Hancock Gorge - #3 (Kermits Pool)

One of the most popular spots at Karijini - Kermits Pool. Green pool, in a narrow gorge, fed by a waterfall. Paradise!

I love the colours in this shot. They have been played with a little, but only to bring out the pool's natural beauty.

The other thing I love, even though it's over-exposed, is the flash of orange and red flowing into the pool from the other side from further down the gorge. It adds a depth of colour. This shot was taken as part of a set of three with my wide angle, but when stitched together they were not as appealing! This one does just nicely I think.

Once the sunset...

So finally the sunset over the gas plant and I could take some pictures!

I spent a good half hour, trying to get the lights to starburst and twinkle, capture the foreground and the colours of the remaining light in the back.

It was a great challenge, and I felt it worked ok. I would have stayed longer, only the wind decided to pick up and started blowing my tripod over. With the shutter open for 30 seconds or so, it pretty much rendered my picture taking exploits useless!

The other challenge was that one of the gas valves (I think they are valves) decided to flare, so I have a couple of pictures of an overexposed twinkle! I didn't put them up here, because at the end of the day, the composition is pretty boring, but I do like how you can see Withnell Bay in the background, and you have so many colours!

I would just like to point out that impatient me waited patiently for an hour for this photo! And my very kind husband waited patiently at home for me to come home before we had dinner. I am blessed indeed to have the freedom to take these photos after work!

January Experimenting

So I realise that in my zeal for posting about South America I have neglected to share some of my experiments for January! And since today is the 31st and also a Friday I thought I might give you a little, fresh off the lens teaser!

That's right ladies and gentlemen, I am now the proud owner of two more lenses! I live life by extremes - so the 100mm macro and the 10-22mm wide angle are two completely different but equally awesome additions to my humble collection!

So, I would like to share with you my latest experiment. Since being here I have always wanted to go down to Dampier at night and take photos of the lights. I finally managed to do this this week!

In half an hour I got one photo I was pleased with - even still it is a little soft. I need to do a bit of research on getting the most out of my lenses.  I used a tripod but found it very difficult to focus on the right place without moving the camera slightly as soon as I took my finger off the button. It's a pity I didn't have my remote with me.

Anyway, for my first attempt at industry lights, I didn't think it was too bad! With the Macro and all!

Happy Friday!

Dampier Port - never sleeping. Canon EOS 50D, f/16, 10 second shutter, 100mm on a Canon EF-S 100mm Macro lens

Making the best of too much light in a low light situation

Sometimes all the preparedness and best intentions in the world are impacted by unexpected occurrences. I recently had one of these experiences when I went down to take photos of the moon at Hearson's cove, only to discover the annual Lantern walk for cancer was occurring. That's right, lanterns. And I was trying to take photos of the moon. It didn't turn out well let me tell you, but instead of packing up my gear and enjoying the atmosphere, (because it was actually a really top night - live music on the beach and the moon as bright as a dull sun) I decided to experiment.

I've seen a number of photos of millions of starts and I want to know how to take them without star trails. Of course, taking photos of stars with heaps of lanterns on the beach and a really bright full moon is not ideal. At all. Like I said, it was an experiment!

The results were below. First is the original Betsy version, and the next two have been edited in RAW. The hill was illuminated in the photos based on the amount of light was around and the colour looks a little odd so most of the correction in Adobe RAW was aimed at that, but I think I still need more training.

All these photos are the same photo that had a 31 second shutter, ISO 1000, f/3.6, at 18mm on Canon EOS 50D

The Orignial, Betsy version. Note the lanterns. This was an artistic choice as the lanterns represent support for those suffering from leukemia. Note also the unreal red hill. There were also a couple of people down the beach also experimenting I'd say, by making circles with their lanterns.

The second version - aimed at increasing, creating a midnight blue feel and reducing the redness of the hill. Unfortunately the people are now the incorrect colour. 

Third version and probably my favourite, except for the purple haze over the people I suppose. Manipulating colours in Photoshop RAW is hard!

Firework Friday

So I was lucky enough to have a second shot (pardon the pun) at tackling some fireworks. I think this celebration in Dampier was for Guy Fawkes day, but I could be wrong. Regardless it was pretty special to be sitting under the palm trees at the beach, watching fireworks. Again, I went prepared with my remote, camping chair and tripod, ready to enjoy the show.

I had some success. Next time I am going to try and extend myself - there are two things I want to try: 1) having something in the foreground. Now I feel I have mastered capturing the explosion, I want to try and add scenery. 2) I want to try and achieve other patterns than just explosions from the center - maybe dots or sparkles. Next time, anyway.

Below are...quite a few. I figured everyone would just be happy it's Friday!

Happy Friday everyone! May you all feel like letting off fireworks this evening!

I  like the sparkles in this one.

In this one I like the little, sparkler-type ones at the bottom

The green colour, and the red on the end of the lower explosion make this one interesting

Love the stars and sparkles! They look like sparklers standing on the beach!

Happy!

This almost looks like a love heart

Lesson #8 & #9: The remote, the lens and explosions of colour

There are few moments in life where one can sit back and do absolutely nothing and be entertained completely at the expense of others. I am of course speaking literally here – sitting back at a show that has free entrance, watching a fireworks display. I shudder to think how much money these explosions of colour cost, but my goodness are they fun to watch! They are also particularly fun to photograph, as I found out a few weeks ago.

I have had grand intentions of photographing fireworks in the past with zero success – this year is the first opportunity I have fully taken advantage of. I packed my Betsy, my tripod and by the grace of God, my remote.

