Scout Images

I have just come back from a weekend up in the Blue Mountains. This trip was not primarily a photographic one, but a trip away with some friends. As a result I did not lug a lot of gear but instead opted to bring my treasured Nikon FM2n and my new Sony Cyber-Shot TX5. This means that despite the many, many photos of Mt Solitary taken whilst hiking along the Prince Henry Cliff Walk from Lyrebird Dell to Gordon Falls to Leura Cascades then onto Echo Point, I dont have anything to share just yet as I have to send off my precious rolls of Fujifilm Velvia  (I shot one roll of traditional, old style Velvia, and a roll of Velvia 100F) to be processed and scanned.

Keep your eyes posted as I will be adding photos as soon as I get this film back.

I was recently up in the Blue Mountains, with a few intentions. To get away from reality, to get out there and take in some of the beautiful landscapes that are so close to us here in Sydney, and to try to re-shoot some of my lost photos (refer here).

So what does one bring on a trip like this? I didnt actually think too hard but settled for a quality over convenience kit, which in many ways I probably regret (the weight made me not so happy whilst we were hiking).

• Nikon D300
• AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8
• AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR
• AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8
• Tokina AT-X 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 Fisheye
• Nikon SB-400
• Phottix Geo One
• Phottix Duo Cable
• Cokin P-Series ND4
• Cokin P-Series ND8
• Lowepro Fastpack 350

Some Panorama action (Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 + Cokin ND4 + Cokin ND8)

Some HDR action (Tokina 10-17mm, 7 frames)

You may have noticed that I have been very busy and have not been posting much over the last fortnight (until last night that is) so I thought I would apologise once more and share with you images of my recent travels.

Firstly, I headed off to Kanangra Boyd National Park (beyond the Blue Mountains and Jenolan Caves) with members of my old lab group from USYD. This was not a photographic expedition, but rather a scientific field trip to collect lizards to continue the work on the evolution of viviparity (live birth) – yes this was the broad subject for my honours year. As it was not a photographic trip, I restricted myself to bringing only my Fuji S5 Pro (the D300 was still with Nikon Australia), Tamron SP 17-50mm f/2.8 and Phottix Geo One.

Soon afterwards (literally a two day break) I headed off to Kiama with some friends for an overnight getaway. However, the weather was not quite smiling down upon me so I did not get a lot of good photos. With me on this trip I brought along my Nikon D60, Nikon F80 (shooting Velvia 50), SB-400, Phottix Duo Cord, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8, Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 as well as the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye.

Then after a single day at home, I headed down to Hobart for a four day trip. This trip was meant to be pretty photo intensive, so between myself and my younger sister we had the entire kitchen sink bringing the, Fuji S5 Pro + Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8, Sigma 180mm Macro, Nikon D60, Nikon F80 (shooting Velvia 50 and Superia 200), Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8, Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8VR, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8, Tokina 10-17mm fisheye, as well as the Phottix Duo Cord, Phottix Geo One and my trusty Nikon SB-400. This four day trip can be roughly split between four events:

Mt Wellington – standing behind Hobart, this landmark provides some great views of the city and surrounds

Cascade Brewery – Australia’s oldest continuously operating brewery, a great tour and some great drinks, I really enjoyed their Mercury Cider and the Cascade Lager (only available in TAS).

Bruny Island – untouched wilderness, some animal encounters and a hell of a ride in a 1400Bhp, 14m boat.

Salamanca Markets – a must see, a mix of craft and food and a great way to spend a day

I have only posted digital images taken with the D60 (as my younger sister was using the S5 Pro) with film images from the Superia 200 and the Velvia 50 to come if I have time.

Lastly, I thought I would share a few images from today’s bittersweet adventure where I welcomed back my trusty D300 but my good friend lost her D80.

I have to apologise for the long time between posts. I have just become very time poor recently and have only just managed to find the time to process some photos from last weekend’s trip up to the Blue Mountains for a Sublime Point dawn shoot. Other than that, there has been a fair bit of other stuff happening…with more cameras going out to service.

Today I dropped off my treasured FM2n to get the aperture indexing ring replaced, having discovered that it was modified by its previous owner (to use non AI lenses) and ordered a new focus screen for my S5 Pro. This means two of my five cameras are currently away for service (the D300 is back at Nikon but I will be checking on it tomorrow, and now the FM2n is away as well) and a third still away on extended loan (I should be getting the F80D back soon though). This leaves me with the S5 Pro and the D60 until the others come back.

Now that I have expressed the sad state of affairs in terms of camera bodies, I should show you some of the work that the two remaining cameras have been doing recently…..

First up lets have a look at the trip up to the Blue Mountains. Dawn at Sublime Point is great to watch, even when the conditions are not great for photography. I was pretty disappointed to find that the S5 Pro had picked up a few dust bunnies on the sensor and in the viewfinder (I actually damaged the focus screen trying to get the viewfinder clean) so you will actually be able to see some dust bunnies on some of my shots.

