Hi ISO

Day 55

 Tonight I went to Circular Quay/Darling Harbor to check out a restaurant that I am going to shoot a party in. It's a real nice joint in the the Harborside centre. I was mostly going to check out things that will effect/ruin my chances of getting goods images... and there's a lot of those :) The dinner is to be held on the balcony. If the weather is fair, the event will be held with the roof retracted, which means no roof to bonce flash off. There is only 1 wall, and it is a glass window :)

So this leaves me with a mission to find a way to reliably and pleasingly photograph a couple and their guests, in less than ideal lighting. As will always be the way. The other fun thing is that until 7:30pm, the sun will be reflecting off the city opposite (or behind me in this photo above), meaning the light behind most of my subjects will be super-bright, and I will have to find a way of matching that artificially. There's a "magic" half hour where the sky-light is beautiful, and the ambient light is JUST enough to shoot and get nice images.. well, at least on my 5DmkII. The 60D will struggle. After that magic 30 minutes, it will be dark with no roof.

Of course, if it rains I will have a roll out white roof. But it's no fun for a family to choose such a beautiful spot if it rains, so I can hardly "hope" for that.

Above is a single shot at high ISO of 3200, f/4, 1/10s. I really should have increased the iso and closed the lens aperture a bit, but this image surprised me anyway - such depth, and no noise correction software used at all. The 5D might be an oldy, but is surely is STILL a goody.

Just a handheld snap of fireworks. Some motion blur, oh well.

Life is what you make of it...

Day 54

So.. tonight I was stumped for ideas. I tried light painting fruit, and got bored, pet portraits.. they ran away... still life... flowers were wilting... ok... what now... Then I sat numbly and just stared into space... hmmm... 5DmkII, 135mm f/2L... if you can't make a nice pic you have a problem... It reminded me of a bit of a gag we had at work today..

I was operating on a doggy, flushing an abcess if you must know, which is a horrible job to do. I was flushing everything with sterile saline, and squirting the saline all around, "accidentally" splashing anyone within cooee. One of the receptionist made a remark, rather sarcastically, something along the lines of "you really enjoy your work, don't you?". To which I replied (surprisingly for me, as I generally think of cool things after the time has passed) "life is what you make of it"...

:)

Anyway, back on track. Today's photo is of some grass seed heads, taken thru the bokeh of some streetlights. Sort of reminds me of those Japanese paper drawings you see. Just something simple. Grass. Street lights. Nice lens on nice Camera. Bokeh.

Turn something simple, into something pretty.

Life is what you make of it.

Light Painting

Day 45

First of all, Happy 40th Birthday, Vijay! I know you don't read my blog, but I am saying it here anyway :) Hope it's been a good day. I have just given you the best Birthday present ever - I kept your sister in Sydney so you could enjoy your day in peace. You are welcome, however, I am sort of regretting not sending her over.. permanently tee he heeeee...

Today's photo - I wanted to do a black on black again, but thought I would try light painting. I have heard some awesome stories, and seen some awesome pics from light painting. It's a shame I can't emulate them! The image above was shot with my 60D, with a Hoya 3-stop ND filter, f/16, iso 100, 30s exposure. I hand held a YN460II at 1/32 power and flashed it at the camera, at varying angles and distances, to get  the light coverage I wanted. The hardest part was getting the 5D and MarkII to show up properly yet not blow out that part of the camera. I had tried it with an LED MagLite but it was just not powerful enough, and I was getting too much ambient if I increase the iso.

So here is a light painting of my new toy (which I am proudly telling those that have no idea what a 5D MkII is, that it is worth more than my car). I am hoping either tomorrow or Friday to stick my 135mm f/2 on this little beasty and see what sort of Bokeh we can conjure up.