Scout Images

Just thought that I would share a few images that I have taken recently as I have been rather quite.

What started out as a bright sunny day quickly turned gloomy but armed with my D60 and Tamron SP 17-50mm f/2.8 I didnt let the grey day stop me from grabbing a few pics. I apologise for the poor images as I am still getting used to the finer nuanaces in the D60′s behaviour.

These were taken using my D60 and 70-200mm f/2.8 VR or 50mm f/1.8, probably one of the most rediculous combinations imaginable, at a recent USYD PhotoSoc meeting/workshop.

With the increasing use of GPS technology in our everyday life, it has quickly become desirable to add GPS information, ‘geotagging’, into our digital photos. To meet this demand a number of devices and software programs have been designed. Amongst this is the Phottix Geo One which directly inserts GPS information into the EXIF information file that is embedded into every picture. The Phottix Geo One is a third party, Nikon dedicated unit that is compatible with the D2/h/x/xs, D3/x, D300/s, D200, D90, D5000 and the S5 Pro…..more

I posted some images of a beautiful 1966 Ford Mustang (289) last night, so I thought I would follow up with some processed images. If you know me well, then you will realise how rare it is for me to post process my images as I shoot to get it right in the viewfinder, however the light painting exercise has led me to remove some big white stripes from a few images to see how they look.

These have been adjusted and the big, white softbox lines have been removed. All shot with my Nikon D300 with Nikkor and Tamron lenses mounted on my Manfrotto tripod.

I have just come home from a meet where we experimented with the technique of light painting. Using various light sources, including high powered LED torches (my Wolf Eyes Defender 260) and camera flashes (SB-600 and SB-800) in conjunction with soft boxes we painted up a beautiful 1966 Ford Mustang. I used my both my D300 and D60 with my Manfrotto 055 ProB and that Phottix Ball head. The lenses of choice for this exercise were the Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 and the Tamron SP 17-50mm f/2.8.

There is still a bit of work to be done for this technique but getting some form of result was very rewarding!

I have just spent the day out and about at Cockatoo Island with members of the University of Sydney Photographic Society (PhotoSoc). The sun was out, the weather warm, and the location had so much to cover. However, I managed to do one thing that I dont usually spend a lot of time doing…taking people pictures.

The Phottix Geo One came along on this trip and it once again proved to be very reliable, geotagging most images, even inside the buildings on the island at the expense of battery lift. I drained a battery and a half in my Nikon D300 for roughly a days shooting…

I previously mentioned that I recently added a Nikon D60 to my arsenal as a lightweight option when carrying my D300 or S5 Pro was not an option. Today was one of those days when I was happy to trade the features and build of my heavier cameras for the lightweight D60. I managed to borrow a (very) light 18-55VR from a good friend and with this I took a DSLR with me on my quest to complete the annual City2Surf, in which this year saw 75,000 competitors ran and walked the 14km’s from the city CBD to Bondi Beach. Here are a few pictures from the day, although not my best work (far from it) I was more focused on enjoying the event rather than photographing from the within the runners.

I am still getting used to this new camera and was shooting in JPG only. Hopefully I will get to know this camera better as time goes by.

I realise that it has been a while since I have posted photos, SORRY. This is a combination of not having a lot of time to go shooting lately and even less time to process the few photos I have taken. Hopefully this will change in the near future with the addition of a lighter D60 which will mean I will be carrying around a DSLR more often (once I find the money to buy a smaller, lighter lens to match).

In the mean time I thought I would share some of the stuff that I have managed to shoot recently.

These were taken at North Head (Manly) a few weeks back. Most of these are HDR’s and a few variants of a HDR pano, which all take an immense time to construct. I have to admit that I am not happy with the results but I thought I would share my triumph over the technique. For this set I used my D300 + MB-D10 with either the Nikkor AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8, Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8, Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 VR or the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8. I also used my trusty Manfrotto 055 Pro B with the Phottix ball head and the Phottix Geo One on this occaision.

This set of images was taken during last weekends trip up to Palm Beach with some friends. This trip was more for an unwind so photography played second fiddle but both the D300 and the Fujifilm F100fd (and its waterproof housing) saw some action.

Just wanted to share. I have just added a Nikon D60 to my kit to supplement my D300 and my S5 Pro as a lightweight camera body and also a future candidate for IR conversion. I picked up this camera from Cameta Camera (via eBay) as a factory refurbished camera and was pleasantly suprised to find out that it had only 8 shutter actuations.