Chobe River towards Namibia.
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
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 –- SiteOrigin theme Vagrant premium & associated plugins.
- Envira Gallery Silver membership.
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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.
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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
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. ……..
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……. -
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
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
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.
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
It was a great day, and certainly a place I would come back to. -
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.
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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-- WordPress: HOST365
- Theme: Themify
- Gallery: Nextgen gallery
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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
This was taken after my climb up onto a silo.
Willowvale Sunflowers
One of my first goes at using a reverse grad Nisi ND filter. -
Editorial Shoot
Last week I attended a Photoshoot session run by SandmanPhotography, with the aim of shooting a sequence of photo’s that link together to tell a story.
I think I got partially there with this selection, but as some of the photos didn’t come out as I anticipated there are gaps in my short picture story.
Tayla from Mystique models is a fantastic model, being very patient with the group.
Tayla from Mystiquemodels
Tayla from Mystiquemodels
Tayla from Mystiquemodels
Tayla from Mystiquemodels
Tayla from Mystiquemodels -
Dancer Photo Shoot
Matt from Sandman Photography was leading our photo group from Brisbane Model & Portrait Workshops.
Below are some of my favorite pics from that session, of the amazing @beccamurray247. The poise and grace that she was able to demonstrate is truly exceptional.
Dancer
Dancer
Dancer