Silver Weddings...

I went out to my friends farm this weekend to help them celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary...

It was an interesting weekend weather wise with warmth, humidity, fog & rain...

Before the party I took some photos of cows...




Then the fog set in...


Then the party kicked off and a good night was had by all. Congratulations on your 25th wedding anniversary Warren & Vicki...


On the way home this morning I stopped on the side of the road to take some photos through the fog... It's certainly a beautiful part of the world...

Balmy sunset...

I've just merged two images together into a panorama of tonights sunset over Port Phillip bay in Melbourne.

I cannot believe that the image worked so well given that it was taken with my iPhone!!! It is a little grainy as the resolution on the iPhone isn't very high but I like it... If you click on the image you get to see a larger version...

I also took some more pinhole images but you will have to wait for those...

Unbelievable...

I have finally picked up my 5 x 4 inch negatives from the lab... I used my new pinhole camera and managed to get the exposures somewhat near close to correct...

I am amazed at the quality of the images considering that they were taken with what is effectively a box painted black inside with the tiniest of pinholes in the front... No lenses, no viewfinders, no menus, no batteries... Woo Hoo!

I think I might enjoy more "slow photography"...

The camera comes in three sections and each has a focal length roughly equivalent to 25mm in 35mm film... So when you add them together you start at 25mm, then 50mm, then 75mm focal lengths. There is a pinhole and a zone plate for each focal length and I forgot to change it for the photo below of the seed pods... I think this is why it isn't as sharp as it could be... Just for reference the focal length for this one was 75mm the aperture was f216 and the exposure time was 96 minutes!!! The various seed pods look amazing and I've yet to take an image of them that does them justice...


The second image is of a flowering plant that I'm sure someone will know the name of and was the first image I took with the camera... It is about a 90 second exposure so you there is some movement int the flower heads but I like the look of this image too...


I don't use my scanner very often and I've just remembered why! It's the most user unfriendly piece of software I have ever used. The scanner itself is great and does a very good job but trying to work out how to select the image to be scanned and then working out how to actually scan it requires opening the instruction manual every single time!!!

Love Melbourne...

I had to take my camera to work today to shoot some images for an organisational chart... I got to work at 6am and the Yarra river and the view to Melbourne was just perfect... It was one of those brilliant, still mornings and the sun had just risen... I snapped a couple of quick images across the river on my way in...

The first one didn't focus and I think it just works as an abstract... The "in focus" image of the same shot is boring...


In the hi res image of the second shot you can see the clock on Flinders St clock tower (yellow building in the bottom left of the image) and it's definitely 6am...

Walking around Southbank...

I went for a walk today around Southbank in Melbourne. I had with me my D700 and 24mm PC lens. This lens allows Perspective Correction which simply means that verticals are vertical when doing architectural shots... The lens also allows for some interesting depth of field fun and I will try to make some images that demonstrate this soon...

I went to see a Da Vinci exhibiton that has been put together by a friend and if you are in Melbourne between now and the end of January 2010 go and have a look... Da Vinci was an amazing observer of just about everything and this exhibition shows his examination of the human body and his attempts at making robots based on those observations. These images are from around Southbank...

Eureka Tower - the tallest building in Melbourne. Check out the bees...


Crown Tower Hotel across the Sandridge Bridge...


Pedestrian Bridge near the Melbourne Entertainment Centre (don't know the name of it as it's not on my map...)...


An anchor near the ship Polly Woodside...

Pinhole photography...

Yes... I haven't done much with my blog lately... Sorry to all you avid readers out there...

I recently bought a pinhole camera. It's a Zero Image 45 Deluxe and is a lovely piece of craftsmanship. The 45 means that it uses 4" x 5" sheets of film which are the smallest of the "large format" film sizes... Each frame segment of the camera adds to the focal length and it roughly equates to 25mm, 50mm and 75mm focal lengths in 35mm film terms. The pinhole apertures are tiny and therefore you need exceptionally long exposure times to make things happen. The aperture for each focal length is slightly different and therefore there's some maths to do once you take a meter reading of the scene. The aperture for 75mm is f216!

Today I took a photo in my kitchen and the exposure time given the tiny aperture was 96 minutes... This was partly due to the aperture but also due to the film. The longer film is exposed to light the less receptive it is to taking in more light... Google "reciprocity failure" for and explanation better than I can give.

The next part of the learning curve comes with handling, loading and processing sheet film... All of this was a natural part of photography 40 years ago when press photographers used large format cameras routinely. I took the five unprocessed sheets to the lab today and have to wait for a week to get them back!!! Talk about delayed gratification!

Next will be scanning the negatives and working out the best way to do that. As soon as I have all of that worked out I will post some images (both good and bad).I am really looking forward to playing around with the long exposures to see what creative things can happen.

There are some awesome pinhole images out there if you Google the term.

Native parrots...

I went for a drive today to the Sherbrooke Forest near Melbourne.

I actually went to see if I could get some good photos of the tall gum trees in the area but I chose the wrong time of day for that.

The parrots in the area are very friendly although the woman who stuck her finger in the air got it bitten because the parrots thought she had food for them...

I can't believe how good a couple of these images are. The small images here don't do them justice...

Cockatoo... The males and females look the same...

King Parrot - Male

King Parrot - Female


Kookaburra

More flowers...

These are the same flowers I used the other day but they have changed since then. The centres have opened up and look almost fluffy.

Just experimenting with depth of field and composition.

Colour perception test...

How well do you see colour?

I found a test that will accurately tell you how "well" you see colour...

According to the test 1:255 women and 1:12 men have some form of visual colour deficiency.

The lower score you get the better the results. I have a really good quality Eizo monitor that was calibrated a couple of months ago (if I was producing images for clients I would calibrate it fortnightly) and I scored 3. I will calibrate my monitor and try again one day soon.

Try it out... Here...

Where does my head go...?

I was sitting at work the other day, thinking... Fairly profound thoughts really.

I remembered a time when I was in high school all those years ago and one of my friends very excitedly pointed out that it was 12:34 on the 5th of the 6th of 1978 (12345678 - if you didn't pick it up). There has got to be a name for this type of thing and it doesn't happen that often.

Then I realised (a couple of days early instead of a couple of days late)... On the 7th of August 2009 at 5:06 am the sequence will be 05:06 07/08/09...

I was probably thinking this as I was trying to work out another date for my first photo tutorial class. Of all the people I sent out the message to for last weekend only one could make it. He then had to cancel because of work commitments... Sigh, it will happen one day I'm sure...