As a bonus I have decided to post a few images from the Long Table Laneway Dinner (14th Oct 2009) taken with my D60. A lot of these images were taken at high ISO with slow shutter speeds but I figured that having a few images was better than having none. However there is a bit of FishEye fun in this album.

I have spent some time revisiting my latest HDR efforts trying to get a bit more out of the image. The previous version has a bit of strange colouring on the rocks (if you look closely you will notice) so these reworks were aimed at fixing this.

To get a bit more out of the image I have tried a Black and White conversion.

Just for fun…here is the middle shot (the proper exposure) of the 9 frame bracket that was taken for this HDR.

Apologies to anyone who is on a slow connection. This is going to be a pretty big post with quite a few pictures.

Firstly I just wanted to a few more pics from my trip up to the Blue Mountains, these include a 9 shot HDR (using Photomattix) of Siloam Pool, and a few panos (stitched using Auto Pano Pro) taken from Echo Point and Gordon Falls. All of these shots were taken using my D300 + MB-10 and Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 mounted on my Manfrotto 714B with my Phottix Ball Head. This set up is light enough to carry when hiking, but tripod and head combination really is a bit too light for the load of the camera.

Next up is a series of black and white conversions I did of the beautiful cakes and coffee from Lindt Cafe, Darling Harbour. These were taken using my D60 and the RAW files processed using Capture NX2.

Finally, I wanted to share a few shots that I took whilst I was out at Fiesta at Darling Harbour. I was feeling like a film day so I am yet to see a lot of the results as they are still sitting on Pan F 50 inside my FM2n, but I was smart enough to have brought my D300 with me. So there I was snapping pics on both cameras using a Series E 50mm f/1.8 and my AI Nikkor 135mm f/2.8.

As many of my friends know, I go up to the Blue Mountains on a pretty regular basis; heading up there once every few months for a bit of a roam and some picture taking. Today was yet another one of these trips, with the excuse of taking a friend who had never been up there before, so I did a bit less shooting and hiking (which I always feel like doing more of) and a bit more of the tourist jaunt (which always seems to be the case). However, equipped with my Nikon D300, Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 and Phottix Geo One I managed to get some shots, including a few from the long trip via CityRail up to the mountains.

As always, these are images that are straight out of camera and resized.

Just been using the Phottix Geo One for a little while now and thought I would just let you all know how it is going.

I picked up this unit a little while ago and have been using it with my Fuji S5 Pro as my D300 has been away for repairs. Since then I have taken the unit around with me for most of my roaming and even on a day trip into the Blue Mountains.

My initial thoughts are that it works nicely. The time to initaially establish a connection varies but is mostly under a minute, however there have been occaisons when it has refused to connect (when indoors or when there is excessive cloud cover). Unfortunately the S5 Pro does not turn off its meters when the Geo One is connected so I cannot comment on warm start up times, this will have to be done when the D300 returns. There are no problems with integration, the Geo One does what it says it does, it writes straight to the EXIF in the S5 Pro and from what I have heard the D300 as well.

The bad news…it drains batteries! On the Fuji S5 Pro the meters dont turn off when the Geo One is connected, so both the camera meter and the Geo One remains on the whole time the camera is on, and if your like me and are used to keeping the camera on all day your batteries drain mighty quick. This is a problem for me as the S5 Pro has an annoying propriortry battery (thanks Nikon for not sharing the battery) and I only have two of these NP-150s. I do not own a MB-D200 so I cannot use AAs either. I had to stop using the Geo One during the Blue Moutains trip as I was worried of running out of battery. There should be no issue with the D300 as I have more batteries, the MB-D10 and the D300 will turn off the its light meter (and the Geo One) if left at idle.

So far I am very impressed with this unit and would have no problems continuing to use it.

I recently had to reformat my computer and in the process it appears that I have lost photos from at least two trips up to the Blue Mountains and a macro trip. I do not want to know what else I have lost as it hurts too much just knowing that I have lost the records from these two trips which feature in my gallery.

There is not much else to do but to take this as a lesson and use it as an excuse to head up into the mountains again in the near future in the hope that I will be able to replace some of the lost images.

Here is a showcase of some of the images lost forever (unless this insane attempt to recover a 320gb HDD that has been formatted and rewritten allows me to recover some of these photos).

These images will continue to be hosted on this website but will not be available for purchase as full size versions are not available for printing.

I took a trip up to the Katoomba in the Blue Mountains today with good friends, it was cold, wet and FOGGY. This meant that the cliche shots of the sisters were out of the question so we hunkered down and pushed through the mud and found a few things to take shots of.

This was the first time I was really testing the Phottix Geo One and the Phottix Ball Head that I picked up recently…and both have performed really well hopefully there will be more on this soon.

As my D300 is still not back from service I took the Fuji S5 Pro and had a play with a few different adjustments on the camera so the pics from today have a different look from my usual work.