Day 327: Experimenting With The Sun

I thought I'd experiment with the manual settings on my Nikon and try taking a photo of the sun today. I think it worked out pretty well and I like how the sun has the rays coming out of it like you'd see in a kids drawing. The settings I used were: ISO 100, F/16 and the shutter speed was 1/320. Most of the settings don't really mean that much to me but I figure it's worth making a note of them in case I want to shoot directly into the sun again.

Day 269: Expanding Capabilities

This little gem arrived in the mail today, it's a funky little adaptor that lets me us Nikon F mount lenses on my Nikon V1 camera. I'm now looking forward to actually using this with some of Belinda's lenses and might even look into buying some F mount lenses of my own.

It's quite a heavy little thing, and it's got all the contact points to bring power to the lens so it will auto focus. The local camera shops were asking a lot of money for one of these and they didn't actually carry them in stock either. By shopping online I saved close to 40% and had delivery within a week. I wonder how long it will be before retail outlets are a thing of the past?

Day 256: Not So Local Landmark 2

Last time I was in Sydney for work I forgot my camera and ended up posting a crappy photo of Luna Park taken with my iPhone. I hated not having my camera and swore I wouldn't leave it behind the next time I was away with work. I'm back in Sydney with work for the next two days and this time I came prepared.

My flight was a little late this afternoon and I didn't get off the plane until just after 8pm. I ended up catching a cab straight to a little restaurant with a couple of colleagues for dinner, If you're out around the Rocks I can recommend both the food and the service at Sailors Thai. After dinner the decision was made to walk from Sailors Thai to the hotel we were staying in and along the way we passed this little scene.

I really like this photo, there's so much going on in it: The bridge looks great from this angle, there's a cool starburst from the lamp on the left, the crushed car in the centre of the roundabout is different and the Australia Day flag on the right was being blown by a bit of a gust of wind which blurred its edge in the long exposure photo. Have I mentioned that I love my Nikon? So glad I didn't leave it at home this time.

Day 226: Skippy

I was so happy about having my Camera to use again that I took a bit of a drive down to Tharwa via Point Hut Crossing this afternoon in the hope of taking a decent photo. I stopped off for a look around at the Tharwa bridge and as I was heading back to the road from the little car park at the bridge I spotted these 3 and pulled over for a few happy snaps.

They were only about 10 meters away and the big one looking directly at me was huge. I reckon he would have been at least 6 feet tall when standing up, probably even taller. His eyes never left me the whole time I was there taking photos either.

The picture is a little grainy because the light wasn't great, it was a little after 5:30 when I took this photo and the sun was well on its way behind the hills. Still better than what it would have looked like on the old Canon I was using until I got the Nikon and I won't even mention the iPhone...

Day 225: There You Are!

I left this behind in the boot of my car last Friday and had to make do with the iPhone while in Sydney... as far as a camera goes, the iPhone really sucks. I was going to take this photo with the iPhone as a reminder to myself not to leave the Nikon behind again, but the images were so crap I gave up and used Belinda's little Sony.

I just keep thinking about how much better my photos from Saturday night would have been if I'd had  real camera. So annoying... I'll do my best not to leave the camera behind again.

Day 196: Photo Time

Belinda organised a photo shoot with Jenna and Henry today, they were at it for hours. I jumped in on the action as well so I could play with the manual settings on my Nikon. Unlike Belinda, my success was limited. Today's photo is one of the few of mine that were reasonably focused and didn't look grainy or underexposed.

I like trying to work out what Henry's thinking with that funny little look on his face, is it "god no, not another bloody photo.." or "when will this torture be over??" or maybe it's "I think I've just done poopoo in my pants...".

Day 185: Full Moon

Driving home from picking Jenna up tonight we both noticed that the moon was very full and was quite low in the sky. My photo today was taken using one of the long exposure settings while resting my camera on the roof of the car in our driveway, I liked how the moon was peeking through the branches of the tree but the photo doesn't really convey how big the moon looked. I think I need more practice with my funky little Nikon...

I'm off on a five day ride with Pete & Andy tomorrow morning and due to the limited luggage options on the R1 I'll be taking Belinda's little Sony point & shoot. I'm sure I'll get some good shots over the next 5 days.

Day 145: May Task - Something New

I've been threatening to upgrade from the old hand me down Canon since a blog entry in January, I even mentioned it again a few days later in another post about my planned upgrade path.

About a week ago my gorgeous wife became so frustrated with my constant complaining about 'really needing to get a better camera' that she offered me a solution: I'd had Birthday and Christmas presents that were never 'cashed in' so lieu of these she would buy me a new camera. I of course accepted this proposition very quickly and we ordered my new Nikon J1 twin lens kit online. The J1 doesn't have a built in flash so I also ordered the Speed Light flash as well.

Today's photo was obviously not taken with my new Nikon, instead I used Belinda's point & shoot Sony. Now all I need to do is get used to the new camera and take more photos. I've already discovered the flash is amazing and that I can shoot in rapid fire mode at 60 shots per second... it doesn't take long to accidentally take 200 photos.

