Nothing could be fina, than splashing at Umina

Day 56

Today was a "rare" Sunday off. Vids and Vivek went to Balvihar (obviously Vids teaches a class, Vivek learns!). Afterwards we met for lunch, and dashed off to Umina for a splash.

I love the Central Coast. I spent my early years there, from the time I can first remember until I was about 6 years old. I still have family there, but we have lost contact.. sadly. My grandparents and dad lived there until they left us all behind, so now the Central Coast feels kind of empty for us, yet it still has it's calling and charm for us.

I took the trusty GoPro Hero2 for another splash. Here's Vivek just before he was dunked.

And playing on the sand..

and an awesomely happy "accident". I had the camera set to take a shot every 0.5s. I had put the camera aside and was about to turn it off when these girls ran past, and I actually did not realise I had snapped them... sigh...

And a bit of a landscape pic. This camera isn't bad for wide view landscapes. This is cropped to look like a "panarama" but it is just one image. Kewl.

Splish Splash

Day 21

Today was a great day. A bit of a sleep in (no work!!! yippeee!) and a fairly leisurely get ready to go out. I say fairly leisurely because we had a time limit and a 4yo to get ready, AND I was trying to take a bit of gear that needed tearing down and packing up. In the midst of all this we had our friends pop over with their son to play for a while, so it was almost a miracle we got out the door before midday.

We then headed up to a little caravan park near Sackville. I don't know the exact locality, all I know is we took a little putt putt ferry and got there. I have been there a few times. It is set on the banks of the Hawkesbury, I believe. Very pretty, a lot like the farm we had when I was a kid. My Aunt and Uncle  have a van up there, and they stay there occasionally. They have been going "up the river" for well over 30 years. Their van is aptly called "Updariva". I love them a lot, they are a great couple and it's such a great thing they are my Aunt and Uncle :) They have both had their rough trots, and they smile and keep on battling on. My Aunt you can see in the background with the umbrella - she has had at least ten malignant melanomas removed, and undergone countless surgeries to have lymph nodes and other bits removed. She's a real battler and a real inspiration.

Today we had a nice chat over lunch, then a splash in the river. It has just rained so the water is a muddy brown.

This photos was taken with my GoPro Hero2. I used the FishEye Hemi Photoshop plug-in to reduce the fisheye a bit, adjusted levels and sharpened a bit. I love this little camera. One large light up high at about 5:00 position I think, judging from the shadows. Full power :)

Everyone needs a HERO

Day 15

And I reckon everyone could do with one of these little beauties too. I'm not one to give praise a lot, but these dudes rock :)

Today was an exhausting day at work - just a lot of emotional and mental drainage. Coming home I was wondering how I was going to summon the strength to do my photo today on top of everything else. Luckily today was "left overs" day. Left over food, left over plonk. Yum :) I felt a million times better after that.

Todays pic is of a GoPro Hero2. This item found its way into my gadget bag after I sold a Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 fisheye lens to finance it in December last year. I wasn't overly impressed with the Rokinon/Samyang/Bowers/Pro-Optics/insert-distributor-label-here 8mm lens. I had it for maybe 2 months. It was ok. But I actually think the daylight images from the GoPro Hero2 give that lens a big run for it's money.

The Hero2 has it's limitations. Available light only, no manual settings, no LCD screen. But I find if it is used with these limitations in mind, they don't become limitations, rather just "traits" of the camera. Used properly one can easily judge roughly what will be picked up by the lens... a LOT!!

Anyway, today this photo was shot using my EF 85mm f/1.8, set at f/10, with 2 YN460IIs. The flash above the Hero2 was set at minimum power, and was in a beer holder snoot with a small cheap grid shoved in the end. The flash on the wall behind was gelled with red gel, through a small grid, at about 1/32 power. The set up shot is below.

To get the circle around the Hero2 to be small, I had to bring the grid in real close. It was only just out of frame. It also meant I had to have as little power as possible, and decrease the aperture a bit.

The resulting image was essentially straight out of camera (SOOC). I adjusted the levels to show the red a bit, that's about it.

I know it is sort of similar to yesterdays pic, but it is really a whole different shoot all together :)

I took the GoPro Hero2 on our trip overseas, with the Wrist Housing. It was great fun in the pool and in the surf taking photos and video of the family. I was hoping to use it through India and Hong Kong too, however I gave the wrist housing to my brother in law, as he fell in love with the Hero2 and we bought him one for his Birthday. The store we ordered it from did not have (and could not reliably get) the wrist housing into Singapore in time for his snorkeling trip, so I left mine with him. I did not really want to risk dropping/scratching my Hero2 without the housing, so it spent the next 3 weeks in bubbles wrap! I had intended to get a new one in Hong Kong on the way through, but we ran amazingly short of time. Needless to say I grabbed a new wrist housing pronto when I returned to Sydney... which has of course, sat in it's box ever since :)