We set up in amidst throngs of people underneath huge oval spotlights that I confess, had me worried. I set my camera at a 30 second shutter speed, wide aperture and waited for the show.
The lights dimmed, the first spark went up and it was on.

After three explosions it became clear that 30 seconds was going to be way too long. I set it back to 6 seconds. Again, too long. Some fireworks were clearly brighter than others. A single setting for all was not going to work, and I didn’t want to waste time changing settings, especially when you have no idea what is about to explode overhead! How to fix this? Light bulb moment – almost literally – BULB!

Enter lesson eight: With my remote and the shutter set to Bulb I could press and release as I pleased depending on how bright each blast was. I had to adjust the aperture several times, but towards the end managed to get the hang of the timing of the show and came out with some crackers. The best part? I was able to sit back in my comfy camp chair, watch the show and just press and release my remote! Honestly, most enjoyable way to photograph something! It became an awesomely fun challenge to get the timing right.

Of course, each silver lining comes with a dark cloud. The day before this glorious revelation we had been at the beach. Enter lesson nine: Clean lens after taking Betsy to the beach! Due to some salt spray on my lens, many of my firework photos were rendered useless! Luckily some were not bright enough to make the salt spots shine, so there are a number of usable ones.

So I got a little carried away with how many to put up here, but there were many lessons and many different types. This shot I think is awesome, but for the spotlight in one corner and the salt spot on the other side. I love the shine in the middle and the almost reflection of the two fireworks. Canon EOS 50D f/16, 7 second shutter, ISO 500, 18mm.

Two different types here, great patterns. Small salt spots on the bottom though which is a shame. EOS 50D, f/16, 6 seconds, 18mm.

These guys were interesting. When you watch them they appear as dots of light. When photographed they appear as feathers. It's so much fun. EOS 50D f/22 ISO 500 18mm.

The difference the shutter speed makes - same style as two above, but this time the shutter is only 1 second. EOS 50D, f/22, ISO 500 18mm. I think it looks like a protia flower.

Blue seemed to work well as it was not bright enough to light up the salt spots. Plus there were no fireworks underneath this one which helped. EOS 50D f/22 2 seconds, ISO500 18mm

Probably my favourite because of the different colours and the glitter effect of the gold. Canon EOS 50D, f/22, 2 seconds, ISO 500, 18mm

Not bad for a first time photographing fireworks though! It may not be natural creation, but they are still a creation of colours, and a whole lot of fun!

Just a note that all these images are edit free other than cropping. I needed the full 18mm to capture the whole diameter but it left a lot of dark space that required cropping. Not to mention the salt spots!

Lesson #7: Long Exposures - second & third attempt at star trails

As promised, I attempted a few star trails in my travels over Easter. These suckers are difficult. This is the first time I have found myself wishing for a film camera. Apparently it's easier.

As part of the .com generation, if I don't know something I Google it. Google is a verb, in case you are wondering. According to my extensive research (Wikipedia and photo forums) taking star trails with a bulb setting on a digital camera makes the camera prone to a lot of noise. Coupled with this, the sensor gets hot, creating pixel hot spots - the RGB dots that confused me last time. (A bulb setting is opening the shutter indefinitely to capture movements of light in low light conditions)

The digital technique - the consensus on the Internet was - to take a whole bunch of 30 second exposure shots, one with the foreground lit up, and a complete black one to reduce noise and then stack them in your processing afterwards. This is a long time to wait if you want long star trails, so I only have four attempts to share. I used the stacking method in Photoshop CS4. I was happy with the results, and learnt a number of valuable long exposure star trail tips:

1. Have a full battery - My battery ran out while attempting this at Karijini. It's OK, I had a spare, but not enough to waste on a shot that 'might work later.'
2. Have an empty CF card - I did have enough space but only because I shot in JPEG. It also helps to have a good quality card that will write the photo information quickly.
3. Remotes are gold - This means the shots are taken as close together as possible with as little break in the trail. I set the camera on continuous shooting and just pressed the remote button and left it at that.
4. Use a warm light when lighting the foreground - I only had an LED torch which as you will see, came out very cold. 
5. Do this on a still night with no clouds and as little light pollution as possible (including the Moon) - The moon interrupted the Karijini shot, and I got some interesting photos of lightening under stars, but the trails peter out. My final test wast interrupted by clouds, and therefore you can see breaks in the trails.

First attempt at Karijini. Either the tripod wasn't stable or the Image Stabilizer hadn't been turned off on the lens, but the trails are crooked. Plus you can see the light pollution from the Moon.

This is quite cool - I got a shooting star effect! Below the stars is where a fence was, but you can see how over time the moon came up and the stars faded - giving the shooting look.

Demonstrating the cold light of LED torch, as well as the importance of a still (meaning, no wind) night. There were also clouds that broke the trails.

This is the best of the four - taken at an increased focal length, which I think helped the clarity of the trail. Funnily enough the increased focal length was due to the storm in the distance - for lightning photos, see my Facebook page!

Long Exposure - Star Trails

These are photos I have been longing to take, but again been too lazy to go out after dark to find a nice dark spot to test it out.

A recent evening at Settler's Lookout at Cossack has filled me with hope. I was shooting some lightning of in the distance, leaving the shutter open for a few minutes at a time, when I realised to my delight I was also capturing some stars and some tiny trails. Sure, I kept bumping the seat I was resting my camera on, so they were a little blurry, and I need to get to the bottom of the RGB spots of colour that aren't supposed to be there, but hopefully, by the time you are reading this I will have been out to Karijini NP where I will have achieved a clearer image! Watch this space...