Capturing the Night

A bit of a delayed blog!

I had been waiting for the right opportunity to get a good skyline shot of Sydney at night for some time - largely due to logistics (finding the time and transport to get to a good spot!) In this case i was at Taronga Zoo doing their Roar and Snore experience.

The evenening session @ Roar & Snore was a night tour of the zoo and once this was complete my opportunity came! It was absolutely pouring it down with rain, but i had come this far so this didnt stop me!! With the rain still pouring, Kat and myself headed to the Bird of Prey amphitheatre with one of the Roar and Snore tour guides, i set up shot under a carefully placed umbrella and the fun began!

The location provided an amazing view of the city and the pouring rain didnt dampen my spirits, quite the opposite in fact; it provided some amazing effects, from the rippling on the harbour and the reflection of the city light to the misty haze surrounding the city. These effects all came together to provide an amazing shot of the Sydney Skyline and one of my favorite shots to date - not to mention my first night image & first use of my tripod, which i will add was very exciting! And the end result?

After taking a dozen photo's this was deemed the best in terms of composition, sharpness and exposure. However by looking at how each of the other images came out i understood more about the complexities of shooting at night. However i was truly satisfied with the end result and look forward to the next opportunity i get to do some night time photography!

This second shot is also in my flickr set and is one of the other shots i chose to process;

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Curious Cockatoo

Hungry Cockatoo
Originally uploaded by aDrunis_84

As i sat down to browse the net after a hard days work i hear Kat calling 'Aaren come quick!!' and as i looked up i noticed a little visitor had just landed on the wall of our balcony and was peering indoors.

This was almost as if a perfect opportunity had literally just 'flown' in (excuse the pun!) I grabbed my camera and chucked on my 50mm lens. The photos were that great because of the brick/window background of the building, plus i couldnt just get close enough to this timid little guy!

So after laying down some seeds to keep our new friend busy, i quickly switched to my 55-250mm lens so that i could get some close up shots from a bit of a distance and it worked a treat!! I was so lucky to get the shot here!

It was very cute how every time it was approached the bird would perch itself at the edge of the balcony as if it was about to perform a backflip off and dive into the air!

I was a bit dissapointed i forgot to correct my ISO sensitivity, something which i think resulted in a bit of noise in the image + it was quite difficult to get the exposure correct (which can be seen in some of the other pictures) however overall i am pleased with the pictures that came out.

But most of all it was a fun experience and i really hope that 'Curious George' as i have dubbed him, will return again soon!!

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. )

Peruvian Lilly (Alstroemeria sp. )
Originally uploaded by aDrunis_84

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