Day 247: Twiggy Trees

On a little drive at lunch time today I found these mostly nude tree trunks and the contrast against the clear blue sky struck me as being photo worthy. I've decided to use the manual settings on the Nikon as much as possible and to experiment with the different settings. I still don't really know what I'm doing but through a little trial and error I'm ending up with images that I'm happy with. Although sometimes for the first couple of photos I forget I've left the camera in manual mode and that I need to adjust it to suit the conditions.

It was such a nice day today, it's really startin to feel like spring is here at last. Maybe I should have taken a photo of the blossoms that have started coming out to give that 'spring is in the air' kind of feel, but then again I'm pretty sure this nice weather will lull us into a false sense of security only to snap back to the cold. 

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 40: A Very Long Day

After a full day of product training that involved sitting, listening and being shuffled from one room to another all the while feeling a little tired from the previous nights activities I drove my colleagues back to Canberra. I was comfortable in the role of chauffeur and aside from the 10 minute stop at Marulan for a 'comfort stop' and some Hungry Jacks we drove straight through.

The hire car was a current model Calais which is not that different to Belinda's Commodore, just a little more plush with the leather seats and dual zone climate control. I was glad to be in a car I was familiar with because I knew how to disable the annoying rest reminder that chimes at you every 2 hours, I was also able to set the time correctly (it was 10 minutes fast when I picked it up).

I was interested to see how the newer V6 engine felt and performed compared to our older non SIDI V6 so I reset the trip computer before we headed up the highway.

The end result was actually pretty impressive: 4 adults with over night bags traveled around 690km with an average speed of 88.5kmh and average fuel consumption of 8.8 litres per 100km. It still had a good quarter of a tank when I got home. The SIDI engine still felt as good as our Commodore but the economy really was better than what I'm used to in the SV6, I have to congratulate Holden on the evolution of their V6 powerplant... I just wish they'd been able to come up with a better name for it that "Spark Ignition Direct Injection". I mean really, it's a petrol engine, where else is ignition going to come from if not from a spark?