Day 137: May Task - What You're Reading

This is a bit of a collection of the books I've been browsing lately. I do like to read but because I read slowly, I struggle to find the time. 

I've been reading the Stephen King since Christmas, luckily I have no trouble picking up where I left off even after not having picked the book up for over a month.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is one of Henry's favourites and I get to read this one pretty regularly, although Henry will sometimes skip ahead pages before I can read all the words to him. I think he really likes the holes in the pages where the Caterpillar has eaten through the various foods.

The Rawson Homes brochure is getting a bit of attention lately along with the Googong information pack, together they're forming a picture of where we'd like to be in a few years time.

The little one tucked between Googong and Rawson is the user guide for my new camera, I'm working my way through it trying to understand all the cool features of the Nikon V1... it's taking some time.

Day 99: A Successful Meet

This weekend was Round 1 of the St George Race Series for 2012 and it was also the first time I'd been to Eastern Creek to spectate instead of riding. I only had a half day spare this weekend to go out and watch my friend Mark racing his Yamaha FZ-1.

The race meet was a two day event and I'd been keeping an eye on Natsoft for Mark's results. He'd done exceptionally well yesterday and had won both races in the class he'd been concentrating on and was consistently in the top 3rd of the field in the second class he'd been running. Today he chose to only race in the one class because competing in both classes involved back to back races which really takes a toll both mentally and physically.

In this race Mark finished second and I found out later (through the live updates on Natsoft) that Mark had finished second in his second race and first in his last race which was enough for him to win this class outright for the weekend.

I was only able to watch one of his 3 races today so I made the most of it with Belinda's Nikon and her longest zoom lens. Of the 200+ photos I took today this is one of the handful that was actually in focus and captured the subject that I'd been aiming for. I've developed a new appreciation for the guys who do this for a living or even as a hobby, there is a lot of skill involved in taking photos of subjects moving upward of 200km/h.

I also dropped in on some other riders in the pit area, I'd done a few races last year with the BEARS and it was good to catch up with a few of the guys I shared garages with and hear some encouragement  to come back and race with them again.

Day 37: The "Arty Farty, Had Nothing Else To Blog" Post

I arrived home from work today and realised I hadn't taken a photo... nor did I have anything in mind to take a photo of. What was I to do??

After a little thought interspersed with a lot of procrastination I decided I'd highjack Belinda's Nikon again and play with the 'Bulb' setting and the tripod. The sky was still blue and I could see it was going to be quite a full moon, what better opportunity to try a long exposure shot of the night sky!

After the nightly chaos that only Henry can create had subsided (yes, this means he was now asleep) I borrowed the Nikon and discovered the Battery was flat... bugger. So I put the battery on charge and waited patiently for there to be enough charge to take couple of quick shots.

Finally the battery was charged. I set the camera up on the tripod and headed outside for my photo shoot... Great... not a star in the sky. It had become so overcast I couldn't even tell where the moon was.

Now what??

I decided to go for a drive to find something, anything, to photograph. I ended up doing a lap of Lake Tuggeranong and the end result is what you see above. It took while... I didn't get home until 11:45pm, but the job was done and I had my photo of the day.

Day 20: Stormy Weather

Who'd have thought the weather man would get it right today? The forecast was for thunderstorms and thunderstorms we did have. It wasn't the most violent of storms but enough thunder to scare my poor old mutt Rex (it doesn't take much for him to be cowering at my feet) and a lightning show that was pretty spectacular... If I'd been better versed in the settings on Belinda's camera I might have been able to catch a rather large lighting bolt that looked to strike just over the back of the houses on the other side of our street. I really do need to upgrade my hand-me-down Canon.

Instead I played with Belinda's Nikon and took a shot of the one of the candles we were forced to use during the 40 minute black out. No internet, no TV and candles to read the Nikon instruction manual by. 'Twas a pleasant evening none the less.

Day 11: Prancing Puppies

After comparing the excitement of Jenna and Henry seeing each other to that of the dogs when they're let inside for the evening in yesterday's blog entry, I decided I'd try to capture the dogs going nuts tonight... I knew it wasn't going to be easy with the old hand me down Canon donated by Daphne and I was right, the first photo was of the stairs sans dogs, they were just too fast.

Luckily Rex goes a bit more nutso than Milly does and he usually heads back up our 3 steps to bound down them again. On his second run I managed to grab the photo above as he's leaping from the second step.

My best laid plans of capturing both Prancing Puppies in full lunatic mode were dashed when I found that all the photos with both of them were either out of focus or just didn't capture the movement and excitement that happens every night. In hindsight I should have borrowed Belinda's Nikon, it's so much faster than the little point & shoot Canon.

I may end up borrowing the Nikon a little more often throughout the course of the year... Belinda is yet to hear about my cunning plan of SLR snaffling...