Saturday, January 23, 2010

New gear!!

Today was quite a satisfying shop! I had decided to expand my equipment as i had decided to try new things and improve my photo quality.

To start with i decided to purchase a tripod for image stabilisation. This will be particularly useful as i thouroughly enjoy landscape photography and as i dont have the steadiest of hands its a must have! For this i decided to purchase a Velbon CX-640. As far as tripods go, this is a fairly reasonable model, and at a reasonable price $109 a deal to be had!

To continue my spree i headed to Hornsby Westfield shopping centre and purchased a circular polariser. Glare/Reflection and dull sky's were often issues with pictures i have previosuly taken that i really wanted to get around. Im really looking forward to seeing the difference, i will definately be taking some before/after shots!

To top it off, out of sheer compulsion i decided to purchase a Canon ef 50mm f1.8 mkII fixed zoom lens. I wasnt sure about this one at first, but when i saw the price i could get it at ($130) it was a steal - i believe the USM model is around 600-700? I read a few reviews before purchasing this lens and the final verdict - great price/quality ratio, especially for a beginner like myself. Im looking forward to trying it out so watch this space!!

In the meantime, check out this bad boy!! The body is plastic so its nice and light, so it wont weigh down the kit much, however its whats on the inside that counts. I think this will make a nice addition to my kit!

Anzac Bridge at dusk


Anzac Bridge
Originally uploaded by aDrunis_84
This shot was captured at dusk walking along the Glebe shoreline after a delicious dinner at Baja Cantina - great mexican restaurant.

I had been looking for a while to capturing the anzac bridge for its striking architecture. Unfortunately i didnt have a tripod which would have really added to the sharpness of the picture!

Taken with an Canon 1000d woth efs 18-55mm

Peruvian Lilly (Alstroemeria sp. )

This photo was taken whilst on a trip to the Sydney botanical gardens. I had been practicing taking macro shots with my efs 18-55mm and was pleased with the way this photo turned out.

Somewhat ironically, after processing i felt that the saturation was too intense - perhaps due to my laptop screen?! This almost led me to scrapping this photo in favour of others. Luckily i decided to post this to flickr and has turned out to be the most popular picture up there!

:-)

Hello!

Welcome!

I have started up this blog, since i have started up photography and have alot to say about it! Since this is my first post, i will first fill in a few details. I have always had a passion for photography, admiring others work & thoroughly enjoying heading out to concerts knowing im going to be snap happy! This quite often drew critisism from others, who did not understand why i enjoyed taking photos so much.. ..heck, even i didnt realise myself!

It wasnt until Feb 2009 at Cameron (Katrina's brother) and Mel's engagement party that i started thinking about taking up photography as a hobby. There i met Robert Morris, who happened to be carrying around a digital SLR taking photos of the party! I quite enjoyed playing around with the camera & taking photos and since considered buying my own DSLR.

This happened in July 09 when i got my tax return - good times! I decided since i was starting out i would start off with an entry level DSLR and so opted for a Canon 1000D with twin image stabilised lens's - an efs 18-55mm & efs 55-250mm. Not your top of the range, but a good model nonetheless. With this i also bought UV filters for the lens & an 8gb SD card. Below is a shot of my starting equipment;



At this point i was very clueless and so found the quality of my pictures varying so much!! Since then i have been out and about plenty of times and my skills have been gradually getting better, i have signed up for a flickr account and have been steadily expanding my equipment!

All my pictures can be found on flickr using the link below :-) i will also periodically post blogs on some of my pics! Enjoy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dr_unis/


Aaren