Monthly Archives: September 2010

Really Random Stuff

★ Posted on at 10:05 pm ★

tree, ducks and car

Haven’t dug the camera out for a few days, so going into the pictures from the Tasmania trip. Was at Richmond at the famous bridge when I took this opportunitis shot. Had the green tree against the blue sky with the red car. The ducks just added some distraction to it. I’m sure I have plenty more interesting shots from the trip but I’ll post them when I feel like it.

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My mind’s preoccupied with studying, cleaning the dust off stuff in the house, getting a Bandai manufactured VF-25 Messiah model, studying, job interviews, durian cake, double shot espressos, lots of reading material, the trip to try out Loam the restaurant at the Bellarine peninsula, studying, Starcraft II, Friday’s barbeque, Saturday’s birthday party and Sunday’s gathering.

And midnight is here. Time to sleep.

Life in Pictures

★ Posted on at 10:35 pm ★

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Spring is here and there’s a pussy willow outside my new place. Didn’t realise it back then as most leaves look alike, plus the branches were bare when we moved in. These days you see lots of flowers on naked branches and suddenly, the flowers are gone and the leaves have grown over.

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Alfie loves his rag chew toy. We often play tug of war with each other, and it’s just so that I can tire him out. When he’s tired out, he will just lie down somewhere sleeping while we are watching TV. Otherwise he will be running up and down trying to get your attention to play with him. The toilet training is still ongoing, but it’s less frequent these days and I try to keep a hawk eye on him so that he doesn’t do his potty business on the wrong spots.

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Heh, the whimsical look. Alfie will tilt the head occasionally and stare at me. We are both trying to figure each other out. He understands the food bowl well enough, responds to commands occasionally. Need to be more diligent with him I suppose.

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How the time flies, but I’m glad to enjoy the simpler things in life, heh.

Hectic Sunday

★ Posted on at 10:58 pm ★

tulips

Went to the tulip festival again this year. This was shot with my trusty 85mm prime. I’ve been taking a lot of photos within the range of 17-55mm on my regular lens, but needed to do a photo session for my friends so broke out the dusty lenses to take something different. Wanted the longer zoom range just to clear out the clutter from backgrounds and I think it worked really well. Heh, not very happy with my Sigma 70-200mm, the bokeh is horrible, subject focusing is fuzzy (or this could be my technique) and sharpness at f/2.8 is not great, but that’s only an issue if you are pixel peeping. I also find that the older lens designs tend to have a cooler colour cast on pictures (like my 85mm and the 70-200mm when compared to my 17-55mm).

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The busy week has passed by and at least I can start planning for the rest of the week. Got up at 7am to send friends to the airport this morning, and was out from 10am to 530pm for the photo shoot with my other friends. I like the challenge of doing other things, and portrait photography does inspire me a little more. I was trudging through mud at the tulip farm and it’s been a while since I’ve had to carry the full weight of the 70-200mm + camera (which weighs in at about 2kg) for a longer period of time. It reminds me why I don’t use it that often, but the effect of the range makes it ideal for portraits. Overall I’m happy with some of the shots I took, but will need more practice with posing people and framing shots. My friends made it easier for me by posing themselves and knowing the kind of shots they wanted. Some worked, some didn’t, but it gave me a better insight on the whole process.

A little more experienced with my now 3 year old D300, and especially with the long zooms, I learn to change settings quickly to accommodate the longer range and prevent shake. Still pretty happy with my current setup and I really should take my lenses out for a spin more often. The DX format will keep me happy at least until I feel I need more quality from ultra wide angle lenses (nothing’s great at the moment). Not sure what quality the new D7000 gives and the 16mp sensor size doesn’t interest me as much as the higher ISO settings. I’d like clean 3200 ISO like the D3S on a DX sensor and being able to shoot video will open up some other options as well. They aren’t really essential features to a camera, but I feel I can better images from my equipment these days. I haven’t bought any new lenses since 2008 I think, and the only other lens that really entices me now would be the latest 70-200mm Nikon. It’s not cheap and until I start earning side income to fuel gadget purchases, it’s pretty much off limits at the moment.

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Feeling rejuvenated now from the different activities. Heh, time to rest and look forward to the rest of the week.