Charlie's Worldfirst shots
Posted on March 28, 2010
As I mentioned previously, I bought a B+W110ND filter – a wondrous thing which is basically a piece of very dark glass that reduces the amount of light into the camera by 10 stops.
For those that have no idea what I’m talking about – a stop on a camera is, for example, like the difference between a shutter speed of 0.5 and 1 second.
So if your camera was going to shoot at 1/125th second, adding a 10 stop filter means you have to shoot for 8 seconds to let the same of light in. Which means you can have quite a lot of fun at sunset when exposures are already down to a second or so without the filter. You have to check the exposure based on the aperture settings you want, frame the shot, get it to focus where you want, switch the camera to manual everything (inc focus), screw the filter in, which is so black you can’t see anything anymore. Then work out the correct exposure with the filter on, set the remote timer and basically leave it to do its thing for the 200 odd seconds that is needed.
Anyway, all this technical mumbo jumbo is all well and good, but the upshot of the camera being open for at least 3 minutes is that the ocean is totally smoothed out and the camera has captured the clouds moving.
Like this:
And yes, I am pleased with the results!
Next step, more location scouting and to start thinking in black and white…
new toys
Posted on March 20, 2010
I just bought some new stuff for my camera as I’m very interested in long exposure shots.
I got a B&W ND110 filter reduces light by 10 stops so enables long exposures during the day (interesting, but not *that* useful) or more importantly, longer exposures at or around sunset.
The longer the shutter is open on the water/rock/beach sunsets that I like, the smoother the water and the sky become. So focus onto something nice and sharp, like a jetty or a bold rock and set the camera to take a shot for 5 minutes, you’ll get (hopefully) amazingly smooth looking landscapes which tend to convert well to black and white.
I had a little go today, but I didn’t get anything totally fab, just the slight oddness of a daytime shot with smooth waves over rocks.
I need loads more practice, but at least I have something to aim for.
take a look at these guys if you have time
http://www.davidburdeny.com/
http://www.silverlandscapes.com
http://www.michaellevin.ca
Some target, eh? 🙂
more film pics
Posted on February 24, 2010
Some more scans of the latest films that came back
Perth from Kings Park – Holga + Kodak Portra 400
Perth – Murray St Mall – Holga + Kodak Portra 400
Sunset, Warnbro, WA – Holga wide angle pinhole + Portra 160 – this is really way underexposed, but I love the potential this camera has for sunsets.
Busselton, Western Australia – Holga wide angle pinhole + Portra 160
official wedding photos
Posted on February 11, 2010
Just checked our photographer’s Facebook site to find a sampler from our wedding photos – woo 🙂
Not decided if I like the vintage processing or not – it’s really excellent in some of the shots though and I love the one with the texture.
That chick in the white dress looks HOT! Shame there’s that slightly chubby bearded bloke in 1/2 the shots though, he looks well dodgy!
We’ll get an album of proofs and some prints done – maybe in a few years we’ll save up for a wedding album too – they look lovely all done properly, but its a lot of money for us right now.
so, for your viewing pleasure –
a day out
Posted on January 30, 2010
We went to Caversham Wildlife Park today. I love it when I see place names from England here, especially places I know – its even funnier when 2 places are next to each other here when they’re not in England.
Caversham is near Reading, south west of London and a place I know quite well. Caversham here is semi rural place where vineyards flourish, watered by the Swan River.
Anyway, I digress.
Its an hour or so’s drive, just past the place where we went to see the B52’s and the Proclaimers a month or so back. Its within a massive national park and is kinda tucked away and not very busy at all.
It was pretty warm today, especially inland where this place is – despite a good strong breeze it was 37 degrees – and we were out in the middle of the day. *phew*
The wildlife park was awesome, so many cool animals with lots of space to roam about – some of the animals were a little couped up, but most had acres of space – the birds especially.
The highlights (orgive me for all the photos, but these creatures were soooo adorable!)
a kangaroo enclosure where you could stroke and feed them. They were all born in the park so were used to and liked human contact, so getting up close was not a problem, unlike in the wild where they can be dangerous up close
a koala enclosure where you could get up close to the little sleeping cuddly bears and even stroke them. They were so adorable sleeping in all kinds of positions.
and my favourite – check out the guy on the left!
goats. goats are wicked – they love a good scratch behind the ears and really don’t want you to stop, even to the point of butting up against you to do some more, but being content to eat your bag or shorts if they can’t get more attention. I like goats, but they’d eat the sofa and the tv and the patio before a week was out.
sugar gliders – teeny little things laying on their backs fast asleep. Like little kittens almost, paws in the air, claws outstretched. Adorable
There were also hundreds of guinea pigs, furry bantams, pregnant sheep, a couple of camels, some wombats, wallabies, quokkas, Tasmanian devils, a bloody great golden orb weaver spider a giganormous pig and a donkey called Tommy that did tricks for food
We had a lovely picnic lunch, an ice cream and then wandered back home again.
Awesome day out!
ikky
Posted on January 28, 2010
Its damn hot again today, not the best for walking 20 mins in a suit 😦
Of course, a year ago, it wasn’t like this in the mornings..it was a lot cooler..
I’ve written about this before, but I think its timely to remind you all..
So a big thank-you to all the morons who voted for daylight savings time to end permanently in Perth. You bunch of geniuses really didn’t think it through at all, letting your blinkered opinions of how you think things are get in the way of some good solid facts about how and more importantly, when it gets hot in the summer.
The argument for the ending of daylight savings went something like this
- Its too hot in the summer and we want the sun to go down quicker to give us rest from the heat
- The poor little children are coming home in the hottest part of the day, spare them the misery..
- If we shift the time, we can use the super cool mornings to do all things like exercise we couldn’t do after work as it was too hot
- The cows get confused (no, really, this was one of the main arguments..) and the milk spoils..
- Perth doesn’t need it, change bad
Well, geniuses, heres the rub.
- The sun has been up for hours before most of us go to work and the mornings are now quite a good bit hotter now than they were. The heat climbs pretty quickly once the day is going and levels off around 12ish. So thanks for making my mornings 5-10 degrees warmer.
- The poor little children now have to *go* to school in the heat as well as come back in it – well done for that. As I just pointed out, the heat builds quickly, so what was cooler 8am, is now pretty warm. The heat levels off and cools gently to the evening – the difference in the afternoon between 3 and 4 is pretty negligible. Again, really nicely thought out, daylight savings haters. You only have to look at a thermometer to know how the temperature profiles during the day.
- I’m not seeing a lot of people up at 4:30am jogging and stuff. So we now have a load of wasted cool daylight until the autumn comes and brings us 6am sunrises again. Oh, that was another thing, the “dark” mornings in the autumn before the clocks went back for winter were “deadly” apparently, causing accidents and rapes and murders. Well, once again, idiots, the sunrise being 7am for those last few weeks of DLS is replicated a month later and throughout the whole winter without DSL, only then its raining too. Are there more accidents and general anarchy? No. Way to go, morons
- Dont even get me started..
- This sums it up. The fact that the rest of the world seems to prosper with DLS, and is, on balance, a better use of cooler mornings, better use of evening light for those who actually have to work and commute and generally more conducive to an outdoor lifestyle is totally lost on the people of Perth. They didn’t have DLS when they were kids, so why do they need it now.
Its all really a moot frigging point as its not overly hot for more than a handful of days a year anyway. Its easy to focus on the stinking hot days and forget the other 360 days that are just fine, thank you very much.
So, as I was saying before the ranting started, it is hot today and my back is sweaty. Nice, huh?
Better do some work, I suppose..
Monday Monday
Posted on January 26, 2010
So good to me…
Just like the Mamas and the Papas, my Monday ended up being awesome.
Work was boring, nothing happened at all all day, as this year, Monday is an odd day between the weekend and the public holiday for Australia Day (today). As a consequence, I was done early and “helped” Jay make pizzas for dinner and we went out to take sunset photos at Point Peron
We’d had a hot day, compounded by the aircon having given up the ghost and deciding that it was only going to blow hot air from now on (*sigh*) so it was lovely to get out to the beach.
Was a gorgeous evening, the girls had lots of fun, we saw a big brown seal lazing on a rock and lots of crabs in the rockpools
What more can I say other than to show you photos..
And to top that, if it were even possible, I went and got some wine.
Mondays, not always bad.
down south, part 2
Posted on January 24, 2010
Continuing from part 1, we had a quick drink in the very posh cafe at Bunker Bay and then went round the corner to Eagle Bay, which is a very small little neighbourhood full of lovely expensive summer houses, Range Rovers, a brand new Porsche Panamera and million dollar for sale hoardings.
Eagle Bay itsself was beautiful with a white sand and even bluer sea than in Warnbro where I live or Bunker Bay that we’d just come from.
Am so going there again, it was quiet and unspoiled, even on a weekend in the height of summer with Australia day just 3 days away. There were lots of other little bays and places that would be worth exploring later in the day when the light was golden – particularly on the other side of the peninsular – Canal Rocks and Sugarloaf Rock being two very popular places for photographers. Save those for another time when we have somewhere to stay for the night 🙂
We mooched back to Dunsborough for some coffee, but even at 4:30pm on a busy Saturday, most places had already shut or were shutting. WTF, Australia? I see this so much and I really don’t get it. After a day on the beach or out exploring, who wouldn’t want to come back for a snack/coffee/cake/etc before dinner later. Apparently that message was only heeded by The Dome, so we headed there for a drink before we went home.
We drove through Busselton, which quite frankly was nothing much at all – the highlight is the huge mile long jetty, but that closed last year, leaving a fenced off eyesore and basically sod-all else. Some naked girls/young women skinny dipping and wrestling in the sand was pretty much the highlight (much to the delight of some passing teenage boys who were busy picking their jaws up off the floor..). Even the beachside water park/theme park thing was closed and neglected.. Took a few piccies with the Holga Pinhole Wide angle camera, forgot to take the damn lens cap off though – meh! thats 2 shots out of 12 that will be black.. *sob*
By this time Jay was feeling tired having done all the driving (she always wants to drive, so I get to be shotgun with the cameras) and wanted to go home and as she was driving and we had a long way to go, we headed off..
And that bit will be in part 3..
down south, part 1
Posted on January 24, 2010
As the girls were spending the weekend with their dad, Jay and I decided to take a day trip south to Cape Naturaliste and Dunsborough. Its a couple of hours easy driving down there and the weather was beautiful as usual.
We were aiming for a Yoga retreat with a vegan eaterie as our first port of call – Samudra – or Ocean in Sanskrit, apparently. We had a lovely coffee and then really yummy vegan lunch before heading to the ocean to cool down a bit.
Armed with new swimming togs thanks to a surf shop, we headed down the track to the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse, which was a disappointment as you had to pay to walk up to it. Pah to that, we drove down to Bunker Bay, which was ber-you-ti-ful!
Deserted beach, white sand, blue sky, azure sea – perfect. We went for a swim in the deliciously clear ocean, which turned out to be brass-monkeyingly cold. Very refreshing though. I must swim in the sea more often.
Bunker Bay was lovely, I’ll definitely be back.
More in part 2…
sunset
Posted on January 20, 2010
Typical, both yesterday and tonights sunsets have been magnificent but I’ve not been able to get down to the beach or Point Peron, so I just watched it from the porch instead.
Charlie's World 